And the Beach Goes On...

We're in Placencia, Belize, about halfway down the eastern side on the Caribbean. The beaches are wide, the town is sleepy, the food is good, the weather is incredible.

How did we get here?

We left San Pedro two days ago after our third night straight of celebrating with the locals. Roll up the celebration of the Battle of St George's Caye, a party put on by Belize's largest beer distributor, Belikin, and the 25th anniversary of the nation's independence and it gets really hard to leave the tiny island.

The Belikin party lasted two nights, and everyone on the island and a few people from other islands showed up for the fiesta. The crowd was a little stoic at the beginning, but warmed up after a few hours, a few Belikin beers and some thumpin' reggae. The music here is a little unbelievable - we have pictures of a stack of speakers in Belize city the size of a building. I'm getting ahead of myself.

The third night was the eve of independence day, complete with a marching band, delegates (they had cool sashes on and we got kicked out of their reserved seating area, so we can only assume they were delegates) and tons of dancing and music. Pretty much every resident of San Pedro (officially a "San Pedrano") was in the streets either enjoying beverages from or working at one of the makeshift bars on every corner. They had a music-off between them-whoever had the higher stack of speakers won. Miss San Pedro herself led a random parade down the street at midnight-ish while 6 year old girls were shaking what their mothers had yet to give them onstage...then the fireworks show everyone was waiting for.

These things only made it harder to leave San Pedro, but alas, at some point the honeymoon has to end. We boarded the ferry back to Belize City yesterday (seems like a lifetime ago) and arrived just in time for the mainland independence day festivities to start. Every store and shop in town was closed, and everyone in Belize City and a lot of people from everywhere else were just wandering the streets trying to implode their eardrums. As a tribute to tourists they played Shakira every other song, so we could follow along with the pop music and be assured that our hips weren't lying. It's ok if you don't know who Shakira is.

We wandered around in the blazing sun until we were overstimulated and then went back to our hotel and read while still enjoying the sounds of the celebration. Probably the biggest party we'd ever seen, probably the biggest party Belize has ever seen. We highly recommend being here for the 50th anniversary celebration.

Actually we don't. It was a little too crazy for our tastes, so much so that instead of taking the traditional bumpy bus ride out of Belize City we snagged a Tropic Air puddle jumping flight from Belize City to Placencia. All of an hour and a half later we were checked into our hotel, sitting on our private deck listening to the waves crash on the beach. The flight was incredible, we got some stunning views of the Belizean coast with its many cayes. And both take-off and landing were quite successful despite the looming ocean just beyond the edge of the runways. We're confident that our bus STILL would not be here if we'd chosen public transportation. Apparently the last 18 miles to Placencia is still unpaved.

So we've got Placencia to ourselves, so you're quite welcome to come and visit - there's plenty of room. We're snorkeling tomorrow at 9am if you're really ambitious.

We've still got some country to cover, but Belize in the off-season is turning out to be an undiscovered gem. The beaches are amazing, the prices reasonable, the people incredibly friendly and it's all ours.