Scuba Certified

On Wednesday, I crossed the frontera into Belize and suddenly time almost stopped. Everything in Belize moves at a much slower pace and seems so different than the rest of Central America. They speak Creole and Spanish is definitely not needed. I overheard many of the locals telling tourists to just relax and chill often. People here take things very easy. The locals are friendly, sometimes too friendly, and interact often with the tourists. One guy, Tod, often referred to himself in the third person and called himself Rasta. Rasta says this and Rasta does that. He was nice enough to give me a leaf of an aloe plant to put over the many mosquito bites that I collected on my first night. The mosquitoes like to buffet on me daily and they seem to be immune to DEET. With me around, they will never starve. Despite this, I am still here.
I hadn't even planned on coming to Belize and yet I'll be here for a week. On the first day, I ended up signing up for a scuba class. I don't like to be in water and so why I own a pool is still a mystery. I once tried scuba diving in Egypt and found it fascinating and so I figured that since I am here, I might as well go for it and get over my fear of the ocean while I am at it.
I think I took the accelerated 4 day course and the first day, I watched 3 hrs of videos. The second day, I practiced basic scuba skills in the sea and went on the first dive. Breathing underwater with the regulator and without my mask on proved difficult for me. I had to repeat that skill again until I could do it correctly without holding my nose to prevent water from going up it while I breathed through the regulator in my mouth. We went that day even though a storm started to hit, but once we made it to the bottom, I had no idea a storm brewed above.

The third day, the storm still hovered and I became terribly seasick in between dives. I threw up often in the water. I really don't like being on boats and don't care much for the water, but I survived. However, I was too sick to go befriend the manatees in the water and maybe we will meet another day. Overall, I enjoyed watching the fish swim around. My favorite had blue freckles and yellow shoes with a black dress. The final day, we did another couple of dives and I passed all my skill tests and final exam. I am officially certified!

Visiting Belize has hit my budget hard financially. So, I gave up on some food and internet, the only two expendable items in my budget. During the day, I eat bread and OJ and of course ice cream saving room for my 1 meal of the day, dinner consisting of lobster. I look forward to going back to Guatemala where internet costs $1 an hour vs $7 here. Maybe Tuesday, I will head back and change my itinerary once again to remove some cities. Overall, Belize is nice, but it's not my favorite place to hang out. I need to think more about why that it is. I definitely prefer Guatemala, but the change of pace has been nice here.