ODO: 318,944
We spend the day getting in and out of the lake. In the morning it’s just lovely. By later afternoon it’s warm bathwater again. Between swims we do meetings and other work. We’re still recovering from our trip to Tulum, so we also try and drink a lot of water. We decide to walk into town for dinner, nothing too far, just a mile. When it’s infinity humidity out and you’re still dehydrated, a mile is the longest distance you’ve ever walked. Even an easy, flat, paved mile. We made it to an Italian place, and it was amazing. Why is there so much good Italian in Mexico?? On our walk home we picked up dessert, and it was one of the few times we’ve bought good baked goods in Mexico.
We continued our journey towards the border and drive into Chetumal. In the grocery store a lady heard us speaking English and came over to make friends. Her and her partner decided to drive the Pan-America before the Pandemic, but never quite made it past Mexico. They gave us some good recommendations before heading back to their shopping. Our stop for the night is an oceanside resort with a pool and, most amazingly, NO BUGS. This might be the most excited we’ve been in a long time. No bugs is a really big deal.
One day turned into five as we enjoyed the nice breeze, daily thunder and just generally relaxed atmosphere. Berne caught a cold somewhere along the way, so the cool breeze made it possible for him to rest in our house instead of having to find a hotel. There were daily, sometimes multiple storms with pounding rain and booming thunder. We woke up one morning to a giant palm frond on the ground next to us, and we heard several coconuts fall from the trees.
When Berne was feeling a little better we had project day. KoKo got out the sewing machine and modified our garbage bag so it could hang off the table. Then she fixed our chair bag. It had a giant hole in it, so wasn’t protecting the chair from the elements any more. Then we needed to add more rivets to our storage bags under the bed. Berne got the party started, drilling the first handful of holes and setting those rivets. The second round a rivets didnt go as well. KoKo set the drill on the bench, but it fell, breaking the drill bit and putting a hole in the floor. After that drama, which mostly consisted of KoKo feeling bad and Berne laughing, died down we got in the pool to cool off.
We decided to have one more relax day because KoKo woke up stuffed up. During this relax, Berne discovered some structural cracks in the camper. It was really only a matter of time, our house lives a harder life than these things are supposed to. Berne managed to find a guy in Belize who said he could help us, so I guess that means it’s time. Which is good because we’re running out of food and water. We spent most of the day in the pool, which resulted in everyone being mildly sunburnt.
Border day. Our first official new country border. We dont know what to expect, so we try to set up for success: fill up our water, get non-perishable groceries, eat a meal, get some cash. Leaving Mexico was very easy, we got the truck stamped out (and more importantly, our $500 deposit back), and then we get ourselves stamped out. No going back now, we’re really doing this! To get into Belize we go through:
- Fumigation: It cost us $5 and 2 beers. The guy doing the fumigation said they would take all our beer. We didnt believe him, but we still gave him a couple to be nice.
- Immigration: This guy was super cool, and very thorough. He had just gotten back from Machu Picchu, so was very excited to see the stamp in KoKo’s passport. We gave him some stickers after he gave us 30 days to explore Belize when we only asked for a couple of weeks.
- Customs: This lady was very serious, but stamped us into the country, so great.
- The bank: This lady was hilarious and very fun for the few minutes we talked with her.
- Inspections: These guys opened one back door in the cab and peeked inside the camper, but nothing more than that. We gave them stickers too.
- Insurance: This guy was the nicest of the bunch, and very helpful. Belize makes you buy vehicle insurance for every single day you will be in the country. We paid him, put a sticker on his wall and entered Belize!
We drive into Orange Walk, this is where the welder Berne found lives, and where we plan to camp for the night. There are an aggressive number of Asian food restaurants, so obviously we have Asian food for dinner and it’s delicious. Our planned campground appears to be abandoned, but as we drive away, a car waves us down and says we can stay. They are mostly a restaurant, and aren’t open for the next few days, so it should be pretty quiet. We head back to the campground and get set up for the night. Because it was nice out when we went to bed, we do not put the rain awning out, so we wake up to it raining on us. Hard. Inside the tent. We’ll learn this lesson eventually.
Today we get the camper back in (mostly) fighting shape. Besides welding the cracks up, OK4WD has shipped us some brackets to help keep this from happening again. We’ll pick those up in a week, farther along in Belize. The welder Berne found was great. He is in the process of building his own machine shop, but currently works in the machine shop at the local sugar factory. He gave us the full run down on how their factory is a closed loop system, and all the waste is reclaimed to make more and better sugar. He also gave us a small list of his favorite places to go in Belize! We did leave his place with one less back up light due to poor grounding choices, but that’s a later problem. After the stress of the morning we had a serious relax before walking into town for some delicious Belizean food.
