Unbelizeable!

So the short of it is that the demon immigration official denied me entry into Belize, for reasons that only he knows. It was said that I needed 500USD in cash, before they would put a stamp on my British passport. Here’s how it went down:

I just got stamped out of Mexico and rode up to the Belize part, where a guy told me to ‘go in there’. I did so, and waited in line, shortly after a dude came up to me and said ‘why dont you go put on a shirt man’, I said ‘excuse me’, he said ‘ yea man, yu havfe pu on a shirt, this is a public place mon’, fair enough, but at the time I was literally sweating my ass off, and the last thing I could of thought of was putting on my merino wool long sleeved shirt, which was the only thing I had out, that wasnt packed. I was more worried about leaving my bike unattended in the so called free zone, and was in a rush to get my stamp and go. Shirt on, I re entered and waited as everyone was stamped in. I got the usual questions, and then when he found out I was traveling by bike, he took his shades off, I should of known that that meant trouble. He then looked through my passport and said ‘mmm, you left and re entered Mexico on the same day but didnt go anywhere I had left to guatemala in order to renew my visa and the Guat stamps were on the same page, but this inch worm didnt seem to get it, and for some reason he just didn’t like it.

For the next 20 minutes I had to put up with not only his stupidity but another guy and finally an even worse woman. The woman was actually going to stamp me in for the 3 days I said I wanted, and then the guy whispered something to her, and pointed to the visa run stamps, which were totally legit and completely irrelevant, and then she said, well you need to have at least 100USD per day, thats 300 and because you are cycling, you’ll need 500. They went on to say that my 3 Visa cards were not good enough because they ‘might not work’ and I had to have cash, I actually had like 170USD on me as well. I started to get pissed, and I was like OK, your officially telling me something, so I would like some official documentation as well, and she said I couldn’t demand anything, and that I was disturbing her day’, and waved on the people waiting in the queue, at this stage the main guy started to smirk and smile for the first time in what must have been at least 20 minutes, he didnt even smile at the cute girl who told him that she liked his ‘cool hat’. And that was that, I decided to leave, I could of asked to speak to there superiors, but at the time, I was so shocked, confused, outraged, that it didn’t cross my mind. I waited outside and spoke to a guy who was being denied entry because he didn’t have an address for his car insurance or something lame. And then I thought, I know this isn’t right, I can ask to speak to the boss, but ultimately, in my world, I follow the signs, and this was a clear sign not to go this way.

Belize definitely gets the middle finger.

The next day I met a Belizean guy who was on the board of directors of tourism in the next town south of the border, he said he knew everyone, and gave me a name of someone in charge, who would let me pass. As a traveler himself, he wished his son was more like me, and he said he would personally come down with me and get me through if i stuck around a few days as he was off for a short business trip to the states. But the signs tell me no, so I will either take a boat to the paradise Island of Caye caulker, and then to Belize city before heading south through belize, skipping most of Guatemala, and onto Honduras. Or I will take the bus to Tapachula where I crossed before, and make my way up the mountains and south east to Honduras. The place I wanted to volunteer at in Guatemala is full, and having nothing else lined up, but having found some interesting places in Nicaragua is edging me towards taking the fastest way south, time will tell

Tags: belize - british passport - demon - free zone - guatemala - immigration official - inch worm - merino wool - mexico - rush - shades - sleeved shirt - stamps - stupidity - visa cards