To Belize Or Not To Belize

We had to leave Mexico. Our tourist cards expired on July 16th so we decided to go to Belize. After living in shorts and bare feet it was hard to put the bike clothes back on. Even after sending home a bag of camping gear, we still had nowhere to store the jackets and boots. After dodging French backpackers in Valladolid, we crossed the Yucatan diagonally to the state of Quintana Roo and avoided most of the crowded Riviera Maya.

In Tulum I had a non-birthday. We went out to have a glass of wine but the whole town was a dry state for the weekend. Sunday was the presidential election and alcohol sales were banned until Monday morning. Still, a chaste evening made it easier to be at the ruins of the Mayan walled city by 7:30 AM. They’re perched on a cliff edge facing the Caribbean Sea and will go down as one of the most beautiful places we've ever visited. The town was disappointing though, with the sand and sea inaccessible except via a beach club or hotel. Plenty of seaweed washes up on these shores so I suppose it’s only natural that the sweeper gets paid.

The drive to Chetumal was very remote and a little boring. It’s a straight road south with low tropical jungle on either side and a few villages of palm-thatched huts with the ubiquitous hammocks inside. Women were standing on the roadside holding out bananas or other fruit for sale, but no gas stations. We were almost in Chetumal before one appeared and I did breathe a sigh of relief as we hadn’t filled the extra gas cans. A bigger than usual army truck pulled-in just as we were finishing, its back packed high with lady soldiers. They wore camouflage and red lipstick and were beautiful. They beamed huge smiles across the tarmac at me and we left them queuing-up for the one toilet. At 5 pesos a pop, it was turning out to be a good day for the attendant.

I’d never experienced two border crossings side-by-side before. By accident we went to the old one first and got stamped out of Mexico by a guard in a tiny hut. Then we drove back the way we came so we could return the bike permit at the new border crossing. When we entered Mexico in January we had to pay a deposit of $400.00 as guarantee we weren’t going to sell Pferdi for millions of pesos and abscond without paying the duties. After confirming and taking a photo of the VIN number, the nice lady at the Banjercito accepted it was indeed the same bike and returned our money. (It posted to our credit card the very next day, blasting several pre-conceived notions of Mexican efficiency to pieces.)

Click to enlarge images.

It felt odd and kind of lonely as we left Mexico. I hadn’t expected that, like we were leaving the womb. A big, loud, rowdy, womb but warm and familiar nonetheless. The road through No Man’s Land was the birth canal. A narrow, concrete corridor, it dipped low like it was going underground, had high walls on either side and we were on our own. Then we were spat out the other end and hurtled towards the Belize fumigation shed. We drove through. It seemed like nothing happened so we asked at the tiny office on the other side. He cheerfully told us we’d been fumigated and that’ll be BZ$5.00 please. At Immigration we were met with a wide smile and an incomprehensible Creole. Customs was more serious and I’d wished we’d planned a bit of an itinerary beyond the first day. “Exploring” wasn’t an acceptable answer to “Why are you here and where are you going?” In the end he sighed, gave the bike a 30-day permit and let us go. I was wondering why he hadn’t asked for the vehicle importation fees but that came a few minutes later in the parking lot. It was all very casual, but in an official way. Or vice versa, I’m not really sure. I was still worrying about them finding the Philadelphia cheese we’d forgotten to throw away in Mexico but they didn’t do a search. The final stop was at a white clapboard house just beyond the fence to buy insurance. Welcome to Belize!

You could feel the difference the minute we crossed the border. How an atmosphere recognizes a political line on a map beats me but it did. Everything was relaxed and, well…Caribbean. It was strange to hear English spoken again and the architecture was different, more beachy and with fewer bars on the windows. People waved from the roadsides and said hello on the streets, like 1970’s Ireland. The first night we stayed close to the border in Corozal. The sea was at the end of the street, separated from the road by a low wall. At intervals there were gaps where you could just hop in and go for a swim.

