Belize is a poor country. There is little industry, technology, and/or big business in general. From the perspective of the local nationals, Americans are infinitely more wealthy. Whereas they might have enough money to go grab a Coke or Coke Light one day, we seem to have bags of money that allow us to fly across the globe and stay in foreign lands for weeks at a time.

This circumstance leads to interesting interactions in Belize. Recall the car rental place from a few posts back. Liz and I were immediately “assisted” by a scruffy looking man with a thick accent who practically grabbed our bags out of our hands and tried to recruit us into one of the other rental car shops. He wouldn’t leave us alone; he kept leaving and coming back to the shop with status reports and commenting on how bad Belize Auto Rental was.

I pretty much knew that I was going to have to tip this guy. I didn’t want to and I didn’t think he deserved one considering he forced his services upon us. But he’s broke and this is clearly the way he made his money. And, lets not forget that I am the rich American with tons of excess cash.

Tipping became a source of frustration for Liz and I. We received very good service from Beulah and Robbie and Jen and Chris at the hotels. And we felt they should get tipped, beyond the service charge added to our hotel bill. And the guys at Ecologic Divers were great! But as Liz had mentioned before, it wasn’t something we’d fully budgeted for, and we made some generous tips that were larger than our pocket change could sustain.

This challenge and frustration hit its peak when we were at the Belcove restaurant on our last night in Belize. Jules is the son of the owner of Belcove. He was visiting at he time of our stay. He welcomed us and was very friendly and declared that he would help us with our bags. He clarified “this is my family’s hotel. It won’t cost you anything.” But I was so distressed and programmed at that point, that I didn’t know what to do. So I tried to tip him.

He refused and repeated his connection to the hotel. I never felt more like an ugly American than at that point. Granted, I might not have looked like it, but I felt that way. We were so razzled by the tipping that we no longer knew what to do.

Our lesson learned and the corresponding travel tip is:

Here is our itinerary. We likely won’t be able to post on any of these exciting activities while we’re gone, but you can follow along with what we are doing each day anyway. Hopefully we can post here and there, but for now, this is what we have.

We forgot to mention over the weekend some bad news we received about the trip and the plans (we were way too busy with John and Jamie’s wedding, congrats!) but our car rental company, Rental Car Group.com, cancelled our reservation. We weren’t too happy to find that out. Of course, this left us in a scramble to find another car rental and most of the companies being sold out already. And on top of the added stress from all the wedding plans these past few days and family being in town, it was hard to find time to book a new reservation. Not cool at all for that to happen. Very unreliable car rental company. Stay away!

Luckily, Courtney was able to book us a rental with Belize Auto Rental. The downside about going with them is they only have one location and that is at the International airport. So we will take the water taxi in from Ambergris Caye (San Pedro) and hop in a cab to the International Airport and then grab the car rental and trek to San Ignacio for our jungle fun.

The car rental came in at a hefty $195 for the three days. That’s average $100 per person. I’m not too happy about that but I do think time is money in Belize and we don’t want to waste it traveling on a hot long bus ride. Luckily, the total also includes auto insurance. It’s smart to have that with theft and the road ways not being patrolled, etc. This whole car rental thing has been a slight nightmare. I hope it’s not too much more of a nightmare when we show up there. Hopefully it will pay off with the ease of being able to go anywhere we want at the drop of a hat.

Our Hot Card arrived today! We’re set for savings and maximizing our adventure return. We’ve identified several different places where we can get everything from 15% discounts to free cocktails.

I’m planning to capitalize on the 15% discount for cash exchanges as Ecologic Divers in particular. Lizzy and I have them booked for a Sunday snorkel and manatee encounter on Sunday. I’ll be diving with them on Monday and Tuesday. Those three bookings combined should total well over the $50 cost of the card. We’ll follow that up with a visit to a few of the area restaurants and bars for discounts and complementary wine and cocktail options each evening.

U.S. dollars are accepted as readily as the local currency in Belize, so you don’t have to be too concerned about the exchange rate there.

It is mostly recommended to carry cash with you when traveling to Belize. Carry only the allotted amount of money you need for the day and to store the rest in a safety deposit in your hotel room. If need be, there are ATM’s frequenting shopping areas and the small towns.

Traveler’s checks can take some time to cash and they are increasingly not accepted anywhere.

Also, bring a credit card for back-up. But only use if absolutely have to. While the item may be priced in USD, the credit card companies are charged in Belizean dollars. The credit card company will have to exchange that from the USD and they will charge you a fee for that exchange. If you’re concerned about money, stay away from credit cards while in Belize.

I personally am considering grouping the money into envelopes for each day that I plan on spending. That way, I can label the envelope, say, “Monday.” and just grab it out of the safe per day. I know that I will for sure have an envelope labeled “LAST DAY.” That will include the Belize Exit tax and necessary cash for any obstacles that may get in the way for catching our flight home. If we miss that flight, apparently we will be stuck in Belize until the following Saturday. Yikes!