Quick one as it was a hassle free crossing!
It only took us twenty minutes to get to the border at Benque Viejo del Carmen from San Ignacio. We stopped at the first booth on the right, which housed a very friendly money-changer. He informed us that it wouldn't be possible to change our Belizean Dollars to Quetzals in Flores - we didn't believe him of course, but went for it all the same for ease's sake, and managed to haggle a slightly better rate once we got chatting. I went in first, to have my passport stamped and pay the $37.50 Belizean to exit the country (tourist and conservation tax). Then onto the immigration booth for another stamp and within five minutes I was back at the bike to tag in Tom.
After the first two steps Tom went into the adjacent building on the left to sort out the bike, and was out within 10 minutes. So far so good! Then through to no man's land, to the Guatemalan side. We skirted the bike fumigation shed down a side path (a little hint from our currency exchange friend) and were never asked for proof of fumigation. Then we pulled up by the big building on the left, I went in to get stamped in (1 min) then Tom went in to get his passport stamped and get the bike sorted. You need copies of the bike owner{s passport, driver{s license and the vehicle registration (luckily we had these or it would not have been such plain sailing). It took about ten minutes and 160Q ($20) and we were in!
On the way out there's a little booth that we made the mistake of stopping at and had to pay 15Q for god knows what - we have since read that you can just ride through and it doesn't really matter. The first bit of riding through the country was really beautiful. The road was great and the landscape was beautiful - it already felt very different to Belize and got us really excited for what was to come. We went past three police checkpoints but we gave them a smile and a wave and they all just waved us through. We went through a village where the children must've just been finishing school - their smiles and waves helped to cement our feeling that this was going to be a great country to explore. On to Flores now to the little island on the lake!