The Unbelizeable Placencia

Waiting for some nice soul to pick us up

The Goodwill truck!

Here's how we got to Placencia from Hopkins: pick-up truck out to the main highway, another pick-up a little further, from which they told us to get into the one in front of them because they were going somewhere else, from there a school bus (like with children going to school on it!) to the turn-off for Placencia, and from there a Goodwill truck all the way to Placencia. I love that our mission on all our trips is to go to as many thrift stores as possible, and we got picked up by a Goodwill truck!!! Well we got to Placencia, found our hotel, dumped our stuff and went swimming, of course! You could definitely tell that Placencia was a much more touristy town than Hopkins; the beach was nice and raked, there were gift shops all over town, lots and lots of signs directing you to all the hotels and restaurants, and tons of tour agencies. But since it's still the low-tourist season, we basically had the beach to ourselves! 
The layout of Placencia is really easy: it's a thin-to-win peninsula with the Caribbean sea on one side and a bay on the other (maybe 1/2 mile from each other, but probably less), there's a road and a sidewalk that parallel each other that go the length of the town and everything is either on the road or on the sidewalk. Easy. 

Erin contributed to the ceviche

Lunch!

We set out to find a snorkeling tour that would be awesome and wouldn't break the bank. It seemed like we were looking at about $75US person for a full day (which means leave at 9AM and return around 4PM) with equipment and a bbq chicken lunch on one of the cayes (pronounces keys) included. The problem was, there was always a group minimum and since it's the low season there aren't a ton of people trying to snorkel, plus it was Saturday afternoon and we wanted to go on Sunday, so lots of places were already closed. On top of that, all the guys who asked us if we wanted to go snorkeling were really creeper and we didn't want to spend a day on a boat with them. Well, we talked to this lady and she said they had a 4-person minimum and there was already one other person who wanted to go and she'd let us know if she found another. Sunday morning came and we hadn't heard from her so we decided to walk around to see if anything was open. While walking on the beach this guy, Francis, nearly hit us with his boat while beaching it (ok, not really, but it was a big beach and he could've beached anywhere!) and asked us if we wanted to go snorkeling that day. The difference was that he greeted us with a smile, told us how much he loves Guatemala because the hospital in the city saved his sons life, told us about his wife (so clearly not hitting on us!), and instead of a chicken lunch he was going to spear fish while we were snorkeling and cook up what he caught....and only $50 a person. Ok! So we got our stuff together, found some coffee (Erin has a serious problem), and headed out with Francis. The other people on the trip were super helpful and fun, we had a blast seeing the entire world that lives under the surface of the water, we got to watch Francis and some other guys spear fish a bunch of lobsters, fish, and crabs, plus they brought up a bunch of conches....it was great! There was enough lobster for almost 1 per person, a ton of conch ceviche (sssooooo good!!), great rice that Francis' wife made before we went out, a shrimp veggie mixture of goodness.....the food alone was worth $50! Hahaha! But it was so amazing to get to do that and see everything that we saw! I imagined David Attenborough's voice narrating everything that I was seeing under the water, haha! 
So if you find yourself in Placencia looking for a good snorkel tour, visit Francis next door to Goodies on the south-ish side of the sidewalk. He's also getting a glass-bottomed boat that will be ready for tourist season, so I might have to go back.
After our snorkel trip, our time in Placencia was pretty much just chilling on the beach, looking for stickers to bring home, and trying trying trying to find a tank top that would fit Erin that said You better Belize it! She said her biggest regret of the trip (or her life, I don't remember) was not having enough time to find that shirt. I mean, there were a ton, but she wanted a tank top...and a small one. I think during the not-tourist season they don't keep their inventory well-stocked. Oh! And another big regret was that Tutti Frutti was closed. It's an Italian Gelato place and everyone says it's the best, but the owners close around this time every year so that they can go to Italy to get their supplies. Dang it! Now I double have to go back. But we did try seaweed drinks, apparently they're pretty popular over there. I thought it would taste seaweedy, but the one I got was chocolate peanut butter cup....so I was basically just drinking Reese's, mmmmmmmmm!!!! And we got another one that was peanut flavored, also pretty good.
To leave Placencia we had to take a water taxi to Mango Creek-Independence (just across the bay), but when we arrived at the dock there was a guy sitting in a minivan who called us over and told us we had to buy our tickets from him. How did he not realize how sketchy that seemed?! We got a good laugh out of that one. Back to Guatemala!