It’s a little embarrassing to admit that the biggest thing I was worried about moving away from home was my workout regimen. I had been on a two year weight lifting program with my Dad and had made a lot of progress totally reshaping my body; I had also joined a boxing gym eight months prior and was loving that. In short I was in great shape and didn’t want to jeopardize that. I knew I could get in to a workout routine in Belize but I also knew how hard it is to get my ass in gear when my routine is thrown off course. Working out for me is a total outlet for all of my stress. It was the one thing that really worked well for me and it was scary to let go of those habits. I was just getting in to sparring at the boxing gym and on course for my first fight but it was scheduled for the month after I would leave. Looking back it seems like such a superficial reason to be scared but I think I was projecting all my fears on to that one part of my life. A few times I was very close to bagging the whole plan, especially during those couple of weeks right before we were going to leave. Everyone was so excited for us though and I knew I had to go through with it. It felt like I was on a fast moving train without breaks so all I could really do was sit back and ride with it.
The next thing I know Will and I are at my parent’s house the night before we were to fly out. We had all three of our cats with us with all of their shots and import permits ready to go – I thought it was a little crazy that the cats had a harder time getting in to Belize than we would. All we needed was our valid U.S. passports – no visas. We were going to take the cats on to the plane with us as our carry on items. There were three of us, me, Will and my mom (Nancy) and three cats so it worked out great. They have never traveled much longer than 3 hours, ever. So needless to say I was a little nervous about the trip. It would be two plane rides with a moderate layover in Houston – about a day’s worth of traveling. We were scheduled to get in to Belize City around 2pm. The first plane was going to leave from Portland at approximately 6am so we were at the airport at 4am. We had 9 very full bags to check and three cat carriers – I’m sure we looked like a small circus going through the airport. We pulled up to the curb and our good friend Don Julio (you know who you are) was there to surprise us and help send us off. The first thing we got to do at the airport was pay about $350 worth of excess baggage fees – yuck! We got to security and said a teary goodbye to my Dad (Scott) and Don Julio and we were on the other side waiting for our plane.
We were crossing our fingers for a nice smooth journey to Belize – it was a combination of nerves, anticipation and excitement. There was a lot of adrenaline running through me. I couldn’t believe I was actually doing this. Well, the first hiccup came about 5 minutes later during the security scan. Since we had the cats we had to go through the screening first, individually, and then to a special room where the cats had to come out of their carriers and the carriers themselves had to be run through the screening process. We had bought a spray recommended by the vet to calm the cats down a little since we weren’t allowed to sedate them (airline policy) so that had been sprayed all over the carriers. At this point the cats hated us – they were freaking out and I wasn’t happy about removing them from the bags. We had to though so they were out in the little room with cat hair flying everywhere, trying to find any possible hiding spot they could. The security officers came back after a little while and said we needed to come with them for additional screening. They were suddenly very serious and my heart skipped a beat while we went out of the room and followed them. We each had to have full body scan with the wand they use again, and then they had to search through all our other stuff again. We hadn’t even made it out of Portland yet! After they had scanned us all they told us that whatever we had sprayed on those cat carriers should never, ever be used again for airline travel. It had set off all sorts of alarms. A little embarrassed we nodded and went on our way. By the way that spray is Feliway made by Ceva – DO NOT USE THIS SPRAY GOING THROUGH AN AIRPORT. Okay, one hurdle down, so we headed to our gate to await our first flight.
The plane finally arrived and we took our seats. The cats were still making some noise; at this point they still had energy to spare and had no qualms about using it. You know how in the movie Christmas Vacation with Chevy Chase, Aunt Bethany brings the cat wrapped us as a gift – well, that’s how our carriers were shaking and I was starting to panic that these cats were going to act like this the whole plane ride. I apologetically looked around at the people sitting close and told them they were my cats and they had never traveled. Their carriers barely fit under the seats in front of us but we made it happen and eventually they quieted down.
We arrived in Houston with no problems, the cats were behaving – or, more likely, traumatized, and we got on to our next flight with no trouble. The flight from Houston to Belize City was beautiful and I sat on the plane wondering what this chapter in my life would bring. After we landed we made our way through customs with our 9, jam packed bags, and the customs official proceeded to search through every one of them. After we were cleared to go through we had to get the cats checked up so we went to the BAHA (Belize Agricultural Health Authority) office where they checked out all the cat’s documents and permits. The guy took a look in the carrier and I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head – he quickly called over his buddies to look at this monstrous cat. Apparently they do not have 17 lb cats in Belize. They let us through and we were finally riding in our taxi to our new home of Corozal.
