Norman and I had a bit of an argument this morning. Last night he polished off another one of our
bottles of rum. We brought this one to
replace the last one that I am sure he drank.
We brought it back to the hostel, left it in the fridge whilst we went
out to have our evening dosage of lobster and by the time we return the bottle
was empty. We had only been gone for an
hour. I was almost impressed with Norman
for being able to drink so much cheap rum in such a short space of time. He didn’t deny it when I asked him either. He just smiled at me with this smug grin,
like a child who had done something naughty.
There was no point talking to him now, trying to raise any serious point
to someone who is heavily intoxicated is always a waste of time, so we waited
until this morning.
He was sat outside on the chair by the door, he often liked
sitting on that stair staring into the horizon looking sorry for himself. “You have got to sort your shit out” was
pretty much the theme of our morning conversation but I don’t think our
conversation was going to make any difference.
The fact that he had his passport stolen along with all but one of his
credit cards hadn’t stopped him from drinking.
How bad would things have to get before he decided enough was
enough?
Tropical rain
Anyway on a more positive note it was sunny this morning. Olivia and I and a few others in the hostel
decided to take this opportunity to paddle around the island in canoes. The weather was good for an hour as we
paddled north along the section of island that was separated from the main
island at the split. This island is
generally uninhabited but a few locals do live here. “Come to my beach, it is a nudist beach” shouted
one man stood on a vacant beach. “Only
the girls are allowed though” he continued.
I think he was half joking and half being serious. I had been out with Olivia and other girls
during my time on Caye Caulker and I had witnessed how Caribbean men tried to
flirt with girls, it is very direct. I
will probably talk more about this topic soon as I find it quite amusing.
We originally decided we would try and circumnavigate the
whole island but after half an hour we decided this island was a lot bigger
than we had originally thought. The
skies had begun to change colour as well from blue to deep grey. It looked like the next localized rainstorm was
coming. We had nearly made it back to
the hostel when the winds picked up and the temperature suddenly dropped. The telltale signs that a rainstorm was imminent. It hit us when we were minutes away from the
hostel, a lashing of intense rain coming down diagonally from the sky. It was both slightly uncomfortable and very
revitalizing at the same time. Tropical
rain is different from normal rain you get back in England. It is hard to describe but it just makes you
feel alive.
The jungle, it is where we all started
When we got back to the hostel I was surprised to see Norman
had packed up all his stuff and was on his way out of the hostel. “I am being kicked out” he said. “You reported me, didn’t you?” he asked me in
a sorry voice. “No I didn’t, we sorted
out all our issues this morning” I replied.
I hadn’t reported him, I don’t think anyone had but they didn’t need
to. Norman’s drunken antics where well
known to everyone in the hostel including the staff. It was only a matter of time before they were
going to kick him out. “Where are you
going to go?” I asked him. “I think, I
am going to the jungle” he said, “It is where we all started” he said with an
odd look of realization on his face. I
was half expecting to see him in a few days walking around town naked carrying
a spear throwing his own poo at people but I never saw Norman again. Before he left to go to “the jungle” he
turned to me and said, “I know I keep saying this, but you really remind me of
an author”. I wonder what fate has
become of Norman?
It was time to move on from Caye Caulker, Olivia was going to
head to Cancun to fly back home to England and I was going to return to Flores
where I ordered a replacement debit card to be sent to. From there I would continue my journey to
Guatemala’s former capital city of Antigua and then eventually onto Panama
City. However my plans changed after I
spoke to my family. “Why don’t you come
back home with Olivia?” they asked. At
first I dismissed this idea. I didn’t
want my journey to end now and I didn’t want the fact that I had lost my card and
phone to affect my trip, but in truth it did.
I had no access to money so I had been borrowing off Olivia for the past
2 weeks. I would have to borrow more off
her to get through the Belizean and Guatemalan borders and back to Flores. But what if it wasn’t enough or if I lost the
money on the way? I could get stuck at a border with no money and no way of
contacting anyone. It did make more
sense to return home with Olivia where I could sort my stuff out and continue
my trip early next year. I also liked
the idea of being home for Christmas. I
missed my family last Christmas as I was living in Tasmania at the time.
We left Caye Caulker behind in the water taxi dodging
localized rainstorms across the sea. We
could see them all around us, like huge grey pillars holding up the sky. The rest of the journey to Cancun consisted
of a night bus and various border checkpoints. We eventually made it to Cancun
airport the following afternoon. Olivia’s
flight was several hours before mine so we said our goodbyes at the
airport.
I will be home soon
I had a long wait for my flight so I decided to pass the
time by writing. However this was
difficult as I had packed my writing book into my main bag that I had checked
in. I searched the shops in the airport
looking for a notepad or something suitable for writing and the only thing I
could find was a Hello Kitty notebook in the duty free shop. The girl at the checkout gave me some strange
looks, a 26 year old guy buying a bright pink Hello Kitty notebook. “You cannot open this until you have reached
your destination” she said whilst sealing it into a bag labelled “Duty Free”. “Well, there goes my plan of writing for the
next 20 odd hours.... or I could just open it” I thought to myself.
I sat down in the departure lounge and ripped open the forbidden
bag. I was expecting an alarm to go off
and a squad of duty free police men to jump me, but this didn’t happen. It was just a bag. The rest of the journey passed without
incident. Many stories were written,
many in-flight movies were watched and this being an Air France flight many miniature
bottles of red wine were drunk. I was
only a few hours away now, I was looking forward to seeing my family and
friends again. This wasn’t the end of my
trip, just a break whilst I sort my stuff out.
My trip would resume in 2014 but right now I just wanted to get
home. I was looking forward to being
home for Christmas.
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