Briefly in Belize

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Belize City - Thu 16/11 to Fri 17/11

Belize was a bit of an afterthought, it is a beautiful country however, it was never on our agenda. We decided to make a brief stopover because we had to go through Belize to get to Guatemala and we knew we wouldn't make it to Guatemala before dark. One of our rules from the start was never to arrive in a new town/city after dark, so we made the stopover in Belize city. We got on the bus in Mexico and headed for Belize City, we met an English couple on the bus who were also going to Belize city - Steve and Michelle. We had to get off the bus at the Mexican border to leave Mexico - it was quite exciting for us - our first overland border crossing. We got off the bus, handed over our passports and they charged us $10 each for leaving, we were quite surprised at this, and later realised we´d been done, they are only supposed to charge this $10 if you wish to keep your tourist card, which we didn't, funny enough they didn't actually ask us if we wanted to keep it or not. Back onto the bus with us lot and the bus driver told us to eat up our bananas as we wouldn´t be allowed to take them into Belize, we thought he was joking but when we realised he wasn´t we had a few hundred metres to down the bananas before it was back off the bus into the immigration at the Belize border. We got through there with no problems and got back onto the bus for Belize city.

As this was our first overland border crossing, we were surprised to observe how very different things were from one country to the next with only an artificial border dividing two countries. Belize was a British colony (the Queen is still on the money though) which is one reason it is very different, in addition English is the official language. When we learned that English was the official language we were looking forward to the break from our broken Spanish - bit of a novelty to speak English again. Unfortunately not so, they seem to have created their own version of English that is a mix of English, Spanish, Maya and Garifuna - it was even more difficult to understand than Spanish!

We arrived in the bus station in Belize city and were surrounded by taxi drivers offering their services. The English couple and ourselves agreed to share a taxi and found a lady offering to take us to our hotel. We put our bags in the taxi and started negotiations on price, she wanted $6 to go to one hotel and if they had no rooms, another $6 to go to another hotel, we argued over this and with no joy, we swiftly removed our bags from the taxi and made the 1km journey on foot.

We arrived at the first hotel and lucky enough they had two rooms - $28 for a very small room with no bathroom - the most expensive we had encountered to date, it was becoming clear to us that Belize was quite an expensive city. That evening after we got cleaned up, we agreed to go for dinner with the English couple Steve and Michelle.

We were warned that the city was not safe so we didn't venture too far for dinner - next door in fact. We sat out on the deck over the river, the choice on offer was chicken with rice and beans or fish with rice and beans. We both went for the chicken. After ordering our food Michelle said 'there's a rat over there if anyone is bothered' eh 'yeah I'm bothered' as I quickly curled my feet under me on the chair. Maurice spent the rest of the evening banging his feet on the ground whenever the rat came near. I did think if the eating area has rats, God knows what the kitchen has but hell we were starving. We ate up dinner and headed to a bar next door for a drink. Sure enough there were rats in the bar too - that's what happens when your right on the river, Maurice said. I was quite impressed at my ability to sit and continue drinking with rats running around our feet - albeit if my feet were up on the seat - this trip is toughening me up I thought!!

The next day we headed to the supermarket and got breakfast and lunch and walked back to the bus station to catch the next bus to Guatemala. The bus took us close to the ´frontera´or border as we know it. We got off the bus and a guy ran over and said ´fronterra´ and grabbed our bags. They were put into this unmarked car and the two of us along with 2 others jumped into the car, wasn´t quite sure if it was the border we were heading for but was quite hopeul. Lucky enough we arrived at the border and got out of the car at which point we were mobbed by money changers wanting us to change our Belize dollars into Quetzals with them. We changed some money and headed into migration so we could leave Belize, we got out of there with no problems albeit $40 lighter. Next stop Guatemala, we were so looking forward to it as we had heard so many good reports.

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Comments

[Anne Nicholl]

Happy New Year
Happy New Year to you both, hope you had a great christmas and celebrated the new year in style. Brillliant reading more of your travel exploits. I definitely want to go to Cuba and go for Salsa lessons, brush up on my salsa skills, me mum and Fiona used to go to salsa dancing, I was the best (dont tell them that), its a great dance. Well if anything, by the end of your travels you will be a lot wiser, scared of nothing, I couldnt do the rat thiing, no way, and put up with no sh#t from anyone. Hope you enjoyed your beach holiday at christmas. Be safe, take care and keep the diaries rolling.