Many companies run along the Western Highway from Belize City and Belmopan to Benque Viejo near the border with Guatemala, including Shaw’s, National, Guerra’s, D&E, Middleton’s, and the Belize Bus Owners Cooperative. This tends to be a slower route than the other main highway routes, due to curves and heavy agricultural traffic near the Mennonite community of Spanish Lookout. It was even slower for a few days during my stay with a detour required by repair work being done on the Hawksworth Bridge between San Ignacio and Santa Elena.
Drivers in Belize used their prewarning and warning lights not for boarding or alighting passengers, but instead for decoration and visibility. I saw a few buses with flashing lights and strobes driving along the Northern Highway, and it seemed more common in the west.
STN’s Stewart is a graduate of Swarthmore College and a recipient of a 2010 Thomas J. Watson Fellowship, a grant to study abroad. Stewart’s project is “School Bus Migrations: Recycling Transit in the Global South. Follow his blog and see more photos from his journey.
