El Gran Mestizo

I’m losing track of time, a not uncommon feature of life in retirement. Today is Friday and we are getting ready to take the shuttle to the hotel owned by the same family that owns El Gran Mestizo resort. Hotel de la Fuente is in downtown Orange Walk where we are offered a free breakfast, included in the cost of our van parked on the resort grounds. We pay $35 a night to park, a lot by our standards but I don’t know how much a room is in this expensive country. 

There is no electrical hookup and no sewer dump but there are sparkling clean fully equipped toilets just steps away. The New River runs past the property and Rusty and I have just walked it. It reminds me of a motorcycle trip I took in 1979 when I was in West Africa and a similar resort took pity on me and let me stay the night at half price. I didn’t have a Key West City Pension in those days.

I saw giraffes grazing and hippos bathing in the African sunset in northern Cameroon and this morning I watched the mist rise off the cooler waters of the river, no hippos in sight, but I was suddenly 21 years old again sleeping in a tent by the side of the African Highway. 

There’s a house on the street outside El Gran Mestizo resort and there are two loose dogs and several chained ones. Better that I suppose grumpily than abandoned and starving. Their cacophony when they see Rusty keeps him firmly on the property on his walks with me.  

Yesterday Layne took a tour on the New River to the Lamanai Mayan Ruins and what started as a small group from the resort turned into a packed boat filled with 40 people. 

Her guide at Lamanai said that was nothing even though she felt crowded. Imagine when a cruise ship load of visitors show up on a dozen buses…

I had to stay behind not only to look after Rusty during her six hour excursion but also to try to solve the slight right pulling steering. I took a Tope at speed and I think I knocked out my freshly set alignment. The van at Caribbean Tire was too tall for the equipment. Sigh. We’re going to check the shop in Belize City today and hope for the best. 

I had a chat with a guy at the tire shop while I waited. He grew up in Tampa but decided to come back to his country of birth as he couldn’t stand the pace of life in the US. He has some land, doesn’t pay rent and has a son and grandson in NewYork City. Don’t understand him he said, he’s covered in tattoos. There is one thing he misses: Burger King fish burgers. Every time his mother goes to Florida she buys some at the airport and brings them home to him. “They don’t taste the same,” he said sadly. “Nothing does.”

Orange Walk

Corozal was a tough introduction to Belize. My friend Webb wrote to let me know he didn’t think I would get a thumbs up from the Belize chamber of commerce and he’s right. On the other hand I wanted to say what I saw and felt. You are learning to appreciate Belize with me on this journey. 

Driving in a new country is a new cultural experience. In Belize pedestrian crossings double as topes. I crossed one at 35mph and appear to have offset the alignment. Back to a tire shop I go! Caribbean Tire is a huge modern warehouse and has outlets in each town it seems including I noted Corozal and  Orange Walk.

We mapped out a strategy at a picnic table at Corozo Blues where we spent a very pleasant night plugged in to clean electricity, properly grounded with no voltage spikes,  so we were cooled as we slept  by air conditioning and awoke to fully charged batteries. Our idea is to enjoy Belize for the next couple of weeks by doing what visitors do: outdoor stuff. Northern Highway roadworks with no flaggers. Figure it out yourself is the rule on the road:

Our plan is to drive south in stages as far as Placencia on the coast, a place we remember fondly as a sandy beach town from 25 years ago. From there we will turn inland toward Belmopan the capital and explore some cave and blue hole options. Closer to Guatemala we plan to camp in the mountains and visit some rarely seen ruins before we cross the border. 

The start of the program required some driving south from Corozal on the northern Highway, as seen here. 

The pavement is quite solid and smooth for the most part but the speed bumps come disguised as pedestrian crossings and they are  built to a unique high step design of reinforced concrete (we saw one under construction). I think I have finally learned that a gray stripe across the road represents danger. 

The pavement itself is of a design I’ve only ever seen in Britain with the asphalt embedded with gravel which offers durability beyond asphalt alone. 

The countryside is flat and reminiscent of south Florida in that sugarcane seems to be the main crop. Orange Walk is known as Sugar City for that reason. 

Rainy season starts in June but Belize is green. It’s lush everywhere you look. 

