Jan. 13 – Orange Walk to Belmopan

Heavy rain ALL NIGHT.  Still raining in the AM.  Free coffee (real brewed coffee, a rarity here) in the hotel lobby.  Met a fellow from the US named Kevin who travels often in Belize, and gave us lots of good info. on Belmopan.  I rode around to several parts stores looking for stuff we needed for the bikes, but no luck.

Kevin bought us breakfast at one of the few non-chinese restaurants in this town.  Then we headed out towards Belize city.  Paid a whole $.35 road toll, and made good time to Belize City.  Rain, rain, rain.  Took a lot of searching and asking until we finally found Ben Quip, a real motorcycle parts place.  Lots of friendly folks willing to stop and help us out.  Everyone seems super nice, and very friendly.  Got the spark plugs, filter oil, and drive chains we needed.  That is a real relief!  But it cost us $250 US.

We spent some time looking around Belize City;  not much to say for it, other than friendly english-speaking natives.  We stopped for a couple of over-priced drinks at an ocean-side hotel, and decided to continue inland to Belmopan.

Rain, cold, dark; soaked and tired.  We tried at 5 hotels before we found a cheap room.  Went to an ‘Italian’ (not really) place and had a very decent pizza for dinner. No internet or phone, everything damp or worse; a real shit-hole room with barking dogs and poor ventilation.  Not our best day.

This is Belize’s capital city – that is just unbelievable!