On July 2, I rode down the Hummingbird Highway through the Maya Mountains. The brochures describe the Highway as being one of the most picturesque in Central America. The road was paved with a heavy gravel making for a very rough ride. By lunch time, I reached the Blue Hole National Park and went for a swim. Much to my surprise, Ellen appeared with two of the neighbor's kids.

         I continued through the mountains and camped at the side of the Highway for the night. The next day, after about an hour and a half, I started to go downhill towards the coast. I stopped in Middlesex to stock up on water and the land started to flatten out. I arrived in Dangriga and found a guest house on the beach. I then went to the Land Registry Office to see if they could help me locate my uncle's land but they only registered government land. I asked a local where the market was and he insisted on sitting on my bike to try it out before guiding me to the market.

         After three days in Dangriga, I packed up and made my way back to the Highway that led south. After a short while, I reached a dirt road that led to Maya Beach on the Pennisula where my relative's land was located. The road progressively became worse with washboard and big rocks in the middle making it almost impossible to ride on. In the late afternoon, I arrived at the Pennisula. It was very narrow with the Carribean Sea on the East and Placentia Lagoon about 20 feet away on the West. I came to a housing development and looked for the lots of my aunt and uncle but a resort was being built on that site by Canadian construction workers. They suggested that I continue further south into town to an area where the double lot numbers were. I reached a sign saying "You are Entering Maya Beach". I decided to stop at the first house and asked where the lot numbers were. One of the guys on the porch said, "If I'm not mistaken, you are standing on it"! I told them that the land belonged to my aunt and uncle and that I was planning on camping there for a few days. The couple that lived in the house, Steve and Yim, were from Montreal and they had been in Belize for a few years running a resort in Seine Bight Village.

         I set up my tent on the beach under a palm tree and settled in for a few days rest. The next day, Steve and Yim suggested I could use their hose at the side of the house to shower. I walked into town to buy some supplies but the store did not open till 3:00pm. I had no food so I had lunch in a small restaurant that was open. When the store finally opened, I found that there was not much to choose from.

         On Monday, July 8, I decided to try and clean up all the debris that had gathered on the property There were fallen trees from last year's hurricane along with plastic bottles, running shoes, a fan and just about anything else you could name. Steve said that once a fridge washed up on shore. He was not able to pull it out so he pushed it back to sea to let the current carry it south. He figured it had gone in and out of shore numerous times and was probably in Columbia by now. I spent about two hours picking everything up.
 

         Yim and Steve invited me over for a drink and vented their frustration in trying to run a business in Belize. "Good help is hard to get" applys in spades down there. Yim ran the resort and she constantly had to be on top of the staff to get them to do their work. Steve talked about the problems of trying to get good help to build his beach house. It seemed, Belize was not a business orientated society. In the evening, Steve and Yim asked me to go for dinner at the resort they run. It was not very far but it took awhile to get there as the road was in bad shape. The resort was like a strange decadent oasis in the middle of a poverty stricken country. There were two swimming pools, two whirl pools, and a pristine beach in the lagoon. Steve ran a dive shop that was located next to the resort on the beach.. Rooms started at $125 American.

         On July 10, I packed up to leave paradise. The only problem had been the bugs but a well sealed beach home would solve that. I stopped at the resort to say goodbye to Steve and Yim and further down the road, I passed the Francis Ford Copolla Resort being built. I soon reached Placencia where I was to catch the ferry back to the mainland. I had missed the 10:00am ferry and the next one didn't leave till 4:00pm. I wandered around the port area and talked to a couple that had been at the resort. Suddenly a boat, which was not on any schedule, showed up, I loaded my bike on board and quickly arrived in Mango Creek. After a short ride on a dirt road through town and I was back on paved Highway.

Belize - Punta Gorda