To begin with I have to say that I am changing the names of everyone I write about here except my immediate family members and myself – I don’t want to get myself in to much trouble.
At first the idea of moving to Belize was sort of a dream – it was this thing in the near future but far enough away that it didn’t quite feel real. It was such a complete change from the path my life was taking for the past 27 years that it was hard to wrap my brain around the whole idea. So I moved along in my life and wondered when it would all hit me. I should mention here that my parents did go to Belize to look at the property and check out Corozal before a final decision was made so there was still a little sanity in the whole process. The insane part would be my decision to take their word for it and not go there in person before I totally committed. It’s almost embarrassing to write here that my rational was basically having a limited amount of savings to make this happen in the first place and I didn’t want to waste any money on a quick trip to check it out. Since my parents were in love with it after visiting I figured that I would be too. I realize now that a test run may not have been such a bad idea and I would recommend it to anyone else who may find themselves in that particular situation.
As the days passed by nothing really changed much because we couldn’t accomplish a lot until a couple months before we left. There were a few items that I had to get started on though, so the first thing I worked on was to get Will and me international health insurance. The policies are very different from a normal health insurance policy and therefore a lot cheaper, it was suggested to me to only worry about getting a major medical policy with the high deductible because health care in Belize for smaller incidents was very cheap. So I went with a $5,000 deductible plan which would basically cover us if we had a major incident and needed to be evacuated back to the states for medical treatment. Everything is subject to the deductible so there are no co-pays for anything; we would pay out of pocket until the deductible is met. That was a very easy process and I got it settled up pretty quickly. Then it was all back to normal again – now when I say normal I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate because Will and I were going through some major medical troubles. We were at the tail end of it but 3 years ago Will had been hit in the mouth by a baseball which shattered a lot of his jaw and caused him to lose about 5 teeth in the front of his mouth. What followed was surgery after surgery for three solid years and then on top of that fighting tooth and nail with the insurance companies to actually pay for all the surgeries and procedures. We went through a bankruptcy because of it and it put a huge strain on our marriage. In short it was a total nightmare so we were looking forward to that part of our lives to end so we could open a new chapter.
As we got closer to our moving out date of October 16th we started throwing parties to say a temporary goodbye to our friends and family. I also started to eat out as much as possible because I had heard that there isn’t much variety in the way of cuisine in Corozal so I had to get in as much good food as possible. It’s so funny how I could easily make what I considered a good excuse for eating lots and lots of food that wasn’t good for me. I thoroughly enjoyed it though.
Finally it was about a month before we would be leaving and that’s when everything had to get done. It started to become much more real and I couldn’t help but be very nervous at this point. I went back and forth in my mind whether or not I was doing the right thing – was I totally losing it for making this decision? I ignored all those thoughts as best as I could and kept moving forward with the decision. In that month we had sold most of our belongings with the rest going in to storage, we moved out of our apartment with our three cats (who would be making the trip with us), bought plane tickets, packed our lives up in 5 suitcases, got import permits for the cats to come in to Belize, put student loans on hold, finished up with Will’s final surgeries and I started working at a bar for the last month to at least have a taste of the industry. It was a complete whirlwind of activity. Then we found ourselves staring at the two week mark. I was ready to go; I had so many emotions flowing through me that I thought I would burst. It was time to just get there and start this thing. I have lived in Oregon all of my life – this was going to be a crazy adventure.
My name is Kristi, I’m 28 years old and currently getting a divorce from my husband – this is the story of my journey to Belize from Oregon. 7 months ago I sold everything to blindly move to Belize and try to open a bar and grill with my husband and mother. Along the way I’ve learned so much and feel the need to share it with whomever will listen so let’s start from the beginning…
There I was sitting at work – bored – when a new email pops up in my Gmail account that I check way too often there because my job is so mundane. It’s not that I don’t like my job or the people I work with but it’s just one of those non-challenging – I can do this with my eyes closed – kind of jobs. The email is from my Dad which isn’t too out of the ordinary; we both work at computers all day long and email each other constantly. Mostly the topics are current events and the Economist is my main source. This was not a current event though, it was a simple link with the message attached, “if you’re interested in helping me run this I’m serious about buying it.” Interesting – so I clicked on the link and up pops a Caribbean Real Estate website. At first I didn’t think too much of it because my dad has always been interested in buying Caribbean property, but I still looked through it. It was a house and restaurant on lots next to one another in Corozal, Belize. My immediate reaction was “Hell Yes!” so I emailed my dad back and asked him if he was serious. He responded that he is very serious but he wouldn’t be able to move there immediately to set the bar & grill up and run it which is why he would need me and my (now ex) husband to move there and get things going. Okay, now I had to sit back and really think about this. I really didn’t even know where Belize was located. I was 27, and had gone through a lot of major stressors in my life during the last three years so I was ready for a change, but was this a little too much?
