Two Gringas Drive to BelizeDay 8, Part 3 - Thursday afternoon 23 October 2003 - Belize
"OK, so what's worse than a Mexican cop on the take?"We were so thrilled to have gotten to Belize, made it in and out of Customs and Immigration, got out onto open highway and pointed south towards "home", that we were completely blindsided by what happened next. Had we maintained the alertness and poise which took us so smoothly through Mexico we wouldn't have been so surprised and upset, but as it was...
Mile 4170 - just south of Santa Elena, Corozal District, BelizeIt's a police checkpoint.
No sooner had we got up to cruising speed than we have to brake to a stop. There are two officers blocking our progress, and upon seeing the US plates they immediately wave us off onto the shoulder and ask us to get out of the car.
They have us open doors and trunk and start going through everything.
"You know, they just went through everything at Customs."
"That's Customs, we're the Police."
One pulls out a bag of roasted coffee beans from the trunk.
"Ah, ah, very bad - this is contraband."
"No it's not!" I am indignant.
"Coffee is produced in Belize, importation is illegal."
"If that were true, don't you think they would have said something at Customs?"
"That's Customs, we're the Police."
The other fellow is rifling through the passenger compartment.
"What's this?!" He has discovered Denise's four bottles of Bud. "Oh, this is *bad*, very bad..." The man is almost gleeful as he extracts his trophy.
The senior officer disappears into the guard shack with the "contraband" prizes discovered thus far. Meanwhile, the other fellow is systematically going through Denise's purse. He seems to be looking for something in particular which he's not finding.
"What do you have for money?"
"Credit cards."
He hands the purse back to Denise with seeming irritation, suspends his search, and motions for me (the driver) to follow him inside. As we go, he mentions that there are sure to be fines associated with our attempt to import contraband, but "we can be flexible." Until now I was suspicious, now I am certain...
As we enter the shack, my escort calls out to the other in a theatrically loud voice,
"Sergeant, so what is the current fine for the illegal importation of controlled substances."
And now I've had it. I am utterly livid. And before the senior officer can speak I have pen and paper out and I'm writing as I speak.
"There is something wrong here."
I move from the junior fellow to the senior fellow, walking part way round him so I can read his shoulder insignia.
"What are you doing?"
"Taking down your badge numbers. There is something very wrong going on here."
The senior officer turns away from me, mumbles something and gestures toward the door.
"What now, that's all? I'm free to leave?"
"Yes, yes...go."
Another sweeping movement toward the door as he retreats. The junior officer appears frozen, as if someone pulled his plug.
I stalk back outdoors, slam the trunk as I circuit the car, and flop into the driver's seat. Denise barely has time to get her door closed before I'm spitting gravel as we leave the shoulder. I power-shift through all the gears until we are roaring south at 75 MPH.
Denise has an, uh, "inquiring" look on her face.
"They got your beer and my coffee, but that's all they got."
Nothing was said for a long time. I was furious, and Denise was trying to disappear into the molding. We still haven't had anything to eat. We substitute cokes and candy bars from a roadside stand. Our only goal now is to make Placencia in time for dinner - several hours away yet.
. . .We burn south to the junction at the cutoff to Burrell Boom and Hattieville, where there is - that's right - another Police checkpoint.
It is dark by now. Again, the foreign plates get us flagged off to the shoulder. We are only a few miles from the prison at Hattieville, and I'm wondering what the women's facilities are like.
The officer wants every single piece of paper we own, and appears to be using them to teach himself to read on the job, with occasional consultations for tutoring from his superior nearby.
Now I have *never* before, in over five years of traveling around this place, had *any* problem of any kind with the police in Belize, but apparently this was going to be the trip to make up for it. Where, in the past, the cops at the checkpoints had always been friendly and chatty, now they were rude and intrusive. My guess is that it was the foreign plates - this heavy-handed, low-grade harassment was to continue for a month until I got the Bomber properly Belizeified.
Now I know they're on the lookout for stolen cars (which are commonly brought down to Central America), but I think they're being pretty stupid about it: the stolen vehicles are invariably newer pickups, SUVs and luxury cars (not 12-year-old econo-boxes), and they're not being driven by white Americans carrying passports, original title, and full import documentation. Nevertheless I got the fine-toothed-comb treatment at most checkpoints, and it was five-times worse if a Mayan associate happened to be driving.
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Interlude: Belizean Police and the Law
It is worth noting that Belize does not provide the same due process and search-and-seizure protections which we enjoy in the States. Police can search your vehicle at any time for any reason; and checkpoints - both permanent and "surprise" - are just a fact of driving life in the country.
Individuals, citizen or foreigner, can be held incommunicado for 72 hours without being charged, and it is fairly common for the police to round up a bunch of "suspicious characters" when a crime is reported, pretty much without regard to evidence of any kind. Beatings are not rare, at least down here in the south, and admissions of culpability are often accompanied by severe bruising.
