900 and Counting

You just never know what is going to prompt the next posting. Take this morning for example.

Dianna went down to the pool house to take a short nap and came back up fairly quickly. She said, "Well, that was a bust."

"Why, what's wrong?" I said, expecting a broken pipe or something.

"Army ants. They're taking over the pool house."

Well, that's always a cool thing to watch. This would mark the sixth time we've been invaded by army ants since we built this place. They come in for a couple of hours and leave, taking all sorts of vermin with them, leaving your house virtually bug free.

We traced them up into the garden where it soon became apparent that their target this time was the smaller biting ants. I don't know what type they are, not the red ants, not the crazy ants, just biters. There was a pitched battle going on by this one bush in the garden, and it looked like the army ants were winning.

We could see the smaller ants out in front,running away, carrying eggs. So at least a few would get away. It didn't look like the army ants were coming any closer (right now) to our main house, but we followed them back to the other side of the pool house to see where they were coming from.

That was fairly obvious right away. Over the fence from the field just north of our place. But there were even more of them heading back out the same way, and each of them was carrying eggs. Something told us that it wasn't their eggs they were carrying, but the smaller ants eggs.

So, we traced them back to our gumbo limbo tree in the patio that we have several orchids growing on. This was the site of the main battle, obviously (to us, not so much in the photos) Army ants were all over the orchids and fighting with the smaller ants.

Gumbo Limbo With Orchid

 This is a black orchid, Belize's national flower. It was also home for the smaller ants who were rather unceremoniously being evicted, or at least, really having their apple cart upset.

Site of the Battle Royal

It may not look like many ants at a time, but three or four trails of them going constantly for a couple of hours, and you've got a huge number of ants.

Army Ants On the March

If you expand the picture, you can see fairly well, the larve being hauled off.

Hauling Off Eggs and larve

And here's the main trail of them going over the fence - both directions. This trail has been going for about two and-a-half hours now.

Over the Fence

It was just as well that the army ants were raiding. We've been pestered for months in the pool house and the Mennonite house by the smaller ants. Nothing we did seemed to be able to get rid of them. We tried ant bait of a couple different varieties - didn't make a dent. The only thing that was marginally effective was dusting cinnamon where we didn't want the ants. It's effective at keeping them at bay, but only for a few days. Still better than nothing.

The photo below shows Nelson, one of our two kitties, relaxing under a cool cover. It's a micro-fibre damp cloth that keeps the user cool for a couple hours at a time, till the water evaporates. He stayed under it for a good hour or so. It's a rough life, isn't it?

Nelson, Enjoying the Cool

Say, before I forget. You're probably wondering what the title of this post has to do with anything. Well, it's to mark the 900th post I've made for this blog. It got started shortly before we moved down here, with the idea that i was going to just document our trip down here and maybe a little after we arrived.

900 posts ends up being a lot of posts. They're all still online too. You can access them through the index feature on the right-hand column. So, enjoy. We'll see what happens for the next 900 or so.

Cheers

Paradise in a Mud Pit

So, the weather has improved enough that we've been able to use our pool for two days running, and I have high hopes for today as well.

The down side is that the road in front of Casa Winjama and adjacent to here has about eight inches of mud and a good three inches of water on top of that. In addition, the forty to sixty loads of rock that Transport put in has gotten rid of the really deep holes, it's just left an amazingly bumpy and uncomfortable ride. What fun.

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And this from the files of Odysseus or someone like him.

And you touch the distant beaches with tales of brave Ulysses.

How his naked ears were tortured by the sirens sweetly singing.

Sparkling waves are calling you to touch her white laced lips.

-- Cream, Tales of Brave Ulysses, Live Cream, Vol. 2

 I got this message Tuesday from Kyler, Gerhard's wife:

We need your help... Sunday, Gerard was sailing near Orchid Bay when a bad storm hit. He capsized and lost his Hobie to huge waves. He spent fifteen hours in the sea . Monday, he and some guys searched for the boat to no avail.

 Later on Tuesday,  Gerhard reported the errant boat had been found in Sarteneja.

Now, I don't know about you, but fifteen hours bobbing around in the briney, is no slouch activity for anyone, much less someone of slightly advancing years. There was no mention of any hypothermia, injuries, or how Gerhard managed to extricate himself from his predicament.

Gerhard, you've simply got to stop listening to those sirens when you're out on the bounding main.

