Belizean sunrise

Saturday 7 January 2012

I moved into the village Jan. 1st, to see yet another area of Placencia and how it would be to live there. I liked the small One World resort/hotel

in the heart of town and made a deal with the Swiss owner Claudia for the rest of my trip. It's smaller than my apt before but has real hot water and a/c. 10X10' living area with nice bath and kitchenette. Claudia keeps it meticulously cleaned and maintained. It's pretty quiet but you soon get to know the other tenants. That's been a good thing as most fellow travelers have interesting stories.

A single Canadian lady was next door and we soon engaged in nicely flowing conversations about our lives and travels. We had dinner a couple times and took the Monkey River tour together with 4 other people. Had a super time. Then her last day here I drove us up to Cockscomb Nature Preserve. Another great day. Hiking isn't my thing but with her encouragement and drive I made a 5-6 miles hike up a 2000' mountain. Great fun. Stopped and swam in a creek-fed waterfall. Amazing. Made me realize I need to get out and do more. I CAN do it.

New Year 2012

New Year

The main New Year's Eve celebration is outdoors at the basketball court in the south part of the village next to the soccer field. It's a fund raiser for one of the local business organizations. They serve beer, local rum drinks and a few other liquors too, although they are much higher priced due to heavy import duty. Of course it involves a very loud band playing the local reggae-style music on 5-foot tall speakers. I say music because they call it that but it is so heavily loaded with bass I rarely can hear much of the vocals. The locals like it that way so who am I to knock it. I listened to it for a short while but there's no way to converse with anyone so I went to check out the celebration up the street at the Barefoot Bar. They had a live band too but it wasn't quite as loud. It is an open-air bar and was totally packed with an overflow tent. I still couldn't converse with anyone so I came home early. They had a fireworks display at the soccer field at midnight and I heard they were small but still nicely done.

I decided I wanted to see how it would be to live right in the heart of the village so I found a pretty good deal at a cute garden-hotel about a block from the beach and right off the main road. It has 5 small one-bed apartments downstairs in 3 buildings with a center courtyard. The three 2d floor apts are 2 bedroom. It's fairly new, concrete construction and the Swedish owner keeps them meticulously cleaned and maintained. Simple, fully furnished, and a real bargain.

The apt is small at 10x10ft sleeping/dining area with full bath and small kitchenette. Everything one needs. It's fairly quiet and each unit has an a/c for when it gets hot. I've been here 3 days and it's been rainy and cool. The rains have stopped today but it is still a bit cool...uppers 60s at night and 70s days. I've heard a couple locals this morning say it's 'freezin' . I guess it's all relative, but apparently this is rare.

Each of the 3 buildings have tin-roofed patios with a nice chair and hammock hooks for each apt. It's relaxing sitting outside hearing the rain hit the tin. They have free wifi for guests with both cable and DSL connections assuring service from one if the other is down. Best wifi service I've seen. With cable Internet one can use Skype or other audio/video conversations. The DSL has it blocked as they want a monopoly on phone calls.