PowerCycle

06/15 First whole day of riding in Belize and I’m not a fan. The Northern Highway as it’s called has no shoulder, no lane markings of any kind (including a center yellow line) and there are big, old rumbling sugar cane trucks all over the place. No one ran me over and that’s all that matters I guess. The wind was kicking my butt too. It was blowing hard from the east which pushes me right into the broken asphalt that marks the side of the road. Fortunately I have mad riding skills and avoided running off the road.

Other than a lot of sugar cane fields there’s not too much in the way of scenery. I miss hills. On a positive note the people here are extremely friendly. I’ve had more fist-bumps from strangers on the street then I ever have. And the food… it is sooooo good. Had this garlic pepper shrimp tonight that was awesome. Most of the restaurants are air conditioned which is great because then I don’t have to chase nasty flies away from my dinner. So other than the stinking road and that things are a bit more expensive I like it here.

Orange Walk Town is pretty neat. It seemed from reading different web sites that it would be really touristy but its not that way at all. I even found a place (Baba’s) that changes Mexican pesos. There’s a decent-sized river that runs through town that you can travel up to see the ruins at Lamanai (used to be huge Mayan city). I’m going to skip it because staying an extra day for the US $40 tour plus the cost of the motel (US $35) is way too much.

I sure miss having detailed GPS maps like I did for Mexico. I’m using the Garmin WorldMap v4 and it only has major highways on it. That didn’t help when it took me 15 minutes to find my way out of Corozal this morning.

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06/14 You better Belize it! I’m officially in Central America now. Crossing the border was painless. The lady just asked where I was going and I was on my way. It sucked having to pay an exit fee of $20 US just to leave Mexico but what can you do. Once into the country I followed the road about 7 miles to the town of Corozal. It’s a pretty quiet place on the shore of Chetumal Bay which opens up into the Caribbean Sea. I’m happy to see there are lots of Chinese restaurants here. Haven’t eaten at one in a while. Drank some new beer–Belikin it’s called. It has a Mayan temple on the front and it tastes pretty good.

On the road into town I saw a dead Tapir, the largest land mammal of the American tropics, so I can add that as my first exotic road kill. Hopefully I’ll see some live ones. And Toucans…there are a lot of them here. Actually Belize has so many things that can seriously mess you up that I’ll have to be careful. There’s even an ant that’s described as causing “waves of burning, throbbing, all-consuming pain that continues unabated for up to 24 hours”. No more dropping Oreo cookie bits and seeing how many ants I can summon during a rest break.

It’s weird speaking English to everyone again. Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official language. The population of Belize is pretty mixed: Mestizos comprise about 34% of the population, Kriols 25%, Spanish 15%, Maya 11%, and Garinagu 6%. The population is small, only 320,000 so it enjoys the lowest population density in Central America but sadly it has one of the highest population growth rates in the western hemisphere. When will people learn?

Stayed in the lake-side town of Bacalar last night. Didn’t have anything exciting to report so I didn’t write up a blurb about the day.

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06/11 Long day but got some easy miles in. The only bad thing was a flat tire followed 2 minutes later by another one. The hole from the first incident was on the inside of the tube which is a strange place to get a puncture. The inside of the rim was perfect so I have no idea how that could have happened. The second flat was also on the rear tire. This one had me dropping a couple expletives. Of course it had to happen far from any trees so the sun had me nice and toasty. Looks like a nice hunk of glass caused this one.

Nothing in the way of scenery other than rain forest. For wildlife I saw the wickedest-looking grasshoppers. They were jet black with red markings around their eyes. They were funny because they walked in perfect synchronization with each other.

When I arrived in town the first stop was an ice cream place. Yum. Nothing like a triple scoop on a hot day. I thought the “grungyness” of the town would improve as I got in the central area but it didn’t. It seems perfectly safe; it’s just that everything looks beat up. The motels are also horribly over-priced. I managed to track down a place with AC and internet for $400 pesos. It’s only a $250 peso room though.

Belize is only 2 days away and I’m really looking forward to it.

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04/10 Things kind of suck big time right now and I wasn’t going to write about it on here but if I go off the radar unexpectedly this is why. My youngest sister Stephanie (35) had a medical issue that we all knew to be serious but thought would be treatable. Well things went from bad to worse to really bad. She’s basically been in a coma now for almost 4 days and the doctors can’t figure out why. My Dad flew up there (she’s in Calgary) to help out my oldest sister and Stephanie’s 17 year old son Shane. I’ll find a way to get up there if there’s no change in the next day or two. There are buses in all of the cities that could get me to an airport fairly easily. The only thing I’d have to arrange would be a place to store my bike.

Quiet day riding. If I close my eyes I could almost imagine this being the Tamiami Trail in south Florida. That’s the highway that runs through the Florida Everglades from one side of the state to the other. It’s almost exactly like that here other than the cows and occasional ranch houses of which there are virtually none (if any) on US41. Saw a huge boa constrictor and a giant lizard on the road (both dead).

For maybe the 3rd time on my trip I donned my headphones and listened to some music while riding. That almost caused me to ride right by a guy who saw me and came running out of the restaurant where he was eating. Turns out he (Mark) is from Ireland and he’s been riding his awesome Koga bicycle around the world for 17 months now. His trip ends in Belize but we’re not heading the same way. I think he said I was the first rider he’s seen in Mexico since he got here.

I said this before but I’m never going to sleep next to a Penmax gas station again. This place closed at 10pm but all night trucks were coming in so the drivers could take a nap. The problem with that is there’s not one big rig in Mexico that has a muffler on it and they all use the engine to brake. I got maybe 2 hours sleep.

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