Travel from Guatemala to Belize

Our dear friends, A King’s Life, have a wonderful post on how easy it is to travel from San Pedro, Ambergris Caye, Belize to Flores, Guatemala. I had read it a dozen times and felt more then prepared for the trip.

I wrote several times on Facebook the night before and the morning of how anxious I still felt. Does that mean I felt it coming or I caused it? I am not sure if it was premonition or prediction. Certainly something to think about. The journey did not go as planned.

The plan was simple. A 1.5 hour speedboat ride from San Pedro to Belize City at 10am. This would get us to Belize City about 11:30am with enough time to eat lunch and catch the 1pm bus to Flores, Guatemala. What could go wrong? We checked the speedboat times the day before. Confirmed the bus times on the other end and felt ready.

Leaving Ambergris Caye

Despite the higher living expenses and several issues we had on this little island, I was sad to be leaving. As usual, after 3 weeks we were in a rhythm and comfort zone and now we were uprooting it for somewhere new, and quite frankly, we didn’t know much about.

A taxi picked us up at 9am and dropped us in town on a side road that leads to the beach. A man in a Belize Express shirt loaded our bags onto a trolley and we were free to walk down to the beach, across the pier and purchase our tickets.

2 adult tickets were US$30. Kids were both free.

We had half hour to spare so we visited Licks for breakfast and said goodbye to Mario, the dear man who helped us during the previous week with fixing a flat tyre. Here's a little side story for you.

Side story

! Mario, the owner of Licks, pulled over collected me & the kids while Josh drove slowly behind us and took us to a tyre repair shop just a few stores south of the bridge. I had never even noticed it there and without him we wouldn’t of had a clue what to do.

He spoke Spanish to the repairer and told us it would be fixed within minutes and went on his way. Ten minutes later we had a new used tyre, paid $15 and were back on our way over the bridge to Lazy Crocs. We are so thankful to Mario and were so pleased we had met him by chance, because his breakfast was a delight. He is featured on our Where to eat in San Pedro post.

Speedboat ride

Anyway, back to our journey. We were first on the boat and grabbed a great seat beside the door with lots of air. This was a lot different then our ride over, no luggage in the hallways and plenty of room.

The water was an amazing colour and we grabbed a few shots before we pulled out the laptop and started to really work at where else we wanted to go this year. We nutted out the rest of the year in a loose plan and felt very good about it. Nice to have direction. It took us awhile since we couldn't stop gazing at the water in between typing.

We stopped at Caye Caulker picked up some yummy cassava chips that a Belizan man came aboard to sell during the stop. We picked up some more passengers and it wasn’t long after that we were arriving in Belize City.

There is no 1pm bus!

I happily walked down a little street and was directed by a taxi driver to a little deli who is a reseller for the bus tickets when the lady says to me, “no bus today.”

The happy feelings drained away with my blood. My face, I am sure, is as white as a ghost. I stutter, “what do you mean there is no bus. We were told there is a 1pm bus.” My stress levels accelerated and my husband directed me to watch over the bags and kids outside while he dealt with the matter.

Turns out the 10am is usually a guarantee (although not guaranteed ever) and the 1pm is a hit-and-miss because unless they have people returning from Guatemala to Belize they don’t come back for the 1pm Belize to Guatemala. In short there was nothing they could do - the bus was not coming.