This is where things literally and figuratively go really south.

On the border between Mexico and Belize at the Hondo River we stop because we have to and the border crossing guard says welcome, checks everything, and then asks do you have car insurance? Oh yes, we say. We got it in Cancun, and the car rental said it was good to go into Belize. The border crossing guard says, “Oh no, they tell you wrong. Is no good to go. You need Belize car insurance.” He’s friendly and seems honest and what choice do we have? Say no and drive back? We’re stuck so, we say where would we go to get Belize insurance? He says, “Oh, not a problem, you can get it right here in the next section.  Follow me.” And with that he sets off behind the counter, us following on the other side until he gets to another section where he disappears beneath the counter for a moment, and comes back up with a different hat emblazoned with “insurance” or some such thing and proudly announces, “I can sell it to you.”

The Belizean countryside is more open than Mexico. We drive through sugar cane fields and when we get close to civilization you can tell the English influence. White clapboard houses with colorfully painted trim. Very charming but disgusting trash clogs all the waterways. Don’t they have trash services? Seems like they don’t. Anyway, where would they take it? It’s all jungle except for the coast.

Belize City is bustling. People everywhere. There’s music in the town square and here we are weary from our long car trip. We park the car in front of our hotel and get out to walk around and see the sights.  I’m in kind of a stupor but it’s lively and interesting with an old-world kind of charm but not swank. Definitely lower middle class, not touristy at all. It’s my kind of place and I feel comfortable. For a while anyway.

IC has wandered off somewhere and left me and UC standing there looking around and wondering what to do next. Here comes IC. He’s got a large black man in tow, and black man is inviting us to a party he says is right around the corner, not far just over the bridge wherever that is. I’m not really in the mood but I’m also not in the mood to decide anything so I go along with the three. Large black man leads us a short distance through town and then into a large tent full of fishmongers. It’s close quarters and narrow aisles and there are wide tables laden with fish and fish vendors at each table. They are wacking away at the fish and it’s now become dreadful. Right next to me another large black man gives me a baleful look as he cleaves a large fish in two with one whack of his giant machete. Lemme outta here, I think.

Miraculously I do not end up in the fish stew and we’re out of the tent and onto the street. I see large black man is leading us to a bridge over a river and out away from the crowds of people. Alarm bells are going off right and left in my mind. That’s it, I think. I’m not going a step further. So, I say, “You know what guys? I’m going back to the hotel. I’m just too tired.” I’m not taking any chances to get rolled in some alleyway. In truth I don’t believe a word and when I say this out loud the two knuckleheads both say, “Me, too!” Sorry large black man and we turn on our heels back to town and the hotel.

After a forgettable dinner in the hotel, it’s time to pass out. Pass out did I say?  The afternoon lunch is returning to exact revenge on the two who had to eat everything because of the earlier ill-conceived notion to “get it over with”. Unfortunately, it’s my punishment too. We’re all in one room, each to our own bed, but it’s a small one room so all night long I’m watching the ceiling fan as it goes whump whump whump while the two idiots trade turns going to the head alternately barfing and having the runs. I told you so.

Next morning I’m rummaging through my backpack, and I can’t find the plane tickets. Where are the plane tickets I say. Not in the bag. Not in the glove compartment of the car. Where could they be? Then it dawns. They’ve been stolen. They probably got lifted when we were hiking down the road to Tulum. This is a disaster. We’re going to have to buy new tickets.

But bound and determined to enjoy something we hire a boat and head out the estuary for Caye Caulker. The two idiots are green around the gills and look miserable. Dumbies.

Now things are looking up. Caye Caulker is as charming as you can get. Hardly anyone is there. They’re all at the more popular and therefore less desirable (to me) Ambergris Caye in their swank hotels. I don’t like swank hotels, the kind you see on the lagoon in Cancun (Miami Beach South). On Caye Caulker you can easily walk from one end of the island to the other. It feels like the real Belize.

We find a pension that is spare but has everything I need. I have a clean private bedroom with nothing but a louvered window and one twin bed the size of a pullman train car. The bathroom is down the hall shared by every guest but clean and tidy and the toilet flushes. The waves of the peaceful Caribbean lap lazily against the shore. It’s protected by the big barrier reef way out there out of sight and is steps from our pension.

But that night along about dinnertime there’s a terrifying thunderstorm. Rain wind lightening thunder the whole nine yards. I’m thinking it’s a hurricane we didn’t warn ourselves about but it abates after what seems and eternity and then we walk to the café on the puddled sandy road. There are giant crabs scuttling sideways at our feet.

We dine on lobster at an open-air café and the only other patron is a German a tourist like us.  We talk but I remember nothing of our conversation.

Next day we snorkel on the reef off a hired single-hull wooden boat that looks like it’s seen better days. I have a brief panic attack when I put my face in the water, and I have to tell myself to calm down and breathe. There are a few things human beings aren’t meant to do but we do it anyway. SCUBA diving is one. Skydiving is another. If you can’t breathe underwater, you shouldn’t be there and if you don’t have wings, you shouldn’t be there either. My danger of choice is along the surface of the planet not higher than the back of a horse. Once I get over my panic the fish swimming around me are magical. But is that a barracuda? Please Mr. Barracuda, I’m going to be gone soon and will stop invading your territory as soon as I can. No sharks are allowed. I’m staying close to the boat in case I have to swim for it to save myself.

The next day the two idiots treat me to the Heckle and Jeckle Show because they have to look for a Mayan ruin called Altun Ha. I’m crammed in the back of the Cucaracha in misery. UC drives. IC navigates. Go this way. No, go that way. Wait, go back. Turn around you missed it. We never find Altun Ha. Of course, it’s the idiots and though IC speaks fluent Spanish they can’t stop to ask directions. This is not allowed. I keep my mouth shut and wait for it to be over.

After that debacle we head north to Chichen Itsa. Now we’re in the real Mexico. Every little village has children and turkeys running wild. Slow down or you’re going to break your axles on the “topes” which are speed bumps the size of Kilimanjaro. The huts in the villages have no doors. Who needs doors, or windows for that matter, when the weather is oppressively humid and hot. As we drive by, we can see inside where Mayan hammocks hang from the ceiling. The inhabitants sleep in these string hammocks and I’m sure this is practical otherwise you’re going to have all manner of monster biting insect crawling up your pant leg as you try to sleep.

In Chichen Itsa we board a late afternoon tour bus where the tour guide tells us it’s “No Chicken No Pizza. Chee-chen Eetsa!”  and then we’re off to Cancun again in the dark of night and I feel as though we will be killed in the Cucaracha when hundreds of cars and 2 decker semi-trucks miss us by inches going what seems like 90 miles an hour on the narrow night highway back to Cancun.

I got what I came for and a bit more than I bargained for. Where shall I go next?