The day before

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We had been told that it was possible to make it to Caye Caulker from Tulum in one day; it was a full day of travel and everything had to run like clock work i.e. bus connections, smooth border crossing, minimum pee stops etc. Nae bother. The only concern was the border crossing as we were told that you had to pay a departure tax at the bank before getting to the border check point. If you hadn't, you need to travel back to nearest town to pay which was two hours away. We had many frustrating attempts to pay this tax at various banks - all with the same conclusion: "Sorry you don't have the right documentation". "¿Que? But that's all the documentation we have?" This just was not going to do. Not wanting to bring in the big THREE OH in some dodgy border town we decided to wing it and, if need be, bribe / talk our way across the border...how hard could it be? Back in the day I could talk my way past any night club bouncer.

Everything was running like clock work; we made the connecting bus to Belize with 4 minutes to spare and consequently squeezed in our first pee after 5 hours of travel... all we had to do was successfully negotiate the border crossing and endure the three hour bus ride to Belize city. All being well, we would easily catch the last water taxi out to Caye Caulker.

We nervously waited in line with the locals to go through passport control, this was it...we would soon find out where I was going to bring in my birthday. We approached the window and, while handing over our destiny to a stern faced moustache wearing offical, I used an old jobi mind trick - waved my hand and said "these aren't the gringos you're looking for". He looked at us and asked "Do you speak Spanish" Alex confidently replied "Aye, a wee bit likesay" and then paused and cheekily asked "How, dae you speak english?" I had an image of a birthday ballon bursting and the sound of waning a party whistle. "NO" The moustache wearing offical slowly looked up at us... his stern face then cracked into a big smile, then he joyfully stamped our passports and handed them back. We stood there dumbly, wondering when we should be handing over money. He then made a motion with his head that we interpreted as "Crazy gringos, get on the bus before I change my mind"

YEAH!!! As soon as the bus crossed in to Belize it turned into a reggae all singing and dancing party bus - The driver popped on his favourite reggae cd, pumped up the volume, everybody started speaking English and we bopped (i was slightly out of time) all the way to Belize City. We caught the speed boat water taxi with twin turbo engines to Caye Caulker - this thing must be the fastet vehicle in Belize. It did break down a couple of times but we made it. Today was a good day and tomorrow was going to be even better - Celebrating my 30th Birthday on a carribean island.

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Photos

Caye Caulker
Belize Man

Chicken Boat - Us
The water taxi to Caye Caulker was so fast... until it broke down

And the rest
Kept the numbers down to keep the speed up