A Detour on the Way to the Beach

Sunday, November 30, 2014
Placencia, Stann Creek, Belize
Thursday we had no tours planned so we just chilled. We got some laundry done in the morning and then wandered into town. Still raining intermittently but we managed to dodge the showers. Carol has developed an ear infection so we went to a little pharmacy in town and got some ear drops. Good thing the pharmacist knew what she was doing because the packaging was all in Spanish. Sat at Eva's and had another bowl of their great lime soup and made good use of their wifi for the afternoon. Then we got some of their tasty chicken curry to take home for dinner and caught at cab home. Friday was travel day. We had a 5:10 pm flight to Placencia, so we got up late and slowly got ourselves organised, wandered just up to the "double road" for lunch at a local restaurant. Patricia called a cab for us and we headed out to the air strip at about 4:00, since we were all packed and ready to go anyway. So we are sitting outside reading our books and the Tropic Air counter guy comes out to tell us that he's sorry to inform us that the flight has been canceled (this is the only flight of the day from San Ignacio to Placencia, which is why we were leaving so late). Turns out there was some weather in Belize City, where the plane was coming from and it was late getting out. Well, the plane can't land in Placencia after dark (no lights) so any delay meant it couldn't go--the sun sets at 5:15 and it is completely dark half an hour later, especially with heavy clouds. I don't know why they schedule the flight so close to the wire but that is a whole other question. In all of our travels together, this is the first time we have ever had a flight canceled, so I guess our luck ran out. After my anger subsided, we had to scramble to make other plans. We were told, eventually that the plane would be landing and staying overnight and then heading on to Placencia at 7:00 the next morning. So we contacted the landlady in Placencia and told her that we would not be arriving until morning and then got the Tropic Air guy to call us a cab so we could head into town to find a room for the night--it didn't make much sense to go back to where were staying because it is a bit out-of-the-way. Well we waited and waited for the "cab". He finally came, shortly after the plane arrived. Turns out he was there to pick up the pilot (who lives in San Ignacio--all very curious) anyway but still charged us BZ$30 to take us back to the centre of town. Needless to say, we were not impressed! Tropic Air will be getting some very angry comments when we get home. We went back to Eva's with all of our bags & sat down with our computers to try to find a place to stay for the night. It started to rain again. There is a little dump of a backpacker hotel upstairs next door to Eva's, called Central O'tel. We checked it out on Tripadvisor and it seemed that it was reasonably clean and relatively quiet (for right downtown on a Friday night), so I went up to check it out. Well, the place is a dump but it looked like a relatively clean dump and looked secure (and was only BZ$30--$US15) for the night, so I got us the last room. Then we sat at Eva's for a while, grabbed a bite to eat and had several drinks to help ensure that we would sleep at least some of the night. Turns out we both got more sleep than we thought we would, considering that this is the kind of place you just keep your clothes on and lie down on top of the sheets. We got up with first light and, fortunately, the weather looked pretty good so we were confident that our flight would go out OK. We grabbed a cab at the 5-way intersection (there's always one around, one reason we headed for downtown) and headed back out to airstrip. It turned into a gorgeous day and the flight to Placencia was smooth. We landed around 7:30 and were met by our driver, Sam, who drove us the few minutes to our new home the Coconut Cottage. Well, he drove us most of the way. A unique thing about Placencia village, at least the tourist part of it, is that the "main street" is actually a sidewalk that runs along between the beach and the back road, where cars come in. So it was a bit of a walk in to our cottage right on the beach.
 We dropped our bags and headed out to explore a bit. First, breakfast at a place called Wendy's--some delicious stuffed fry-jacks.
Then we picked up a few groceries from a little fruit stand (that had more than fruit) and from the big Walden's market.    Then we went for a stroll up to the end of the "main street" and back along the beach, ending up at the Barefoot Bar, where we had some salbutes for lunch. A stroll home and hang out on our front porch and down on the beach watching the waves roll in. For dinner, Carol cooked up some pasta with zucchini and tomatoes and then we headed over to the Pickled Parrot, where they were having a blues jam session. It was neat bar and the music was very good. Didn't drink any "Parrot Piss" though--apparently they have a wheelbarrow to provide you with a "limousine" ride home if you drink a few of those. Not a bad first day. Placencia seems to have a really nice feel to it. 
 
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