It had been a while since I crossed the Western border into Guatemala usually on my way to Tikal. Melchor de Mencos, the Guatemalan border town to Belize never really attracts me since it is a typical filthy border town with a small market and lots of brothels which I have no interest in.
Grand matriarch, Miss Belize 1981 & myself had been spending about 5 days in San Ignacio, Belize working on our little fixer uppers simultaneously. Miss Belize 1981 had flown in from First World just to pick her tiles since she managed to seal a decent airfare from Miami for once.
It was Sunday when the tinge for adventure hit us & we decided to cross the border into Guatemala and check out the market for a few hours. Crossing the border on the Belize side was easy enough, but when we got to the Guatemala side, we found a long line of people waiting to get their passports stamped.
We were immediately approached by a taxi driver offering to take us to the market, and for an extra dollar each, he said, he could take our passports directly to the immigration officials behind the desk, by-passing the long line & we bought that service. Within minutes, we found ourselves at the market.
The market sells mostly cheap American knock off clothing and did not offer any of the typical Guatemalan artisan work we were looking for. After constantly skipping over the open sewer drains which acts as the street between the stalls, we decided to just have lunch and head back to Belize so we exited the market and walked the two blocks to the nice looking hotel down the street.
Outside the restaurant I noticed a few starving dogs, but one tiny one in particular had caught my attention as he was dodging traffic at the edge of the road and his ribs were poking out.
We were greeted in the restaurant by a huge sign reading BIENVENIDOS meaning welcome in Spanish but I felt horrified when I saw all the mounted dead animals on the wall who weren't so welcomed. During lunch, I could barely eat since the "chicken" had the texture and taste of a foreign meat. I couldn't get the thought out of my head that the cute little stray dog outside would one day also be mounted on the wall and I started to fret.
After lunch, I picked up the flea infested starving dog and asked the cab driver if he thinks he can smuggle him across the border for me.
"No problema senora, that is easy" and so the deal was made.Sure enough the driver was waiting with the dog next to Silver Bess across when we arrived. After dumping off the extra quetzales to him, I took home the newest addition to my growing canine family. After a good scrub down and nice meal, Cash settled in and just ate & slept for the next 3 days.
Cash finally arrived in Caye Caulker Paradise and prompted me to rename my dogs. Timon a.k.a. T-Bone or Moni is now MONEY. The black one Lulu who adopted me earlier this year never took to that name so I have renamed her DINERO and of course, the new baby is CASH.
DINERO, CASH, MONEY & MISTRESS Portraits by Damien... haha.
Money is already kicking up a stink about his new name and says he prefers the symbol $$$!
These little suckers are already spoiled and cost me mucho money, cash & dinero cause they are already addicted to patted meat, grind meat, corn beef, smoked pork chops, vienna sausage, longanisa & chicken strips.
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