Day 29 - Carmelita to Bacalar

Today is border crossing day into our sixth and final country - Mexico ! 🇲🇽
The day starts on a paved road but after about 30km we head off onto a compacted sand road - it’s not ideal being on slick tyres in the wet bits but it’s a lovely road and so nice to be in quiet countryside again - the first time in our time in Belize.
We find a little coffee shop once we enter a town, which is most unexpected as coffee shops have been rare. The coffee takes ages to come and is not the best but the cakes are good and the owner is incredibly friendly and wants a picture with us which he asks if he can put on their Facebook page.
We have our lunch stop just before the border with a police checkpoint close by.
First we have to pay to leave Belize - a bit odd ! And then we have a short walk and enter the building for Mexico. We queue up once, get given a form which we fill out, queue up again and then get told we have missed part of the form so have to fill that out and rejoin the queue. However the guys behind the desk are uber-efficient (if rather unfriendly) so it doesn’t take too long. As we approach the head of the queue for the second time one of the officers puts his window down and heads outside. After I have my form and passport stamped I go outside and the border officer is questioning our Canadian tour leader Malcolm who is waiting for us outside. I listen in to the Spanish and make out that he is not happy and he takes Malcolm off for questioning. We later hear that Malcolm is stuck at the border for a further 2 hours while they await a local guide coming to the border - apparently our tour leader needed a tourist guide licence from point of entering the country not just from point of him taking us into the national park which happens in 2 days time …..
We head off into a lengthy free zone and think we must have somehow missed the border crossing but eventually we get to it. John gets his phone out to take a photo as we enter Mexico but a military person rushes forward (they are armed) to make it clear that is not permitted. As it turns out Ted got a photo of us entering anyway ! (See below!)
Once into Mexico we are back to Spanish everything and unfortunately we are on a major highway - it’s not too busy but it’s fast and there is construction on part of it and mud pretty much the length of the hard shoulder. We are on it for about 20km and it starts to rain. We are in a peloton of 5 for speed / safety in numbers but it means we are sprayed with the wet mud from the tyre in front. We arrive at the hotel covered in mud looking like we have done a muddy cyclo-cross race!!
John and I go out for the most amazing meal - best in a very long time. I have chocolate crusted salmon and John has blackened tuna with pineapple - the mixture works really well! Pudding is a pure chocolate bar with seeds and fruit - it is truly delicious! They also serve complimentary home made tacos with sauces and a chaser alcoholic drink - all absolutely lovely and the actual restaurant is really characterful.Read more