by Joanna Albrecht | Apr 30, 2013 | Blog
This air flight was non-eventful and long, we watched movies and slept.
When it came time to go to Customs the agent asked me what I was doing in London and I told him the truth. I got shuffled through and asked a whole lot more questions and basically they decided that because I did not have the right visa they did not want to allow me entrance into the UK.
The thing is…you don’t need a visa if you are from the US. Basically they didn’t want me to get treatment at the Tropical Disease Hospital because I am not a British National. They said if I applied for a visa, and proved I would have enough money to pay for treatmentand accommodation then they would let me back in.
They were nice enough to let me spend the night with Rob at his mom’s house and then get on a plane to Chicago to my mom’s house the next morning.
It was a beautiful night with Rob…I wanted to remember everything about him and hold him all night long…
When the morning came we got ready and his mom and he dropped me off at the airport. I felt like we were just going to be away from each other for a short time and this wasn’t a forever good bye, just a for a little while…
by Joanna Albrecht | Apr 30, 2013 | Blog
We had contacted this family before we went to the resort and they were sad that we had another obligation, but they were thrilled to know we could now come and would be assisting them on their land.
They were a family of 7 and 3 dogs. The children were home schooled and the father worked in web and graphic design.
The place they lived used to be a rustic resort with restaurant, but they were winding down the business and now they were just living there as a family.
A typical day would be waking up at 7:30am. Sweeping the Outpost, cleaning the bathrooms, raking the leaves on the paths and then having breakfast,cleaning up after breakfast then doing various duties like cutting, digging or planting flowers, helping with home schooling the kids or looking after the 1 year old baby Jack.
We would then have lunch, clean up after lunch and have the rest of the day to do our own work.
Some days we would have to work until later if they had a flower order that needed processing, but sometimes the family would go out to stay in town and we would have the place to ourselves for the weekend.
There were other helpers that would come and go but we remained there for about 3 months. We would take trips into the city and stay over night, mostly to just get away and have a nice warm shower. (Our bathtub and swimming hole was the creek and most of the time it was nice, but sometimes you really miss having a warm shower…)
We came to love that family like our own, but after 8 years they were done with the jungle life and we were basically there to help them with the transition. The day before they left the dad said to Rob that he should get his nose looked at. He had had sore on it for a couple of months and it hadn’t gone away. He mentioned that it might be Leishmaniasis.
The transition of the family left us with our own piece of land most days. We couldn’t really leave for a month because the new owners didn’t have anyone else to stay if we left. There was a man that came that knew a lot about the trees and plants of the area. He was going to be a worker for the new people moving in. One day he mentioned to look out for a bug called Chagas, aka the kissing bug. The very next day we were getting up for the day and I was handing Rob a shirt from next to our bed and I saw it there. We captured it and killed it but kept it just in case…later that day the neighbor came by and said that we could go to see a doctor she knew in the city who would work with payments, so we were able to work out leaving to go to the doctor for the day. He basically said we both had Leish and that we probably should worry about the Chaga, many of the Chagas bugs are not infected and we weren’t presenting with the symptoms of it. But he did want to treat us for the Leish. He gave us topical Antimony injections in our lesions that day.
The next day when we woke up I looked over at Rob who’s face was swollen and eyes puffy. The new owners were coming later in the day but I was freaked out and want to get him to the doctors as soon as we could get there. We ended up stopping at the neighbors house before we went to the doctors and she gave us some cleansing things to do to help us clear out our bodies and when we finally got on the road again we met the new owners on the road and they gave us some money to get everything we needed and then they told us that we should stay at their resort and get the wounds tested the next day.
They brought us out to their very fancy resort and we were treated to the Honeymoon Suite. The next day they lent us the car and we were able to go to the doctor, we got our wounds tested and the results came back positive for Leishmaniasis and negative for Chagas. We heard about a specialist in Belize city, so the day after that we said good bye to the Creek and were on our way to Belize city.
During all this time Rob’s mom wanted to fly us home to London. We weren’t sure if it was the best option, but when we found out that the best treatment could be found there we said yes. We wanted to go see the specialist first to just make sure and he said yes, we should go to London right away.
We told Rob’s mom that night and we were on a flight the next morning.
by Joanna Albrecht | Apr 30, 2013 | Super Adventure Life
The resort was a bird sanctuary. Many people would come there from all over the world to take pictures of these beautiful exotic birds. They gave our own cabana with a beautiful white cover and white drapes on windows. It had been something I had been dreaming about during our grungy camping days and here it was showing up in our lives…How does it get any better than that?
