Our last stop in Belize was Punta Gorda a.k.a PG as locals call it. We had only a few days left of our so called visa. The only way to leave Belize is by boat. You have to pay for the boat and you have to pay a leaving-fee. So, it was 25 bucks for the boat and 20 for leaving the country. That's 90 for the two of us.
If you stay longer than 30 days, that's 25 bucks more. We haven't seen anything like that so far, it's a pretty unfriendly way to say farewell to the tourists. We were simply broke when we arrived to the border. We were expecting some support, but it became obvious that it wouldn't arrive in time. We were stuck in Belize.
So, we went to the competent office to explain our situation. The officer told us that he was only a pawn, that he wasn't able to help us. That we should go to the capital, Belmopan, and talk to some kind of a minister. Really. Explained something about jail and deportation if we wouldn't do anything to resolve the situation. Wasn't really convincing.
While we were stuck in PG we had to sleep somewhere. We were exploring the place when we saw lots of coaches parking in a nice, grassy yard. We started to chat with a woman, and she sent us to the house of his son. James Jr. had an even bigger yard and lots of coaches, too. He is an entrepreneur with a large coach fleet.
The story is quite amazing, they transport people all-over Belize, and it started with James, the father and with a single coach. He had a single trip every week to the capital (Belize City, back then). But later he bought another coach, and another one. Right now they have lines in every corner of Belize. James' mother kept us well, and they organized our trip to Belmopan and back, and right before we left, James' mom gave us 50 dollars. The whole stay at James Jr.'s place was a positive patch to ease our somewhat painful and struggling stay in Belize.
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