Southern Comfort: Day 48

Today was departure day from San Ignacio. My destination, the Southern Belizean town of Placencia. I had to catch 2 chicken busses with a schedule unknown, and it’s a fair distance to travel, so I left my digs in the early morning. A fifteen minute wait at the bus stop saw me onto bus to the Belizean capital of Belmopan an hour or so away. On part tarmac, part limestone hardcore roads, we passed through jungle villages like Blackman Eddy, Cool Shade, Teakettle and Roaring Creek. The corrugated iron cattle shed bus terminal at Belmopan contained a few sleepy folk half selling, half not bothering to sell sandwiches of dubious pedigree, and the departures board I found lying in the grass by the boundary fence, it’s informative days now well behind it. By chance I wandered back onto the concourse and saw a bus with Placencia on the front, enquired, hopped on and we puffed and coughed and burped away from the terminal and onto the Hummingbird Highway heading south. Total time in Belmopan, 5 minutes.

The poor old HH has suffered a little since I last passed this way, but it think it’s the oldest road in Belize and is in parts still as it was laid down by the Royal Engineers. So it is somewhat overdue for an upgrade. Given how shockingly uncomfortable chicken buses are under the even the best of conditions, my arse is only just beginning to come back to me as I write this six hours later.

All of this means I am now in one of my favourite towns on planet earth, Placencia. And the even better news is, I’m here on holiday from my holiday. I’ve been saving a few pennies by staying in cheap hostels so I have enough budget left to do a couple of nice things while I’m here. And when I’m not doing that, I’ll be on the beach getting burnt right in front of the Caribbean. Lucky me.

Village life in Belize. In this case, Blackman Eddy.