Belize

After crossing from Mexico into Belize, we made a straight line for Orange Walk Town, a small, inland city. In this town we first noticed obvious signs of damage caused by a near 2-year long pandemic in the form of closed businesses. Although Labor Day was still being celebrated across Central America, the streets were lined with barred doorways to empty buildings. The official language of Belize is English, which made everything much easier to accomplish. We avoided Belize City only because we have each had our fair share of Caribbean beach towns and had no real desire to travel a day out of the way to visit the ocean. At this point it has been over 100 F and sunny every day, far too hot to enjoy being exposed to the elements.

Belize (and other parts of Central America) has a large Mennonite population which settled somewhere in the early 1900’s. Needless to say, it was quite odd to see families of white people dressed in early 1900’s attire traveling down the rural roads of Belize in a horse-drawn wagon. They seem to be doing fairly well in sticking to their cultural and religious roots, as we also saw a Mennonite man driving a brand new, well-polished GMC pickup (costing in the neighborhood of $70K USD). Although I am sure that they will maintain the truck well and drive it for a minimum of 10 years. Nice belongings aren’t as “disposable” in these parts of the world as they are in the US.

There was also a decent number of Indian people in the city, as well as Indian restaurants and small markets. Belize has by far been the most diverse country we have traveled through, having even a tiny population of people from China.

Being that Belize is so tiny, we reached the border in only a few hours of riding spread out over two days. Our next crossing will be Guatemala.

One of my favorite discoveries in Belize was the Fry Jack. A crispy, fried dough served with breakfast. They taste great stuffed with all the various breakfast ingredients. I will definitely learn how to make them when I get home.

Guatemala

We left Belize and entered Guatemala at the Melchor de Mencos border crossing. Like the other border crossings, we were approached by local money exchangers who swap your cash from the previous country for that of the new, for a small upcharge of course. The service is well worth the upcharge, as finding ATM’s (if they are even working) can be difficult. The exchangers approach you with literal bricks of cash in hand, some accepting cash from anywhere in the word. We swapped our money and then approached the building to begin the immigration process.

It should be noted that traveling to any country is relatively easy with a US passport. A quick visit to a window (with no line to wait in), a couple quick questions regarding the time you intend to spend in the country, a stamp in the passport, and you are free to go. However, the process is much, much different when you are traveling through with your own vehicle. The whole issue stems from the fact that each country you bring your vehicle into wants to ensure that you LEAVE with that same vehicle. This is because they do not want people bringing vehicles into their country and selling them into the economy without paying an import tax (fair enough). But the process is long, tedious, and often requires visits to several different wide-spread buildings, various permits, insurance, paperwork, extra copies of titles, tourist entry and exit fees and most importantly, fumigation. Fumigation. This is a straightforward process of extorting cash out of people in which you are charged some amount of money so that they can spray your vehicle for insects before crossing borders, as if the insects are unable to cross the borders (imaginary lines) by themselves. Also, you MUST pay the fumigation fee, but in most countries they don’t require that your vehicle is ACTUALLY sprayed. So yea, a gimmick. There are also ZERO signs anywhere to guide you through any processes, so must rely on the assistance of locals who wait at the border and offer to help you through the process, who politely ask for a tip afterward. If you take a trip like this, TIP THEM. They are worth their weight in gold. They will in 2-3 hours guide you through a process that may otherwise take twice the time if you can even sort it on your own. Officials allow these guys to cut lines, prepay fees, or get stamps to show that you already had your vehicle sprayed, in the event you don’t want it to be sprayed (we do not want our bikes sprayed with pesticides, and since we must sit on them, I am not eager to have the seat I am sitting in all day soaked in industrial bug spray).

Guatemala is a beautiful country, with all the nice palms and exotic plants you would expect to see in Central America. Although beautiful, Guatemala was the first country in which we had to exercise increased caution while riding. The drivers were more competitive, always trying to pass another vehicle even if it meant gaining no forward distance. This is not an overstatement. Drivers here will not hesitate to pass even when approaching blind turns and hills. Mike and I are still amazed that we have not witnessed a single head-on collision, only windy mountain roads lined with crosses to pay respect for loved ones who had died while traveling these very roads.

