We´re at a border town again. Yesterday we flew out of Mérida on a short easy hop to Chetumal. Chetumal lives on the south east edge of the Quintana Roo region in Mexico, bordering with Belize (satellite view).  And indeed it did feel different from other Mexican cities: the streets are wider, the people are colder, and the food less interesting. So we decided not to linger very long. On our first evening, we booked a room in a very colorful hotel:



We proceeded to see the entire downtown area in three hours, including a surprisingly good museum on the Maya culture. It was nice to see some history from the confines of an A/C room for a change, and helped us put into context the ruins that we´d seen.  Nevertheless, all these early wakeups took their toll, and soon enough we were snoring to the Mayan gods (not in the museum though).

Satisified with all this town has to offer, we experienced a bumpy minibus ride today, going to the small town of Bacalar, 39km (24m) north of Chetumal. Bacalar gained its fame from a colorful lagoon that boasts beautiful shades of blue.  Adventurous as we are, we weren´t content with viewing the shoreline through rich people´s house gates, and took a sweltering hike to a hidden gem. A few humid kilometers up the highway is the Cenote Azul: A small and very deep pool of freshwater, carved from the limestone by rainwater over many years. It too shows beautiful blue colors, as captured by our travel photographer:

To verify the actual blueness of the water, we sent our special correspondent to explore the depths with his camera. He returned (eventually) very happy (it was a sticky hike), and reported that the fish were also happy as clams.



The peaceful, serene atmosphere was only disturbed by two inebriated "friendly" Brits, that made tourists from OUR place look respectable-imagine that.

Tomorrow we´re going to blow this hole and take the 4.5 hour bus ride north to Playa del Carmen (and this is the express line). Finally, beaches, sun, umbrella-clad-drinks — here we come!