We left Akumal and drove to Chetumal for the night. Got in early in the afternoon and Mimi and I went off to get the tire fixed on the jeep. It had a nail in it and a slow leak. Got that fixed for $4 US and found the gas plant and filled the RV with propane. We were parked in a huge mall parking lot and we went to the grocery store and to Office Depot and got copies of all of our vehicle paperwork. About 9pm, the security guard came around and told us we couldn't stay there overnight. He was pretty nice and full of ideas of where we could park outside his jurisdiction. A real cop came by and said he would show us a safe spot to spend the night. He took us over into a neighborhood next to a square with basketball courts and playgrounds. There were a lot of kids hanging out but the cop told me that he wouldn't bring us somewhere that wasn't safe and that the police would be patrolling all night. When I looked a little dubious he repeated that it was a good neighborhood and they never had any problems there. I said OK and we parked. We sat outside on a low wall for a couple hours, drinking beer and talking to some teenagers that came over. It did seem like a good area and we slept easily that night.

In the morning we stopped to get gas and while we were there Kathe and Colleen showed up. We had left them a phone message that we were at the mall but they figured we had to move and came looking for us. We got to pick their brains a little more for info on Guatemala, take an envelope with some money for their family there, and spend a few minutes chatting and laughing. The guys at the Pemex had tried to rip off both Mimi and Bobby, they took his picture and we had gone over and made a complaint. The guy who was in charge turned out to be Kathe and Colleen's friend and he is the one who got another guy fired a few weeks before who had tried to rip them off. Heh!


The border took over an hour but wasn't a huge hassle. The dog's papers weren't there as they had promised, just like last time. This time we figured out that for about $10 bucks more we could skip the whole hassle, pay the fine and get the papers issued right there. OK. That works for me. We had worried about the search as we read the blog of a birding group that had crossed a week or so before us. They had a lot of stuff taken from them so we were careful and hid the meat and did our best to hide the satellite dish. No problems, they asked us about booze and fruit and didn't really look much.

We stopped for lunch in Corozol and then drove straight through to Amigos restaurant outside Belmopan, one of our favorite spots. We had dinner and played dominoes at one of their tables, chatted with a lot of Belizeans and spent the night.

This is a picture of a Jabiru Stork taken at the Belize zoo. This stork stands over 4.5 feet tall! We actually saw one in the wild as we were driving towards Chetumal from Escarcega, it was out among the reeds in a wetlands area. More pictures from the Belize zoo coming soon.