For those of you who aren’t familiar with this developing story, Liz and I recently posted a story about our encounter with a baby howler monkey named Jack only to be contacted by several conservation groups who informed us of the unfortunate details of this monkey’s disposition. We later altered the post to remove our photos with the monkey and posted a new public service announcement to inform people of the horrors associated with this “pet monkey.” Our efforts have had remarkable results as can be seen in the email below from one of our contacts in Belize.

Good luck to Jack the monkey, Jerry, Robin Brockett and anyone else involved in today’s attempt to seize Jack to save him. We hope you are successful.

“Courtney and Liz

Been up since 02:00 hrs preparing for today. Just to let you know that we are just about to leave with the Forestry Department and a Police / Army squad to try and seize your young monkey Jack.

I will be accompanied by Robin Brockett who is the world renowned monkey rehabber that we are extremely fortunate to have in Belize at the moment.

If we get Jack, then this little fellow will join a small troupe of monkeys currently being prepared for release (although this will take up to two years). At the moment Jack’s future is now considerably brighter than it was before you raised awareness of his plight. He will now be socialised with other monkeys as well as get veterinary care, and of course get the correct monkey food. He will also be released into an approved area where he should be safe from all but the most determined poachers. (And as he is a male the chances are that he will never be targeted by poachers)

If we are successful today, I think you will be able to say that you were directly responsible for saving this monkey, as Forestry admitted to me on Friday, that if your story had not been published on the web, then they probably would not have done anything about him. As his plight is now a matter of public record, they have had their hand forced in this matter and we now have a strong response.
I think the way that you two have handled this matter has been exemplary and I thank you from the bottom of my heart for the correction to your website and for the increased awareness that has resulted.

Fingers crossed, I will let you know what happens later on today.

Jerry”

About the only downside to the trip to ATM was the tour group. Mayawalk is not a tour company I’d recommend to any potential tourists. I hate to say this, because their prices are cheaper than the competition, but the experience could have been far better with a better company. “Why,” might you ask? There were a number of shortcomings:
Liz was ill so she couldn’t go. They charged me a 50% cancelation fee, explaining that they’d already purchased a lunch for her, etc. The lunch, while tasty, cost $4US. I know this because I bought lunch from the same place they did the day before. No other sacrifices were made on their part. They definitely didn’t turn any potential guests away. I realize a cancelation fee is almost always applied, but this was unbelievable; especially because of their next ding.

To the guides credit, he did tell a great story, and I did thoroughly enjoy the experience, despite the constant grumblings of one of the other guests. He still shared some interesting stories and described how the Maya may have interpreted different features of the cave, such as the sacrifice victims and the rock formations. I really wish I’d been able to make the POV function for that trip. Sans video, it was still an excellent narration and I can’t for the life of me, remember all of the details.

While I prepared properly with shots and pills to avoid sickness while in Belize, I can say that both Courtney and I did not come down with anything significant. Whether we were just lucky or just over-concerned, all that matters is that we were fortunate not to have any accidents with broken bones, sickness, hurricanes or anything of the sort.

When we purchased travel insurance we weren’t entirely thrilled about spending the money on it.  In the end- it turned out to be worth the money invested for the peace of mind. I do still recommend it. Especially with how crazy it is driving on the roads in Belize. That is a post in itself. Oh MY!

Belize is a poor country. There is little industry, technology, and/or big business in general. From the perspective of the local nationals, Americans are infinitely more wealthy. Whereas they might have enough money to go grab a Coke or Coke Light one day, we seem to have bags of money that allow us to fly across the globe and stay in foreign lands for weeks at a time.

This circumstance leads to interesting interactions in Belize. Recall the car rental place from a few posts back. Liz and I were immediately “assisted” by a scruffy looking man with a thick accent who practically grabbed our bags out of our hands and tried to recruit us into one of the other rental car shops. He wouldn’t leave us alone; he kept leaving and coming back to the shop with status reports and commenting on how bad Belize Auto Rental was.

I pretty much knew that I was going to have to tip this guy. I didn’t want to and I didn’t think he deserved one considering he forced his services upon us. But he’s broke and this is clearly the way he made his money. And, lets not forget that I am the rich American with tons of excess cash.