The next day we started our work. Rob was asked to help with the Organic farm they wanted to start and also helping with food preparation in the kitchen. I was helping with cleaning out the cabanas and doing laundry.
The people who ran this place had a string of people who were not good workers, so their hopes for us were somewhat low. They gave me a job of cleaning out this massive space without any assistance or guidance as to how they wanted it done. It took the whole day pretty much and after I was done I was pretty sure that I had made a mistake in choosing this life…
Each day I was to clean out another room and do more laundry. I was increasingly becoming more sad because what I really wanted to be doing was workshops or teleclasses. I wanted to be doing healing and coaching sessions with people, but I was here doing house cleaning. Rob enjoyed the farm work and the helping in the kitchen, but the days were long, we would start at 6:30am and not finish until 11pm after dinner clean up. Eventually we realized that this was not the place for us and I found us another place to volunteer close to the Guatemala border.
by Joanna Albrecht | Apr 30, 2013 | Blog
The next day we caught a boat to Belize city.
We found a clean and safe place to stay and worked on finding our next destination. I found a Russian family on a farm outside of Belize city that was looking for volunteers. We got the address and the next day we were on a bus to the farm.
They had lived on the farm for about 2 years, but the place itself was very rustic. Very little running water and no sinks. We did have an inside sleeping space that we shared with a very bossy and demanding 12 year old. It seems his Mom left him there with this family for a couple of months while she went back to Russia with her new husband…
We were glad to have a bed, but when we started to get itchy we found out that our bed was covered in tiny little ants. These ants we found out are more like mites and they leave their saliva on your skin and it causes an itch that stays with you for weeks…
Each day we would wake up and do what ever we could to help on the farm. Rob was great at using his machete to chop down tall grasses and clear the land. I would help out with digging up potatoes and cleaning up. Each day was very hot and tiring, but Rob was glad to be working the land and I was glad to be there with him doing what I could.
The rules of Woofing is that you work for food and lodging, but the family didn’t really want to feed us…so we had to go into town to get food and that was a big struggle in and of itself. We had to hitch hike in and then take a long bus ride and then be there in town, which is dirty, loud and stressful…by the time we got back we would be very tired.
One day we were hitching into town and we got picked up by this man who said that he was looking for people to help him at his resort that his wife and he run. We told him we could help him and he was over joyed. We got his number and scheduled to come the next day.
We said good bye to our Russian family and we were on our way to our new destination.
by Joanna Albrecht | Apr 30, 2013 | Blog
We said our goodbyes to our wonderful new friends and waited for a bus at this bus stop…which we later found out wasn’t a bus stop…I am still not sure what that was, but there was a guy there who I talked to in Spanish and he said to just take a taxi. He then offered us a coke…how nice is that?
We finally flagged down a taxi and headed into the next town.
We got to the next town, but what we didn’t count on was that in order to get across the border to Belize we needed to pay an exit fee for Mexico and an entrance fee for Belize. We had run out of money because we were waiting on someone to pay us from the computer work we had done, so we were stuck. We went to a computer cafe and asked for help from our parents again…
We got more funds and went back to the border. They didn’t take cards so there was some guy with a truck on the side of the road who said he would take me across to the ATM and then bring me back so we could pay and get across. He was nice enough and chatted to me along the way. He said that we should just stay in town for the night, that he knew a place. That seemed really good to me actually because it was getting late and we were so tired. We got the money and got back to Rob who was worried the whole time, understandably so since he just sent his girlfriend off in some random truck with a guy off to who knows where…
We paid and go through and our driver took us to a clean place to sleep for the night. We were so glad to have our own room with a shower and a bed. It was the first time we had our own space alone. That night we walked around the town and found a place to eat. There was a couple there and the man of the couple introduced himself and started chatting us up. He talked to us about love and about how important it is to think and speak positively, but mostly that love is the most important thing there is. He was glad to find other people who were fellow happy loving people.
The next day we tried to figure out the best way to get to Guatemala. We thought that maybe we could take a boat there from where we were, so in the morning we tried to get to the boat. We found out we missed the boat…as we were walking to the bus stop this guy said that he had an uncle who could take us there on his boat, which we thought would be ok…however he was a little sketchy…so we were a bit wary. We got a taxi to this guy’s uncle’s house and the taxi man said not to trust this man, that he was bad news. He said that we should just fly there, that most people fly and it would be much easier and safer. When Mr. Sketchy got back into the car we let him know we were going to fly instead and we brought him back to the bus station.
We were then whisked away to the tiny airport where we caught a plane to San Pedro.