This is also the first country in which brake lights have clearly out of style. The only close calls we have experienced are nearly rear-ending everything from Honda hatchbacks to buses and semi-trucks. There is no enforcement of safety regs or vehicle inspections, there is no DOT. If it will roll, you can drive it. Mike and I adjusted our following distances and kept pushing forward.

Guatemala was a nice mix of rural riding dotted with small villages. Each little town along the main road is marked on each end with a series of speed bumps. The entire time we were in Guatemala we only saw two traffic lights. One at each border. Every other step of our ride was managed through negotiating traffic or waiting and yielding to traffic for the sake of survival. It may not seem like much a system to us, but it works well for the people of Guatemala, as they were able to keep traffic moving safely and without road rage.

Everyone that we encountered was very helpful and patient with our broken Spanish. Many people even eager to work through the language barrier to provide assistance. Overall, Guatemala proved to be full of very nice people and delicious food.

El Salvador

The next stop on our tour is El Salvador. El Salvador has so far been my favorite country to ride through, simply for the fact that it takes me back to my sport bike riding days. We crossed through Frontera Anguiatu, and as we had been told in the past, the border crossings become more and more timely and difficult the farther you get from the US. We spent probably 3 hours crossing the border and arranging our motorcycle permits. Once through, we rode highway 12 to highway 3 into Nueva Concepcion. The ride into town was a well-paved, windy road through mountains filled with lush forest and amazing views of the valleys in between. While in Nueva Concepcion, Mike and I met a couple that was local to the town, but had spent the past 35 years or so living and working in Boston. They were home to visit family after a long shut down due to the pandemic. Great people, but they had a nasty lapdog which bit me and drew blood in four places. The wife was quick to clean my bite wound and get me all wrapped up. Once back to the hotel, Mike used our well-equipped first aid kit to do a proper clean-up. They warned me that the little dog was mean, so it’s no fault of theirs that the dog bit me when I tried to pet it later in the evening. See the attached photo of the pup sitting in the white lawn chair, shortly after it assaulted me.

El Salvador has a reputation for it’s ties to the MS-13 gang, but I assure you, we encountered no gang members nor witnessed any signs of violence. Ever since crossing into Mexico, nearly every building up until this point has had bars over the doors and windows, razor or barbed wire on most fencing, armed guards, and brick walls lined with broken glass embedded in the top layer of mortar (the photo of the prison-style hotel room door was actually in Guatemala, but has been common throughout the trip. Although crime is implied everywhere via these security measures, there have been no obvious signs of crime at any point. We have never felt in danger or threatened, only welcomed by the people that we have come across.

We traveled across most of El Salvador via highway 3 due to the fun twisty mountain roads and beautiful scenery. We added the best photos we could take with our smartphones of the views along this route. It is difficult to find safe pull-offs, so we were limited on where we could stop for pictures. Since our hotel restaurant was outside, I also stumbled across a couple of huge toads, and I was able to grab one for a quick photo. I didn’t want to stress him out too much, so I set him back in the brush right away. I also encountered a big Rhinoceros Beetle seen in the photos. As painful as it looks, these things are harmless, but that doesn’t make it any less uncomfortable when they fly into the side of your face.

The last hotel in El Salvador came standard with our own little secure parking garage to keep the motorcycle free from petty thieves. It was nice to go to sleep and have no concerns about our bikes getting lifted. The room also had a little private room-service window in which the items you ordered were placed into. Two doors kept the weather and the bugs out. Pictures of the garage, service window, and the foliage behind our hotel are included below. Jungle by night, mountain cloud forest in the morning.

A random sighting in El Salvador was the giant pet rabbit at a local clothing store, which somehow never leaves its pillow.