re: belize

Posted By: elpolvo
Date: 1/9/06 9:32p.m.

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In Response To: Belize (Bill)

bill, greg, david, and johnny- What is the best time of year? i'd pick the end of hurricane season because it's a great escape from the winter cold in the states and it's about the time the rainy season ends but i was there in the first week of june 2003 and that was beautiful too. The cost of such an adventure? i did it on the cheap with a buddy. we spent $3200 for a month long trip (including $100 mordida in altamira on the way down and the $200 20 day storage fee which was too expensive). gas for the truck was by far the greatest expense. we didn't stay in any motels and we did a lot of our own cooking. we spent about $150 in tolls (i have a double axle trailer so all the tolls were double what a single vehicle costs... a one axle trailer would be 25 percent cheaper on tolls. How much time should one allow? 30 days is definitely not enough to drive down, sail all the way to rio dulce and back. it was more like a race or a survivor challenge. we spent four and a half days at our destination before we had to head back and we weren't able to sit out unfavorable weather or winds or visit the cays of belize or towns in mexico. 25 of our days were spent in transit or dealing with paperwork... and they were long days... 400 to 500 miles when driving and 40 to 50 when sailing. 2 months would be better... 3 months would be ideal... except you'll miss your wife or girlfriend and you'll need to fly her down to spend a week with you after a month or so. the road trip through mexico on the east coast is not easy. there are some toll roads and portions of the journey that are excellent and there are some that are atrocious. you can bypass most of the large cities if you're a good navigator and have a good, current roadmap. i bypassed most of them on the way down and ended up in the middle of a couple on the way back. signage is not very good. i was lucky to accidentally end up in tampico on the way back because i had a radiator hose blow out in the middle of town. i found a mechanico within two blocks who removed the old one and used his car to run for a new hose and antifreeze. the whole process took about an hour and we were back on the road quickly at a cost of only $28. i had trouble getting a visa at the crossing at pharr, tx. / reynosa, mx. i told immigration my destination was chetumal. don't tell them that!! if you say chetumal, it means to them that you are going to belize and they want you to get a transmigration visa which entails a visit to a mexican consulate in the states and usually an agent. it's more expensive and much more difficult because you have to prepare a manifest listing everything on board your vehicle and boat and the value of each item. they wanted me to go to to the consulate in mcallen (which was closed because it was sunday). after 30 minutes i went back in to immigration, told them i had changed my mind and my destination was now ciudad victoria. they promptly issued me the normal tourist visa, good for 180 days. then as i walked out they said, "ok, but you can't go to belize - you'll get in trouble." i had never mentioned belize. i never took my truck or trailer out of mexico... i left them in chetumal at the private "club nautico" which had a launch ramp, a few slips and a fenced storage area (the storage cost me $10 per day for truck and trailer and if i had more time i'd have shopped around for cheaper storage if i had more time but it was convienient and secure so i ponied up the money and took off. the 10 year import permit i got at nogales (K-21) came in very handy. i was able to use it and did not have to do any paperwork or pay fees for temporay import of my boat and trailer even though i've taken it out of mexico three times now without surrendering the permit. the permit was free and only took about 30 minutes to get at K-21. checking out of mexico with the boat was a bit of a pain. the port captain did not want to give us a dispatcho because the boat was not documented by the USCG. i explained that the boat had to be at least 26 ft. and 5 net tons to get it documented so it was impossible but he didn't care. when we came to what looked to be to an impass i said that i'd go to isla mujeres or xcalack instead, he finally gave me the dispatcho. his office staff told me privately that he was not fond of americans and usually made it hard on them. i also had to make more than one trip on foot to a copy place and to the bank about five blocks away. the whole process took the better part of a day. the immigration officer (modesto) was very pleasant. we told him we were coming back from belize in three weeks and he let us keep our visas instead of surrendering them and getting new ones when we returned. we checked in at consejo, belize and had a couple of problems there too. the customs officer was not in (he had been assigned to work the border during the holidays at the road crossing about 10 miles north). we caught a ride (7 miles into corozal) to immigration to get our passports stamped and then hitched another ride back to consejo. the customs officer / port captain got back a couple hours after dark (he lives on the premesis) and said he'd take care of checking us into the country first thing in the morning. the other problem was that it's basically impossible to get a sailboat to the dock or even near it. there are shoals and a reef that we were stuck on for well over an hour, going in, coming out and coming back by when we returned (i had my keel fully retracted some of the time which gives me 2 ft. draft). my depth sounder was reading 1.8 ft. at the dock and i had the keel and rudder fully raised. freya rascher's guide to belize and mexico's caribbean coast is very WRONG about depths at consejo and all the water around it! if any of you decide to drive down through texas, email me and i'll send you three separate sets of detailed directions that people have written up about the route. they're chock full of good tips and pretty current on the information. i really can't improve much on what they've written. if you're taking your boat from san carlos you might be better off driving down the west coast but i don't know anything about that route. maybe singapore sam can help on at least part of that route. i could write more about checking out of belize and into guatemala but i won't unless asked. if you're interested there's a good thread on this with a lot of my information and my GPS coordinates on the maya paradise forum. here's a link to that thread (Placencia to Livingston)... read all the messages and you'll learn all i know and more about that part of the trip: http://www.mayaparadise.com/bbsshowthread.asp?an=5649&pn=1&cc=GENERAL&ss=ALL+MESSAGES i could add a little info about sailing from chetumal to belize city and further down but i'll save that for people who are actually going - it's not that relevant here on this thread and it takes a lot of time to write this stuff up. su amigo, -elpolvo (the photo below is a typical, beautiful shot of the waters in belize - this is near cay caulker) ps- i saw a white shark surface near my boat in these clear waters... it was about three feet long... not very scary... but fun to see.