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Rodney and MiFi

This was a comment from Mr. Pancho (Rodney) about MiFi. Don't know MiFi from WiFi or HiFi? Don't worry, all will be made clear.

"Dave, It dawned on me that you snuck in that you switched from satellite to MiFi. Could you elaborate on that? Amy and I will both have internet jobs if we move to Belize (doing medical coding work) and will need a reliable internet source. I doubt there will be any wires ran up Consejo road for a wired connection. - Rodney"

In the heady days of HiFi - I can remember getting an FM adapter for the AM radio in my 1965 Valiant convertible. This super gizmo allowed me to receive what was then just coming in - FM radio - not even stereo, just plain old mono - the way God intended it - at least in my car.

I could listen to all the non-top 40, album-oriented rock by some really free-wheeling DJs. It was known as 'underground' or 'Free-form' FM, and eventually became known as 'progressive rock' along with the commercials which, at the time were almost unheard of and nothing was played that remotely showed up on top-40 stations or Dick Clark's American Bandstand out of Philadelphia, PA. Anyone remember listening to 'Mother' on some station in San Francisco, say around 1968? Some wonderful sets came over the air

So, enough of Hi-Fi. Just a flash on WiFi. If you've ever gotten on-line in Starbucks or some other joint or even wirelessly at home - That's WiFi. It needs a wireless router, ya-da, ya-da, ya-da. You know all about that.

So, along comes MiFi. It's probably been out for a while, I just discovered it a few months ago, when some friends here said they had dumped their cable internet provider, or whatever and gone down to the local Smart Phone Center (here in Belize anyway) and gotten a tiny little MiFi box.

MiFi, at least with Smart (Digicell will soon be offering their version of MiFi, according to a text Dianna got from Digicell), is sold by data in Gigabytes, as opposed to time.increments. Smart's prices are $30-1 GB, $50-2 GB, $70-5 GB, on up to $150-25GB packages. You can purchase either prepaid or postpaid.

We signed up for a 10 GB package. It looks like we're using roughly 3 GB per day (Thanks to David for being so alert to catch this goof - d) Would you believe three days and 1 GB? Me too. So, that should just about equal a month of internet service for us, although I can see us moving up to a 15 GB package just to give us that little bit more.

Right now, we're paying $90 BZD for the 10 GB package. That's less than half what Hughesnet cost us per month. Startup is much less and easier as well. Hughenet cost about $2000 US for the dish, modem, and installation. MiFi cost about $100 BZD. You carry it home in your pocket and then turn it on. What could be simpler?

So far, I've found it visibly faster than Hughesnet satellite, plus there's no Fair Access Policy (FAP) to worry about. That was what finally decided us on switching to MiFi.

MiFi also seems to be almost completely impervious to hiccups due to weather. We've had virtually no service interruptions since signing up (just about a month now).

With the MiFi, you can have up to five devices hooked up simultaneously. The downside is the thing only has a 30-foot range. There is some equipment you can buy that will 1) remove the five device limitation, and 2) significantly extend the range of the thing.

The other downside is that I can't use my Network Attached Storage (NAS) drive. At least, if that's not the case, I haven't found out how to do it yet. I have hopes however.

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The Road

We just completed our third day without significant rain. Wow! For the past few days, our road has been really bumpy, I mean really bumpy. It's also had about eight inches of mud and water still on top, though having the deep holes filled was a definite benefit. Just today, we had the grader come back through and smooth out the road. It looks like there'll be a good chance of having walkies in the morning. First time in weeks if it happens. Keep your fingers crossed.

Rocks Aplenty

Amazing what twelve loads of rock (the total is now closer to sixty loads! - d) will do for a few holes in the road. That all arrived yesterday afternoon and early evening. It made an almost immediate difference in the road. For the most part, yesterday afternoon was dry, well that is, without rain. The roadway was as wet as it has been for weeks, even with the rocks being delivered.

It was interesting watching vehicles go by - some not trusting what was going on on the road, so they took the bypass through the vacant lots. Most of those got stuck, even if it was only for a few minutes. Did I mention last time that we're pretty sure that slightly more than sixty vehicles have become stuck since this began? Better than watching television, I tell you.

Here's the first dump truck load of rock being delivered. It really was a welcome sight. And, as I'm writing this, load number 13 was just dropped. So far, that's about 195 yards of rock in the roadway. Not bad. And, the rain is just now starting again, after having slacked off for most of the morning. It had rained pretty much steadily all night long, and for the road to be passable this morning, I'd say that was a good test.