Tipping became a source of frustration for Liz and I. We received very good service from Beulah and Robbie and Jen and Chris at the hotels. And we felt they should get tipped, beyond the service charge added to our hotel bill. And the guys at Ecologic Divers were great! But as Liz had mentioned before, it wasn’t something we’d fully budgeted for, and we made some generous tips that were larger than our pocket change could sustain.

This challenge and frustration hit its peak when we were at the Belcove restaurant on our last night in Belize. Jules is the son of the owner of Belcove. He was visiting at he time of our stay. He welcomed us and was very friendly and declared that he would help us with our bags. He clarified “this is my family’s hotel. It won’t cost you anything.” But I was so distressed and programmed at that point, that I didn’t know what to do. So I tried to tip him.

He refused and repeated his connection to the hotel. I never felt more like an ugly American than at that point. Granted, I might not have looked like it, but I felt that way. We were so razzled by the tipping that we no longer knew what to do.

Our lesson learned and the corresponding travel tip is:

I would just like to point out two of the most inconvenient parts of our trip.

#1. The Car Rental (Dun Dun Dun!) We knew from the beginning with the car rentals giving us problems and canceling the week before to saying that all car rentals in Belize were sold out of the “high clearance” vehicles when we needed them that it could possibly be a problem when we arrived. When we hopped in the taxi cab in Belize City Wednesday morning at the swing bridge we told the taxi cab driver to, “Please take us to the International Airport. We need to be dropped off at Belize Car Rentals.” The taxi cab driver took us to the airport directly (with a very interesting story) and dropped us off where all the car rentals are. Now this could be partly our fault and/or partly the cabbies fault. We walked around and could not find “Belize Car Rentals.” Courtney runs into Crystal Car Rental and for thought that was who we booked through. (this is our fault, we forgot to write/print out our confirmation and address) and we just assumed Crystal Car Rental was the one. After being there for a few minutes they say we do not have a reservation with them and that they are unsure of where Belize Car Rental is. Then, after some more convo, we learn that Belize car rental is located about half a mile from all the rest of the car rental places, but still at the International airport. They then proceed to call Belize Car Rental to come pick us up. We waited there for about 30 minutes for the ride and I sat there giving Courtney the “Stank eye.” Not because I was mad at him but more frustrated at the situation and that the cab didn’t take us to where we asked him to. And the fact that all this time was draining out. After almost giving in to Crystal Rentals sweet talk and renting a car with them, the Belize Car Rental driver showed up and was actually VERY nice. We went back, signed away on the vehicle and we were on our way about 45 minutes later. The car at first was the biggest “hoop-tie” car with over 115,000 miles on it. But it got us through our trip and since it was already quite the beater, we didn’t feel bad taking it on the “worst road in Belize.” The pot hole haven road.

#2. The Time Share. We got conned into going to a timeshare after Courtney pulled a “1 week vacation for you and 5 other friends” from a white envelope if promising to give 90 minutes of his time to a time share salesperson. After biking there and paying the toll for the bridge in San Pedro (yes, Beware! a toll to go North of San Pedro, we did not know this!) we spent about 45 minutes before I started giving Courtney the stank eye and attitude for wasting our time on our trip.We talked about it briefly when the salesperson walked away that Courtney wouldn’t even get the timeshare and the person probably won’t let him walk away or give him the prize unless he purchased a timeshare and this could definitely last longer than the 90 minutes he was obliged for. I then turned and stripped down to my bathing suit and jumped in the pool while the sales person walked off with Courtney.After I jumped in the pool and waded around (jump, psh- it was a measley 3 foot deep bath tub) Courtney returned about 10 minutes later after using me as an excuse as the decision maker and that I obviously wasn’t interested (which is totally cool, I just wanted to enjoy our Sunday morning!) we then proceeded to move along to pick up groceries and head off for snorkeling.

I was more so just frustrated because these two time sucks were a waste of our time. They con you into doing timeshares so easily so BEWARE! And as I said in previous posts, time is money. Both these things were a waste of time that could have been avoided if approached correctly.