Shakedown & Shakeup: Belize Trip

We visited Belize first in May, June 2009 and a second time May and June of 2010. The pictures of this posts are from these two trips but the incidents here happened on that second trip. Above: Swallowtail Butterfly, Nim Li Punit Welcome Center.

SHAKEDOWN

The shakedown came first. Actually it happened as we were leaving Quintana Roo, Mexico at the Chetumal crossing.

The Mexican official had overheard my wife refuse to heed the bus driver’s request to have 200 pesos ready for the alleged exit fee. We knew that there was no fee for leaving Mexico. The official, consequently, did not charge us anything. But, based on the bus driver’s attempting the scam in his presence, I have to believe that he was definitely in on it.

Crooked bus driver on the left, crooked attendant on the right. A year ago, in this very office, my wife and I were suckered into paying the fee, being more naive. But thanks, in part to Lonely Planet, we finally found out that there was no such thing as an exit fee for those leaving Mexico and going into Belize.

Both the Belizean bus driver and Mexican official were involved in this ongoing ripoff of foreign tourists. The driver didn’t know that we knew that this fee was bogus. Neither did he know that I was taking pictures of him, the Mexican official, and the Belizean bus.

We just said “No” when the driver said to have the 200 pesos ready. After we got done with the official in the little office – and got our passports back in our hands – my wife called the driver a Mentiroso – liar.

SHAKE-UP

The shake-up happened in the middle of the night when we were staying in Coxcomb National Park. We were sound asleep after an enjoyable but blisteringly hot day of hiking in this wilderness area.

I felt a strong rumbling.

“Must be a truck rumbling by”, I thought. Except we were miles within a wilderness area. There were no major roads anywhere near our cabin. We found out later that it was a 7.1 earthquake with an epicenter in neighboring Honduras.

Later on, in this same trip, we saw some damage in Belize but quite a bit more in Honduras.

Aside from the shakedown and shake-up we still had plenty of good memories of Belize.

Left: Colorful Bluebird bus, smoke-belching down picturesque Hummingbird Highway. Center: Local Belize paper. Right: Downtown Belize City.

Three views of Crooked Tree. L: Handiwork of Cardinal Baptiste, dugout canoe. Pretty impressive. C: School is in, cows are out! R: Jabiru, Cormorants, and Vultures.

Orange Walk. A very interesting central square. Edgy locals in the foreground, Mennonites in the background. Seems like either a deal going down or a barn going up.

Punta Gorda