Load One

Second load showed up shortly after the first (as you might guess).

The Next One Arrives

A little after the second load was delivered, the Belize Water Service guys, who had also gotten stuck in the muck for an hour or so yesterday afternoon, arrived and began conducting what appeared to be rudimentary tests involving a long skinny stick, to see if any of their pipes had been broken. Of special concern was the deep ditch running across the road where the worker is below. That is where a feeder line from the main runs over to Mae and Craig's house. Apparently nothing had gone amiss, as shortly after, rock was dumped all along that way.

BWS Protecting Their Pipes

As in, like this load being dumped below.

Another Load Going In

Initially, the roadway looks deceptively smooth and even. You can't tell that it's hiding a hole across the roadway that's about three-and-a-half to 4-feet deep.

Deceptively Shallow Looking

And here's the load that's actually going into that hole.

Bombs Away

A Little Here, A Little There

Incoming

Quite a few load go into making this bit fairly solid again. And even the dump truck runs the risk of getting mired in the muck. He spun his wheels a good little bit before he was able to work himself free to dump his load.

Almost Stuck

And, just as a change of pace, let's face the other way as we dump our load, OK?

Doing It The Other Direction

For the last load of the evening, the truck is almost hidden from view as he runs the bed up.

Almost Hidden From View

This morning, I ran the Isuzu over the rocks into town to make the mandatory stop at the Belikin distributors, and at the grocery store for necessary supplies. This was about 7:30 AM. The roadway was very bumpy, but still, it was far better than trying to float across the sea of mud.

After I dropped off the beer, groceries, and the doggies, who had gone with me for the shopping trip, I went back over it again, even rougher than the first trip, as the grader was back and had things really messy. I had to get the car up to Rick the mechanic so he could work on the brakes. The way it usually works is, I pick Rick up from his shop and we come back to our place. Then he takes the Isuzu and does his work on it, and brings it back to us when done. So how many of you up north have home visits from your mechanic?

After I got dropped off by Rick, The super-duper 'single-drum vibratory road roller' showed up and began really getting the rockery smoothed out on the road way. That big wheel vibrates a lot, and just bashes the rocks down. Pretty cool machine really. We last saw it here about two years ago when it smoothed the whole road.

Road Roller

After this last shot below, showing the whole team, the dump truck, the grader, and the roller, the dump truck dropped the fourteenth load of rock, the others smoothed it out and bashed it down and now they've moved just south of us working around Dr. Mike and Shelley's place and Denis and Vivien's as well. I'm not going to go down there and take photos. You've probably got a pretty good idea of what's going on down there by now.

Load #14 and the Whole Crew

I'm not sure if they're going to be bringing any more loads in for our area. It'd be nice if they brought in some loads of marl eventually, as sort of a top-dressing for the road, but as long as we're having almost constant rain, bringing marl in would probably be a waste of time. Anyway, it's like a 'whole nuther road' out there now. All nice and not full of holes and ditches and stuff.

Mud Wrestling

Today's the 17th of September. So far this month, we've had fourteen days of rain and two without. Today will be added to the official count, so make that fifteen days of rain.

Last month, August, we had eighteen days of rain and sixteen without. The rain started about the 13th of August. That sort of means we've been having near constant rain for, oh, about thirty-three freaking days in a row! Give me a break, will ya?!

Along with that, Dianna and I have been keeping a rough guesstimate of the number of vehicles that have become 'stuck in the muck' - we just got another one as I'm writing this. Conservatively, we think we're over sixty vehicles mired in the goo. Including a Belize Water Service (BWS) truck yesterday afternoon.

I got an email yesterday morning from Dean, a friend of ours from Orchid Bay, over on the Sarteneja peninsula. Here's a brief exerpt:

"...Did you hear our crash on Saturday evening in front of your place?  I hit the water at 15 mph and hit the 2 foot hole. Bounced 3 to 4 times, tore off my light plug on my rear bumper, hurt my back, bounced my passengers around. The road all the way to the ferry was bad..."

A short time later, this bit from Chuck, who also lives in Orchid Bay. Dean had picked Chuck and his wife Jamie from Chetumal, Mexico, on their return from a cruise over in Europe:

"...We passed by your place last night on our way back from the airport at Belize City via [a friend's] truck - and nearly right in front of your place we hit the Mud Hole from Hell and all four of us hit our heads on the truck ceiling, which explains why they call it a "Head Liner" (On account of it leaves lines on your head). The fact that we made it all the way back home must rank as some sort of a miracle.  But nonetheless we did make it home, well after dark.

