What an elation entering Belize. I just had to smile being in another country. I’m in Belize baby!
When I was growing up Belize was known as British Honduras and Belize City as Fort George. All a dream to visit back then. But here I am.
There were several things that were immediately evident. Belize is a lot poorer than Mexico. The churches are now protestant instead of Roman Catholic. The people are black instead of brown. But perhaps the biggest change is that people speak English! My Spanish is still very weak. 🙁
GPS
The maps on the BMW Navigator IV GPS I purchased with the bike are only for Canada, US and Mexico. So before leaving on my trip I purchased Central American maps from GPS Travel Maps.
The night before leaving for Belize I installed the micro card for Central America. However, as I rode to Belize City, it showed I was off road lots of times when I wasn’t. And the directions it gave were for roads that didn’t even exist. Luckily, there is only one paved road to Belize City. However, I did get twisted around in a border town. I just headed south and eventually got back on the Northern Hwy to Belize City. My GPS wasn’t useless but not that useful either. I needed to see if there were updates. Otherwise, I would need to buy new maps.
Belize City
Once I was on the right road again the ride was really relaxing. It was sugar cane field after sugar cane field. And on the road sugar cane truck upon sugar cane truck. There were also a few add villages to pass through, but that was it until Belize City.
Belize City is the largest city in Belize. Well … large is relative. The population of Belize City is only about 60,000 people. So now you can understand how small the towns I went through were. The entire population of Belize is approximately 350,000 people.
Bella Sombra Guesthouse
The hotels in Belize are expensive. At least they are expensive for everyday living. For a vacation they would be fine. I chose to stay at the Bella Sombra Guesthouse downtown Belize City.
I like staying downtown because I can walk everywhere.
Looking for Money
I arrived in Belize without any Belizean dollars. It was no problem going through the border and paying all the fees in pesos or US dollars but I would need Belizean dollars for my stay here. I went to the ATM at the credit union down the street. It rejected my debit card. Then to the Atlantic Bank. My card was rejected again. On my ride in I saw the Belize Bank and walked that way. It accepted my card but said it couldn’t complete my transaction. I was beginning to wonder if I could get money here. After some dinner at a nicer place that accepted my Visa credit card, I headed back into town as I saw on my Maps.me app that there was a Bank of Nova Scotia downtown. I was in luck. Money in hand I went back to my hotel ready for more exploring tomorrow.
Coffee
The next day the priority was to find a coffee shop for breakfast and to hang out in the mornings while I was in Belize City. I checked out a couple but they were pretty run down. As I walked around I discovered that pretty much the whole city is run down. It reminded me of cities in sub-saharan Africa I had been to.
Tripadvisor had La Petit Cafe as the number one coffee shop. It was connected to a Ramada. It was already hot when I started looking and now even hotter. I located the cafe in the “tourist zone” of Belize City.
It was cool inside the cafe. This was going to be my morning refuge ha ha.
Exploring
After coffee I did somemore exploring.
The city skyline.
I also bought water taxi tickets to San Pedro tomorrow.
My Route for March 27, 2017
My location for March 28, 2017
