It’s rare for life to throw some truly amazing people at you, and so far on my trip I have already met quite a few. While in Caye Caulker I stayed at the Go Slow hostel and then the Palm Travelers Backpackers hostel. While at Go Slow hostel I met a guy named Jacob who was turning 30 the night I met him so of course I had to help him celebrate. We went with a few other hostel-goers to one of the local restaurants and splurged on all you can drink rum punches and Baracuda. The night went on and the only way to adequately celebrate on Caye Caulker is to go to Sports Bar followed by Raggae Bar. They both are just frat parties gone wrong. We got to see a local fight break out at Sports Bar where one girl smashed the other with a bottle. The girl that got smashed leaned forward causing her head to bleed on the ground, grabbed a bottle which I then took from her, proceeded to grab another bottle and rushed out of the bar. I proceeded to drink my rum and feel like I was in Pirates of the Caribbean.
After sports bar Jacob, Mandy, Tome and I went to the hostel and ran into one of the greatest humans I’ve yet had the pleasure to meet, Josh. I learned he lived in Boulder CO, where I used to live and my brother still lives. We headed to Raggae bar where we ordered rum and pulled out our white-boy dance moves. We danced with locals, watched Mandy hit the stripper pole in the middle and took proper birthday shots at midnight. The night quickly turned into a blur that then turned into the next morning.
On the island everything is painted in crazy bright colors. Lots of bright pink, yellow, orange, blue and the likes.
In the morning we went on a Kayaking trip from Caye Caulker to Coco King. A beach/bar/resort across “the split.” What should have taken about 20 minutes ended up taking well over 2 hours. Josh and Maggie were sharing a kayak, then Tal, Paroma, and I were in our own kayaks. We learned very quickly that Paroma didn’t have a clue how to kayak so we went through the process of switching her to a better kayak. She very quickly sunk that kayak and she was floating hanging onto her kayak. tied her sunken kayak to mine and our brilliant plan was for me to tow her kayak and her all the way to Coco King. However, the kayak sunk more and more and soon I couldn’t even fight the current.
While we were struggling to stay afloat a boat came at the perfect time to save us. They picked up our sunken kayak and drained it off the side of the boat. I retied it to my kayak and Paroma hung onto Josh and Maggie’s kayak while focusing on floating.
We finally got to Coco King, began drinking rum on the beach and all was good again. I met some kids who were trying to steal my kayak so I gave them a free ride along the beach. They helped by paddling with their hands.
My last day on Caye Caulker I went on a bike ride around the island, then it was time to jump on the ferry. On checking the weather it “felt like 105 degrees.” What a miserable heat.
I took the ferry to San Pedro where I spent one night exploring the island and stayed at Sandbar hostel. Then it was off to San Ignacio to see some Mayan ruins. I took the ferry and was searching for the chicken bus when I met some travelers I had met in Caye. Maggie and two english boys. They were going the same place so we looked for the bus together. We walked across the quite run-down Belize city and spent about 2.5 hours sweating on an old converted schoolbus on our way to San Ignacio.
We checked into Old House Hostel together, met up with Josh, and went to get some chicken with rice and beans(the staple food here). 
After our first night here we went to the ATM caves(Actun Tunichil Muknal). By far my coolest experience here so far. A guide took us 1 km through neck-high water, stalactites, and stalagmites to an old Mayan chamber where they used to perform human sacrifices. It’s unreal seeing the human remains that have calcified there. There were also endless amounts of pots and tools that the old Mayan people left there. We weren’t allowed to bring cameras so no photos there.
After the long day of Indiana Jones style cave exploration we had our daily ration of chicken with rice and beans and began to crush some beers.
We decided we needed rum too so we went to get some and then headed for the bar that’s literally right below the hostel. It was an open mic night and we were all feeling like jamming at the moment. There was a guitar, drums, and piano that some people were crushing some reggae beats on when we got there. Their drummer up and left to get some more rum or something so I took over the drums. Josh came in on some guitar as well and we had a hell of a night drinking rum and slaying beats.
In the morning Maggie said she, “needed to spread her little wings” or something so we had coffee, explored the market and then had a sad goodbye. She then spread her little wings off to Mexico or something.
Josh, the english boys Taron and Chris, and I were feeling a road trip so we went and rented a car. We drove deep into the jungle where we found this enormous cave and then an amazing spot to splash around and buttslide down some rivers for the day. We also broke out the local applewine that I bought at the market that morning. Mixed reviews.
