The streets were quiet on the morning after Xmas Eve; the air was cool and breezy. Soon, we were outside of Merida city limits following signs pointing to Chetumal, the biggest city closest to the Mexico-Belize border. It seems like a fairly streightforward route to Chetumal according to our 1998 edition Mexico road map: YUC HWY 261-> MEX HWY 184 -> 293 -> 307 (South > South East > South).
At the beginning, going through villages and towns along the route was a moving visual delight enjoyed in our car: old churches, local markets, pedi-cabs, stray dogs, people loitering in front of store fronts or peddling fruits or snacks on the roadside; except that the road signs are poorly marked and there are numerous topes (speed bumps). We knew we may have missed the 'real' expressway. After a while, our attention shifted to trying to find our way out of these villages; and our frustration grew. We passed a string of villages and towns with names sounding very otherworldly - Pustunich, Yotholin, Oxkutzcab and Tzucacab - just to name a few. Finally, with positive (and negative) help from locals and our own road-trip savvy, we managed to navigate out of the maze of confusing road signs and a nimiety of speed bumps after hitting a town called "Justicia Social (Social Justice)" - what a name for a town!
The rest of the driving was largely care-free. After passing Buenavista on MEX 307, a real expressway - wide and smooth - stretched out proudly into the horizon. In no time, we drove through the border town, Subteniente Lopez, 7? miles away from the M-B border on the Mexico side and arrived at the border at about 2:00pm. Passing the border was fairly easy, except one officer fussed about us not having a written authorization for driving M's parents' car. After making us aware what he could have done in this situation, he let us pass. Alas, We arrived in Belize!
National borders are such an arbitrary thing. The scenary didn't change much; it was a continuation of same trees and similar plants along side the road. The only differences are that signs were marked in English, Belize's official language and we started seeing more black people.
After 6.5 hours of driving, at 2:30, we finally reached Corozol in Belize, and fortunately, we were able to leave the car with Mr. Pamar, father of Pamela through whom we booked a room in Hotel Corona del Mar in San Pedro. With the good luck in the car-parking arrangement, we manged to catch a 14-seater airplane at 3:30pm to San Pedro.
The ride on the small airplane was thrilling. Being on a small airplane provided a vantage point for viewing the changing terrains and water colors down below. We could see shallow waters where barrier reef are streching along the coast line beyond our vision. Different shades of green and blue are the dominant colors on the natural pallette here. We landed in San Pedro after 15 minutes of soaring into and gliding through the sky.
Taxi cabs lined up for business; one driver peddled his service zealously. But we chose to walk to our hotel knowing it's a small town; in fact, the widest part is only about 1 mile. With sun slowly and gloriously setting, we walked along the ocean front side all the way to our hotel, passing many piers, hotels and restaurants all facing the gleaming Caribbean Sea. We also passed a stinky landfill which will soon become (or already is) a piece of precious ocean-front property.
We checked in Hotel Corona del Mar (Crown of the Sea) and unwound for a short while in our room with oceanfront view on the 2nd floor. Then, we headed out to explore the island. We had great conversations with people and I was intrigued by a phenomenon - there are so many Chinese living in Belize (!) - which I will explore in a seperate blog entry. The night ended with a delicious meal at Jambel Jerk, a Jamaican restaurant that played Bob Marley's MTV video clips non-stop.
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