The highway is broad but is totally devoid of markings so driving requires you take responsibility for yourself. I tool along at 35 mph and stay close to the right to allow easy passing. I guess you just pass where you choose as there are no prohibitions, no solid lines or road signs. It’s a totally bizarre system but it works. 

Once you get these oddities sorted out the driving is quite relaxing. I love the blue skies studded with puffy white clouds, just like Florida. 

Sugar cane truck looking for a load: 

Sugar cane truck with a load: 

Layne spotted a fruit stand so we stopped and Rusty went for a graze. Unlike Mexico there are almost no dogs along the road. Belizeans are terrified of dogs and I dread to think how dogs are treated behind the scenes but along the road Rusty can wander at ease. 

Ten dollars worth of fruit and veg and an exchange of life stories with the young mother operating the stand. We gave her a tour of our home and she offered us a lovely pineapple which will be dessert tonight. 

Belize is really really green. I can’t get over it. No wonder the Mennonites came here to farm. 

We actually found a roadside food seller so I stopped of course. He is bi-lingual and could pass as Mexican as most Belizeans can in the northern districts. 

He sold us some surprisingly delicious coconut candy, soft and chewy with a delicious smokey undertone as though it was cooked on a wood fire. 

No advertised prices at the pumps. We’ll find out soon enough but we still have over 300 miles in our tank from Chetumal. 

Lots of directional signs but I haven’t seen a speed limit since we left the northern border where it said the limit on the highway is 55 mph. Too fast for me anyway. 

Orange Walk is Belizes fourth largest city with a population of around 14,000. The city is known as Sugar City thanks to the cane that is grown around here but it is also known as a landing place for Mestizo refugees who escaped what were known as the 19th century caste wars in the Yucatán. 

Layne was getting fidgety as we had no fresh food onboard and we were both curious to see the inside of a Belizean store. 

When we travel we like to explore local food shopping. Groceries tell you a lot about a culture. 

Stores throughout northern Belize are operated by the Chinese community. Score one for diversity. 

Bringing your own bag is unknown in Belize where sturdy yellow plastic bags are the norm. I was hoping to find some English biscuits on the shelves but that era has gone I think. It’s all American and Mexican junk food and packaged goods. 

It’s a new store in Orange Walk and they were offering raffle tickets to shoppers. Layne endeared herself to the checkers by giving them her tickets. 

Oddly the place carried no produce so we drove across town to check the original supermarket called 123 - their advertising slogan is  “As Easy As 123” - thus we got to see lively downtown Orange Walk. 

In addition to almost no road signs there are no pay phones in Belize but I am an old fart so I expect to see some legacy phone booths! 

We met an Overlander we first crossed paths with in Chetumal. Mario is 70 years old and has been on the road two months from his home in Aguascalientes. He’s fulfilling his dream by driving alone to Argentina. I hope we will keep crossing paths with him. 

To sustain us and to taste some local food we bought some buns filled with ham and cheese and it turned out some jalapeños. The bread was slightly weird, soft and sweet. 

The inside with savory ingredients was okay. Layne  couldn’t handle the sweet patita with cream cheese but I thought it was okay, sort of. 

The second supermarket not only had some vegetables but also a few English biscuits. McVitie’s Ginger Nuts! The Commonwealth did not fail me completely…

More importantly we were just about out of my favorite butter type spread. Praise be 123, they offered a tub of this ambrosia at eight bucks US. I forced Layne to buy two, arguing I  didn’t sit up working all those nights not to enjoy some Brummel and Brown on my tortillas. 

Such are the minor victories of life on the road. Disaster narrowly averted. We are staying two nights at El Gran Mestizo resort. 

It’s $35 a night, more than we’ve ever paid but I didn’t sit up nights for twenty years etc…etc… Today Layne does a Lamanai River tour to some Mayan ruins while I get the alignment done. 

We had a beer and some fries at the restaurant as an appetizer as we got two free drinks for staying at the resort. 

It has been a pleasant change eating non Mexican food in Belize. I love Mexican but there will be time for more of that later. 

Oh and they had a BSA mysteriously on display. I liked that. 

The temperature here is lovely and cool. Mosquitoes are at a minimum. I’m enjoying sitting up and listening to the crackle of night insects and distant trucks on the northern highway. We have found a serene spot in northern Belize on our second day. It feels like we’ve been in Belize forever. 

Arrival In Belize

To give Mexico credit to the very end the border procedure to exit was extremely simple however the process was complicated by a total lack of signage. 