I immediately started doing some online research about this place. I quickly found out that it was in Central America bordering Mexico and Guatemala. It was the only English speaking country in that area and it was very small. The population of the entire country is just over 300,000. Specifically the town where this property is located is called Corozal and it is in the northern region of Belize. It is one of the largest towns in Belize but is more like the small town of Banks, Oregon where I grew up. There is a large ex-pat population in Corozal and that concerned me slightly since I am young I wasn’t sure if I was ready to move to a retirement town. Being married at the time I thought it would be fine since my husband and I would go together and that way we had each other to lean on. This was a huge decision– it would totally uproot my entire life. The deal would be that my husband, Will, and I would go to Belize with my mother, help set up the restaurant since it wasn’t running currently and then run it for at least one year. After a year the situation would be re-evaluated. I didn’t have any experience with setting up, operating or running a restaurant so this would be totally strange for me. My degree was in Economics so I would be the natural choice to run the books and finances for the business. I knew I could do it so I wasn’t too horribly concerned about the industry. Will had been working in a small tavern for the past year as an assistant manager and had been learning the ins and outs of the business so he would be the main contributor to actually putting the food together.
That day after work I rushed home to talk to Will about this whole thing. He was completely excited about it. He had always talked about wanting to leave the states and go somewhere just like Belize to start a little bar and just be away from everything. He didn’t really even give it a second thought – he wanted to do it. So I called up my Dad and we arranged a meeting with him and my mom to go over details and figure out who would go check the place out. After that it all started happening so fast. My mom and dad flew to Belize to look at the property, get an idea of the atmosphere and meet the current owner. Their first night there they absolutely hated it, but that quickly changed after they started meeting people and seeing the town. They decided that it was a place they could live and eventually retire. When they got back from their trip the four of us met again to talk about the whole experience. The town is right on the Corozal Bay and they said it was beautiful – of course there were pictures too. They said the people were incredibly friendly, helpful and inviting. The down sides were the fact that the place was dirtier than we were used to at home, there were a million dogs who barked all night at everything and we would just have to get used to a third world country. The idea was like a dream – Will and I would contribute 50% of the costs to get the business started but the house would be purchased and maintained by my parents. In return for dropping everything and moving to Belize to run the place we would get a 50% stake in the business. We had to act fast though; the place was priced for quick movement because the previous owner had been in a very bad auto accident and needed to sell everything. I did a lot more internet research because we would be going in to this blind. Over the next couple of days we talked about the logistics and decided that we could sell our cars, put our student loans on deferment and sell everything – we decided to go for it. I just kept thinking that if I didn’t do this I would regret it for the rest of my life. The worst that could happen was that the business fails and we ended up back home in a year. If I didn’t go I don’t think I would be able to forgive myself for not taking the chance to have this totally crazy experience. It was like everything in my life was rushing by me and I was just standing still wondering what was actually happening. We were set to move in October 2008. We essentially had six months to get everything together. Then we started telling people…
I was a little nervous about breaking this crazy news to people – I really thought that they would give me an earful about how crazy and irresponsible I was being. It had to be done though, so I started with my current boss – I would have to eventually give my notice. She freaked…in a good way. She was so excited for me and basically told me that this was the only possible reason she would accept to lose me at the office. I don’t know why but every time I told a new person I would get so nervous, but with each new person I told I would gain a little more confidence about what I was doing. In the end telling friends was no big deal – they were all very excited for us and thought this was a once in a lifetime opportunity that should not be passed up. Telling family was a little different. Some of them were immediately supportive but the major trend was, “what the hell are you thinking? Are you crazy? Where is Belize?” It was difficult to convince everyone that we hadn’t totally lost our heads – or if we have then it really was just a big adventure. Eventually my side of the family came around and were all supportive and actually became excited for us. Will’s family was a different story, his parents were completely against the whole thing which did cause some stress in our lives before we went, but we were not about to bend our lives to appease someone else. The decision was made – we were moving to Belize in October, 6 months from then.
Travels to Belize | admin | May 27, 2009 | 
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