Alright, I didn’t mean to… but I think a chicken may have met its fate under the weight of my 42-pound backpack.

I loaded my pack on the back of the brightly painted bus, hopped onto the bumper, and in. I put my bag in the only spot left it would fit, on top of a few boxes and a giant tire, same as I had done all week. At this point, this was our 5th or 6th bus while in Belize, it was becoming routine.

We never seem to time it right to catch the express bus, so passengers are constantly loading and unloading. Midway through the trip the bus driver helps unload another passenger that had some luggage in the back. He pulls our packs off the cardboard boxes I stacked them on.

I knew that there were actually chickens on chicken buses, but who puts a chicken in a closed cardboard box. Seriously…

The driver looks at me, doesn’t say anything, but he knows… He knows there is now a smashed chicken in a box, but he helps me out and stacks my bag away from the chicken box.

Now I just hope my stop is before the chicken’s owner exits and attempts to claim his now crushed chicken.

Of course, the broken bird’s owner got off a few stops before me. He had a look on his face like someone had just killed his dog. As he lifts the box it utters one feeble cluck. The man then starts a half-hearted argument with the driver before walking off less than happy.

Maybe he was planning on eating it that night… well that’s what I am going tell myself anyway.