To get to Belize (“Bay-lee-say” in Spanish) you skip the border village of Subteniente Lopez which is a shame. Belize calls it’s northern border crossing “Santa Elena” as that used to be the name that spanned the villages on both sides of the Rio Hondo which is the border. However in 1936 when Mexico was suppressing the Catholic Church the governor of Quintana Roo changed the village name to honor Sub Lieutenant Rosalino Lopez who died by firing squad in 1924 after defending the government of President Alvaro Obregon against unsuccessful rebels led by Adolfo de la Huerta. So the village of Santa Elena goes by the peculiar name of Subteniente Lopez. Anyway enough of that; we are done with Mexico. As I say the exit from Mexico was easy once we figured out the two office locations which as usual had no signs on them. I hate overstepping at a border crossing as you look like you are trying to get away with something.  After half an hour turning in our van permit and our tourist permits we paid a $70 fee to exit Mexico (!) which we’ve never done on the northern border, and then we drove to the border itself marked on the bridge. 

The international boundary with Mexico to the left and in the south the commonwealth of Belize. King Charles of Britain has the US surrounded, Canada to the north and the former British Honduras to the south. 

The first stop was the fumigation hut which costs $5US or $6 for us oversized vehicles. Notice we now are using English and there is lots of signage. Thank you Belize!

From fumigation we drove ahead a mile, bypassing the exit to the “Free Zone” to all appearances a rather squalid community of cheap dust catcher and clothes shops that Mexicans can visit without officially entering Belize and thereby avoid heavy Belizean duties. We could have done it too while staying in Chetumal, had we known or wanted to. 

Straight ahead for the duty free zone, turn right where the cabs reduce are parked to deal with immigration and customs. Which is the big yellow building in the background below. The photos unfortunately have to be taken from a distance to avoid annoying officials who think photography at borders is subversive rather than educational. The copious signage tells you this is not Mexico. 

We ended up spending about a hundred dollars US to enter Belize, some for GANNET2, fifty bucks for Rusty who now has his own paperwork in case anyone asks…

You just start at the beginning, use the address of a hotel as your residence in Belize, fill out every blank line and patiently make your way by immigration, agriculture and customs. This last asked if we had anything to declare and we said our van was stripped of eggs meat fruit and vegetables and in the 95 degree heat no one wanted to check it. We sailed through. The checkpoint at the end checks your  passport with your entry stamp and your vehicle entry stamp (also in your passport weirdly) and then you drive to the insurance building and buy thirty days coverage for thirty US dollars. 

From fumigation to insurance took an hour but we moved back from Central Time in Chetumal to Mountain Time in Belize so we gained a little on our day. We were pretty hungry by now as it was one o’clock local time and we don’t usually have breakfast. I was on one cup of tea! So we drove nine miles to Corozal the nearest village on the Northern Highway which is getting torn up to be improved. 

The signage is American and speeds are in miles an hour. You drive on the right but in these work zones there are no flaggers so everyone figures it out on their own in the narrow bits. 

It was a pretty crazy introduction to driving in Belize but our size seemed to garner more respect than I expected which helped. Gas is sold by the liter and comes out, in Corozal around $5:20 US a gallon, which was better than expected. 

For some irritating reason the Belize Dollar (BZD) is pegged at two to one with the US dollar. When we paid for two SIM cards for our phone we paid $45 US with an American hundred dollar bill. Without batting an eyelid the clerk gave us a hundred and ten bucks change in Belize dollars. I made a joke which went right over her head. She was shocked we’d happily pay two dollars (US) a day each for cell service with unlimited data. 

Verizon is paired with Smart cellular in Belize, I checked before we left Mexico. At the border I set Google maps to trace a course to the Smart office in Corozal and the nice lady there sold us new unlimited data SIM cards good for ten days.

I have Verizon travel pass but that costs ten bucks daily. And that is that, the border is behind is and we are good for thirty days. I doubt we will stay that long. 

It’s just our first day in Belize in the northernmost town but I can safely say we both miss Mexico. The feel here is that of a Caribbean island, the vibe is more worn out than laid back and the place lacks the charm of Chetumal twenty miles and a world away. 

Layne went to buy a cooked chicken for dinner at 2:11 pm. They had closed at two. Why? Beats me. 

