To Belize City

The queues at the border from Guatemala to Belize left us feeling wrung-out from heat and chaos and then a chemical spray team targeted us and demanded BZ $10 each bike. Next time I’ll do a runner as the receipt means nothing. So east through a flat, almost sea level Belize. We saw a poor land with very little good crop production, lots of burning-off before the wet season means the air is smoky and visibility is poor. Suddenly I realise that the signage is in English, and the Queen’s head is on the bank notes.
Into the city of 70,000 , is like one of those CNN tours through some war zone. Derelict housing and people lying on cardboard on the streets, lurching locals shout “yo man” and “welcome”. We drive to where a hostel offers basic accoms and realise there is no way we can park on the street, and have a bike there in the morning.

So secure parking become a high priority and we go the the Princess Casino Hotel and park at the door to check if they have a room. We are told to park in the bike parking about 100m away. “We just need to check-in, won’t be a minute”. By then there are about 10 security men, and we are too hot to park and walk back to be told “no rooms” so after trying being reasonable we tell them to get lost and drive out. How short sighted of them, were we not even meant to be able to unload luggage at the door. Maybe bikes are not welcome. We leave and catch glimpses of the lovely pool, I’m envious.

We do get a hotel with secure parking and the prices are outrageous but if we are to get to the outer cays tomorrow we have to “suck it up” If we hadn’t had such great reports about these outer islands we would have been happy to leave and that was before we tried the very mediocre food.

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