Placencia ~ Tourist or Local? A Little Bit of Everything.

Placencia provided at once a feeling of being part of the local scene and opportunities to play the tourist. The town has created two ways to progress from the public dock north to the other end of town.

The eastern path is the well known One Mile Sidewalk lined with stores, restaurants, tiny hotels and local vendors.

Photo credit: David V Baxter/awaygowe.com

Daily raking keeps the beach beautiful.

The sidewalk and premises are clean and new and the beaches to the shore are well tended. If you walk this sidewalk, you will find local artists have tables with wood carvings, jewelry, paintings and woven goods on display.

If you take the western path toward the north, you are immersed in feeling like a local. The dusty, dirt road sports weathered shops, small produce stands, a sports field and a few autos.  Locals stroll along and call out to one another as they go about daily life.

Photo credit: realliferecess.com

Though they are only a block apart, the sidewalk and the street feel like different worlds. It is fun to be able to choose the experience you prefer each time you stroll through Placencia.

Not the usual scaffolding, but it definitely works.

While in Placencia we saw a good amount of building and improvements. It appears this area is experiencing a bit of a boom. I wonder how long these glimpses into using local resources will last before being replaced by “higher tech” alternatives.

I don’t know why they needed SO many supports while building this.

We found it interesting to see the use of indigenous materials and liked that these would naturally recycle and not add to trash issues.

Placencia has a lot to offer outside of the town too. We chose to take the Monkey River Tour so we could see the howler monkeys and some of the local beauty. Barebones Tours delivered a fabulous trip and our guide, Percy, was entertaining and informative.

Here are several pictures that attempt to capture a bit of our tour.

This bird’s nest has a perfectly round opening!

I see  you, Mr. Crocodile.

Belize is known to have many crocodiles and we saw several on our way to find the howler monkeys. Perhaps that nest above is empty because of this crocodile?

Hanging nests built by gold tailed Orioles?

Percy told us that these nests were built by the largest Oriole; I think he called it the golden tailed oriole. But I have not been able to verify the identity of the builder of this nest. The bird we saw was black with a yellow tail. A yellow winged Caciques is the closest bird I have been able to find, but I am by no means well informed about birds!

Any birders know what type of bird makes these nests in Belize?

Is he smiling for the camera?

This dinosaur looking thing is known locally as the “Jesus lizard” because it runs across the water! I found him pretty creepy looking and was glad he was very small and not the size of a dinosaur!

Watching traffic or just hanging out?

You are very well camoflaughed Cryptic Heron.

I found an app called Merlin through the Cornell lab and, using this photograph, I learned that this is a Cryptic Heron and is actually rather rarely spotted. Since I don’t study birds, I probably don’t appreciate this little fellow as much as I should, but the picture turned out well.

Nothing like a termite snack to satisfy hunger!

Percy showed us several interesting plants and bugs that are eaten by locals and these termites were one of them.  Yeah, I didn’t want to spoil my appetite so I didn’t have one. ; )

Percy also told us about some natural remedies found among the plants and trees. It was interesting to learn about the natural remedies but I would not trust myself to know one plant from another well enough to treat any ailments!

A tree that satisfies thirst.

Percy chopped off  a small tree branch and passed it around for all of us to taste the water that flows from the center. Pretty cool.

Howler monkey!!

Just one of the many howler monkeys we saw swinging and walking through the trees above us. The guides would beat the trees and yell and the howlers would start howling! The noise was very loud and would be frightening if I was alone in the jungle! But since I was in a group and had a guide, it was fascinating to see and hear these primates.

Manatee!

The tour included boating out to an area well known for manatees and we saw several of them. These slow and gentle animals have to surface for air and it was fun to guess where one would pop up next.

Frank and I don’t often take formal tours, but this one was an excellent way to see some of the local wildlife and learn a bit about them and the plants.  Belize is lush and beautiful, but it is not as well documented as some places we have visited, so this tour was really helpful in learning about the area.

After a full day of touring, we decided to explore on our own via the dinghy and we stumbled across this cool little place called Sail Fish. It is a small hotel with a swimming pool that just happens to have a bar on one end.

Sail Fish hotel and swimming pool.

We spent one afternoon lounging there, then convinced our friends, Sue and Geoff, to join us there for BBQ and pool time later in the week.  The anchorage in Placencia is not clear and inviting like Bonaire, and it was very hot, so pool time was a great way to spend the day.

 

Sue wanted to make sure this fellow walked on by.

It appears the pool was attractive to this rather large iguana too.  He was a big ‘un and pretty interesting to look at, but we weren’t too excited about his getting any closer!

A man-made private island!

While exploring, we also saw this man-made private island. It is only a stone’s throw from Placencia and clearly they take advantage of solar power.  It is so pretty floating alone in the blue water, but I can’t imagine living there.  Perhaps it is just a vacation spot. How many people do you know who build their own island??

Placencia is easily accessible from the States and our friends, Susan and Kevin, flew in to join us for a very quick visit. These fellow sailors understand that winds are capricious and we couldn’t promise we would leave Placencia, but winds were favorable and together we explored South Water Caye and Tabacco Caye.  We packed a LOT into a four night stay. But I’ll cover that in the next post….

~HH Catamaran Update~

Exciting news about our future boat…. it is getting very close to being painted.

Unfortunately this does not mean she is close to finished! We still have another six months before she will arrive in California.  The more complete she looks the more impatient I become for her arrival!

HH55-03 being prepared for paint.

Thank you for reading our blog. I apologize for the delayed update, but things have been extremely busy with a lot of changes. We love hearing from you, so feel free to leave us a message!