On the morning of day three, I got all the way up to 539 -- strokes, that is -- before I lost count. At that point, we were winding somewhere between Bermudian Landing, a small village lush with tropical greens and rain forest chirps, howls, and splashes, and Burrell Boom which is just west of the Belize City International Airport. Though the route is easily driven in less than 15 minutes, Trey, Fino, and I were busy paddling for well over six hours. Thus, the counting.
La Ruta Maya is, for some people, a canoe race. If you are inexperienced, untrained, and utterly incompetent however, it becomes something much more like self-inflicted torture.
Day 1:
Wake up at 4:45 am in San Ignacio, Belize -- a beautiful city set on the slopes of Mountain Pine Ridge overlooking the conjunction of the Macal and Belize Rivers just 12 miles from the Guatemalan border. The misty fog sits on the water like a scene from Hogwarts as we tie our precious supplies -- Nalgenes and PB & Js -- to our canoe, a borrowed bathtub-esque barge that will be our home for the majority of the four days to come. Minutes past 6:00, the airhorn blows and -- honk -- we've begun.
It takes our team of three, "Wait Fi Wi!," less than five minutes to realize the horror we've subjected ourselves to. Teams 'dig' their paddles ferociously through the choppy waters, some tipping due to extraordinary weight shifting in said ferociousness and some just kicking ass. As it turns out, team "Wait Fi Wi!" named ourselves with tremendous foresight; soon enough, adrenaline has transformed into desperation and we begin whining, literally: "Wait for us, dammit!" Old Bessie the Bathtub just can't keep up.
We figure out pretty early on that paddling is not like riding a tandem bicycle: when one boatwoman/boatman stops rowing, her/his dead weight pushes the others to near asphyxiation. Hence, water-logged peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are folded, smushed, and shoved into mouths as fast as possible for "lunch" and require a three, two, and one minute warning: i.e. "I'm sandwiching in three." Chewing, however, is not done so that such "sandwich" can be enjoyed over the course of a few slimy, drooly, and short-breathed minutes.
By mid-afternoon of the first day, entering hour five, team "Wait Fi Wi" hurts. The monotony of rowing and the never-ending landscape of green, leafy, gurgling bends in the river is driving us to frustration. And I am reminded of a classic line from Mighty Ducks 2 from the red-headed, glasses-wearing Lester Averman in response to Coach Gordon Bombay's "haven't you guys been training in the off-season?" ... Sorry, coach. I knew we forgot something!
Approaching 8 hour and 15 minutes from the start, we hear the sound of the airhorn through the woods separating the meandering bends of the river signaling the finish of the team just ahead of us. We paddle harder than we have since the starting line, and coast our way to a finish of fifth-to-last for Day 1.Day 2:
We are aware that this will be the longest day of paddling. For Belize Bank and Caribbean Pride Limited, the first and second place teams who are comprised of hired and sponsored foreign paddlers, this leg should take about five hours. For team "Wait Fi Wi!," it will take 10 hours and 37 minutes. But at 6:30 am, we don't know that yet.
Day 2 will prove to be the most formative of the overall experience, at least for me. With aching arms and backs, we step into the boat and sit down on our ghetto-rigged foam seats, still wet from the day before. Yum. The paddle feels surprisingly comfortable in my hands, and my mind coaxes my muscles into believing that they know what they are doing. The horn sounds the start of a new day, and before we know it, old Bessie has us dawdling near the end of the string of canoes coursing the turns of the river, paddling in front of just one Japanese Volunteer Corps boat (the "other" JVC) who is methodically chanting cadences in native tongue, and another boat of Canadians so-called "Chillaxin" powered by two older white women and one young white man with dreadlocks in his beard smoking a cigarette.
This day has "low morale" written all over it. The three of us in "Wait Fi Wi" seem to have nothing to talk about -- no jokes, no interesting tid-bits about ourselves to share that we haven't already learned in the eight months we've known each other, not even any complaints. The tension is finally broken when Trey spontaneously belts out the first verse of the Belizean national anthem, and bridges straight into a very inappropriate song by an A Capella group named DaVinci's Notebook. Hilarious. We laugh. And then we remember that we are still rowing on an f-ing river and that even immature distractions can't take away from the fact that it's hot as balls and my sandwich is wet.
