After paying an 'exit fee' (blatantly going in fat custom officers pocket), we left Mexico. So as not to end up arriving late at night in an unfamiliar Belize city, we decided to stop off at Corozal, a small town by the sea about an hour accross the border.

After wandering around town getting some food, we picked up some new 'friends' who, although very entertaining, were very keen to try and get us to sample Belize's finest illicit substances and weren't really taking no for an answer, so we decided to hole up in our hotel until shipping out on the bus the next day.

The small guest house was described in the guide book as 'the kind of cheap and pleasant Key West hotel where Hemingway might have spent his last years drinking and writing', with which I would concur. The owner was a great, (slightly drunk) Welsh guy, though his accent was more Tom Waits than Tom Jones.

We spent an interesting evening being told Belizian travel horror stories by expats (think they like to try and scare incoming tourists!), including false imprisonment and being talked at by a very drunk white american guy. More memorable comments included: "I am blacker than Obama" and "I'm going to live a sustainable lifestyle growing vegetables on a disused oil rig in the ocean".