In February of 2010, 7news went on a contraband-ing mission to the place called San Francisco Botes.
There, we found that the main means of transport between Santa Cruz village in Belize and Botes in Mexico were wide, flat-bottomed dories called kayuco's, that take about ten minutes to slip through a canal and navigate across the Rio Hondo to get to Botes Mexico. It really is just a stone's throw away - and it is a completely unregulated border point; there's no immigration and no customs on either side.
But now a report from a Mexican newspaper shows that the Mexican dory operators are asking for protection from their Belizean counterparts.
That's because the Belizeans have gotten engines, and have gotten bigger dories! According to the Mexican paper, the Belizeans are fouling up the river with pollution, and moreover, they have 20 boats with engines, while the Mexicans only have seven with no engines.
Well, according to our information from that area, only 14 of the Belizean boats have small, low horsepower engines, and 3 of those engines are built from weed eaters.
Of course, the customers prefer boats that have engines because it speeds things up, and for those dodging customs on the Belize side they want to go further up-river to make what may be a more clandestine landing.
But - from the tone of the newspaper article - it seems that, for once, the Mexican's can't compete and are crying foul in this river pirating enterprise. Of course, the truth is , the border point is unregulated, which is to say illegal, so there's no authority that can be called upon to protect their interests.
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