Rusty and I wandered around a bit in the former waterfront glory allowed to crumble slowly over the years. 

Belize joined other countries in the British Empire in seeking independence after World War Two and gained self rule in 1964. It was a period when Britain was only too glad, unlike the French, to end colonial rule. However Belize had a problem. 

Guatemala claims Belize as its territory citing an 1859 treaty with Britain wherein Britain was to pay for a road to the Atlantic Coast which has never been built. Thus say the Guatemalans, the southern two thirds of Belize are by right Guatemalan. Britain postponed independence till 1981 stationing troops in Belize to defend the colony from its neighbor. An absurd situation that the International Court of Justice is even now mediating between the two countries. However there is at any rate a road border open between Guatemala and Belize that we shall be using in a couple of weeks.  

Belize’s history has been one of enormous Mayan construction with cities and ruins dotted through the country that only now are being described as the greatest in the Mayan kingdoms. The Mayan civilization faded away inexplicably around 900 AD after 3500 years and when the Spaniards invaded their colony based in Guatemala City included Chiapas Yucatán and Belize. 

Britain wanted the hard woods of Honduras and imported African slaves to cut the trees and log the jungle. After Spain was forced out independent Mexico came to an accommodation with Britain in 1893 and agreed to a boundary. Mexico had its own difficulties organizing unwilling Maya communities in Chiapas, and Guatemala never stopped wanting a broad Atlantic coastline snatched by Britain. Through all this the sole English speaking country in Central America trundled along following its own eccentric path. 

Belize takes pride in being a diverse country having taken in refugees from the endless wars in the other less peaceful Central American countries. There are Mennonite farmers who are a tribe apart and the backbone of agriculture here. Spanish is widespread and in Corozal we saw many Chinese businesses all across town. 

English is the official language but Belizeans speak among themselves in a patois with a Caribbean lilt impossible to understand. 

We wandered around Corozal for a bit making a half hearted effort to buy supplies to replace the fresh foods we’d eaten before crossing the border but we found nothing much. Chinese groceries offered packages and canned foods only. It was rather dispiriting after all the activity and roadside commerce of Mexico. 

The vibe wasn’t friendly which explains the lack of people in my pictures. That and the 95 degree heat. 

We had a few youngsters stare at us and make rude comments in patois which gave us the creeps frankly. I shocked the kid by winking and saying conspiratorially “Nice one!” as though I understood. 

It came hard after three short months in easygoing Mexico where people want you to like their country and put up with your eccentricities to try to understand you. 

It’s a pity but I felt much more at home in Mexico than in this place where poverty seems endemic and the grind feels like it has worn people down. 

This house below put me in mind of Key West, the old place when ordinary people could have a place in the sun: 

Rusty is a source of abject terror. The guy who checked our papers as we left the border zone recoiled in horror when he saw Rusty sitting in front of Layne. A passerby asked if he was running away as I walked behind him. “He knows where he’s well off,” I said darkly. The employee at the resort where we are parked froze in terror at the sight of him.

I am not at all sure that I want to know how Belizeans treat dogs. If they are that scared of them I’m forced to wonder why. Rusty seems to quite like it as there have been so far, fewer street dogs than in Mexico. Cars though are brutal and race through the streets and I hang on tight to my dog. 

There are topes here which is hugely disappointing and we are learning, after one rough encounter with a speed bump to be alert around pedestrian crossings. I guess you have to slow traffic to allow pedestrians a chance at life. 





Such astonishing architecture too! 

The locals limin’ outside the supermarket creeped me out too. In Mexico I’d crack a joke or say hello or point out some failure typical of a foreigner and the ice would be broken. Not here. 





Too many shuttered storefronts. Corozal feels under siege. 



Then we checked Corozo Blues a little resort on the waterfront. It’s listed in iOverlander and we hoped we could spend the night for ten bucks (US). 

We started with a much delayed lunch. Hummus with a Beliken beer a very pleasant lager. 

Then pizza with leftovers for dinner and they said we could park for the night in their lovely garden. 

Quite the privilege and Rusty loves the grass. Clean toilets, strong WiFi such that we don’t need Starlink and even an electrical hook up to charge our batteries. No mosquitoes or sandflies either so we are living large. 

A good place to rest and plan. 

Tuesday was about as long and involved as this post!