09/02 Back in Honduras, but only for the night. It’s a short run to the border with Nicaragua along this stretch of CA-1–most riders only ever see this little section of the country since they tend to skip the northern section and ride the PanAm all the way down. Not me though (or Karin and Marten who ride all over the place like I do). I’m out of the mountain (elev: 434 feet–been a long time) which is kind of sad.

My worries about crossing from El Salvador were unfounded. The border agents spent quite a bit of time examining my passport but they didn’t say a word about the missing entry stamp. I handed over my $3 to the Honduran customs people and sped off.

Some police stopped me at a “checkpoint” not too far after crossing. There were 2 of them but only the younger one came over to talk to me. The other older, chunkier officer didn’t get up the whole time. At first he wanted to know where I was going so I told him. Then he asked to see my passport. He flipped it open and looked at it for 10 seconds before giving it back. For the next 5 minutes he basically just looked at my bike while letting all the cars/trucks go by without so much as a second glance. I knew something was up at this point and this was confirmed when he pointed at my bike and said, “mucho dinero” and then clearly checking out my gold necklace. He asked for my passport again and read off my name for me immediately followed by a request for a $10 exit fee. I looked at his name tag and read his name (Roberto, R) and then asked if I could have a receipt. I guess saying his name and asking for the receipt did the trick because he waved me off and went back to looking for more bribe money suspicious vehicles.

Rained all day and quite hard for a good bit of it. I was warned to stay away from one motel here (Hotel Bonsai) so I found a place called Hotel Kali that is amazing. All new furniture, clean bed, great wifi, AC and friendly owners. No hot shower. Only $14 and change. The place last night was bad. Spotted 3 cockroaches, one was so big I thought it was my bike moving across the floor. The AC was horrible and I ended up turning it off at 1am because it was so loud.

I’ve been reading all these weird books lately: An Inquiry into the Nature and Wealth of Nations, The Earth as Modified by Humans, Youth, The Invisible Man and The Science of Human Nature. I downloaded War and Peace but I can’t bring myself to stare at the screen for that long. Grabbed them for free using the Stanza app for my swell iTouch. I kind of wish I had a Kindle…

06/18 Made it to San Ignacio safe and sound. There are a lot more hills in this part of Belize and it made for some great scenery along the last 20 miles today. I didn’t stop and take any pictures because a mean looking storm was chasing after me. Just as the first drops started falling I saw a shelter off to the side of the road so I rolled inside and talked to a guy who was also taking cover. It didn’t last very long but it gave me time to learn a little about how people get around here. Hitchhiking is extremely common. The buses don’t run very often so when people need a ride they just stand by the road and raise their arm up and down like you would if you were flipping someone off only with all your fingers extended. There’s probably a better way of describing it but that’s all I could come up with.

Given that I’m less than a days ride from Guatemala I was thinking about some of the differences I’ve noticed between Mexico and Belize. Other than Canada these were the first 2 foreign countries I’ve ever been to. Since I was only in Belize for a relatively short period of time I can’t judge too much but the couple things I noticed were that the major roads in Mexico are much better than in Belize, the trash problem is nothing in Belize like it is in Mexico and the people in Mexico are far more vocal in their greetings (honking/waving/whistling although when you do end up talking to someone in Belize they are extremely friendly). Couple other things: people don’t drink the tap water in Belize, Snickers bars can be found in most road-side stores here, there are a lot more private vehicles on the roads, shower curtains are standard and all toilets have seats on them. No flushing toilet paper here either–use the garbage cans for waste. Hot and cold water taps are rarely labeled and never on the same side in both countries. Chinese people seem to own almost all grocery stores and a lot of the restaurants in Belize.

I went over to grab some dinner tonight and realized that I’d forgotten to account for the time zone change when I flew back into Mexico from Florida. So for the last 2 weeks I’ve been an hour ahead of everyone else.

Monkey Bay ended up being a mess. A group of students staying there were up until 1am (my time) making a bunch of noise and then these stupid dogs started barking at 4:30am. The place they stick you to camp was also overrun with fire ants.

I haven’t mentioned the World Cup but let me tell you it’s all people talk about here and every TV has it on. When Mexico was playing last week at 7am or something like that every bar/store I passed was full of people watching the game. It’s just crazy yet I still couldn’t care less about soccer.

I’ll be in town for the next 3 nights hanging out and waiting for Karin and Marten’s arrival on Sunday night. There’s lots of things to see here so there’ll be more posts.

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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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Weather in Chetumal, Q. Roo when posted:

Temperature: 30 °C, Humidity: 70%, Wind Speed: 6km/hr, Cloud Cover: broken clouds

06/12 Perfect day for riding. It rained for a good part of the morning which kept things from getting too hot then it stayed mostly cloudy with a nice breeze. Nothing much in the way of scenery other than a couple small lakes.

I was prepared for a long day but it never came to that thanks to a sign that I hadn’t seen in almost 6 months — a campground. I checked my GPS and saw that it was right next to a lake so I jumped on the dirt road hoping for a nice, lake-side spot with a little store stocked with cold beer. That dream ended quickly but it was just because tourist season is over so most things are shuttered up for the summer including the little store and the restaurant that sat empty. The guy pointed over next to some mangroves and said I could pitch my tent there. After setting up camp I went for a nice, relaxing swim in the turquoise waters of Laguna Bacalar, the second largest lake in Mexico.

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06/09 That stupid twisted ankle yesterday ended up costing me a pant leg! The only pair of pants I have are those ones that have the zip-off pants legs so you can wear them as shorts. Well I needed something thin to hold some ice next to my foot so I was using one of the pant legs. Apparently I didn’t see it when I was packing this morning and didn’t realize it was gone until I was in Tulum. I suppose I could take a bus back but I’ll end up just not worrying about it because it would be too much effort for a something I won’t need for months.

Tulum is way more touristy than I would have expected. I mean there’s a 7-11 here for Pete’s sake. I did indulge and had lunch at a Subway. It’s been a while. There are lots of gringos here and just about all the people in the service industry speak a little English. Thankfully, the tourist crowd here is not at all like the weird hippy hostel crowd that dominated San Cristóbal. Most of the people are with families or are probably on a day trip down from Cancun.

After lunch I settled into a motel (with internet!), took a shower and hopped in a taxi over to the ruins. This section of coastline lies along the Caribbean Sea and it’s pretty stunning. Lots of rugged shoreline and white sand beaches. The ruins are from a city that dates back to 1200 AD. The site is very well maintained and aside from the location I wasn’t quite as enamored with this place for some reason. Not quite sure why. Maybe I’m just bummed about the pant leg.

Update: For some reason the site layout goes berserk when I add certain pictures. The rest are all here.

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