Deer Park

So two days ago I crossed from Mexico into Belize.

Leaving Chetumal. Forget Chetumal

The border, unbelievably, is another breeze. Both the Mexican and Belizean sides are modern and slick. Getting Lucinda cleared out takes ten minutes. Here she gets her tatt photographed by the customs girl

She silently allows herself to be sprayed for bugs. *As if *she mutters to me

Then insurance. You’ll notice I have the Packsafe lockable wire mesh over my duffle. A good idea when solo at borders and you have to leave you bike to go into a a building

Then the money changers. I’ve made a note of the exchange rate pesos/belizean dollars the night before (6.07) and shown the guy the phone screen so he can’t screw me and he takes the 7 basis points plus the quote spread, which sounds OK

Then no more than 10 minutes later, we’re at the Caribbean!

That’s Lucinda posing under the palms. She knows she’s hot and looks good pretty much no matter what so this never takes long

Then, to start, we blast off down Belize. This road trip we’re on isn’t a holiday, and we’re behind a bit after the bike parts debacle, so we’ve decided to blast through rather than dither in two of the countries: Belize and Honduras. So we pass all the sexy dive/snorkel resorts and destinations, headed for Belmopan where we can set up for a more difficult border crossing – back into Guatemala.

An hour or two down this road is where I meet Christophe and Toni, from the previous blog post. Christophe is WAY into patches. After listening to him for a while I realize he’s tough and experienced so I give him a *pass* on the patches

And as I said in the previous post, this van pulls up and out jump these two black dudes, and a girl. They’re Jehovah’s Witnesses. Christophe and I can’t believe that in the middle of nowhere, no-one for miles, we riders meet, and minutes later this is happening. I guess you had to be there

Toni’s a few minutes behind on the plot and they’ve got him reading the Watchtower. I’m beginning to think Christophe is sponsored by Klim or Arai because he’s jumping into every shot looking heroic

Then it’s the beautiful Hummingbird Highway. I’ve done it twice in two days.This is a great riding road. Only an hour long, it’s a must when in Belize. Lots of single lane bridges to speed up and go whooosh over

video

The country

And

A toucan

And then this strange white clay surface that I imagine would be hell in the rain, through a valley bottom, past horses which seem to be a big thing here

video

To this wonderful place. The Jungle Dome. It has a pool which is the thing that keeps (an old man like) me renewed once in a while if it can be found. Gonna run out of these pretty soon

It’s on the banks of the Belize River, much like Las Guatamayas was on the banks of the San Pedro a while back

Then, yesterday, I get an email from Toni saying he’s at a cheap place at Hopkin’s that’s right on the beach, so in a spontaneous moment I take off and spend the evening chatting to him and another Canadian, Blake from Saskatchewan (down on a dive holiday)

Comfy

The beach at dawn

Today I returned to another border set-up, ready and looking forward to monkeys a day and a half out.

A very incomplete post, but sketchy internet again yesterday for pics and video, so. Tomorrow should be interesting…