Relaxing round and about

Earlier in July it was wonderful to have a couple of days to relax as a family on the Mexican coast! We drove up to Cancun - 100 miles to the border, and another 200 + to Cancun. Nearly 8 hours all told, including the border crossing. We wanted to try it, as it's cheaper to fly to Cancun from the UK. Sadly, by the time we'd paid to insure the car for the drive in Mexico, booked a hotel to recover in before the drive back, and bought fuel, I'm not sure any money was saved. But it was nice to see Cancun.


Back in Belmopan, we enjoyed the local roadside stall for emergency fruit rations. The main market is twice a week. In between, local traders set up stalls at the side of the road - especially near road humps, where vehicles are forced to slow to a crawl.

June and July has been quite difficult for some of the traders at our local market. Some days, when it has rained heavily, the car park where the stalls are set up have become a sea of rain and mud:

At the end of Kieran and Lucy's trip to Belize, we decided not to repeat the drive to Mexico. Instead we decided they'd get a bus to the Belize border, and at Chetumal, just on the Mexico side, connect with an express coach to Cancun. On paper it looked good. Only $10 US to the border; only $30 US in Mexico - so about £20 sterling each from Belize city. The bus comes to Front Street in Belize city. This photo was taken on a sizzling 34 degree Saturday morning, just across the street from the Water Taxi Terminal and the famous Swing Bridge:

It was there we went to buy the bus tickets from Belize to Mexico. This is the ticket booth that sells just about everything, including transport bookings. Malcolm had an interesting conversation with an Italian lady who also wanted the bus. She had little English, he has no Italian, but they discovered they both spoke French. First time he has spoken French in Belize.

In the end, on the day they left to travel back, the bus didn't appear. We all waited nearly 2 hours for a bus, by which time two buses had failed to arrive. So in the end they shared a taxi up to Chetumal with four other disillusioned bus hopefuls ...

They did get to Cancun safely in the end - it just took til 11pm! Thank you Kieran and Lucy for a fantastic two weeks with you. Now it's back to the normal routine.