No sign of bugs this morning and throughout the day. My "attack" on them yesterday seems to have paid off. Let's see tomorrow.

The heavy metal band across the street was playing into the early hours of the morning. As a result, I didn't get much sleep 🙂 I was soooo tempted to go to the live performance but since I had a long drive planned for this morning, I stayed in my room. After I wrote yesterday's blog entry, I had 3 beers at a local bar, where I also chatted with 3 crazy Canadians who drove all the way down to Chetumal from British Columbia and they too were on their way to Belize. Crazy but great! 🙂 Anyway... I didn't feel like more drinking.

The day started by spending 1 1/2 at the border with Belize. All went well at the end, paid a couple of bandits, and I was on my way to Belize City for the night, as per my plan. No good maps and, typical me, I got lost again because I was paying too much attention to the landscape, trying to absorb every single image on the way rather than taking notice of the traffic signs for directions 🙂 You can tell from the road on which I ended up that I got out of the main one 🙂 I thought that as long as I kept going south, it'd be ok and, indeed, after 30 mins or so I got back on track. Yes, that's me driving and taking photos at the same time. Bad I know but I was all along 🙂

  

Julio, the car, keeps changing the plans for me. The driver's window came loose again so it wouldn't be safe to park it in Belize city. So I decided to head west and towards San Ignosio, close to the borders with Guatemala. I was looking for ecotourism locations (being respectful to nature, making sure that the money stays local, etc.) on the Internet and found "The Trek Stop". I thought that few days at a relaxing location would be nice and would allow me to concentrate on more book-related writing, while still visiting all the nearby attractions.

When I arrived I realized that this place is even better up close. It's gorgeous. I will indeed stay few days around here. I met one of the owners, John, with his partner, own 12.5% of the Trek Stop... American hippies who relocated here), very very cool guy. He even gave me tools so that I could raise Julio's window. More photos of the Trek Stop tomorrow.

Time for a shower and go to explore the San Ignosio...

Food and beer at a bar-restaurant at the town center (or nearby). Then, I joined the locals to check out the elections that appeared to be taking place. As I found later at a local bar, it was the democrats electing their local representatives.

 

I stayed for beers and chatted with some local folks for a couple of hours. Sorry, no photos! On the way back, I came across a house that has already started celebrating Christmas 🙂 Just across the street from the same house, there was a sign for "mixer rental". You know... just in case 🙂

 

As you can tell, a slow day. I think it's going to be like that for few days while I am concentrating on exploring the beautiful nature destinations around here. I am also planning to visit Tikal, which is not far.

Lesson for the day: Do I need to say it again? MAPS!!! Oh... and be aware of the bandits at the borders.

 

And here's an idea of the distance I covered today (this is not at the same scale as yesterday's post).