Day 9: Placencia, Belize to Puc Muul, Mexico

Driving North on the Southern Highway

A day of beautiful but difficult driving through Belize. We wake early with the sun and pack up our wet clothes. "We're getting the hell out of Dodge," I say. Pulling off of the beach, we promptly drive the truck into a shallow depression of soft sand. We're stuck.

Driving on sand is quite tricky, particularly so in a 2WD truck. It was stupid of me not to walk ahead and scout out the best (firmest) route until we were off the beach.

We jam palm branches under the tires and shovel sand for a while. When we fail at hand-winching forwards to a fallen tree, we winch backwards using the coconut palms we tied our clothesline to last night. We air down the tires to about 15 lbs, then I jump in and coax the truck through the soft sand back to the road. An hour and a half after initially starting off, we air up the tires using the on-board 12 volt compressor and pull the truck out onto the Southern Highway heading north.

I'm a bit nervous with Sean in the driver's seat, but I get over it after a few miles. The hard-packed sand track is narrow, and the soft edges could easily grab a tire and send the truck spinning into the brush. The drive is a rough one, and Pedro continues to take a beating. Terrain and scenery changes quickly as we rumble along at 45 mph.

It begins to rain. We throw mud everywhere as the truck slides all over the road. Our back window has become useless. Looking back from the cab, there is a subtle red glow visible around the edge of the glass, otherwise it is entirely opaque.

We come upon a Ford pickup stopped on the side of the dirt track with it's hood up. Sean pulls over and I jump out to see if we can help them. Two men and a small boy stand around the engine compartment in the light rain. Their main drive belt is slipping due to a loose alternator bracket. Upon further inspection, I see that the alternator is held on by a single small hex bolt, which they are attempting to tighten with a large adjustable wrench. I somehow doubt that the engineers at Ford intended for this poor little bolt to bear the entire weight of the alternator. The head of the bolt is well chewed-up already, and they shall doubtless destroy it if they continue. "This just isn't the right tool," one man laments, "Have you got a small wrench maybe?"

I'm totally psyched that I am able to help some stranded travelers make it back to civilization. I knew we were toting this 40 lb box of tools around for something. I climb into the back and retrieve my box of combination wrenches. We quickly effect the repair and are on our way, surely leaving them to wonder: "Who were those masked men?"

Back on the single-lane Hummingbird Highway, we approach the crest of a blind hill a bit too fast. We pop over the hilltop and there is a big Isuzu truck right in front of us. We swerve to the right and catch a little scrubby bush on the right side. Nothing major. We slow a bit.

We enjoy the drive more and more as we head north towards Belmopan. We stop into the capital briefly and inquire at a gas station about the whereabouts of the U.S. consulate. Not in Belmopan, try Belize city. We decide to head straight for the Mexican border and hope for the best.

After taking the dirt-road shortcut around Belize city, we stop at an intersection to gas up the truck. As I wrestle a can from the roof rack, a dark-skinned man ambles out to the road from inside a nearby house. The house has a small convenience store downstairs and a restaurant featuring home-cooked food. The guy is as friendly as can be, and invites us to eat there. When we're finished refueling, we buy some drinks and order lunch. A piping hot meal of beans and chicken arrives minutes later. After a light seasoning with Marie Sharp's locally produced Habanero sauce, it makes a great lunch.

I wander out back to use their nice little restroom. Written on the wall is a sign that reads:

    Keep the place clean
    Flush all paper (after use)
      -Management

The drive up the Northern Highway, while quick, takes longer than we remember. Finally we reach the border with Mexico. As always occurs when we pull up to a border crossing, grown men race up to the truck like children to the ice cream man, wanting to change money for us on the black market. Sean and I each change another US$100 to pesos. Sean is short a few traveler's checks and decides that Dennis has made off with them.

Amazingly, this turns out to be our easiest border crossing yet. I pay US$11 for a new temporary import sticker and we roll north towards Cancun.

The drive is long and boring. Shortly after leaving Chetumal, we get on 307. Straight, black two-lane through 12-foot jungle scrub is all we see for the next 150 miles. On the way into the Tulum area, we run over a big fat tarantula crawling across the road. Just north of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, the straight-as-an-arrow road makes a smooth 5 degree turn to the right. It is marked by a "Curva Peligrosa" (dangerous curve) warning sign. Everything's relative.

We finally stop when we see a sign for camping near a little town south of Akumal called Puuc Mul. The rough Caribbean water is as clear and blue as in Cancun, and there's a nice little thatch-roofed restaurant/bar right next to the campsite. A quick look at the menu, however, tells us that we are definitely entering the tourist area. We meet a nice old couple from Canada who are parked just behind us at the campground. They give us their especially effective bug repellent and a guide to Cancun. They warn us about the local insect life, and not to steal their clothesline upon which our "cleaned" clothes are finally actually drying.

We have another dinner of pasta, then shower and hang out in a corner of the restaurant writing in our journals. We are finally driven out when the only other patrons in the bar, a bunch of businessmen and their hired "women of the night" as Sean calls them, begin doing the Latin equivalent of the electric slide. [Note- this turns out to be the Macarena, which I will not hear in the States for about two more years.

We both sleep like babies.

<-Previous Day | Back to Top | Next Day->

Hosted by www.Geocities.ws