I kissed a stingray… and I liked it.

As a backpacker in foreign lands, there are many different sources of information you can use to direct your travels.  You can keep your nose buried in the guidebooks, which is safe but lacks the element of adventure  You can follow random locals’ advice which can be hit and miss depending on if they’re trying to sell you something or just giving you honest advice.  By far, my favourite way to go is on the word of other travelers.  Talking to fellow backpackers and finding out where they’ve been (both good and bad) is the most valuable info to obtain.  You can’t take everyone’s word as gold though.  Finding people who have common interests and who you gel with on a personal level usually produces the advice most suitable for you.  I met a lovely Swiss couple during my time hiking in Guatemala and when they heard I was going to Caye Caulker they immediately told me “You have to snorkel with Juni.”  I took their advice and it was by far one of the coolest experiences of my life so far.  A big ‘thank you’ to Simone and Marc.

♠ Snorkeling with Juni ♠

Caye Caulker, Belize.  Christmas Eve morning.  I wake up early to have a coffee and catch the sunrise over the Caribbean.  It’s been quite windy the last two days but today the sea is calm.  I take a walk down the sandy streets to the local bakery just as it’s opening.  I pick up a loaf of fresh cinnamon bread for my breakfast needs (it makes for a delicious french toast).  I stop at Julia’s fruit stand to grab some, well.. fresh fruit.  And then I see Juni; a man of seventy plus years, sitting on his front porch.  I’d been meaning to go see him to set up the snorkeling tour that I’d been convinced to do.  I walk up to his stairs and in a calm tone, he asks “Can I help you young lady?”  I start my reply by telling him about the friends I met in Guatemala who referred me.  It seems as soon as he heard the word “friends” he cuts me off and says “Come on in.”  He seemed a bit somber at first; a reserved man of few words.  I tell him I’d like to arrange a tour sometime in the coming week.  He responds with “Well, what are you doing today?”  And so begins my journey.

Juni is a spiritual man.  He never received a formal education.  He was beaten by his father.  He swam out to the reef every day to escape his troubles at home.  That’s when he developed his connection with the sea.  The fish became his family.

Juni built his own boat.  It took him six months.  “Everyday” he tells me – “sun up to sun down”.  No power tools, everything by hand.  She’s a beauty.  We set sail just before 10am.  He runs the motor at the lowest speed.  The sun is out but there’s a cool ocean breeze.  We take our time, let the sail catch the wind and go slow.  It is Belize after all.

We arrive at the first site: Shark Ray Alley.  Immediately after our boat anchors at the reef – a small group of fish gather underneath Juni’s boat.  They hover here, as if waiting for their friend to come out and play.  Fins, mask, snorkel, check.  We enter the water.  Every other tour boat on the reef chucks buckets of bait overboard into the water to attract the creatures that the “Gringos” pay big bucks to see – sharks, rays, eels, turtles, etc.  Juni doesn’t do this.  He has no need to.  The fish seem to know him and accept him as one of their own.  Soon after he enters the water he develops a small posse that follow him for the entirety of our time in the water.  Not once does he feed them.  One of the fish that finds him is a stingray he’s been “playing with” for twenty eight years.  On the surface he mentioned she might come around and if he gave the signal, he wanted us to lie flat on our backs so the sting ray could give us a kiss.  I kind of thought he was joking.  He was not.  As soon as the ray comes around, Juni makes some noises with his hands as if to call her towards him.  She swims around him playfully a few times before he approaches her.  He holds his arms out and she swims to him.  He nods at me to come over as I was closest to him at the time.  I lie on my back and before I know it, the ray is resting on my stomach.  Her face is inches from mine.  I’m strangely at ease.  For whatever reason, I have full faith in this mysterious man and have no problem with a  creature with a potentially lethal stinger placed on top of me.  Distracted by the fact there’s a stingray on my belly, I take in a big gulp of salt water through my snorkel and start coughing.  I panic and give the ray a push so I can get to the surface for air.  She doesn’t seem that bothered thankfully and swims off me.  I escape without being stung.  I’m glad, as a sting could result in serious injury or death (both of which would put a real damper on my trip).  The next time it was my turn to hold the giant creature, I take a big breath before lying flat.  This time I’m more prepared when Juni hands her to me.  She lays on me for a few seconds and then proceeds to swim directly over my face.  In case you were wondering – the underbelly of a stingray feels slippy, spongy, silky, soft, and somewhat slimy all at the same time (this sentence brought to you by the letter ‘s’).  I don’t really think anything of it for the rest of my time in the water but what just happened was pretty incredible.  How many people get a chance to be kissed by a stingray?

Now in his early seventies, Juni tells us it’s his last season doing tours.  His body is telling him it’s time to stop.  I feel honoured and privileged to have interacted with the sea and it’s creatures under Juni’s guidance.  It’s something I’ll remember for the rest of my days.  I’ll never be able to thank this man enough for an incredible day in the water.

Juni.

♠

Here’s eight minutes of raw footage from my day.  We lucked out and saw one of Juni’s fisherman friends dropping food into the water nearby our first snorkeling site.  We quickly jumped back in the water and got to play with about twenty rays and a couple turtles.  No biggie.

Category : Travel
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