Every time I mention that I am moving to Belize, I am met with the same two responses; “How fun!” And “I am so jealous!”

Let me assure everyone reading this blog, that moving to Belize, or any other developing country is NOT fun and there is nothing to envy. This adventure has been more than just a lot of work, it has been frustrating and extremely slow.

It has been a long time since I have blogged about our Belize move, and this is why. After we sold our house, Rob moved to Belize full-time in an effort to be available to have our house built. He was hopping AirBnb locations in-between guest reservations so that he could stay for a low price, and I was living with my daughter in Colorado, with our dogs. It was stressful to say the least.

Much like starting a dog rescue, there isn’t a “how to” manual that explains how to move to another country, especially a country that is 90% offline.

When we started the process of building our house we were told that we would receive the quote in two weeks. I learned quickly that when a Belizean gives you a time estimate, you need to multiply that estimate by four, but we did not know this so we patiently waited to receive a quote. We got part of the land filled and waited, and waited, and waited.

Needless to say, after waiting two months to receive a quote on building our house, we were horrified by the astronomically high estimate that we received. We were quoted one million dollars Belize which amounts to five hundred thousand dollars USD, to build a small 1800 square foot home. We certainly do not have that kind of money, and at that point panic began to sink in. What had we done? We now couldn’t afford to buy back into the Colorado market, and we couldn’t afford to build in Belize!

I am not going to lie, there was sobbing, anxiety, and panic for a few days. Nonetheless, we marched forward and began to get quotes from other contractors. We learned quickly that our contractor was seriously overcharging us when the second quote came back at less than half the cost of the first. This was still problematic, as we do not have $250,000 to build a house, but it seemed much less daunting, so we pressed on.  The problem was that I desperately needed to get our dogs down to Belize. They had become very stressed out by all the transition, and were spending entirely too much time at the rescue.

Puppy Face began to nip at people when they walked in the door, including staff members, and at one point when a staff member was preparing to walk her, she bolted and bit a walker on the street. The bite wasn’t horrible, but she did break the skin, and we had to report the incident to Animal Control. I got a ticket and was told that if she did it again, the city would euthanize her. This was not an option for me, and I was more desperate than ever to get my dogs to Belize.

That day I went online and found a small prefab Mennonite home that someone had ordered and then failed to purchase. I wired the $15,000 to purchase the home immediately, and prepared to have it delivered on November 7th. This house was much smaller than our original plan with a whopping 385 square feet of living space, but we don’t need much and it would allow us to get the dogs to Belize. 

We made a plan to drive one of the rescue transport vans down to Belize, with our dogs, so we could use it as a mobile clinic, and also transport animals to the veterinarian in Hope Creek for spays and neuters. Hope Creek is about a 45 minute drive from the village and most of the villagers don’t own cars, so we figured this was a good way to facilitate getting the village dogs fixed, and would enable us to get our dogs down there. Friends, family and even strangers were horrified that we planned to drive through Mexico to get to Belize. We heard horror story after horror story, and many people encouraged us to just leave our dogs in Colorado. That was not an option for me or Rob, so we began to tighten up the plan for moving the dogs.

I flew down for the delivery of the house, so I could place it where I wanted it to be located on the land. The problem is, much like everything in Belize, the weather is unpredictable. It has been the rainiest year in two decades, and although we had our land filled, it was/is still very much a swamp. That didn’t seem to phase the Mennonite builders, so we kept the plan in place.

We met the men in the village and they followed us to the property. I showed them where I wanted the house placed and they began to back into the space. Then they sunk! Not just a little bit either, the entire back tire sunk into the mud and the house almost tipped over. I gasped in horror, but apparently this is normal in Belize and the men had it covered. Slowly but surely using chain and a coconut tree, they got that tire out of the mud and freed the truck, but there was no way the house could be placed where I wanted it. The hole left by the tire was five feet deep and could not easily be filled. So I had to choose a new spot on the fly. It wasn’t what I envisioned, but really none of this has been what I envisioned, so I abandoned my Type A concerns and went with the flow. 

They got the house up on the posts, built the stairs, and finished the project just a few hours later. It is a cute little house and would suffice for the short-term, or so we thought. At that point we were ready to have our contractor install the septic tank, hook up the plumbing and turn on the electrical. We then began to solidify our plans to drive the dogs down. My family planned a “goodbye” party for the two of us in the event that we didn’t make it out of Mexico alive, and I began ordering essentials to bring with us.

After purchasing the required Mexican insurance, and paying the $490 import fee for the van, we hit a major snag. We were not aware that more than 50% of Belize’s income is derived from import taxes. When we discovered that it would cost us upwards of $10,000 to bring the van into Belize, our plan was thrown out the window.. Even though the van is owned outright, we would have to pay 77% of the value of the van in import tax upon entering Belize, plus import tax on any items we brought with us. This was not an option for us. Since the September sale of our house, we had been siphoning funds from the sale into the rescue in order to keep the doors open. Our profits were dwindling very quickly and our moving budget was getting tighter and tighter.

One of the primary issues with moving to Belize or any other developing country is that it is nearly impossible to get information online. If you want to find any information, you have to be in the country and talk to a lot of people. We did just that and discovered that when I turn 45, I can apply to “retire” in Belize and then we will not have to pay import taxes for one year. I turned 45 on November 29th, so this became a viable option for us. Then we learned that it can take four months to be approved for the qualified retirement program. Remember what I said earlier? Multiply every time estimate by four!

We couldn’t wait a year to get our dogs down. Puppy Face couldn’t afford any more incidents, and they had become extremely stressed out. The needed stability, and soon. I decided that I would have to fly them down! I began searching for flights, but to my dismay most American based airlines will not fly dogs in the belly of the plane, and the one that does has breed restrictions. All of my dogs except one are banned from travel. I was very frustrated to say the least, but I was determined.

The little house was set up. The fence was installed, and the only obstacle in my way was getting the dogs transported. A friend suggested using a Mexican Airline to fly the dogs, so I booked the flight. This was an adventure all by itself……

To be continued