The road the rest of the way to the ferry is so bad that you couldn't even hold a mud-wrestling match in it without some handicapping for all entrants. Man, I mean to say, that is some serious mud.  You guys must have had quite a bit of rain in the last couple of weeks..."

Yesterday, I had to get some supplies from in town, but I knew there was no way that I was going to attempt to cross the great muddy of Ferry Road. I called Doug and Twyla, who live just north of us, but away from the muddy patch to see, if they were heading into town for some reason, if I could hitch a ride with them to get my shopping done. They were nice enough to allow me to go with them.

I greased up with bug juice, put my back pack on (I needed some way to haul the groceries on our return) and began the walk up to their house. I avoided the road and the muddy track of vehicles through the vacant lots north of our place, and still I was hiking through about six inches of mud and about three to four inches of water on top of that for most of the trek through the lots.

Once past the muddy patch of the road, I got back on the road up to Doug and Twyla's. Once there, I hosed off my legs and sandals loosing about a good pound of mud in the process.

After we completed our shopping and had returned to their house, I spent several minutes on their porch loading up my pack and a couple extra plastic bags, carrying things that it didn't matter if they got wet or not.

Same thing after I got back. A few minutes with the hose and I was good to go again. At least it didn't rain while I was hiking either direction.

While we were shopping, Doug needed to stop at our mechanic Rick's place about some repairs he needed. I took the opportunity as well, and talked to Rick about my needed brake job for the Isuzu. I mentioned to Rick that I thought I'd be able to bring it up to his shop the following day (that'd be today), if it didn't rain. Hah! Guess it's still going to be a few days before I can get up to Rick's to have him look at the brakes.

So far this morning, we've already had three stuckees in the muck and it's only approaching 7:30 AM. The day is young... and, it's still raining.

Stuck in the Muck Again

Yesterday was interesting from a watching cars, trucks, and buses trying to negotiate the flooded road adjacent to our place perspective. Throughout the day and especially the afternoon, people were getting tired of getting stuck in the road. There've been, oh somewhere around a dozen vehicles of all sizes stuck yesterday and three so far this morning.

Last evening, after dark, we had at one time three vehicles simultaneously stuck - a pickup, a sedan and a Bluebird bus. The two smaller ones had swung wide off the road into a vacant lot and had become mired. They thought that driving through grass would avoid the problems of going through the muck of the main roadway. Silly people.

The bus tried to make a go of staying near the center line of the road with a standing room only crowd of passengers and became one with the muck. Only temporarily. He was able to break free after about twenty minutes of miredom.

The evening's festivities started around 7:30 PM, a couple hours after dark. They were attempting to return home after taking part in holiday celebrations in town. There had been a large parade, live music, and all that goes with that, and then attempting to drive and negotiate a tricky bit of mud and about two to three feet of water in the road, and you have a recipe for a slow trip home.

First, the car got stuck out in the grass, which only concealed the muck that was everywhere. It's amazing that folks here think once you get stuck, that revving your vehicle's engine to the redline and beyond is a sure remedy to becoming unstuck. Especially when most are running 'slicks', that is, tires with little or no tread. I'm amazed that none of the engines blew up right then, knowing the general state of repair and maintenance of most Belizean motors.

Second, here came the pickup, following the same track as the car. Sure enough, almost side by side, they both were mired in the muck, and the grass. Once the both decided that revving their engines wasn't going to free them, things got quiet again. Oh sure, we heard voices out in the dark, and the unmistakeable splash of some unlucky soul who decided to make a full-body experience of it and fell into the stuff.

As I'm writing this, you just wouldn't believe, the fourth or fifth vehicle this morning just became mired in the roadway. It's the second time for this one. Yesterday, he was able to work himself out, but from the looks of things, I doubt that's happening today.

Second Time Around

Well, back to last evening's festivities... We spent some time then watching what little we could see in the dark through our window louvers. There wasn't much that we could have done anyway to help. Our Isuzu is barely running. It's having problems keeping the parking or emergency brake from seizing up, and besides, it's only a two-wheel drive and we don't have a hitch. Not much value in mud for extracting folks. I almost got stuck myself yesterday afternoon coming back from the store.

