Sam with Alan before we took off.
Heading to the border of Belize was just half hour away. We were sticking with our plan. Good nights rest, stay fairly close to the border, get through early in the day. Happened to be a Sunday morning.
Stopped to check ourselves out of Mexico. I needed to just get stamped, Sam was coming back and the Immigration guy asked him for 200 Pesos, and handed him back his tourist visa so he could just return without doing any other paperwork.
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Then I needed to get my bike checked out of Mexico so that I could get my $400 deposit returned to me. Found the place to park, got my documents and started the process.
The customs woman came out to the bike and needed to take a picture on my Vin, and check it.
Then I asked her to take a photo with all the paperwork.
back to the office to process the paperwork, and get it into the computer …. All done in just a few minutes!
Sam waiting patiently on the No mans land between Mexico and Belize.
Over the bridge and into Belize where we will do the customs/Immigration thing all over again.
First we needed to purchase Insurance for Belize for $12 a day or $28 for a week.
This guy did our paperwork. His computer was down so he did it by hand.
Sam …. Paid in US and got some Belize dollars back. Since they were a British country…they still have the queen in the bills.
Then up to the disinfection station. Think it was 5 Belize (or 2 us). he did a cursory spray on my tires.
Then into Belize customs to get stamped and the bike imported.
Since I was only staying a couple days en route to Guatemala, the stamped me a “transito” and I was fairly fast. Sam made the mistake of saying he was going to stay 3-7 days. They just did not like this and after awhile, they gave him just 6 days You can legally stay 30 but you just need to say that is what you want.
After I came back out I was directed to a guy changing money. Changed all my leftover pesos to Belize dollars through the chain linked fence. The rate was fairly good, so it works. Note the wad of cash he has to change from….
Then with all the paperwork done, we passed through into Belize. took just about 1 1/4 hours…
we headed south down the road, until we really got hungry. Found a great roasted Chicken place.
The northern road out of the border was not much to look at.
This town water tower where they can pump purified water to and it will give the twon drinking water.
We road through a bit of rain on the way but it felt good. We ended up going through Belmopan the capital and then south on the Hummingbird hwy which was great ride through the mountains, then down to the coastlands.
The last few miles into Hopkins (a beach town) was rough dirt road.
and we ended up here at the “drumming center”. Simple Carribean style cabanas. one block from the beach.
It was warm, so the first order was a old Belize beer
Jabar who owns the place joined us.
After we unpacked, we walked down a block to the beach, and to find the Driftwood Pizza Shack which is run by a Canadian Woman Denise and her Irish guy, Ollie. (Alan from Balacar told us to go there!!).
Not a bad view
Since this was our last night together, as I decided to go ahead and move onto Guatemala….. Needed to make sure Sam had a drink with an umbrella in it.
Wahooo….. Has been a great ride to this point. We have gone through the trails and tribulations of traveling 4,000 + miles through Mexico together and tomorrow we will be starting new chapters of the ride on our own.
Typical Beach houses along this beach.
Lots more to tell as we had a great night reminiscing about the past 7 weeks of travel and all the experiences we had. It is always bitter sweet as you part ways. Moving onto different directions and experiences. but our plans have been different from the beginning….. so this is part of the journey.
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