Cars, Planes and Boats
We said our goodbyes to our wonderful new friends and waited for a bus at this bus stop…which we later found out wasn’t a bus stop…I am still not sure what that was, but there was a guy there who I talked to in Spanish and he said to just take a taxi. He then offered us a coke…how nice is that?
We finally flagged down a taxi and headed into the next town.
We got to the next town, but what we didn’t count on was that in order to get across the border to Belize we needed to pay an exit fee for Mexico and an entrance fee for Belize. We had run out of money because we were waiting on someone to pay us from the computer work we had done, so we were stuck. We went to a computer cafe and asked for help from our parents again…
We got more funds and went back to the border. They didn’t take cards so there was some guy with a truck on the side of the road who said he would take me across to the ATM and then bring me back so we could pay and get across. He was nice enough and chatted to me along the way. He said that we should just stay in town for the night, that he knew a place. That seemed really good to me actually because it was getting late and we were so tired. We got the money and got back to Rob who was worried the whole time, understandably so since he just sent his girlfriend off in some random truck with a guy off to who knows where…
We paid and go through and our driver took us to a clean place to sleep for the night. We were so glad to have our own room with a shower and a bed. It was the first time we had our own space alone. That night we walked around the town and found a place to eat. There was a couple there and the man of the couple introduced himself and started chatting us up. He talked to us about love and about how important it is to think and speak positively, but mostly that love is the most important thing there is. He was glad to find other people who were fellow happy loving people.
The next day we tried to figure out the best way to get to Guatemala. We thought that maybe we could take a boat there from where we were, so in the morning we tried to get to the boat. We found out we missed the boat…as we were walking to the bus stop this guy said that he had an uncle who could take us there on his boat, which we thought would be ok…however he was a little sketchy…so we were a bit wary. We got a taxi to this guy’s uncle’s house and the taxi man said not to trust this man, that he was bad news. He said that we should just fly there, that most people fly and it would be much easier and safer. When Mr. Sketchy got back into the car we let him know we were going to fly instead and we brought him back to the bus station.
We were then whisked away to the tiny airport where we caught a plane to San Pedro.
In hind sight I am not quite sure what we were thinking…we should have just taken a bus. It would have taken us longer, but it would have been waay less expensive. Rob and I am a bit blown by the wind when it comes to making plans and this happened to be a spur of the moment by the seat of our pants move…
In an hour we were up in the air and on our way to the island of San Pedro, where we were told we could camp…
Let me tell you about San Pedro…it is the most expensive of the Belize islands and you can’t camp. We get off the plane and get a ride with one of the locals who is a school teacher. She brings us to the only hostel on the island and it is booked up….we are beginning to realize that this was not the best move…
We asked someone who was on the street driving by if he was going into town. We told him we were looking for a place to stay for the night and he said he had a place right there so we ended up staying at the dirtiest, apartment in San Pedro…but at least it was a place to stay and it was inside and had a bed which was a plus.
We went out to the main town that night to catch the sunset, walk along the beach, get some dinner and find internet. The sunset was so beautiful…it was very relaxing there on the island. Many people were on honeymoon or other holiday. We found a restaurant with free WIFI and we sat outside to use the internet. Rob wanted some pie and so I told him to just go order a piece, I mean, how much could a piece of pie be really? It took him forever, but once he came back he said…”Well that was a little bit more expensive than I thought it would be.” Well how much was it? $18 dollars Belize, which is $9 US, but still…wow… Just for the record, it was really yummy. We had to laugh really because for us, trying to live a frugal life, this trip seemed to be a super expensive adventure…we needed to figure out a way to sustain our selves or we were going to get ourselves into trouble…