So, on with the story. About 9:00 PM yesterday evening, along comes the bus, and it gets stuck right in the middle of the roadway. As I mentioned, it's packed, standing room only, with revellers from the days holiday celebration festivities in town.

Dianna had already asked me if I was going to call the police about the road. "No," I said. They're not going to do anything anyway.

Dianna, being the kind soul she is, then took it upon herself to try calling the Corozal Police - apparently the phone number we have for the Corozal station has been changed, as she got a recording saying that number was no longer in service.

Next, she tried the Ministry of Works or Transport up in Ranchito. No answer. Finally, she tried the Corozal Fire Department. No answer there either.

We hadn't tried 9-1-1 as we didn't think it was really a life-threatening emergency. Our thinking began to change after the bus became mired. Dianna tried 9-1-1 and got a busy signal. Probably not surprising, as it is the one answering point for the whole country and is in Belize City, and... Did I mention that it was still raining, off and on?

About the time she called 9-1-1, the bus finally managed to work itself free and continue on its way toward the ferry and the Sarteneja Peninsula.

By this time, Dianna is frustrated and somewhat upset with our lack of ability to contact response agencies. Her parting shot was an agitated "Boy, it's a good thing I don't do the blog!", accompanied with exaggerated keystroke thrashings of her hands and fingers.

I laughed, because there have been many times when I'd 'flame-on' over something and write a posting for the blog and she'd tell me, "I want to review your posting before you send it." That, of course, would usually give me a chance to cool down and reconsider what I had penned.

Ain't life grand? It all works out for the best in the end...

Cheers

What *ls* *an Go Wrong?

If you *an't gu*ss, my k*yboar* has gon* on th* fritz.

When I first got up this morning, I did my usual of logging on to my laptop, or at least I attempted to log on. What I got at the log-on screen was a rather terse "Password Not Valid". No big deal. I probably fumble-fingered it, so I re-entered the password. Two down.

I carefully re-entered the password. Same thing. Uh-oh. Did my laptop get hi-jacked during the night? Impossible. It wasn't on. Perhaps a sleeper bot of some sort? Or maybe when I turned it on this morning, some neer-do-well just waiting for me to log-on.

After nearly having a coronary, I decided to try one of those special log-on screens that you usually ignore and blow by. So, I re-started and hit F2 to boot up in safe mode. Once I got the log-on screen I re-entered the password. No go. But, at the same time, inspiration hit. Bring up the on-screen keyboard and give it a go with that.

That was the magic thing. It soon became apparent that my keyboard was screwed up, and that the '3', 'e', 'd', and 'c' keys had decided to take a holiday. So, what do I do now? I decided that I'll pop off the offending keys and see if there's some debris under them that is hindering operations.

As an aside here, you might be wondering how I'm writing this without lots of errors. That's because I've borrowed Dianna's laptop to write this. Pretty smart, eh?

So, far, I only removed one key to see how hard it was to remove and replace. I just haven't gotten around to doing the other keys yet. If that doesn't do the trick, then I'll remove the whole keyboard (easy-peasy. There's even YouTube videos on how to do it) and see if I can clean up the whole thing. Maybe that'll free up the keys in question. If not, then I think I'll have to go down to BluePC and have them order me a replacement keyboard. Hopefully, that will be easy to do.

Speaking of things being stuck - Day before yesterday, I had my trusty shopping list and went out to the Isuzu to head into town, check the mail, get supplies, and give Otilia, out cleaning lady, a ride to our house so she didn't have to snorkle through the puddles.

The Isuzu fired right up, I dropped it into reverse and sat there. I couldn't even spin the wheels. Uh-oh. Not a good sign. Brakes are jammed. I wasn't real sure what to do, other than give our mechanic, Rick Magaña, a call and seek his advice.

He said it was doubtful that it was the front wheels. "They're really hard to jam up.", he said. You'll need to jack up the rear end and see if a wheel won't spin in neutral. Then you'll have to un-jam it.

I also checked the Intertubes for advice and videos on just how to do that. Then, I remembered I didn't ever replace my hydraulic jack from Cinty's. It was too short to work as an effective jack. So, I called David and asked if I could borrow his mega-heavy duty hydraulic jack. "Sure, no problem." In fact, they were nice enough to bring it by for me.

I delayed using it till the following day (yesterday) when the parking area had dried out enough - more properly, become water free enough that I could lay down and slide the jack under the rear axle.

