3 Countries in 5 hours

At 5:00am on Friday, Luis drove us to the bus terminal. Feeling excited about not using out Spanish book too much while talking to the ticket agent, we got tickets to Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. We thought it was going to be a hot and sweaty school bus, but thankfully it turned out to be a giant air conditioned tour bus. Three hours down the road a Honduran immigration agent came on board and looked at all of our passports. A mile later the bus stopped again and another immigration agent came on board and looked at everyone's passport. Three miles after that the bus stopped AGAIN and two Guatemalan custom agents boarded and reviewed passports. Eight miles later the bus stopped again and we were all told to get off. Outside was a 4th immigration stopping point, this time a Guatemalan agent took our passports and disappeared inside. He came back one minute later and gave us the ok to proceed.

So we're back on the bus, not believing how many different people have had to thumb through our passports, when we noticed a fork in the road - and we weren't taking the fork that said 'Puerto Barrios'. After dumbfounded looks at each other, I decided to ask the bus driver. He quickly pulled over and kicked us out. So there we were, in the dust of the tour bus, surrounded by chickens and children, with two HEAVY scuba suitcases, two hiking backpacks, and no Guatemalan money. We crossed the street and started walking back toward the Puerto Barrios intersection.

A packed minivan pulled up and we were lured in. At first we didn't see any space, but they squeezed us in. Kimmy didn't really have a seat, she was just kinda floating between two smiling Guatemalans, with her hiking backpack on her lap. So for the next 15 minutes we bounded down a dirt road, shuffling our bodies and luggage as people squeezed in and out of the van. After some coaxing I got the driver to accept our Honduran money, and we got out at Puerto Barrios.

After walking all the way from the van to the pier with our suitcases, we were told that we missed the immigration office. What the hell? We walked half way back to where the van dropped us off, found the immigration office (this one was much more official), got out tickets for the water ferry, and walked back to the pier. The water taxi ride was about an hour and really refreshing after being cooped up on buses for so long. We arrived in Punta Gorda Belize, and had to go through immigrations, yet again.

So here we are in Belize. We met some people at a bar yesterday who work for a conservation dive operation off Belize, on an uninhabited island. We are headed out with the group (about 6 people from the US, Canada, UK) on Monday and will be there until Friday. Although the island is uninhabited, the conservation group has a bar and small restaurant there, which are operated by some Punta Gorda locals. We sleep in cabanas on the beach and drink rum out of coconuts (verbatim from one of the divers). We'll update you all with details from the week next weekend, but won't have internet access until then.

Here's a Garifuna band that plays at the bar we met the divers at (we have a video to upload later but this internet connection is really slow). And look at my fish! It was delicious.