This ride is not smooth, but it isn’t bumpy either.
Down below us are little green islands sticking their heads above the Caribbean Sea like turtles, fishing boats, and turquoise water. I can almost see the grassy bottom of the sea from the air.
We are packed tightly in the plane and our pilot navigates by looking through his planes front window through rotating propeller blades. He has a small instrument panel and this flight is analogous to riding a city bus in the sky but it is the quickest and cheapest way to get to San Pedro Town from Belize City late in the afternoon.
Enroute, we land first at Caye Caulker, another tourist destination. We deliver a few guests, then make a U turn back to the beginning of the runway we just landed on. The pilot turns us around, again, and we take off for San Pedro Town, again. The plane’s little tires suffer from potholes but we lift off just before we reach the runway’s end and the water’s beginning.
Leaving the United States at 8:00 am and arriving in San Pedro Town at 5:10pm, on the same day,for two hundred seventy five bucks total, is a good piece of travel.
It is good to be out of New Mexico and have people ask me again where I am from.
This passport takes me to 2021, well past end of the world forecasts.
Closing in on Belize, an airline steward passes out forms to be completed in ink for Customs and Immigration Officers in Belize City. These days all travelers need a Passport and are asked to provide one as a prerequisite for International travel.
The Passport is an odd document, more legal than personal, more business than pleasure. If you really want to know about someone you shouldn’t ask for their Passport; you should ask for their diary.
These days the Passport lets me move about the world in anonymity. Governments, who can barely keep roads paved, are not going to get to know me well enough to know if they are safe from me by looking at my Passport.
I complete forms because I am told I have to.
Do people run the State, or does the State run people?
If I don’t belong to myself, to whom do I belong ?
This trip the window seat is mine.
It is most difficult to be in the middle seat with a window passenger on one side and an aisle passenger on the other. Invariably those seat passengers are overweight, have to use the lavatory, don’t speak your language or want to talk about their kids. The window seat is good because you can look out a spyglass porthole window, see the wing shaking and try to guess what state or country is below you. If you grow weary you can lean your head against the plane’s thin skin and feel it vibrate until it puts you to sleep.
For most of this flight I don’t even see Earth.
When you see a break in the clouds you get to look at water, fields, cities, freeways, runways. Occasionally a fantasy pops between my ears about landing the plane on clouds and taking a hike, but that whim goes quickly as it comes.
Only angels walk on clouds.
In the air is the most boring and least risky period of any trip.
In the air your only concern is landing safely.
On land, your concerns multiply exponentially.
Sunday morning the Albuquerque, New Mexico International Sun port is a grocery cart rolling down a hill.
Jets jockey to gates as ticket agents fire up their computers, troubleshoot, load passengers and baggage. This time through security there is a change that makes me wonder whether security has to be all or nothing to make the country secure, or whether exceptions make security Swiss cheese – dangerous and full of gaping holes.
I am given a TSA Precheck, randomly chosen.
This allows me to walk through a separate screening station where I don’t have to take off my belt or shoes. I still have to put my carry on bag, computer and pocket’s contents into gray plastic tubs on a conveyor belt that rolls them through inspection, then walk myself through an x ray tunnel extending my arms above me and clinching my hands above my head.
I don’t argue with security officers and proceed quickly through the gauntlet to have pre-flight coffee, check e mails, check my passport and connecting flights, and slip into yet another travel itinerary.
Exceptions to rules make us less secure, but gives us our humanity back.
I am, despite my hate of security inspections, working on my fourth travel ring for the forefinger of my right hand. This will be another Scotttrek’s journey outside the U.S. where it is still easier to enter illegally than leave legally.
It isn’t here yet but Halloween is galloping down the road and the headless horseman will soon be here.
New Mexico and Mexico have much in common this time of year as our town celebrates both Halloween and Dia De Los Muertos or ” Day of the Dead. ”
There is no border between the countries of Mexico and the United States and buses run regular from Juarez to Albuquerque. Everyone here knows border talk is just talk and the cultures of North, South and Central America are merging like shoppers at a great flea market.
Brother Mark, visiting for a few days from Denver, wants a photo in front of the Breaking Bad Bus that takes visitors on a tour of Albuquerque locations featured on the popular TV series of the same name.
Shopping, we find pinon incense for his wife Leigh in one of the shops off the main plaza. There are also flashy ceramic tiles, polished rocks, pinon coffee, chili socks, wooden Indians, serapes, Day of the Dead skulls and statues, turquoise jewelry. One shop has Breaking Bad posters on the wall, and, in another, Sheldon looks at the world with his Big Bang Theory.
When you say the words Halloween and Albuquerque, over and over again, you start to lose your mind.
On the way out of Old Town, I scratch my head to make sure it is still up there, and, thankfully,it is.
I’m on my way soon for Belize and Ecuador.
I don’t, like this headless horseman, want to go anywhere without having something between my two ears.
.
Recent Comments