Borderline Belize
Chapter 34: A trip to remember
Hola Amigos! When I last signed off regarding our horrific experience being deported by Mexico Immigration due to our accountant’s failure to file a quarterly report for the bookstore and then pay for the mistake, we had just talked to an immigration attorney. Mexico Immigration had given us 15 days to vacate the country. With Belize being thousands of miles closer than the US, we headed south. For earlier chapters in my southern adventures in living in Mexico and opening a bookstore, see Where the Sky is Born, in menu at top.
Night had fallen as we pulled into the federal customs area at the border dividing Mexico and Belize.
What is it about night border crossings that scares the bejesus out of me? I wondered as I gazed at a uniformed federale armed with M-16. His outpost, dark and securely locked, looked like a third world Checkpoint Charlie, a scene out of a 1950s film noir.
“No pasa.” he said, when Paul rolled down the window to ask for instructions.
“Guess we can’t take the car through until we talk to someone inside.”
In what would be the first of several bad decisions, we moved the car closer to the garrison and left it parked in front of the federal zone. That night we simply weren’t thinking. We were frazzled, bewildered, rebuffed. . . and scared.
Never before had we been at a border crossing without a tourist visa or an FM3. Now our FM3s had been stripped from us and we were without tourist passes. All we had was a letter from immigration giving us 15 days to leave the country. Who wouldn’t be scared? We had no idea how the border patrol would digest that bit of information. Obviously immigration viewed us as wayward types. Would the border police view us the same?
“Let’s go ask and see what they want us to do.”
We crossed the pit-holed two lane road and walked with trepidation towards the Mexican Immigration offices. We needed to start there to retrieve an exit visa from Mexico before crossing into Belize.
Near the entryway of the nondescript government building we passed two men in uniform, smoking. I could feel their eyes on us as they sized us up. At borders I’d learned to avoid eye contact. It seemed to simplify things.
On entering the flourescent brightness of the customs area, a man in a brown government uniform asked in Spanish how he could assist.
I explained I had a letter from Immigration and because of an error made by our accountant, we had to re-apply for our FM3s, or work permits. We planned to cross over to Belize for three days, then come back to Mexico, our adopted home land, where we owned a business, so we could get things up and running for the holidays.
As I explained our plight, one of the men we’d seen smoking on the porch came in to listen. Then a discussion began between these two men as to how our situation should be handled.
Within a few minutes, it was obvious that Colonel Hernandez, one of the smokers from the porch, was the man in charge. El jefe.
“Do you have a vehicle?” he asked.
I assured him I did.
“Where is it parked?”
I pointed to our car. It was just within sight, parked by the aduana station, customs.
“Actually, I need to clear the car before crossing the border.”
“Too late. They close at 3 p.m.,” he replied curtly. “Let me see your papers. These are fine. You can cross now. I’ll stamp them,” he continued as he stretched out his hand towards one of the other workers, who quickly grabbed a rubber date stamp and handed it to the jefe.
Bam-bam! Bam-bam! And we were legal again—ready to depart Mexico.
“Just leave now, cross over and return this evening,” Colonel Hernandez commanded as he handed me the newly stamped documents. The ink was still wet.
“But I thought we had to spend three days in Belize?”
“It’s just as easy to do it this way. You live in Mexico, you had an FM3, you work a business. I understand your situation and I will approve this. Just cross the border now. You will be back in 15 minutes.”
“Are you sure this is okay?” I asked, as a small knot began to form in my stomach.
“Of course,” he nodded, his eyes never leaving mine. “I am in charge.”
No doubt about that.
Paul and I exchanged glances; we both wondered about the car, but here was Colonel Hernandez telling us it was fine. He had stamped our papers and our exit visas. We were ready to roll.
“Gracias. Hasta luego,” I said as we walked into the now nearly pitch black night.
The razor wire on the bridge gleamed menacingly and aduana watched us depart as we picked up the pace while heading for the bridge, the boundary between Mexico and Belize. What it actually crossed over I was not sure, so dark was the night, but I assumed it was a river.
Once the immigration office was out of sight I started to panic. “Paul, what about our car? Is it okay?”
“I don’t know. Was that a No Parking area?”
“God, I’m not sure. I think we better hurry,” I insisted, as we now started trotting towards Belize. We could see the immigration offices from where we were but the distance looked at least two hundred yards. In itself, the crossing was poorly lit, fraught with pot holes, ditches, the occasional rock, and a steady stream of other travelers who were slowly making their way through the darkness.
The closer we came to the Belize border, the more orderly it appeared and their immigration offices looked newly remodeled and brightly lit.
I entered the building first, now in panic mode, tearing my passport from my purse and whispering loudly to Paul, “Your passport!”
Behind a glassed-in enclosure sat an attractive Black woman with fine high cheekbones, skin the color of dark coffee beans and hair neatly plaited in corn rows with bright beads worked in at the ends. To pass the time she was paging through a fashion magazine. She looked up as we ran in. It was a slow night for border crossings—no one else was in line. In fact, the entire building was empty except for her, us and a lifeless security guard at the door.
On our entry she straightened herself and watched us approach, putting the magazine on the counter beside her.
Full panic had hit by now, and like a derelict, I threw our passports on the desk in front of her. It finally occurred to me: We were illegally parked on the Mexican side of the border, smack dab in the middle of a customs zone. If the Mexican authorities so desired, they could seize our car.
“What am I supposed to do with these?” she asked, an edginess in her tone.
“Can you stamp them, please? Mexican Immigration said we could cross over tonight and come back tomorrow with our car.”
“Oh, so that’s what Mexico told you? What do you think we are? Some trivial country that you people can just use? You think you can just run across the border,” she had that part right, “and have us stamp your passports? Then scurry back to Mexico? Well, I got news for you. You have to stay here, in our little country for three days before you’ll get a 30 day extension on your papers. Why don’t you spend some of your tourist dollars here? Always back to Mexico they go.”
At that point she started to shake her head. “People using us, sick of it!”
Talk about an attitude. I grabbed our passports from under the glass casing before her hands could touch them and Paul and I were running again, now towards the door, then back towards the Mexico border.
Once outside, nearly out of breath, I gasped, “Paul, we’re in no man’s land! We don’t have an exit stamp from Belize, and Mexico already gave us a stamp to be out of there. Maybe Mexico won’t let us back in! And our car is illegally parked! What are we going to do?”
“Run as fast as you can!”
We dodged diminutive Mexican women with bundles, jogged around mothers pulling weary children, tried to avoid deep ditches that dark, beleaguered night. We were indeed in limbo, some nether region that connects countries—the border zone.
Belize customs officials, all along the bridge, watched in wonder as—after just having viewed us run into their immigration offices—now watched us run back out, towards Mexico. They were no doubt wondering exactly what we were asking ourselves?
What was Mexico going to do?
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MY BACKSTORY—Puerto Morelos sits 100 miles from four major pyramid sites: Chichen Itza, Coba, Tulum and Ek Balam. Living in close proximity to this Maya wonderland made it easy to pyramid hop on our days off from Alma Libre Libros, the bookstore we founded in 1997. Owning a bookstore made it easy to order every possible book I could find on the Maya and their culture, the pyramids and the archeologists who dug at these sites and the scholars who wrote about them. I became a self-taught Mayaphile and eventually website publishers, Mexican newspapers and magazines, even guidebooks asked me to write for them about the Maya and Mexico. I’m still enthralled by the culture and history and glad there’s always new news emerging for me to report on right here on Mexico Soul.
Thanks for restack @Daniel Catena
Thanks for restack @Bernardette Hernández