The Smuggler's Den Corozal Town

... I won't say much about my experience with the Belize side except to say that nothing was done professionally and the lack of consideration that was given to the fact that there were actual live breathing animals waiting on their pleasure bordered on abusive and neglectful. Only one governmental official that entire day on both sides of the border behaved with any sort of professionalism at all and that was the vet who came ...

... we were going. Apparently every bus going through Orange Walk stops at this bus station. Apart from the ones to Corozal, which go from the other side of the road. We weren't staying in Corozal, but in the Cerres beach resort. Which doesn't have a beach. Tom was dying to go there because it has a stellar write up in the Lonely Planet. It's owned by a lovely American couple: Bill and Jenny. Jenny picked us up and took us to the resort. It's ...

... they still speak German. They have no telle or raido and some only use horse and cart (but these ones had trackers and utes!) they wear overalls with chequered shirts and hats and beards.(who would have thought there were Germans in Belize!) Then we reached the ruins right in middle of no where in the jungle, very nice. There was a massive statue of a face at the front of a ...

... from the Mexico Belizean border, small town with pretty much nothing there but a few hostels and a bay. We stayed at a cool backpackers right on the bay for about $50 Aus a night we only wanted to stay one night so we could go ...

... got ready to go on the tour and got to the collection area only to find that the other people on the tour were driving a borrowed car with only one number plate and had been stopped and taken to the police station. This means the trip is now cancelled until tomorrow. We then decided to go to the town museum; it should have opened at 8 am but was closed when we got there. We decided to try again after lunch and it is still closed as a result it has been a ...

... dark. We've had no food since the "free" breakfast and are pretty famished. We learn from a man in customs that the water taxi to San Pedro which is on Ambergris Caye (pronounced key) is no longer running and will resume tomorrow at 7am. This means we can not get to our hotel for which we have prepaid. Oh joy. Finding lodging after dark, in a new city, in a foreign country...on New Years Day.

... and smoke blowing past that I tried to phone our hotel on Ambergris Caye to let them know we weren't going to make it before the ferries stopped running. The ride across the border took about an hour, due to having to stop at the Mexican border station to pay the fee on our tourist cards and again at the Belize border station to go through customs with the bags. A pair of Chinese tourists got held up there due to lack of visas, which, in turn, held up ...

... all so saved our US$ which are king for other countries and got some Belize dollars out. We are monitoring who has the cheapest taco deal and we scored 3 for 50cents in Belize. Also the room we stayed in at Akihoto Hotel was US$15 between us and was a cement box with a bed. BONUS, we had our first hot shower since we left San Francisco. Random fact for the day- Belize is famous for the song "La Isla Bonita" by Madonna. Orange ...

... me round the back of what looked like an ordinary shop (but turned out to have 2 swimming pools at the back with loads of families and people enjoying themselves) and grabbed a bottle of rum from one of his employees that hadn't turned up for work that day I decided to digny him and get back to Paula on the bus. Got Abnar to drop us at the bus stop where we could get the bus to Crooked Tree. We had a chat with a nice woman who filled us in on the ...

... seat but there were none left. As a matter of fact I got one out of 4 left to sell. Busy, busy. I figured I´d post this ahead of time as I´ll be exhausted tomorrow and I´m assuming that we´ll arrive ok and on time. At least the busses here are configured for traveling (toilets, TVs, and stewardesses serving drinks all the way.