Yucatan Peninsula

Until we noticed the waves crashing on the beach we weren’t going to leave Freedom Shores but the wind was honking enough that swimming was out for the day. We packed up and by 9:30 we were on the road with a six hour journey ahead of us. 

It was a nice enough campground but the Agricultural Agency in Belize approved Rusty’s application to visit. iOverlander shows a vet in Chetumal who knows what papers to prepare for a pet to cross the border into Belize so we set off. 

The Yucatan Peninsula is no longer Aztec country. Like Chiapas the three states in the Yucatan are rooted in Mayan culture which puts them in the Guatemalan culture. Indeed when Spain was being pushed out of the Americas Guatemala claimed the four Mexican States, Chiapas, Campeche,Yucatan and Quintana Roo but Mexico muscled them back. 

This is very southern Mexico and the poverty is apparent. Vehicles  are older and there are more motorcycles and fewer cars. Roadside structures are less houses and more shacks. The countryside looks startlingly like south Florida with sugarcane, palms and humid heavy air. 

Our plan was to skip the peninsula and get on with leaving Mexico and thus getting on with going south. There’s lots to see in the three states on the peninsula but it’s heating up here and a visit in December would probably be more enjoyable. After South America then. 

Highway 186 is not a terrible road. There are some topes, speed bumps, in the villages and there are stretches with potholes and torn up surfaces but we held a steady fifty miles per hour much of the day. They also seem to be planning some heavy duty construction possibly making it a four lane highway. 

And it was time for lunch. We flashed past the restaurant but the brilliant front wheel drive got us u-turned easily. 

We ordered fried fish and I set up the Starlink to see how quickly I could pull it together. We had no cell signal along this highway so this was a good place for a test.  No problem.

Rusty did his thing and got a piece of fish when he woke up. He loves tuna from the can but he won’t turn his nose up at fried snapper.

It was a great fish and we enjoyed it thoroughly. Layne fell into a carb coma after we got back on the road.

The scenery didn’t vary much and the last three hours dragged a bit.

Finally we crossed into our last state, and like the Baja states up north Quintana Roo is a slightly odd place where foreign vehicles require no paperwork. Why? I haven’t a clue. We’ll be handing in our temporary  import permit when we go to Belize. When we are back in Florida we’ll reclassify our van as an RV and then Mexico will issue us a ten year permit reducing our paperwork to almost nothing every time we visit Mexico. Ease of travel in Mexico astounds me as I grew up in heavily regulated Europe before the union smoothed border crossings out. 

Andres Quintana Roo was one more leader in Mexico’s independence war in 1810 and in 1902 President Porfirio Diaz carved a territory out of the states of Yucatan and Campeche to honor his memory. In 1974 it became a state with Chetumal as its capital. 

Quintana Roo survives and thrives on tourism so you’ve heard of Cozumel and Cancun at the eastern end of the state. But down here the state capital sits across the river from Belize, former British Honduras. 

We saw the signs to “Belice” as we drove into Chetumal but we have some chores to do before we cross. First Rusty needs his vet papers to go along with his import permit and Latin America generally doesn’t recognize the three year rabies shot. So he’ll get a one year here which will cover many countries over the next twelve months. Then he gets a certificate of good health which lasts as long as it lasts, and at every border we’ll have to check pet requirements. After the vet we want to do a wheel alignment considering all the crap roads we’ve driven and that will be cheaper here than expensive Belize. Our Michelin Agilis tires still look excellent after 30,000 hard miles. 

Layne wants a last trip to Walmart even though we can’t export fruits and vegetables meat or fish. We’re planning on spending a couple of weeks in Belize a country 180 miles long and 75 miles wide with five highways so having staple foods onboard will be helpful until we get to Guatemala where there is a Walmart in the capital. Some things only Walmart sells and we aren’t on vacation: this is our daily life. 

Meanwhile iOverlander found us this resort north of Chetumal for about $19 a night with fresh breezes, a pool, electricity and a clear north sky for our Starlink. 

If the east wind dies down we could even swim in the Caribbean Sea. 

It’s humid and a bit buggy at dusk but not with mosquitoes just harmless annoying flying insects. We are definitely back in the tropics and glad for our rooftop air conditioning. 

The place is called Yax-Ha which means “clean water” in Mayan. I hope it is.