Tacking

Erika and I touched down in Guatemala City Thursday afternoon and when we exited the airport, we officially began our adventures. Snaking through traffic dominated by overflowing buses coughing dense puffs of blacken smoke, we relocated to The Black Cat Inn. There we met up with our friends, Maya and James, who led us down the cobblestone streets of Antigua to Hector’s. In between sips of Cabernet Sauvignon and bites of caper topped carpaccio, we swapped recent stories and caught up on lost time.

Early the next morning, we all crawled into a van and relocated to Rio Dulce, a town on a river of the same name, a river that would lead us to the Belize Cays. The landscape melted from bustling city streets to dilapidated residences before turning to a stretch of verdant fields and tipsy palm trees. With our bags on a dock, we waited to be taken to the catamaran that, along with eight other people, would be our home for the next seven days. The air was still, the population was poor and the town lacked any semblance of the resort like charm I was expecting. As my t-shirt absorbed my sweat and tinted the hue, I soaked in my surroundings and waited for the dinghy.

“That’s not a room,” I muttered as I peered into the area designated as my cabin. “That’s more of an isosceles triangle. Perhaps, even, a coffin for a one-legged man. But no way in fucking hell is that a room.”

I crouched down onto my hands and knees, the rough surface of the deck scratching against my flesh, and craned my neck through the hatch to get a better view. The space stretched seven feet long and spanned maybe three feet at one end and three inches as the other. And from the bottom to the top, there was under three feet of clearance. As I started to seriously question my decision, I glanced over at Erika who was in the same spot on the neighboring pontoon. I knew she too was struggling to grasp the geometry of our accommodations.

“You push your bag to the end,” the deckhand noted as he dropped my duffel through the hatch.

I decided to avoid debating the fundamentals of angles and opted instead to ignore my reality.

With our sleeping quarters assigned, the twelve passengers collected at the bow and awaited instructions from the captain. There were rules to be learned, guidelines to be shared and details to be explained. The captain delivered his message in Spanish and Maya kindly translated it all into English.

“No shoes on the boat. Breakfast will be at seven, lunch will be at noon and dinner will be at half past six. When you go to the bathroom, discard the toilet tissue in the wastebasket. And be sure to pump eight times to empty the toilet.” Then Maya fell silent even though the captain was still talking.

“I’m sorry, but did he just say there was no shower?” I asked with a gasp.

“You got that even though I didn’t translate it?”

“I figured it out when he scrubbed his head and pointed to the other side of the deck. Guess I should’ve left my $18 bar of soap at home.”

“Wait, you have $18 soap?” Maya asked.

“That may be wrong but it’s nowhere near as wrong as a showerless boat excursion scheduled to span a week.”

“Good point,” she conceded.

That night, over a meal of soy glazed chicken and white rice, the passengers scattered on the deck and started formal introductions. There was a couple from Guatemala City, a few Brits, two Aussies and the four of us. Jude talked about how she went on vacation to Mexico and has yet to leave and another James spoke about his unending jaunt around the globe. As I got to know these people, I started to realize that as much as I’d miss properly lathering my hair with shampoo, the company I’d be traveling with was sure to make the journey fun.

The next morning, I awoke with achy knees, my joints sore from being bent the entire night. It appeared my original concern about cramming my seven inch deep duffel into a three inch space was correct, thereby reducing my sleeping nook to around feet in length. When I sat up to stretch my back, I slammed my forehead into the rim of the hatch. My clothes smelled of sweat tainted ocean water but due to the spacial logistics, I was unable to change out of them. Like a prisoner of war, I immediately resumed my efforts to plot an escape.

The boat motored up the river, briefly stopped in Livingston and then continued on to Belize. With both sails raised, the coastline faded away and the path ahead was nothing more than a span of blue ocean. I found a corner of the deck and buried my nose in a book. Then, as the sun started to near the horizon, land appeared. Small stretches of white sand islands dotted with swaying palm trees came into focus. Turquoise water lapped on the shores and coral reefs reached out in different directions.

I dogeared a page, placed my book down and stood to my feet. I stretched my back, rubbed my eyes and inhaled a deep breath. And suddenly I was smack dab in the middle of a postcard.



That night, after a feast of freshly caught fried fish and whipped mashed potatoes followed by a heaping slice of double-layer yellow cake with apricot jam and vanilla frosting, I sprawled out on a pontoon and watched the sun kiss the ocean. And that’s when I knew, even with dirty hair and grimy fingernails, hairy legs and a coffin-like triangle of a cabin, I was exactly where I wanted to be.