Trip to Belize

As most of you probably know, we had to make a last minute trip to Belize this past week. We were not planning it, and did not know about it until the day before. We knew that our visa extensions were about to run out, yet we were not planning on leaving the country. The director of the school at which Leah teaches was taking care of our visa situation. So we thought that either there was going to be another extension of some sort, or a perhaps the fine would be taken care of for us (the latter is something which the director has done for teachers in the past). But alas the day before the trip we got a phone call saying that the Preciado family was going to Belize to take care of their visas and if the date worked for us we were to go along as well. Roberto the director's husband was to take us there and back. Since we didn't have anything going on, and we needed to renew our visas, and it was going to be awesome, we said yes, and thus woke up the following morning at 4am in order to be on the road at 5. So we set out early in the morning expecting a 5-6 hour trip there and back. As you can see on the map the southern border of Belize is not that far from the north western corner of Honduras. In fact it only took us 4-5 hours to get to the southern edge of Belize. And in fact it had only been maybe 3 hours when we saw this
However the problem lay in the fact that the only border immigration office between Belize and Guatemala is much further north, and the road to get there does not go straight north. As you can see from the line that I drew, it goes significantly west before it turns east to Belize. This makes for a much longer trip than we had originally anticipated. I was cool with this because it made for getting to see more of Guatemala, as well as an overnight stay. It got even cooler when we turned onto the 20 or so mile road to the border. It was great as you can see from the picture it was dirt, and it was dry, which meant that it was very dusty, which meant that all of the plants lining the road were covered in white dust. We may not have had snow but we had something like a white Christmas. Unfortunately I don't have any pictures to show you of this because they just wouldn't come out well, with the amount of light that we had at this point in the journey. But here is a picture of the road setting out towards Belice.

So around nightfall after the 20 miles on this road we finally saw English for the first time in several months. (For those who don't know Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the primary language, though everyone speaks Spanish as well) I know this isn't the best picture but we didn't get into Belize until it was dark so I had to take this from Guatemala.

After walking into Belize, and then immediately walking out, and getting reprimanded for it, we went in search of a hotel in this small Gautemalan border town. It was already dark and not a good idea to get back on the road to look for a hotel elsewhere. So the hotel we found was actually quite nice mostly because it was the fanciest one in town, and the only one that took credit cards,and consequently making it our choice since we had not brought enough cash since we had not anticipated a night's stay. It had good food and large clean rooms. In fact the room that we stayed in had two beds, and since we currently sleep on a bed smaller than we did in the states, we took advantage of the situation and each slept in the gloriously spaciousness of our own bed. I know like 50 people just now started furiously clicking the comment button, so that they could harass me with things like, "you are married, you are supposed to share a bed" "What on earth is wrong with your marriage?". Well before you go on to comment let me say that nothing is wrong with our marriage, sometimes a person just needs a little leg room. And plus it was a mutual decision between Leah and I, we apparently both like a little wiggle room. Who knew? Well I guess everyday in a marriage can be a learning experience. So before I ramble on any more about the sweet eccentricity that is my marriage here is a picture of some of the scenery heading out of Guatemala. Leah and I both enjoyed it because it was very open with large valleys and meadows, it was nice to have something different from the constant dense forest around Lake Yojoa.. So that was basically our trip to Belize in a nutshell. For those who didn't get the fuller version, below is a copy of the email I sent out after our return. I know I am lazy for not retelling it, but well...I'm lazy and hungry so I am going to go start dinner for Leah and I. Toodles - Eulogio

p.s. What Eulogio failed to mention in both the above blog and the attached email below: Let me just start with God is awesome! Now, ever since we first moved here in August I (Leah) have been dealing with lots of illness. It has been a constant roller coaster of stomach sickness and as a result I have not been able to travel into San Pedro (an hour and a half drive from our little town) without being sick. So when we first got the call saying we would be driving all day to Belize and back, I was scared. Would I be able to go that far without being sick? There would be 9 of us traveling in a crowded van all day and it was likely that the children would be sick as well. Yeah...I was definitely nervous and praying that God would help in this situation. So the next morning we set out with my stomach full of Dramamine and my purse full of Immodium and a bottle of Pepto. After a few hours on the road we discover that our all in one day trip was not possible and that our journey would still be (unknown) more hours on the road. But God is so good! Nobody got really sick on the road, and though no one was prepared for an overnight stay He provided a place to buy diapers for the Preciado baby and a hotel that accepted credit cards! God is just awesome! There are a million things that could have made the trip terrible and unsafe, but God provided for us in our need. That is just awesome.


The Email:
Thank You all for the prayers and emails concerning our recent trip to Belize. We made it back safely without any problem. Our only hang up was that we got a flat tire in Guatemala, but praise God we were able to get it repaired out in the middle of nowhere in a tiny little town (we had a spare, but we needed to get the original fixed because we had to drive a long way out in the middle of nowhere in Guatemala, so to be stuck out there with no spare would have been a pretty sticky situation). So now for a little bit of background as to the reason for the trip. Honduras does not require U.S. citizens to have a visa to enter the country but when we do enter we are only allowed to stay in the country for 90 days before we then become illegal here in Honduras. This means that when you leave the country there is a fine at border control. This fine doubles every month that you stay in Honduras over the original 90 days. we have been here longer than that, but we were able to obtain a 30 day extension. This extension however was to run out this coming week. We were waiting on another possible extension but it didn't come through, so we had to make a run out of the country. Now the problem with leaving the country is, that we have to go at least two countries away. Honduras has a treaty with all of its neighbors that allows people to travel between them without needing a passport, this means that going to Nicaragua, El Salvador, and Guatemala is the same as staying in Honduras, because our passports don't actually get stamped as having left the country. This all means that the next closest country is Belize. Now Belize is not that far from Honduras, it is about a 5 hour drive from Pena Blanca, only about 3 hours from the Honduran border, but what none of us knew, and what nobody told us until we were already in Guatemala, is that there is only two immigration points of entry into Belize. The first requires taking a boat from Guatemala (this is not a large passenger ship, think more large rowboat with a motor) the problem with this was that it was a very stormy day when we set out for Belize and we were traveling with another missionary family who has several small kids, thus this was not a very safe idea for the kids in such a boat on such seas. The second immigration point unfortunately is in the northern portion of the Belize-Guatemala border. So a 5 hour tour turned into a 12hour tour requiring a nights stay. We stayed in Guatemala because it was much more cheap (pries in Belize are similar to those in a US resort town) and also the closest city to the border crossing was in Guatemala, and also our Honduran guide/driver/friend said he knew Guatemala better than Belize. So we walked into Belize turned around and walked out (I was reprimanded by the immigration officer for abusing Belize, and also received a small lecture about Honduras needing to take care of us better). So all that said and done we know have 90 more days to stay in Honduras (praise God because at first the Guatemalan border officer only wanted to give us 30 days). Thank You all for the prayers, we definitely felt them as the Lord paved the way and made our entire trip both smooth as well as super productive (90 days is the longest a border officer can give a person, though they do have the power to give less). We will be posting some pictures from our impromptu adventure on our blog as well as a little more in depth explanation of the nitty gritty details of our trip. Once again thank you all for the prayers, and responses to our email. You are all a blessing to us here. - Eulogio and Leah