1-10-10 Belize City, Belize

Luis and I packed up camp in Playa and rode south several hours in the rain, following signs to the Belize border.  There was a new section of road with what looked like a new customs building and a checkpoint, but not a soul around.  We kept riding a few more minutes before we came upon a camo-painted truck parked diagonal in the road.  Upon getting closer two guys in military garb hopped out and started walking our way hastily.  One guy then turned around, ran back to his truck and emerged with an HK submachine gun. Don't want to forget that.

They informed us that the border was closed.

"Why?" I asked

He went on to tell us that the road wasn't finished further on, even though all the signs were up directing us to where we were.  He gave us directions to go through another border crossing several minutes away that we found easily.

We had to check out of Mexico by showing our vehicle title, registration, driver's license and passport to a lady who took painfully long to process us.  We were the only guys there, I shudder to think what would happen on a busy day.

We rode a few hundred yards through 'no man's land' before arriving at the Belizean check station where we repeated the same process with paperwork, this time faster and friendlier.

There were tons of people crossing from Belize to Mexico, many with huge bundles on their backs.  We found out that Belize imports a lot of goods from China, something Mexico does not do directly.  The cheap Chinese goods are then run across the border for sale in Mexico.

We stopped for a brief picture in front of the Belizean flag before riding off into a new country for the both of us.  I love the first few hours in a new country and try to observe as much as possible.  I always think of those games where you are presented with two nearly identical pictures and must find the miniscule differences between them. In this case, the differences from both Mexico and back home.

Let's see, initial observations are as such... Their homes and lots are significantly larger than in Mexico. There's a lot of phonetic spelling on billboards, my favorite being 'Hi Et Hotel'.  They use the words 'dragon' and 'China' frequently in a wide variety of business names.  There are a lot of black people.  There is an unusually high number of paint shops though the roads have almost no lines painted on them.  Road signs are a rarity. There are a lot of narrow bridges on wide rivers. Lots of nice road bikes. Virtually no trash.

We pulled into a gas station where a young attendant topped off Luis' bike.  Luis thought he'd rung up a tab of $40 for 4 liters of gas and was dismounting the bike in preparation of choking the attendant.  We quickly realized that it was Belizean dollars and gallons, not liters, which dropped the price down to about $4.50 a gallon, pretty cheap by world standards.  The Belizean dollar is tied directly to the US dollar at 2:1 and US currency is accepted anywhere so long as there aren't any nicks or tears in the bill.

We asked the attendant what we should eat in his country, something traditional.  He was quick to reply with "rice n beans" which he said with big smile.  The thought of rice n beans didn't get me too excited but we thought we'd better try it before leaving.

We rode down to Orange Walk, the first substantial town we'd come across and ate a late lunch at one of the many Chinese restaurants in town.  We decided to head down to Belize City, which we weren't thrilled about.  We'd both heard terrible things about the city, but it was the only logical spot on the map.

We hit the outskirts of town at dusk, much later than we had hoped to.  There seemed to be a spike in terrible driving with cars swerving around us for no good reason.  I stopped at a gas station where I asked for directions to a hotel that my guide book recommended.  I showed the drunk attendant a map in the book with a dot denoting the location of the hotel.  He then read off each street that I would come across in my journey to the hotel.  I quickly realized this was going nowhere so I took my book back, thanked him and we rode off.

Next we stopped at a relatively nice hotel where I asked the concierge if he knew where we were on the map, specifically what road was out front.

His reply was, "Dis notta road"

To which I replied, "Hmmmm, I'm pretty sure it is a road..."

Again he said, "Dis notta road"

"You're telling me this road that I'm looking at does not exist?" Clearly not in the mood for philosophizing.

He then looked at the map for a minute before pointing to a "Northern Road". Ah yes, his accent made 'Northern' sound like 'notta'. My apologies.

Once we established our location he did a strange thing, he started listing off the streets one by one that we would come across, reading each one directly from the map, just as the drunk gas station attendant had done.

We got some decent directions which got us into the heart of the city.  Luis rode up next to me and shook his head.  The place had a very, very bad feeling to it. Nothing in particular, just a bad gut feeling.

We kept the bikes in higher RPMs, swerving around slow moving cars and never stopping at stop signs.  We knew the hotel was on the ocean front and did progressively larger loops, getting acquainted with our surroundings before pulling into well-lit areas to apply our newfound knowledge to the map.

We eventually made it to the hotel which was dilapidated and completely dark from the outside. 

"Well, this is it..."

We were turning the bikes around to leave when a guy jumped out from behind the hotel 20 yards off and yelled to us that it was open and to come on in.

The guy was clearly not of sound mental state, he'd been smoking or snorting something and we were quite wary until some Canadian travelers came outside which eased our nerves a bit.  We brought our stuff in and locked the bikes together before putting my cover over both of them.

Inside we met about ten other travelers from all over and talked to the owner's girlfriend, an older hippy lady from the States who was quite helpful.  She encouraged us to get out of the city as soon as possible as Belize used to be a pirate hangout and their traditions have been passed on well.  She had her car battery stolen 5 times before she decided to sell just sell the car.  Her water heater was also nicked.

She suggested we get an early start in the morning as the next day was Sunday, not so much the 'day of rest' as it is the 'day of thefts'.  Apparently most shops are closed down and 'there isn't much else to do but mug people, even in broad daylight'. Great.

She'd lived in Belize City for a few years and gets mugged a few times each yer, just the way it is.