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PUBLISHED September, 2007
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The View From Here

Always Take Your Game Boy to Belize

by Amy Nathan

We dropped anchor six miles off the coast of Belize without land in sight and I thought, "What the hell am I doing?"

It wasn't my first cruise, or the kids' either, but it was our first cruise after the divorce as a family of three, not four, which left me sole purveyor of fun and official minister of cruise ship excursions. It's a wonder that the weight of that alone did not pull me under.

From the vantage point of our Deck 10 balcony I stared, bewildered, as the matchbox sized boats pulled up along side our mega-liner, and I watched the ants formerly known as passengers marched on board what seemed like a vessel hardly large enough to hold a picnic basket without tipping over. I'm not sure what I was expecting, another cruise ship perhaps, to pull up along side us to transport us to Belize City, our third port of call in five days? I certainly wasn't expecting boats to be zooming in and out of sight like someone wound them up and placed then down and gave them a finger flick. The tenders, as I heard them being called, barely touched the water as far as I could tell, and went high-tailing it over swells in the way I never liked to imagine the cruise ship doing. What I didn't see didn't hurt me, I figured, and although it was not true that you couldn't feel the boat moving -- you certainly could -- the sheer size of the ship gave me a sense of comfort, and I would take that any way I could get it. But there was no comfort in watching these boats. I fancied myself a seasoned cruiser, but I was waylaid by this predicament. We'd always pulled right into port before, walked down the gangplank and onto a pier or a sandy beach, or in Alaska, a mountainside town or glacier. Now my bravery would not only be tested in the waters of traveling alone with my kids, but in simply boarding the boat to our destination.

I'd chosen the exotic Western Caribbean cruise to help sear the memories of adventure into my children's brains and to label myself as taker of fabulous vacations, which was in direct contrast to my scared-y cat nature. I didn't want something run-of-the-mill; there would be no Bahamas on our itinerary. But in order to meet our Belizean tour guide on time and ride thirty minutes on a bumpy road to walk a mile in the mud to cave tube in the dark in cold and possibly snake-ridden water, to fulfill my destiny of going beyond my actual comfort zone and afford my children the luxury of an unparalleled experience in the Central American wilderness, they were going to have to wake up. After pizza at midnight this was not something I wanted to do at 7 a.m., but we needed to be off the ship by 7:30.

They were belligerent, hiding their heads under the blankets and grunting at me. "No," they said in unison from separate beds. I had no one else to delegate this chore to. My son at age 12 was resolute "I'm not getting up," he said. My daughter was nine and just didn't move. She was clearly in REM sleep, like a baby who needs medicine but cannot be roused. I sat down on the side of the bed I shared with my daughter, knees against the table in our tight quarters. With my head in my hands I had to decide if I forced them to get up and risk spending the morning with cranky kids. I'd be cranky too if I had to scream to get them out of bed. If I let them sleep I'd have happier children and a different excursion, just later in the day. I was disappointed, but a little relieved. It was their vacation too, I reasoned.

It was a lesson I learned only two days before in Costa Maya. That day didn't quite go as planned either, and I was starting to sense a theme. Zachary flat-out refused to get on a horse and indulge my fantasy of riding through the shallow blue Caribbean waters with him on one valiant steed – or broken-down village mount -- me on another and Chloe on yet another. With his arms crossed he asked me "What ever made you think I'd get on a horse?" "I didn't think, I hoped," I said. I shrugged my shoulders in defeat as Maria, the round Mexican woman who owned the beach front bistro, offered us jet ski's in exchange for horses. I couldn't help wondering what her ancestors would have thought of such a trade. But my son declined. He didn't want to ride horses or the waves.

My bid for mother-of-the-year clearly diminished, I left my son in the care of Maria, instructed him not to move from the plastic beach chair under the faux-thatched roof tent and wangled a shorter horse excursion for me and my daughter than originally planned, for the same price of course. All I cared about was keeping my promise to Chloe to ride horses in Mexico and that we arrived back at our point of departure without Zachary having been whisked off to weave blankets or bead hair. We climbed upon our horses by stepping on tree trunks. Cowgirls we weren't, but the Spanish speaking guide and Spanish understanding horse seemed to take it in stride.

