Today was our last day in Belize, and it doesn’t really count because it’s a travel day. We didn’t do a whole lot else.
After breakfast (Doc with a special-order omelette and a parting glass of grapefruit juice, me with my usual fruit and cheese), we settled our bill at the front desk, left an envelope with gratuities for the entire staff as well as extra for a few specific people, and retrieved our dive equipment from the dive shop. Luckily none of our stuff was taken in the theft a few days ago (Giovanni’s regulator was stolen, along with someone else’s BCD and I think also a wetsuit or two).
We packed as best we could, resigning ourselves to the fact that we’d have two suitcases full of damp musty-smelling clothes. We had to be out of our room by 11 a.m., check-out time, but our van to the airport wasn’t leaving until 1 p.m., so we brought our luggage down to the lobby and sat with Doug, Nish, Kurt, and Megan until their van left at 12. We found out that, since we didn’t arrive until dinnertime on our first day, our lunch meal was included on our last day. So we went ahead and ordered lunch, and by the time we were done, it was time to leave. We said our goodbyes to the staff, loaded into the van with Lorenzo, and headed for Dangriga.
Our puddlejumper at Dangriga was about 3o minutes late arriving, which was fine since we had plenty of time before our connecting flight. We sat in the Dangriga airport and read the local papers, which were interesting in that they contained little hard news and some soft core pornography in the guise of a “love” column.
In Belize City, we visited the duty-free shops, and I’m still not certain exactly how they work or what they’re for — something to do with evading taxes, I think. All I know is you could buy three things: alcohol, cigarettes, or perfume. And actually, it turns out that the alcohol they were selling was about 1/2 to 1/3 of the price you would pay here in the States. Doc and I got a liter of pomegranate liqueur and a liter of Bailey’s Irish Cream, just for grins. The weird thing about the duty free shops here (and maybe this is standard operating procedure everywhere, I don’t know) is that they couldn’t actually hand over the alcohol that we bought. They said that they had to bring it to us on the plane, which actually meant that once we walked out the gate door onto the tarmac, they had our purchases on a little card table and we just matched up receipts with the liquor guards.
Apparently a big bag of alcohol does not count against your 2-carryon limit.
We landed in Houston after an uneventful flight, stood in long uneventful lines for immigration and customs, and picked up our luggage, which were some of the first bags out onto the carousel (this NEVER happens!) I don’t recall what the international arrivals areas of other airports look like (I don’t think I’ve been in one in 10 years), but the Houston airport’s arrival area was enormous and covered in lots of interesting art. The baggage claim area itself had maybe 12 huge carousels, each of which was topped with large white plastic suitcases that lit up from within. I think that the presence of all the art was meant to create a good first impression of America on foreign travellers.
We said our goodbyes and caught shuttles out to the parking lots where we’d left our cars, paid our giant parking bills, and headed for home. It was pouring down rain in Houston, and, as it turns out, about halfway north to Dallas too. Doc and I decided to try to drive straight on through to home, even though we didn’t get out of the airport until almost 10 p.m. I was tired but knew that this drive was going to suck, and did not want to prolong the pain by putting it off until tomorrow. Doc played iPod DJ on the car radio and I did my best to stay awake, drinking root beer, stopping to pee and stretch every 30-45 minutes, and singing along to the extremely upbeat songs he selected for me. It stopped raining halfway to Dallas, but then the thick fog kicked in – and it was thicker than any fog I’ve ever driven in. I would say that visibility was probably less than 100 feet, which is kind of scary when you’re going 60 miles per hour down a dark highway. The adrenaline kept me awake, and we made it safely home shortly before 2 a.m. We said hi to Mom, brought our suitcases inside, and crashed.
