Santa Elena

We made it to Bacalar this morning. Jasper and I shared excellent, top notch stories the whole 2.5 hour drive south. I really enjoyed talking to him about travel, relationships, sexuality, and living in Mexico. He needed to go to the border to extend his visa, which had expired a couple of days ago. He is from Canada and has been living in Mexico for 6 years full time on a tourist visa. He mentioned his friend Suzanna was bicycling from Tulum to Panama and we would probably pass her at some point. Sweet!

Sure enough, we saw her and he asked if I would stop and we could cheer her on. Of course I loved this idea. We pulled off to the side, got out and began waving for her. When she reached us she was a negative dramatic mess. Not a single nice word came out of her mouth and she just enthusiastically bitched about her situation of being on a bike during the hottest part of the day because her free breakfast at the hostel was. ot ready early enough for her to leave before 11am. Just one of the things... I was over this interaction 45 seconds into it. I recognized this vibe. It was not a good one, it was dark and sucky. Like energy vampire sucky. I wanted to leave immediately as she just kept barking nasty things at us and complaining about everything possible. She asked if we could attach her bike to the outside of my rental car. I told her no, it would fuck up the car and there is no room inside it. One of her main complaints was that she had too much stuff on her bike that she didn't need. Just to try and end this interaction I offered to take her bags to bacalar and she could retrieve them there. She immediately got happier and I was relieved to see her relieved and also wanted to fucking go. So we went on down the road and left crazy Suzanna to ride her bicycle.

When we got into town, I checked into my hostel at the Yak Lake House, secured my belongings in the dorm room, and we headed for the border. I wanted to go to Belize to get my passport stamped. It was a Circus. The first border crossing woman wanted 5000 pesos from him! That's around $250 usd. He said "No way!" and we went to the other border crossing. They would not allow us to drive through, so we parked the car and Jasper did all the talking in Spanish. Apparently this wad not the border to Belize, it was the border into what they call the "Free Zone" between Mexico and Belize, where you can buy all sorts of things super cheap and tax free, without technically crossing into either Mexico or Belize. It was confusing, very very hot and sunny, and we walked, forever, through this zone. I almost gave up so many times and said "fuck it! Its not worth it!" but we kept getting closer and closer to my goal.. The sun was just beating the life out of us. I left all my belongings in the car except passport and phone, because it looked like we were right there, when we actually ended up walking probably 3 miles. Finally, we came upon another checkpoint. It was a Belizean checkpoint, so I got to do some talking finally, as Belize is an English speaking country. I asked for a passport stamp and the super nice chubby man with the happiest smile told me he's not the guy, and told us it's about another mile to the border. So we hailed a dirt bike taxi that looked kind of like a pedi cab for 80 pesos to take us there and back. We were so relieved to not be walking any longer!!!! I had my passport and was all ready to get it stamped. When I told the border guy that I just wanted to have my passport stamped he was a big dick. He started telling me all these lies about how they don't let people into Belize for one day, there is a minimum of 3 days. If they come for less than 3 days it has to be to visit family, and they confirm it by calling the family. What a load of shit. We went back and forth for a while and I eventually got my passport back and turned to leave, saying, "Fuck your country." Not my finest moment but I got away with it, and we walked back to our motorbike taxi and rode back to the car. Jasper gave up on fixing his visa for the day and I drove us back to bacalar, exhausted.

We were absolutely starving, and went to a restaurant next to my hostel called LA Playita. It was absolutely delicious, I had a mango mezcal or two, and the chicken fajita pitas. Jasper was kind enough to buy my meal as a thank you for bringing him to the area. After dinner it was getting dark so I drove around scouting for places to shoot. and Jasper walked around to find a place to sleep. I didn't see much in the way of cool backdrops for photos, so resolved to start the day shooting at the hostel on the water.

My bunk mates were two drunk girls who were throwing up in the bathroom but still very sweet, and a gorgeous model looking girl who didn't say much, and a party animal guy who I called, "Mr. No key," because he could never find his key to the room so always kept it unlocked. It's a beautiful hostel right on the water and they have rental kayaks and SUPs. Just gorgeous. I could stay here to do a retreat and get some work done another time. Buenas Noches until tomorrow!Read more