As luck would have it, I found the stuck wheel on the first try. It was a relatively simple matter to jack up the Isuzu, remove the wheel, whack the drum several times with my small sledge, get the wheel to spin, re-mount the tire and be able to head into town for necessary shopping.

I suspect it froze up because of the many trips through the water on the roadway, and the mud, and who knows what else. Anyway, Rick was nice enough to call back yesterday to see if I had gotten it un-frozen. I thought that was a nice touch. How many mechanics up north would do that and not charge you anything? I told Rick, that as soon as I was able, I'd be bringing the Isuzu to him for him to go through the parking break stuff and lube/replace the cable and springs for the parking brake, as needed.

Let's see, what else? Nelson, is quite the dedicated hunter. He's been bringing in, at least once an evening, either mice, Jesus lizards (basilisk lizards), geckos. or huge moths. The moths are a favorite of his as they give him the opportunity to really show off his athletic prowess.

We always know when he's coming in with something, because he comes through the kitty door or through the people dore and doesn't look in our direction. He heads straight for the bathroom, where we soon hear him jumping and thrashing about. Although April is also a hunter, she's not near as single-minded about hunting as is Nelson.

Here he is with his catch from yesterday evening. One of his favorite big moths. They apparently make for great sport as well as a good snack. Most everything gets eaten - including wings. Ummm, good, I'm sure.

Nelson and His Playtoy

Now, I'm loath to mention it again, but rain, that four-letter word, is still with us. So far today, we've gotten over .40 inches of wet stuff. Yesterday, we got a little over .53 inches of it, and for the month, we've gotten over 8 inches.

I just want to remind you what we're here for and it's not the wet stuff. The photo below is one I took one of the last times I could walk the doggies (29 August, 2013) of an actual sunrise here in Corozal. Isn't that spectacular? Makes you want to put your shades on just to look at it.

I Remember What This Is Called

OK, that's enough torture for now. I've got a keyboard to look after, and moth wings to clean up.

Cheers

Potholes and Speed Bumps

Potholes and Speed Bumps - That's just about the Yin and Yang of it right there for Belize roads.

Since I think that I might just get tired writing about the rain - I mean, rain is rain is rain, and we've certainly been getting our share of the stuff. It seems like we have been anyway. We lived in the Northwest part of the U.S. for a bit better than twenty years, so we know all about rain with nine months of it at time.

We moved to Corozal, because this was one of the 'driest' spots in Belize (we tried to find the Great Mayan Desert, but that apparently got misplaced somewhere). Now, this stuff, happening every day, seemingly forever for at least the last three or four weeks anyway, just kind of puts a capper on it.

So, how about I write about speed bumps and potholes instead? What brought these two things to mind was a posting on a blog I saw the other day: Speed Bump (http://what-if.xkcd.com/61/). Now, I know it might seem like there's no connection between rain and speed bumps... well, there isn't. That's why I mentioned the blog posting above. But what about potholes, you ask? Now, there is a connection between potholes and rain. Potholes may not necessarily be caused by rain, but, in many cases, they're exacerbated by rain.

Sure rain softens the marl, and that leads to creation of potholes, even patched potholes on pavement, since they use marl as the fill of the hole and then cover it with a thin layer of asphalt. I'm sure there's other causes, but those are the only ones that come to mind right now.

Speed bumps, somewhat unsurprisingly, if you take them  at speed, can and do cause a variety of back injuries and vehicle damage. For example, some articles have said that the vertabrae 'L1' was the most frequently fractured vertebrae in accidents, and accounted for about forty-four percent of injuries.

It was reported that 'people are occasionally injured by speed bumps.' Here in Belize, with the number of speed bumps we have, that would seem to be a 'no-sh**' kind of statement. But, the literature suggests that nearly all of those injuries happened to  people sitting on hard seats in the backs of buses, and/or 'riding on poorly-maintained roads.' I think this is another of the above kind of statement. Ahh, poorly-maintained roads... something we're completely unfamiliar with here.

So, it seems that, here in Belize, we're faced with a three-edged sword, if it were possible, consisting of speed bumps, pot holes, and poorly maintained roads.

Lincoln Eiley, author of the Corozal Daily... (Sometimes) newsletter, just did a piece on poor roads in the Corozal area. He focused mostly on the tourism potential, mentioning the border inspection area,which has always been an eyesore, as the thing that greets new arrivals to the Belize northern border.

