Where's Andrew

PLACENCIA, BELIZE MARCH 26 - 28

Leaving San Pedro meant another ferry ride. This time the wind was calm and the boat to Belize City was much larger than the one from Chetumal. Caught the 7:00AM sailing and arrived in Belize City about 8:30AM and a short taxi ride later I'm at the bus station. The bus station was very delapitated and the first thing you notice is that all the ticket windows are closed and have not been used for a long time. A local women tells me that you pay for the fare on the bus. The station is vey small with about 6 bays where buses arrive. The bays are separated from the passengers by an iron fence with gates corresponding to the buses. The whole area has the decor of a prison. I need to catch the Punta Gorda bus and it soon arrives and I'm in line at the corresponding gate. As the bus drives up people start going into the bus bay from every gate and they is a mad scramble of people vying to be first in the bus. I need to get my bags stored below the bus and lose valuable seconds. A lot of the men are entering the bus through the rear emergency exit in an effort to get a seat. By the time I get in the bus all seats are taken many with 3 people per bench seat.

Oh yeah did I mention, the bus is a 20 year old school bus with no AC. I'm asked to leave the bus as they do not want people standing so I grab my bags and get back into the terminal. The next bus is in an hour and I now know what to expect and I soon can tell that this next bus will be full again. I watch the next few buses come going to other destinations and they are all full too with the same crazy dash for the bus and I formulate a plan. When my bus comes I use a gate several spaces over from the actual gate from my bus. I run to the below bus storage at the side of the bus and quickly get my bags in and run to the back and go in through the emergency exit just in time to get the last seat on the bus. And guess what, it is above the wheel well. Did I mention it was a school bus, I'm guessing designed for elementary schools and there is no leg room to have my legs right in front of me even if I was not on the wheel well. I somehow get into my seat with my knees down to my shins jammed into the seat in front and my kness are at the level of my chin. I stay seated like this for an 1.5 hours until we get to Belmopan where a large portion of the bus passengers depart and I am able to get a seat not in the wheel well before the new passengers get on the bus. The bus slowly empties during the 2.5 hours it takes to get to Independence Village which is my stop. About half way there, I've got a bench seat to myself and with each leg at about a 45 degree angle, I can just get some relief for my bruised knees.

There is a water taxi that runs from Independence to Placencia. It is only a 15 minute ride and the ferry is called The Hokie Pokie, honest that what it's called, check out the photos in my gallery. The ferry is docked in a river and after a few minutes we are into an estuary. Placencia is on the south tip of a long narrow pennisula that runs north to south parallel to the coast. We cross the narrow inlet and are soon docked at the wharf in Placencia.

My accommodations are a short walk away at Julia's Cabanas which is right on the beach. Plencencia reminds me of San Pedro because it seems very much like a caye except the beaches are much deeper and the town is smaller and less developed. In fact, this area has the only real decent beaches in Belize but they had bad wind storms that had just abated a couple of days before that lasted for 2 weeks. The result was that the beach was covered in seaweed near the shoreline and for 30 feet out in the ocean. Even with the beach in less than ideal condition, it was still a beutiful location. My cabana had a nice porch with a hammock and was about 70 feet off of the beach.

That evening as I returned from a walk to the main wharf, I run into the sisters from Seattle and Couer d'Alene named Lindsay and Nadine. I had met them on a snorkel tour in San Pedro. I turns out they were staying in a hotel right next to where I was staying so we decided to meet up for breakfast the next morning. The next day was spent lounging around the beach reading a book. Once I started to feel that I was getting a bit too much sun I moved to a beach chair under a Palm Tree and a small coconut fell and hit me in the knee. I took a picture looking up at the bunch of offending coconuts above me and decided I needed a safer location in case one of the full size coconuts fell. That was my stress for the day.

Before dinner Lindsay, Nadine and I book a tour to go snorkelling at Laughing Bird Caye for the next morning. Unfortunately, Nadine had got a sunburn that day on the beach and it turned out to be worse that she thought so the sisters were not able to go the next morning but I went with a family from Iowa. It was about a 50 minute boat ride to the caye which is part of a national park. This caye could have been the perfect deserted island and was about 500 metres long and 50 metres wide. There was a bird colony at one end of the island and a ranger station with bathrooms and picnic tables at the other end. A network of reefs surround the caye. We went out the east side of the caye for our first snorkel. The Iowa family struggled and we soon switched to the leeward west shore that was more protected. The variey of reef fish was fantastic, we saw 4 or 5 types a Parrot fish alone and way too many types overall to try and count. After about 40 minutes of snorkelling we came in by our boat, there were thousands of small fish along the shore which was very surreal to swim through. There were 2 types, one was about and inch long while the other was about 3 inches long and there were many reef fish feeding off these schools. Our guide Bernard cooked up a fantasic chicken and veggie lunch with coleslaw before our next snorkel. I was a little disappointed to not go on the east side but I think Bernard thought it was too much for the family. The father never actually left the shore because he was suffering from claustraphobia when he tried to put is face in the water with the snorkel on. The highlight were the lobsters, they seemed to be in every nook and cranny and were huge. Unlike the Atlantic lobsters, these ones had no big claws. A close second to the lobsters were the Baracudas. We saw several and the best was as I came into shore and the schools of bait fish were slowly clearing in front of me as I moved and boom a Baracuda is there 4 feet in front of me just staring at me before it slowly swam off.

The waters off of Placencia are world renowned for snorkelling, diving and fishing although the best locations are quite far off shore unlike San Pedro were many of the best sites are minutes away. Gladden Spit which is a couple of hours off shore is renowned for the oppotunity to swim with Whale Sharks. I was tempted to go because they are supposed to be in this area from late March to early July but the locals told me they had not been seen yet and they did not expect to see them until a few days before the next full moon so I thought I would save my $100US tour cost.

Overall I really enjoyed the laid back atmosphere and the beaches of Placencia but I think it is fast becoming as developed as San Pedro. There is a retirement subdivision going in about 15 minutes north of Placencia. Many of the homes that have been built are huge 4000 to 5000 square feet luxury homes some with canals built allowing for boats to be docked right next to the driveway. It also appears that a couple of large resorts are being built right along the beach. Right now some of the locals are fighting to keep the cruise ships out but it will be hard to win that battle long term when you consider the money that cruise ships bring to a port of call.

Don't forget to check out my Picasa Photo Gallery via the link on the bottom of the page. As I posted some pictures to the Picasa site yesterday, I realized what a terrible job I've been doing of taking photos of the people I meet. So, I have made a promise to myself to keep my camera with me more than I have to get more photos of the people I meet.

P.S. Lindsay and Nadine, I hope you able to stay dedicated to your promise to vacation together every year.