Occa­sion­ally, we like to take a gam­ble. It was a big one: tak­ing the boat from Hon­duras to Belize. The catch? We had heard of a boat going between Puerto Cortes (Hon­duras) and Pla­cen­cia (Belize) but the boat was only once a week, could only take about 30 pas­sen­gers and the sched­ule was sub­ject to change. We couldn’t buy the tick­ets before­hand either—we basi­cally had to show up and see if there was actu­ally a boat.

That’s why we ended up in Puerto Cortes on Sun­day.

On Mon­day morn­ing, it was pour­ing rain. The first rain we had since we left home and it had to be the day we needed good weather…!

We took a taxi to the boat ter­mi­nal where we learned there was indeed a boat sched­uled for Pla­cen­cia. Soaked from the rain, dirty from the mud and sweaty from the heat, we bought the tick­ets and did the migracíon to exit Honduras.

Then we waited. We even had a quick breakfast—a baleada at the only food place around.

I’m a sea per­son. I grew up by the Atlantic Ocean and I can’t even remem­ber learn­ing to swim. I’ve always liked water, salt water prefer­ably, and I spent most of my child­hood play­ing in the waves and later surf­ing and wind­surf­ing when I was a teen.

Need­less to say, I’m usu­ally very com­fort­able on boats. I’d take a boat ride over a bus ride any­time and I’m not scared of water.

So I was feel­ing pretty good about our 2.5 hour long trip to Belize.

That said, the boat did look small.

We all climbed aboard and off we went. I quickly felt like we were a cork jerked around in the huge waves. A tiny boat in deep open water.

Okay, maybe not such a good idea.

Feng and I held hands.

I looked at the woman seat­ing in front of me. She looked really sick. “Please don’t puke on me,” I begged mentally.

It got worse and worse. “Quieres una bolsa?” I asked her. She nod­ded. I handed her the plas­tic bag I got when I bought drinks at the super­mar­ket in the morn­ing. Hours ago. On dry land.

She got sick. In the bag, mer­ci­fully. Two sec­onds later, it was Feng’s turn.

I looked away. When some­one gets sick, you feel sick too.

I was get­ting soaked from the waves. Hot too. The smell of diesel was over­whelm­ing. I couldn’t breathe.

I got sick too. For a moment, I didn’t think we would make it.

There just wasn’t any com­fort­able posi­tion. My shorts were soaked, I was slid­ing towards the back of the boat, my mus­cles ached from absorb­ing the shocks and my hair was plas­tered to my face. Not a pretty sight.

And every­one in the boat was get­ting sick, some puk­ing over­board, other star­ing blankly in front of them.

I closed my eyes and tried to focus on something.

Rev­o­lu­tion­ary songs.

Una mat­tina mi sono sveg­liato
e ho trovato l’invasor

More waves.

La cucaracha, la cucaracha
ya no puede caminar

Quick glance at Feng, whiter than a sheet.

Ya se mira el hor­i­zonte
Com­bat­iente zapatista

Can’t see land any­where. Breathe.

El pueblo unido jamás será ven­cido…
De pie, can­tar
que vamos a triunfar.

Even­tu­ally, the boat slowed down. Big Creek, Belize.

The engine stopped and we all looked around us, con­fused, dizzy and still sick.

A Belize immi­gra­tion offi­cer climbed on board to stamp our pass­ports and all the bags were unloaded from the boat. Half an hour later, we were back in for the final ride to Placencia—a mer­ci­fully short ride.

I can’t even think of food right now (highly unusual for me). I can’t even think, period.

This is the sec­ond time in all of our trav­els that we get sick in a boat, bus or what­ever. The first time was in 2003 in Mex­ico between Oax­aca and Puerto Angel, a long ride that we never for­got (and later learned that every­one is sick in that bus). I guess we will add the boat ride between Hon­duras and Belize to our list.

The Boat, the D-Express

Pel­i­cans

Puerto Cortes Harbour

The Migra­cion Office

Pel­i­can

Before the Ride in Puerto Cortes…

… After the Ride From Hell in Big Creek, Belize

Related arti­cles:

1. Back in Belize, Placencia
2. In The Chicken Bus
3. Belize City
4. Back to the Maya World: Chichén Itzá
5. Dan­griga