I thought I could probably learn a lesson from my Mexican horse – and from Maria who inadvertently advised me to go with the flow, so I left them a note and locked the door. I headed straight for the Lido deck where I enjoyed coffee by a window and alone, reveled in a vacation from my vacation. Since my kids did not want to partake of the kids programs on board, we were together all the time. Breakfast, swimming, lunch, limbo, shopping, snacking, playing cards, watching shows, dinner, watching more shows, listening to music, midnight snacking. And in theory, it was fabulous. On a 110,000 ton cruise ship, it was claustrophobic. I realized as I sat there that changing gears and tackle another adventure in Belize would be ok. I put up my feet on the bench next to me and enjoyed the respite from the limbo contests and sunscreen application.

"Get up," I said an hour later all revved up from caffeine, throwing off everyone's blankets and opening up the curtains. "We're in Belize and you're not going to sleep all day. We're going to the Belize Zoo."

My kids had tenuous looks in their eyes when they peeked over the railing to see the kind of transportation that was in store. "We're going on that?" they asked. "You bet," I said hoping I was convincing. I watched families with toddlers and seniors in orthopedic shoes hobble across the metal walkway without hesitation. No one seemed to think it was a questionable way to get from one place to another, except me. But knowing that my kids took their cues from me and only me, I counted to ten in my head and went onboard with a solid gait. They followed as I held my breath. The water was calm and I assumed that if Belizean boat guys could walk around on the outside ledge of this little boat with benches that squeezed eighty well-fed tourists into its hull, then we were secure, but I muttered the fail-safe Hebrew prayer, the Shema, as I smiled through my teeth at both kids, who were not phased.

We met our newly appointed guide and boarded the bus for the Belize Zoo, in the heart of the rainforest. "A rainforest", I assured myself, "is a real adventure, even if it is a zoo". My kids were going to be able to say that I took them to a rain forest in Belize, and that alone would be worth the cost of passage.

On the bus I sat up straight and peered out the window and listened intently to every word of our tour guide. My kids reached into their backpacks and took out their Game Boys. "Don't you want to look out the window?" I said. Didn't they know that part of the experience is the anticipation of getting there? After we left Belize City there really was not much to look at on the stark Belizean road into the rain forest. The other passengers regaled their own kids with games and snacks, but I wanted mine to be different. "We're listening," they assured me. I remembered again that this was their vacation too, and just like I wanted to look out the window, they wanted to have fun, and fun for them was the thrill of the electronic chase. At least the Game Boys would go back into the backpack at the Zoo, I thought.

As we were walking along the paths at the zoo, looking at the animals birds and reptiles native to Belize, that looked strangely like the animals we'd seen in zoos in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York, Arizona and Ohio – we stopped on in front of the howler monkeys. They were hiding in the trees and amusing to watch. Then the skies opened up, and it started raining.

My kids looked at me like the munchkins in the Wizard of Oz upon seeing Dorothy for the first time. "It's raining!" they moaned. And it was. It was pouring and I couldn't have been more pleased. "We're in the rainforest," I replied, primed with the enthusiasm as if I'd ordered up the rain on purpose, for effect. They rolled their eyes and stomped their feet splashing away down the path not in play but in protest. I couldn't help but laugh, and followed them, "We're in the rainforest and it's raining, go figure," I said. They were not amused. I was.

We ended up sporting Belize Zoo tee shirts for our bus ride back to port and buying Pringles and ice cream sandwiches as a snack. The kids and I were rained on in the rainforest and no souvenir or stacked chip could take that away. We got back on the bus with all the other drenched travelers. With forty-five minutes until we reached the ship, a shower and dry clothes, I succumbed to the unspoken pressure. "Take out your Game Boys," I said.

My daughter then climbed onto my lap and fell asleep. My son, tall and tired, slid down in his seat and leaned his head on my arm, though still intent with his game.