Saturday PM, Punta Gorda to Placencia

First, my thoughts about Punta Gorda. The southernmost large town in Belize, PG was a disappointment when we visited Friday night. It was dreary, with dirty, shabby buildings packed close together. Other than political rallies by both the ins and the outs, nothing seemed to be going on. Ray seemed to delight in taking us up one empty street and down the next, pointing out all the shuttered shops and restaurants. Not a place to vacation or do much of anything else.

We started our Saturday venture with a search for bakery shops so Ray could get pastries. No luck, they were closed. We went back to the Hope mission for a delicious breakfast of beans, fresh fruit, fry bread and fried dukunus. Fry bread is something like a light fluffy large sopapilla made with wheat flour. Dukunus are a kind of tamale made from a lump of freshly ground white corn mush steamed in a corn husk. We had had fresh duconos Friday night, and the leftovers were sliced and fried for breakfast.

Our hosts, the local director of the mission and his wife, had ancestors from southern India. He is a rice farmer in addition to his duties with the mission and as the head of the village council.

After breakfast we headed up into the hills on roads that wandered through the forest and would probably have been twice as long if you measured up and down through the potholes as well as forward. We passed through the village of San Antonio, which had a paved road(!), and then on to San Marcos to take a water sample. Before the car had stopped moving at the San Marcos well, a young woman came running down the hill to be the first to offer us crafts to buy. She had a covered palm basket the size of a volley ball, which was lovely and probably a steal at $30 US, but it seemed too large to pack and bring home. Now I am wishing I had decided to find a way to bring it home. The woman had four small children and another on the way. She was barefoot but wearing a beautiful dress, apparently handmade.

On through the village we saw free range chickens, horses, pigs, and even a peccary (javelina in Texas). Also churches, a school, and a library. I think you have read about our adventures at the waterfall.

On the way back north, we had pavement briefly, then several miles of dirt-surfaced road construction, and finally pavement again. We went first through orange groves, then banana plantations, more oranges, more bananas, and back to oranges. There weren’t many kinds of flowers, mostly a yellow daisy-like composite on trees that were up to about 30 feet high. In the towns, however, there were many varieties of hibiscus and bougainvillea, all on large bushes. Most of the birds inland were grackles, but I did see a king vulture Friday, kingfishers at the waterfall, and a pair of yellow kiskadees today. Out on the beach at Placencia there were brown pelicans, gulls, cormorants, and a few magnificent frigate birds.

Placencia seems somehow disconnected from the rest of Belize, like Key Caulker did. People elsewhere have their own real lives, but in Placencia everything seems to be related to partying and shopping. It’s much less dreary than Punta Gorda.

Saturday night we had supper at a restaurant on a pier over the ocean. The proprietor and her husband were friends of Ray, as many people in Belize seem to be. We had a delicious meal of shrimp and fish with coconut rice and salad. Dan and Ray and I wandered around for a while finding the daughter and son-in-law of the Hope Mission folks, and then abandoned the hopping nightlife in favor of sleep.

Dave has been twitting me about how much I am writing, so enough for now. To maintain my record, my Sunday entry will come in on Tuesday or Wednesday.

Chuck