Needless to say, the afternoon is much better. Delirium sets in somewhere around hour seven, and though we pass by sparsely populated banks every once in a while, the limits of our human interaction -- mine being the backs of of my two teammates' heads and the constant exclaims of "what?!" and "huh?!" as our forward-facing direction warps the sound waves of their voices such that I can't hear a word they say -- basically begins to drive us nuts. And this is no Boston Marathon; I mean, though that race's sidelines are approximately 90% intoxicated during the 26.2 miles of concrete, at least people are cheering. In Belize, apparently it is appropriate to stare open-mouthed at the white folks who canoe through your backyard -- no encouragement needed, thanks! Perhaps it is due to our pace (we went by too quickly for them to respond?) or maybe a cultural barrier ... not sure. Either way, we mosey on by -- don't mind us, just paddling 170 miles -- and instead of absorbing energy from out there, we conjure it up from giggles within as Trey decides after a while to cheer them on: "keep it up, spectators! you're doing awesome!"At 4:00 pm, I take my watch off and sit on it. Checking the time every 8 minutes or so was not a life-giving operation.
I pray.
Just before dark, we pull into the station finish line. We pitch tents, scarf down a plate of rice and beans, and pass out promptly.
Day 3:
It's raining. Hard. Things are wet. I'm cold. And today, I'm really not up for it.
After the abysmal performance of yesterday however (third-to-last overall and two near-death experiences -- luckily, there was nothing but my small Swiss Army pocket-knife to use as weapons on each other), we decide to go hard. Paddle, paddle, paddle. This is where my counting begins.
We make it through the morning with still 6-8 boats behind us. We know today will be shorter, but we also know that the rain is contending our speediness. Things are relatively quiet -- determined, but subdued. I have some fleeting hope that we will be the acclaimed underdogs of this race, just you wait. And then we are passed. And again. Until finally, as always, it is just us and the Japanese.
At this point though, the continuous -- and foreign -- rhythm of their boats (all seven of them -- six of which have passed us) have really begun to rub raw. I thank God for Trey, who again breaks out in reactive hilarity and sings back at them some ridiculously American ditty. They don't understand, and continue chanting.
We become especially disheartened as we are passed by a safety boat who yesterday had chided us for our "lack of effort" -- how rude -- and who today, begins to poke fun at how hard we are working yet how slow we are going. We just can't win with these guys.
"Yep," says Trey. "We're really doing it. 170 miles. In a canoe. You have a motor on your boat Mr. Safety man with a bandanna on your face and an indiscernible accent [he really did have those things]. BACK OFF!"
I don't even hear the airhorn sounding our finish today. I just step out of the canoe, shivering on my wobbly legs.That pretty much sums up day 3.
Day 4:
The last day! The last hoorah! The standings say that we are in fourth to last place overall ... And to me (and perhaps to Lloyd Christmas) that means you're sayin' there's a chance! We can do this! Just a few short hours until freedom!
The adrenaline gets us from the start -- hard, dig, come on, we can do it ...
Alas, our determination is not sustainable. The worst part is that by 10 am we are in recognizable territory: where there used to be howler monkeys and dripping tropical landscapes, there is now the familiarity of old tires, trash, and zinc lean-to shanties crowded on the banks -- yet another uplifting aspect of the whole experience -- the landmarks that tell us that we are paddling through the backside of our very own neighborhood. And then we see it: THE BRIDGE. The finish line. The grand finale.
Lo and behold, there is an echo to our paddles' splashes. A next boat -- the Japanese -- is gaining on us. The hum of their cadence haunts me ... Are you kidding? They are going to pass us! The competitive drive in me is heightened to an all-time high. No way! I didn't come 170 miles to be passed at the last minute, especially not by the fascist chanting of the Japanese volunteers!
Trey gets a splash of water in his eye. He can't see. That's because at this point it's not just any water -- it's Belize City's own toxic waste river water, the alternative to the city dump (which doesn't exist). Fino's hand cramps up. We can't stay straight. I want to get out and swim the damn thing. Kill me.
"Honk!" ... point two seconds later ... "Honk!" They beat us.
We pull up to the concrete banks of Belize City and as we step out of the canoe for the last time (thank God), a few of the officials help us tip old Bessie to empty the morning's rain water we had been towing for the past few hours. In fact, as one of the men points out, that's not all we had been towing. As he releases a small plug in the hull of the canoe, two minutes worth of a heavy stream of water flows out from inside the boat. As if rowing an upside-down kitchen table wasn't enough, she was carrying extra water, too!! What a joke.
* * *
Well, in two day's hindsight now that my back muscles have stopped spasming and my blisters are starting to heal, it was a great four days. In the end, everyone got medals anyway -- what was I so worried about?
And most importantly, I learned a lot about myself. I can't say, like Trey and Fino did, that I will never do something so "ridiculously stupid and pointless" again -- I wouldn't put it past myself. Torrential rain? Goooood. Camping in torrential rain? Fuuuuun. Paddling until your arms feel like they will fall off? Awwwwwesome. Rowing for four days what can be driven in less than two hours? Greeeeeeat idea. La Ruta Maya: What's not to like?
(more pictures: http://www.flickr.com/photos/15964583@N04/)
