Carnival & the Wreck

Belize City is the country's largest city and where the international airport is. Every September, Belize celebrates its independence with a Carnival parade: marching bands, dance troupes in costume, floats on trucks, and big crowds along the route. We landed on Carnival day, so the parade was the first thing we saw in the country before driving about two hours west to the Cayo District.

Carnival

The part of the city we ended up in was rough. There were a lot of police on hand and they looked serious, and we were very much the only tourists around. One group was standing next to what was clearly raw sewage. At a few points it felt like we had a decent chance of getting jumped, but nothing happened, and the parade itself was interesting and worth the stop. Then we got in the rental and headed west.

The wreck

After dropping our bags at Villa Cayo we went back out for dinner. John was making a left turn when a 21-year-old in a little pickup, going very fast, tried to overtake us on the left. Neither of us had any idea he was back there. He swerved hard, clipped our front bumper clean off, then skidded across the road into a parking lot and nearly hit people standing on the side. Everyone was okay. The car was not.

The kid, Markel, accepted responsibility on the spot and had proof of insurance. His dad, Mark, came out and was decent about it too. We filed a police report, and officer Elsa Perez told us they see far worse than our accident, mostly motorcycles.

The paperwork

We hadn't bought insurance on the rental, so we spent a chunk of the week sorting it out. On Wednesday we went to the Santa Elena police station, which sent us to the San Ignacio station, where the officer explained the report takes about five weeks and he'd normally issue a receipt for it. He was out of receipt books. He promised to email one by Friday.

At Budget in Belize City, the manager, Alan, gave us a bill of about 3,600 Belize dollars, roughly 1,800 US. He told us the agreement let him charge for lost rental days, which would have doubled it, and that he wasn't going to because it was slow season. He had us sign for the initial repairs and said he'd trust us on anything the inspection turned up. Budget then pursued Markel's insurance directly, and Markel actually answered them. In the States we'd have expected the opposite from everyone.