Tulum was the end of the Mexican leg of this trip. From Tulum, we took buses and boats across the border into Belize and Caye Caulker. Belize was to provide me a few days of being able to be by myself.
The trip into Belize started at mid-morning. After breakfast, we headed into our final comfortable Mexican bus to head to the border. The bus took us to a port where we were stamped out of Mexico. Then, for the next hour or so, I suppose I was a man without a country. When we stopped, we went through immigration and customs in Belize, where I got to declare my water bottle filled with vodka. It’s a long story. From there, we hopped on another boat to Caye Caulker.
There’s really not a lot to Caye Caulker. It’s about eight kilometers long and even at its widest parts is less than two kilometers wide. It’s strictly a tourist trap, but does have its charm. There are no paved roads on Caye Caulker and the only motor vehicles that you see are related to construction on the island. People get around by golf cart and bicycle to some extent, but walking will get you pretty much everywhere.
On the first night, we went out to dinner and then a few of us went out to get some drinks. It was just a few of us going out since the group with which I’m currently traveling isn’t exactly the party crowd. Anyway, we went to a reggae bar and had some Belizean beer. I like the taste of the Belizean beer (Belikin), but it makes me feel a little cheated because it comes in heavy bottles that only hold 284 milliliters, so you never get as much as you think you’re getting. People usually hold up the empty bottles to their mouths thinking there will be more because of the weight of the bottle only to have their little beer-guzzling hearts broken.
Back to the reggae bar . . . downstairs, there were swing set seats at the bar. After a few beers, we headed upstairs to see what that was like. It was a pretty cool area, with tables and hammocks and a loungy-type area, lots of rasta folks and tourists and a distinct tinge of marijuana in the air. The upstairs closed around eleven and we moved back downstairs for a little more beer, some dancing and then we wound up closing the bar at midnight.
After the reggae bar closed, three women and I headed to a night club that was open until 2 am or so and the night’s goal had changed as everybody started looking to score some jerk chicken. (Okay, we weren’t looking for jerk chicken, but this is a family blog, so let’s just call it jerk chicken.) Assuming that the rasta guys were the best sources, the women went into search mode and I drank some more. The entire ordeal turned out to be a lot more trouble than it should have been since there were people all over Caye Caulker willing to sell jerk chicken to anybody that was interested. It took so long to score in the club that I finally decided it wasn’t worth it and at 1:30, I just headed home. (Oddly enough, somebody tried to sell me some jerk chicken on my walk home. By this point, though, I was no longer interested.) The ladies did eventually find what they were looking for and ended up getting back to the hotel around 3:00 am. There were some ordeals involved in that adventure, but that’s another story for another person’s blog. As for me, the night was over and a new day beckoned.
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