This is the main drag, head and shoulders. It runs through the downtown all the way from the pier up to the Mayab Museum. Once you stroll past the Cultural Ghetto, you hit a the Cocos hotel, a great spot to hang in the evening. The place sprawls out onto the sidewalk, where on weekends there is live music from little combos. This is the NEW Maya World culture, a very Euro/Mexican pastime--hanging out in sidewalk cafes and watching people walk by, eating, drinking, and taking the air. Don't worry about what they've got and how much, just grab a seat and chill.
From Cocos to the pier, Heroes is all about shopping. Good shopping at that. Nothing to flip out foreign tourists, but for those of us who live in Mexico, especially places like Isla Mujeres, it's incredible. There are no umbrellas where I live--here they sell for $25 pesos, under $3. A diving mask that would go for $35 US on the Isla goes for $13 here. They have real clothes! For cheap! It's great! Acutally one of the current crises in Chetumal is the failure of stores due to the Free Trade Zone at the Belize border. People dash down there to shop, even places as far north as Cancun have shopping excursions to the border. And yet Belizans come to Mexico to shop, too. Their dollar goes further on exchange here. The perfect border: cheaper on both sides of the fence.
There's a sophistication here you don't see in similar sized Mexican towns. Shops have names like Mel Rose or Reddy Freddy, change houses are called Easy Money, there are places called Samurai and Bonsai and Curacao. This is mostly for the same reason that there is so much money in a remote little place like Chetumal--the capital of the state of Quintana Roo. (No, Alex, not a character in Winny the Poo.) There is the usual stamp of state money. Beautiful women in smashing outfits glide along on obscure errands or long lunch breaks. Barbered, useless-looking men wear fine suits and drive mirrored SUV's. You see BMW motorcycles on the street. Restaurants like Executive Club do big business at lunch. Fancy projects are in evidence, free music provided.
I finally found a saxophone reed here. They have electric guitars made by Fender in China and by Peavey in (dig this) Vietnam. Snorkels with valves. Rolexes. Real perfumes. Heroes is all about prosperity. Out of town people live in hovels, but here things hum right along. They protect the Manatee, glorify the Maya, build a beautiful "Socialist School" with a mural showing the Mexican eagle flanked by a Mayan warrior and Mexican soldier from some vague era. Right on Niños Heroes. About six blocks from museum to pier.