It was a long way to the jungle. We drove to the outskirts of Belize City and then turned east. There were no proper highways, just one empty, very well-worn two-laner. God forbid but there were more topas (speed bumps) than Mexico. Some were simple, cheap affairs of thick rope nailed into the sand but surprisingly effective. They made for an exhausting journey with the potholes and bumps rattling your head about while the neck strained under the weight of the helmet to keep it still. I cursed every time my arms crept outside the sidecar as wrists and elbows banged against metal during unexpected dives. Sometimes I even left my seat and was airborne for a second or two. That’s the easy bit. It’s the landing that’s hard on the insides. Nearly all the roads we traveled were like that. It’s as if the whole country is…….well, in the country.

We passed through the capital Belmopan, a blip on the landscape that now replaces Reykjavik as the smallest capital city we’ve ever visited. We reached San Ignacio which straddled both sides of the Macal river. Our side was the smaller, quieter one, if you disregard the road works. Walking across the metal suspension bridge, the night air was electrified and vibrating with the high-pitched buzzing of insects playing duets with the shrieking of howler monkeys. They call them baboons here. Several evenings the rains came and turned the street to mud. It was hot, humid and heavy and the hotel room door swelled until it would only close with a violent bang.

There were several grocery stores, all with Chinese names and all selling nothing we wanted to buy: ramin noodles, peanut butter and white bread with an expiry date of 2049. The restaurants on our side were small and hidden, nothing more than diners and shacks, but very worthwhile. What a joy it was to try a new cuisine! Coconut rice, stew pork and curry. We declined the cow foot soup but the fry jacks for breakfast more than made up for the instant coffee.

We strolled up the hill to the Mayan ruins of Cahal Pech and another day took the bike to Xunantunich which was reached by a 5 minute ferry ride across the green river. From the highest pyramid we looked down on the rainforests of Guatemala. The border was just 1 km away. I just stood there, not truly believing I was looking at the start of Central America. When we returned to the bike we found two camouflaged border soldiers intently inspecting Pferdi. One was sitting on the rack and looking comfortable so Fran gave him a quick driving lesson around the parking lot.

We had thought about visiting the cayes but the crowds put us off as well as the prices. Besides, no vehicles were allowed so that was that. Instead we drove to the coast where I had a palm and jungle-fringed beach practically to myself for four days. Hopkins is a small town with the beginnings of a tourist industry. There was no gas station, just an elderly man selling it out of plastic containers in his front yard. His last gallon sold just before we arrived so we limped to the hotel on fumes (we’d driven an extra 60 km by overshooting the turnoff). There were two grocery stores and one ATM machine. After two unsuccessful visits we found out it didn’t take cards with chips.

Belize is beautiful but still very poor. Everywhere it’s green, the jungle, the lawns surrounding the pyramids, even the turquoise sea is splashed green. The skies are endless with great puffy clouds and the people are friendly. On the one hand the atmosphere was easygoing and peaceful, like a Reggae song. On the flip side “Money” was playing. After living in Mexico, the prices were more than a little surprising (God knows what they’re like at the resorts). To buy a six pack of beer in the store was three times the price with a quarter less in quantity. And with each purchase, the prices got higher. Both Belize and US dollars are used interchangeably, with two Belize to one US. Often they did not distinguish between the two and after 7 months of using only pesos, who’s thinking in dollars? On more than one occasion we paid double because we assumed dollars meant Belize dollars. They didn’t. There seemed to be the assumption that if you are white, you are American and don’t have any other currency. The lack of supplies and variety in such a tiny economy is understandable and expected. Paying three times the price is not and confirmed what we already knew. It was time to go home.

On the way back north we had to drive inland through Belmopan because the coastal route has 40 miles of gravel road with two river crossings. With rain in the mountains they were expected to be impassible. The last night was spent in a cabana on a nature reserve where the monkeys shrieked and threw half-eaten fruit onto the ground with dismissive thumps. I would have liked to lie in the hammock on the porch for a while but I’d already lost count of my insect bites. A short trek through the jungle was the last straw and I looked like Job on a bad day. The last of our Belize dollars were spent on two melting Kit Kats and exit fees, and with that we got stamped out of paradise. We re-entered the birth canal and knocked on the door of the womb. After putting a new deposit on Pferdi and they let us back in for 180 days. As we drove north, every station was playing Mariachi. Welcome home.