The eerie Harpy eagle—native to these parts—mixed with a biker-friendly hostel run by a lady whose idea of a romantic Valentine’s was a bubble bath with her bike, sounded worth a detour to Belize. My partner Aidan and I were riding south from Canada to Argentina, him on a BMW F650 GS and me on a Honda NX250.

A little removed from the popular Pan American Highway, Belize remains an unspoiled gem on the Caribbean coast with a striking diversity of cultures and languages for such a tiny country. An ex-British colony, the official language is English but we heard many others. Predominantly Spanish-speaking communities live to the north and west, indigenous Mayans live in the southern jungles, and the Garifuna, originating from wrecked African slave ships, have settled along the coast. There is even a community of Mennonites with their iconic horses and carts farming the grasslands of the central south. However, we figured it wouldn't take long to see it all and only bought insurance for one week.

Anxious to get off the pristine asphalt, we followed a dusty, lime-white dirt road to Crooked Tree. Swampy grasslands on either side soon become a sort of lake at the edge of the village. Wooden fishing boats lay pulled up onto the shore, clinging to their last colorful scraps of peeling paint. Rusty, grass-overgrown American school buses in a field completed the sense of romantic decay.

The bikes bounced along sandy roads past small houses standing quietly in the blasting midday sun. In an open front yard stood a KJL gas station: A big rectangular silver tank with a little retro pump that only counts one gallon at a time, so you have to manually add up how many you use. The owner, Rene, came over from his house, slightly surprised to find foreigners here. "I'm sorry, I have no gas for you. But I am happy to see you," he invited us under the shade of a tree for a little chat.