If “Zak Luk” is the name of your hotel, then better be prepared for something special. Cara, my Scottish friend and travel advisor for Mexico & Co suggested to visit El Remate and its infamous hostel. This would be our second night in as illegal immigrants in Guatemala and still we were hoping not to be discovered until we would leave the country for Belize.

The Zak Luk community is as laid-back as it gets – nobody seems to have the energy to pack things and to leave and therefore stays for an eternity. The view from the airy terrace is stunning, its walls are colourful with round holes instead of windows, the rum is fine and cheap and the owner is friends with the local medicine-man who let us park our car in his backyard. So everything was just fine, except that we started to drink rum with a Swedish girl before dinner. This then made me go to bed at 8pm.

The next day we decided to ignore yet another portion of pyramids (David had seen Tikal before and I had enough of mass tourism) and drove straight towards the Belizian border. “Straight” does necessarily mean “fast” in Guatemala – the bumpy and unpaved road provided us with enough time to focus on the beautiful green jungle we drove through (yet it is called “Highway”). 

And then we go caught. The Belizeans did not want to let us enter their country (which has been a British colony only until recently) without a stamp from their Guatemalan colleagues. Great.

The Guatemalan officer took it easy – “pay the fine of 400 Quetzales (about 50 $) or drive back to Mexico. We paid and were glad no to be fed to the crocodiles.

Once we had our stamps, the Belizian custom officers were very friendly and when David has told them that he intended to dive the famous “Blue Hole”, they even showed us a book with pictures of this natural anomaly (in very shallow and light green water, a 160 metres deep whole invites the well prepared diver). Even though we already had an All-American car insurance, it was necessary to buy a local one – the police officer insisted (we later indeed got controlled and were asked for our locally issued insurance police). Well, we bought an insurance since every Swiss likes to buy insurance contracts for whatsoever.

Well, we made it to Belize-City that night… Which was different then we thought. Please read in the next report.