This tendency is exacerbated, if not outright encouraged, by the national policy of having police serve in communities well distant from their own. In practice this usually means that the cops at a particular location are culturally, racially, and often linguistically, distinct from the community in which they serve, have no investment in that community, and resent having to be there.
While the capture and search of unindicted people is, unfortunately, legal in Belize; torture (intimidation and beating) and confiscation of personal property is not - and yet both are common. That I am aware, the only consequences for the police perpetrating these crimes occur when a victim dies in custody - which seems to happen once or twice a year.
If I seem angry and bitter, I have reason. I have seen "better-off" Mayans put large amounts of time and money into getting innocent relations released from these random incarcerations - one poor fellow twice.
That incident required an attorney and days and nights and wives and children weeping and calls to Ministers and the Chief of Police in Belmopan. And then, when enough pressure had been brought to bear, they dumped the poor sonofabitch out on the street at midnight in Punta Gorda, three-plus hours drive from where they'd picked him up at his home in Mango Creek, and someone has to borrow my car to go get him (seven hour round-trip in the middle of the night). Somehow he managed to convince someone to let him use their phone, otherwise...
The two others who got rounded up with him were less fortunate, not having relatives with phones, money, lawyers, or friends with cars. They survived their beatings and were freed after 72 hours.
You will no doubt be relieved to know that I have not heard of anything like this happening to anyone with a western passport. But if you're an intoxicated Mayan with no money - watch out!
End of Interlude.
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Ah, but all of that rant was still in the future...
At the second checkpoint, the document-challenged officer and his boss eventually decided we weren't the fugitives they were looking for after all, and finally let us go.
I continued to drive until we were past Belmopan - and any more possible checkpoints - then gratefully handed the con over to Denise, took a Xanax, put the seat back, and tried very hard to think about absolutely nothing.
Denise steered us down the darkened Hummingbird Highway, through the north end of the Maya Mountains, and down the Stann Creek Valley to the junction with the Southern Highway just short of Dangriga Town, then a right turn and on southward through the darkened citrus orchards, past my village of Maya Centre without pause, and onward to the junction with the infamous Riverdale/Placencia road.
. . .It was 8:30 PM, we still hadn't eaten, and it was looking tough for making dinner and a room in Placencia before everything closed. We swapped drivers again, as I am familiar with the road and had the best chance of getting us to dinner on time.
Now there are exactly two speeds at which the Placencia road can be driven: (1) really really slow and (2) really really fast.
The exact values in MPH depend on the road conditions of the moment, your wheel size, suspension, load (inertial mass), experience, skill, and daring. We had the suspension (4x McPherson Struts) and load (plenty) going for us, but not wheel size (13 inch); conditions were dry, surface about typically awful. The experience, skill, and daring go without saying. ;-)
We opted for Speed 2 - harder on the vehicle and driver, but left us with some chance of still getting dinner and a room.
Just under half-an-hour later (!), we parked in Placencia next to the walk-out to the Sea Spray and Da Tatch. (Only lost control of the vehicle once... ;-) We practically sprint toward the beach.
We are at our table at Da Tatch by 9:00 PM; the kitchen closes at 9:30. It's Garifuna Dance night, the drums are wild, everyone's there, the proprietors Jodie and Norman, friends in the band and dance troupe wave, gringos and locals dancing, drinking, hugs and handshakes all around; sand underfoot, moonlight on the sea and supper on the table: the fresh shrimp special, please.
Our usual lodging (the seaside cabana) is available and waiting for us. Our first sense of "home" since Seattle.
We made it. Villahermosa to Placencia in one day. Wow.
== End of Day 8, Mile 4385, Placencia, Stann Creek District, Belize ==OVERALL TRIP STATS
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2003.10.16 - mile 0 - odo 77389 - start Day 1 - Vashon, WA
2003.10.23 - mile 4385 - odo 81774 - end Day 8 - Placencia, BZ
Approximate fuel economy: 32.2 MPG
Mildly unpleasant experiences: 3
Really unpleasant experiences: 3
Actual dangerous experiences: 0
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Daily average negative experiences: 0.75
Mildly pleasant experiences: way too many to factor
Really nice experiences: 17
Just incredibly cool experiences: 5
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Daily average positive experiences: >> 2.75
Overall trip rating: Awesome+
[b]Clic here to see all Day 8 pix...[/i][/u][/b][i]Text and accompanying photographs are copyright 2003 Galena Alyson Canada.___________________________________________
MissLena is Galena Alyson Canada
Her email is [u]themisslena á
gmail ó
comHer personal blog is at
galenaalysoncanada.blogspot.comThe new Two Gringas blogsite is
TheTwoGringas.blogspot.com