Jesse, Liam and Angus left the room early, around 7:30. I was able to muster a quick ‘adios’ before falling back asleep.

When I woke up a while later, I wondered if I just should have joined them. I didn’t much feel like spending $100 on seeing the Sian Ka’an biosphere reserve or going to a cenote.

I had breakfast with a handful of Israelis (the best represented nationality by far, most of whom had just completed their mandatory army service) and an IT professional from Martinique. Everyone was extremely polite and shared lots of travel ideas and recommendations. I discussed, in Spanglish, the validity of the web as an artistic medium with an Australian video producer and a Mexican graphic design student. I absolutely love the backpacker community.

I bought a bus ticket to Chetumal, the gateway town to Belize. The buses so far have been cheap, comfortable, and best of all: freezing cold. I slept for half of the trip, which did nothing to help the crick in my neck I got the night before.

Right off the bus, I got a cab to the cheap and centrally-located Hotel Cristal. Neither the cab driver nor the receptionist at the hotel spoke a word of English, but I managed to stumble my way through in broken Spanish. I was even able to get a recommendation from the cabbie; he told me to visit Museo de la Cultura Maya, which happened to be a block from my hotel.

The museum had a very cool interior, managing to nicely blend modern looking marble and glass with fake rocks and trees. The pieces in the museum were mostly replicas but there were plenty of great explanations in Spanish and English. I learned quite a bit about Mayan history, culture, architecture and mythology. There was a really interesting exhibit on the Mayan calendar as well as their arithmetic system, which, for you dorks out there, was base-20.

I walked around the town and noticed that this place had more zapaterias than people. I read that lots of Belizeans come to Chetumal to shop. Could it be there are no shoe stores in Belize? I continued wandering and ended up at the waterfront. According to the guidebook, there was supposed to be a nice seafood restaurant nearby, but the whole area looked like it had been bulldozed and I couldn’t find anything. On my way back to the hotel, I heard music and walked toward the source. A small restaurant – Los Mestizos – had a 3 piece live band playing and I couldn’t resist.

I sat down and asked for a simple chicken fajita dish and a Negra Modelo (somehow the first cerveza of the trip). The waiter brought dish after dish of various chicken and tortilla assemblies, none of which resembled the fajitas I was expecting, but all of which looked and smelled delicious. Eventually, the waiter brought a giant plate of fajitas. The entire table was full of food. Again, I may have somehow ordered more than I thought, but it really didn’t bother me (as it turned out, the fajitas came with three different taquitos, two empanadas, and a tamale for 65 pesos – roughly $5). I was enjoying the music, the beer, the delicious blazing salsa picante, the open air dining and the super authentic Mexican food.

At sundown, with the band still going strong, I headed back to my hotel to rest for the evening. Vacation can be exhausting…