the biazed blog

I have to use a ppc Powerbook G4 at the moment. I installed ubuntu-pcc, because in mac OS X I can't get work done effectivly. Using slightly non mainstream hardware is quite eye opening. E.g. in terms of the propitary software out there. One can't use flash, skype and basically any non open source programme, because these companies don't bother releasing a version working with that kind of processor/OS. This makes me even a stronger suporter of software libre.

A long standing bug for mplayer causes mplayer to crash when playing video. Quite a problem for me, because I use mplayer all the time!

Can fix these kind of bugs myself, but a quick, dirty workaround is:

• remove mplayer (apt-get remove mplayer)
• download an old version. (wget http://security.ubuntu.com/ubuntu/pool/multiverse/m/mplayer/mplayer_0.99+1.0pre7try2+cvs20060117-0ubuntu8.2_powerpc.deb)
• downgrade (dpkg -i mplayer_0.99+1.0pre7try2+cvs20060117-0ubuntu8.2_powerpc.deb)

now ignore the mplayer package for any further updates.

hope this helps.

Yesterday I finally finished working on the Journal that I wrote during our two month journey through Central America. It's a google map overlay with small speech bubbles at the places we visited. It certainly takes quite a bit of time to read all of it, be warned! Get it here.

There are also a bunch of pictures online, they're in my regular gallery.

my cute little laptop is gone, I forgot it in a store and it was gone afterwards. I´m now writing the journal by hand and fill everything once I´m back in Berlin.

So enjoy the silence =)

Belize city is so disgusting! Hot, smelly, dirty, polluted, chaotic and - yes again - dirty. We stopped here out of curiosity and the fact that we needed to refuel our stomaches. We did indeed find a good place to eat (rice, beans and meat - as usual for Caribbean food) and took an espresso. But we were quite contend as we left the town. There may be a vibrant music culture and an astonishing ethnic diversity (Chinese, Afro-Caribbeans, Latinos, Mennonites) and due to its high hurricane probability it may not make sense to clean up things very tidily. However, this town didn't even deserve a photo to be taken.

Wow, that was sooooo cool today. To put it all in one headline, we stood about half a meter next to a crocodile, a black and a coloured jaguar, we saw jumping monkeys ('spider monkeys' to be precise), colourful and huge birds (... and 'Harpy eagle'), anteaters and other cute or funny animals. The zoo is in a very good condition and has small trails that are themselves embedded into the jungle. I took so many pictures that the battery of my camera ran out...
We continued for another minute on the western highway and at the crossing to Dagringa we asked a guy about the condition of this (knowingly problematic) highway (well in truth it's more a dirt road). Due to the strong rainfalls of the last days he strongly recommended us to use the inland highway (paved and less prone to flooding).
After that (and because it was late), we continued to the capital of Belize instead, Belmopan. It's a planned city (80's) and it's location has been chosen to be away from the hurricane endangered coast. Also, Belize City was a suffering from a high crime rate at that time. Much of it resembles an ordinary US-American city: boring, quiet and no real center, just streets. Lodging is more expensive here, but our room (27$) is way better than the Mexican accommodations.
We decided to wash some of our clothes and I'm seriously thinking about buying thongs for the next journey. I was so upset that Anna was so much faster than me. Their weight and fast washing properties are something to take into consideration. Of course one would also need to carry more of them along (in contrast to boxers).

We wanted to have a full day for crossing the boarder to Belize and also a little more time to explore the Laguna of Chetumal. It is also called the Lagune of the seven colours. After a couple of hours in the car crossing the Yucatan peninsula, we were badly in the need of swimming. After spotting the water a bit north of Chetumal, our mood rose 100-fold! That blue(s)! An increadible beach, crystal clear water and palm trees. We were excited and stopped at the first public beach. To make this even better, the water turned out to be not salty! Super bon! Wow!
The reason why we didn't work our asses up the Yucatan peninsula are quite clear to us, but may be worth mentioning. First and foremost, we already spent three weeks (of two planned) in Mexico. Secondly, there are only more colonial towns (less fancy than San Cristobal) and more Maya ruins (smaller than Palenque). Then - of course - there are the nice beaches, but those in Honduras are perhaps better, less americanized and thus less expensive. Honduras also has cheaper diving and longer coral reefs.