Arrival Area Belize Border. Courtesy Corozal Daily

He also gave mention of 7th Avenue, and that it is the responsibility of the Ministry of Works and Transport, but they're obviously short of money, so the Corozal Town Council has made several repairs to that stretch of road. Gosh, it'd be nice if the Town Council, the Ranchito Village Board, or the Transport Department (same thing as the Ministry of Works and Transport, just easier and faster to write. So, it's understood that Works Dept. or Transport Dept. pretty much means the same thing - at least in this context.) could see their way to fix the stretch of road in our area, but that's probably way too much to hope for in the next day or two.

I'm guessing that potholes can cause just as many injuries and damage as speed bumps. They're, more or less, 'negative speed bumps'. Even at low speed, potholes have the potential to cause injury and damage. Several times, I've actually had the steering wheel of my Isuzu jerked out of my hands when hitting a pothole. How is that possible, you ask? Well, with rainfall comes the hiding of potholes when the roadway is covered with water. All too easy to really whack a pothole when you can't see them.

Speed bumps are designed to make drivers slow down. Potholes are not so much 'designed', but they are just as effective at making drivers slow down. The two main things protecting you from either hazard are your vehicle tires and suspension. The tires absorb the shock of striking the speed bump or pothole by compressing. This is called the tire's 'cushion.' It's the separation between the bottom of the rim and the ground and is about three to four inches, unless you're running those ridiculous low profile tires which might be OK up north on manicured road surfaces, but here, with our roads? Naturally, we still see them on some sporty vehicles.

Of course, if you hit a speed bump or pothole hard enough, the tire might compress such that it exceeds it's design limits for compressibility and explodes, or if the speed bump or pothole is large enough, permanent damage to your vehicle can be the result, not to mention, what potentially can happen to the people riding in and on the vehicle. I'm thinking here of people riding in the backs of pickup trucks and in the beds of other types of trucks.

If you hit one of the really large speed bumps (the official name for these monsters is a 'speed-table', well, all bets are off. You'll probably be launched into orbit.

Here in Belize, these huge speed bumps do double duty. They mark pedestrian rights-of-way, one of the few places where pedestrians have the right of way.

Just a final note here. I've talked to at least a couple of people who have talked to representatives of the Ministry of Works and Transport here in Ranchito, who have assured them that help (or salvation?) was on the way. In looking out my window, so far, all I see is more rain. Several folks have gotten stuck, some able to extricate themselves, some having to wait for friends to tow them out. It'll get better as soon as the dry season arrives... I'm sure.

Well, It Is the Rainy Season...

Yeah, that may be, but we're still sick of it. Bring us some sunshine and dry weather and a dry road too, while you're at it.

Ok, pardon me while I dip into the records department of my weather station. Here's the rainfall accumulation for August. What was that? You notice an upward trend? Eyah, me too.

August Rainfall Chart

Ok, and here's what's going on outside our window right now. What was that about an upward trend?

Today's Rainfall Accumulation

Mr. Kelly, a neighbor of ours, can talk about accumulated rainfall. His car is sitting right outside, deader than a doornail. He tried to go through one of our puddles just a tad too fast. Papi came by with his car and tried to help. I'm not sure if any of them realized you need to dry out the electrical system before trying to jump start Mr. Kelly's car. It was an unsuccessful effort.

Mr. Kelly's Car - Dead in the Water

Just a couple of minutes ago, someone took his car under tow - backwards, back to Mr. Kelly's place to dry out. Maybe it'll run again.

Here's the rainfall rate from the weather station. Not insignificant.

Today's Rainfall Rate

A bit later on, one of the supervisors from Fuita Bomba, the papaya growing multinational conglomerate, came by on his quad. I shot the photo through the window screen with the flash on unfortunately. But after some cropping and other manipulation, you get a fair idea of what's happening out on our road.

Fruita Bomba Quad Fording the Road

Here's another pickup coming through. This time, quite a bit more restrained and successful at navigating the water hazard.

Navigating Safely Through

And finally, here's today's glimpse of the humidity. Not surprising since it's raining right now. Even without the rain, it's generally up around 80 to 90 percent or so. Just thought you'd like to know.

Humidity Today

If the rain stops, it'll take three to four days for this stretch of road to dry out enough for the doggies and me to go for walkies. So far, we've been losing on that score. Just about the time the road firms up enough, then we get another dousing and it turns back into a lake.

Sooner or later, one can only hope, things will change. But, for that to happen, there has to be some reading between the lines, you might say, since we didn't used to have this much of a problem.