In hind sight I am not quite sure what we were thinking…we should have just taken a bus. It would have taken us longer, but it would have been waay less expensive. Rob and I am a bit blown by the wind when it comes to making plans and this happened to be a spur of the moment by the seat of our pants move…
In an hour we were up in the air and on our way to the island of San Pedro, where we were told we could camp…
Let me tell you about San Pedro…it is the most expensive of the Belize islands and you can’t camp. We get off the plane and get a ride with one of the locals who is a school teacher. She brings us to the only hostel on the island and it is booked up….we are beginning to realize that this was not the best move…
We asked someone who was on the street driving by if he was going into town. We told him we were looking for a place to stay for the night and he said he had a place right there so we ended up staying at the dirtiest, apartment in San Pedro…but at least it was a place to stay and it was inside and had a bed which was a plus.
We went out to the main town that night to catch the sunset, walk along the beach, get some dinner and find internet. The sunset was so beautiful…it was very relaxing there on the island. Many people were on honeymoon or other holiday. We found a restaurant with free WIFI and we sat outside to use the internet. Rob wanted some pie and so I told him to just go order a piece, I mean, how much could a piece of pie be really? It took him forever, but once he came back he said…”Well that was a little bit more expensive than I thought it would be.” Well how much was it? $18 dollars Belize, which is $9 US, but still…wow… Just for the record, it was really yummy. We had to laugh really because for us, trying to live a frugal life, this trip seemed to be a super expensive adventure…we needed to figure out a way to sustain our selves or we were going to get ourselves into trouble…
by Joanna Albrecht | Apr 30, 2013 | Blog
We hopped into the truck and we were off. But first the people who were taking us on this new leg of our journey needed to get paid from the organizers. So we went into town to meet up with them. As it turned out the money was not in the bank yet so we had to hold tight for the night. They put us up in the hotel they were staying at and we were able to have a proper shower and a nice bed to sleep in. We even recorded a video that night talking about our adventure so far. We walked into town that night to get some food and it was deserted…and then we realized…It was Christmas! Every once in a while we would see a big set up of toys for kids and we even saw this little boy in a tiny new kid car.
We got back to the room and had a sleep and then the next day we were on our way to Tulum. The person who owed them money was going to be there waiting for the money to come in, so we might as well just wait for it on the beach. We had already been to Tulum and quite honestly, we were glad to be back. The sands are white and warm and the water is warm, blue and beautiful.
The first night we were there Rob and I slept in a hammock together…now let me let tell you something…hammocks…they have never been my friend…I have never really had a relaxing rest in a hammock…and then here I was in this hammock with Rob…squished into a small half rounded hanging piece of fabric of mostly uncomfortableness…there was no making that hammock work for the both of us…and I love Rob and want to be with him and close to him all the time, but this was where even I drew the line… I remembered there was a hammock outside that a woman said someone could use if we needed it. I slide myself out of the hammock of torture and zipped myself up into the hammock with the mosquito netting outside…I was so very thankful for at least being able to stretch out for a little bit. (as much as you can in a hammock.)
The second day we went walking down the beach and on the way back that night we saw a big group of people and some flashing lights…
We got closer and saw that they all had brown shells on their ankles and they were doing a sacred ceremonial dance, holding hands and all went into the water and came out together. We were swept up in the dance that happened afterwards and we ended up standing in a big group of people. There was medicine man that was talking to everyone in Spanish, so I couldn’t make out everything, but from what I could make out he was saying that now that the energies of the planet have shifted, we need to remember to stay focused in love. We need to remind people to love one another and to stay in that loving energy. Together we will bring the world into a more loving space.
The money was taking longer than everyone thought and people were starting to get stressed out. The person who we were waiting on just wasn’t sure when it would come through, but his girlfriend came to check if we were doing OK. I told her that we were struggling a bit and she brought us some food and some raw cacao beans. I thought that was so sweet! I remembered her from the hotel we stayed at a couple of night’s previous. I remember having a really good talk with her and let her know that everything was going to be ok. That the festival had been really amazing for so many people and that eventually people would get paid and everything would sort itself out. I think she was glad to have someone be kind to her because there were many people a little freaked out about the money situation, but Rob and I really did have the most amazing time and we were very glad for the experience of it.
The next day we were on the road. We were going to go to a place called Palenque, where there was an event called the Rainbow Gathering happening. If we could get there we would have a free place to camp and we would also have free food to eat because everyone brings food to share. We would offer healing and share with people the things we learned from the Synthesis Gathering.
About an hour into our journey the guys who were driving us said that they needed to let us off in another location on the border of Belize because they needed to go through some check points and they weren’t quite sure what was going to happen when we got there…
Our next stop was Corresol….