After all, the time in Mexico was great. If I shuffle through the pictures we took, I'm amazed by what we've seen already. Mexico is sympathic, somehow more reserved than I expected and surprisingly green. Alright, I have to admit that my pre-knowledge was rather low and I was reading the travel guide only on the way (or Anna read it, while I was driving). In my mind, Mexico was all yellow desert with occasional cacti and people would have a mentality that would be even more easy going that in the south of spain. It was interesting to learn that some of the most thriving and interesting cities (Xalapa and San Cristobal) are at high elevation with cool climate and quite a bit of rain. It has been also very rewarding to see that the mentality in Mexico was not what I expected. Males are less Macho than in southern Spain and the personal space is quite important and respected. For example, shopkeepers don't forwardingly question where one is from and always use the polite form (unlike casual Spaniards). It seems to me that some of the rules of the old 16th century Spain have been conserved more clearly than in their origin. That is understandable if one considers that Latino societies are rather conservative and family-sworn-in. That makes me think of a friend from El Salvador, who is proud to use the casual form with her father. Mexico is less chaotic than we've imagined and we never had someone offending us (e.g. no "gringo", absolutely nowhere). Is is also astonishing how much we (usually poor) students can afford here. A hotel is on average 200 pesos, i.e. 13€, divided by two). We are a bit uncomfortable with buying luxury that we'd never dare to touch in Europe (eating in restaurants, hotels). And one thing was also quite dominant: There is always a large extremely poor fraction of the population that offers street meals, peeled fruits or other products. Things nobody would do in our countries of origin. But of course it is comfortable to have this fraction around. Peeling fruits for you. And also for Mexicans. I'm unsure how well they benefit from the development of Mexico.
My spanish has come back, but I still lack a lot of vocabulary and the preterito & future two is almost unusable. Basically it's a big, big construction site and I doubt if I ever master it better than this.

Shokingly, we only have a bit more than 5 weeks left on our journey. Time is pressing us further southwards into Belize where we will spend only three days. Then we've got only one week per country! I'm looking forward to the people Guatemala, the mountains of El Salvador, the beaches in Honduras and the rain forest of Costa Rica. Anna is curious about the Lake in Nicaragua, hiking and picking up more spanish. After only two ruins, we've had almost enough of archeology, but we will visit Tikal in Guatemala and if we pass by something recommended we'll go for it.

Crossing the boarder has been a pleasant half an hour thingy. We first had to cancel the temporal car import on the Mexican side, which included paying 45$ to get our passport stamped again (!!WTF!!). The Belizian side however was very helpful and service friendly (almost like in the USA, but a lot more relaxed: e.g. one police checkpoint was not operated because of the heat - the officer stood next to a bush in the shadow and waved everybody through). Where we had to copy multiple documents and pay several fees (46$ + 30$) in Nuevo Laredo (when entering Mexico), we could just walk through immigration, show the title of the car, answer some questions and were all set to enter. An insurance office right after the border provides travel tips and a 15$ weekly liability insurance for the car. Oh by the way: In the meanwhile Margaritha temporarily shows three warning lights. The usual 'Check engine', the now constantly and annoyingly blinking 'O/D Off' and the casual 'low fuel' light. New record! Before walking through customs (which included bringing our bags out of the car to a table after immigration and putting them back without being searched or even looked at, the car got sprayed with some kind of anti-bacterium. This was to avoid carrying mouth and claw disease or bird flu into Belize (5$).

We started early that day and it was worth it! We reached Agua Azul (two 20-pesos-roadblocks or "park entrance fees" and some annoying vendors that block the road for selling bananas) earlier than the buses that bring tourists from Palenque and San Cristobal here. We had the cascades for us alone! It's a beautiful creation of nature and really worth a visit, but an hour or so is also sufficient for it. We took some pictures and left the area as the other visitors arrived - muhahaha - and continued straight to Palenque.

Palenque is the town that has on of the three best ancient Maya ruins in Central America. Itself rather boring and unbearingly hot, it provides the infrastructure for the masses of visitors (we're now directly on the maya/gringo route). After a lunch and about a liter of fresh orange juice each, we headed down to the ruins and gave it a shot. And yes, they are really cool! Personally I really liked the fact that one is allowed to climb (most of) them (I'm still angry about the Egyptian police that hindered me from that fun). The archaeological zone is embedded in the jungle and there is a cool river floating besides it (I took a small bath due to the heat!). After two hours or so (we were not really interested in the hair-splitting details), we continued in the air conditioned car (how noble!?) to our next sleep stop.

We left San Cristobal in the late afternoon (we had to watch the Germany vs. Austria Eurocup match before - I owed Anna a massage after that, dammit!). This was a fun mountain road again, and as it is in the heartlands of the Zapatista guerillias, infrastructure (e.g. gasoline) is pretty poor. But the road is in good condition and the military checkpoints did no harm to us. After one hour of driving, the road became more straight and we soon reached Orizaba to sleep in quite a smelly, but cheap hotel.