Belize - Part 1

New Year's Eve in Chetumal, Mexico!

Mexico to Belize - December 31, 2006 - Jan. 5, 2007

We've been having a wonderful holiday in southern Mexico and Belize, but of course, not without a lot of adventure! We left Saskatchewan on December 30 in the afternoon, and prayed hard that the SECOND huge snowstorm in Denver wouldn't affect our flights. The reason was cause brilliant little ol' me wasn't thinking too hard when planning the trip, and any little flaw in our transportation schedules could put our vacation plans to a dead halt. It was a wobbly house of cards!!

We got from Saskatoon to Regina to Minneapolis in good time, but then our flight to San Antonio was delayed. We didn´t get into San Antonio until almost midnight. From there, Kris drove ALL through the night to Monterrey. Luckily, we weren't stopped at either checkpoint. We got home at about 6am, packed, and napped a bit, before taking a taxi to the airport for our 11:50am flight to Cancun. Arriving in Cancun at about 2pm, we headed on a bus to the main bus terminal, and took yet another bus to Chetumal on the border of Mexico and Belize. We spent the night at Holiday Inn, which I wouldn't really recommend (Los Cocos looked a lot better!) . But it was New Year's Eve! We walked around town, had a great meal and ducked inside the hotel to watch the action (which wasn't a lot!) from our balcony. Mexicans like to shoot handguns at random on New Year's!

A Christmas display in front of the Palacia Gobierno in Chetumal -
I didn't know that one of the wisemen rode an elephant to find Jesus!

A nativity scene in Chetumal... but they're missing a key element -
look closely! (maybe He wasn't born yet??)

The next day, we went to the Nuevo Mercado to catch a bus to Belize. We get there to find a little food stall, and closed signs everywhere. We asked a policeman when the next bus was, and were told that the last bus had left at 9am. It was New Year´s Day - officially a holiday. Not knowing what to do, we tried to convince a guy sitting there to drive us to Belize but he just laughed and said it was too far for him, but he would take us to the border (which is still 2 hours from Belize City) for something like 300 pesos ($30 USD)! Our taxi driver was still there so we asked him to take us to the border. He agreed - for 150 pesos ($15 USD). We were just about to take off when a bus pulls into the vacant parking lot. It really was a miracle! At our most desperate time, a bus that wasn´t supposed to be running came. We headed for a long bus ride to Belize City.

This is the location of the supposed bus station.
Do you see any buses? I don't.

Our saving grace - Gilharry's Bus Line.


Belize countryside - through our dusty window - Belize
is really a third-world country!


Waiting for the boat at the Caye Caulker Water Taxi station.

View from the harbour - the "nice" part of Belize City.