13th Sep - Back to Mexico via Belize

We get the bus very early again - this is not fun. At least it's clean and on a proper road. The road from Flores to Melchor de Mancos on the Belize border is, according to the guide book, bandit country a fact not lost on either of us, but we were too tired to really care and doze most of the way with no incidents.

The immigration on the Guatamala side is again just a room - this time you pass your Passport through a window to get stamped. However on the Belize side it's a much bigger affair with a massive building and lots of officials - probably the British influence. We pass through and get back on the bus. The bus sits for ages waiting for one of the group, the driver finally goes to immigration to find her to find out she didn't get into the country, she was Argentinian and didn't have the correct visa or something. How horrible would that be - we all felt really sorry for her, so made up stories how she was actually a drug smuggler and worse.

The bus toured through Belize and it was really funny to see all the signs in English and lots of chineese restaurants and shops. The bus stopped off in Belize City for a while so we were able to get off - I think that counts as visiting a country?

Both rural Belize and Guatamala seem more affluent than rural Mexico. Really quite large, nice houses line the roads unlike the tiny shacks in Mexico.

We head through Orange Walk in Belize (nice name - don't think it has the same connotations as back home) where there''s a community of Germans - the Menonites - who live a bit like the amish. I really hoped to see them in their simple dress in a horse and cart but alas it was not to be.

We crossed back into Mexico and had to pay US$15 each to get out of Belize even though we had only been there for a couple of hours - rubbish.

Back in Mexico we get off the bus at Chetumal and go to the bus station to get a bus to Playa Del Carmen up the coast near Cancun. An english guy on the bus tells us about a hurrican in the Carribean but we ask about it when buying the ticket and they don't seem too concerned.

Waiting for the bus Mairi over hears a bunch of tourists talking about the hurrican and how you cannot go to Cancun so we join the conversation only to be told people are being evacuated and there's basically been a state of emergency called. Oh dear! Mairi goes back to the ticket desk and pleads ignorance till they give us our money back - imagine they were going to send two wee Scottish girls into the path of a force 5 hurrican (thats one of the most severe).

We get a taxi with a mad German woman to a hotel in the town. I call it a hotel but hovel would have been more apt so we plod through the rain drenched streets to another hotel - totally soaked by the time we get there but they have a room and it's clean.

We wander around Chetumal for dinner and it's a nice wee town much more affluent than the Yucatan with nice shops and bars and have pizza for dinner - getting a bit sick of Mexican food - something I never thought I would say.