Good-bye Punta Gorda, hello Maya Beach!

We left Punta Gorda Thursday morning about 0930 and stopped only once in a small village for a coke light/bathroom break. The dirt road from the southern highway to the placencia peninsula was scheduled for paving when we were here in June, but it still has not been completed (in some areas it’s even worse than we remember!) We arrived in Maya Beach around 1230 and after a little search found our new temporary home (Maya Playa beach cabanas) and met the owner, Chuck. The cabana is charming and very rustic at the same time. It is/was completely hand built out of local woods and vines. It has a poured concrete floor and an outside shower! Rick really likes showering outdoors. Like everywhere we have been here is no hot water except in the showers. Very simple structures, but utterly comfortable. Chuck is more rustic, than charming!!! He moved here 25 years ago from Florida and wouldn’t trade his life here for anything. Chuck’s Maya Playa Cabanas are the town meeting place. Everyone in town seems to stop by for a visit nearly everyday. We have met over half of the Maya locals just being here. We got partially moved in and decided to postpone the rest of the unpacking until we unloaded our dirty laundry to the laundry man, Dale, and had some lunch. Chuck gave us directions to Dale’s place and, despite his directions, we found the laundry man and made arrangements with him. From there we went to lunch at a roadside stop owned by a Guatemalan family. The food was pretty good, although limited on the serving size, and was fairly affordable. We returned to our cabana, finished unpacking and headed into Placencia village to check things out. We parked at the pier and walked the, “world’s narrowest street”, a sidewalk through the village for a couple of hours. We stopped at a few restaurants to check the menus, but everything was outrageously expensive, so we drove home and had sandwiches for dinner. After that and catching up on the internet, we watched “Doubt” on DVD on the computer (no TV for the next week!) and went to bed. It was a restless night with the sounds/smells of the beach/jungle and the rustic mattress, but we survived.

Friday morning we cooked our oatmeal in the outdoor kitchen and then returned to town to visit the bank, buy some groceries, and check into some tours (especially an excursion to Monkey River) and to continue our exploration of the village. After a search, we located the fisherman’s co-op, but decided to return another day for a purchase so that the fish would be reaaaallllly fresh. After a couple of hours of exploring, we stopped for lunch at the Pickled Parrot restaurant and bar for the special of the day (fish and chips). Food was really good and they actually serve strawberry daiquiris…we will definitely be returning for one of those! On the way home we stopped at a couple of places with “for sale” signs to see what was available. At one of the sites we ran into a man who has lived on the peninsula for 20+ years in a home that he never completed (it has a foundation, but few walls and hardly any roof). We talked with him for quite some time about what it was like to live here and got an insiders view. The more people we meet here, the more convinced we are that the majority either left the US/Canada because they were running from something or were running to somewhere to try to fit in. It was mid/late afternoon when we returned home. Linda rested for an hour while Rick chatted with Chuck and some of the neighbors. For dinner Rick served up chicken burritos in the outdoor kitchen, we chatted some more with Chuck and then Linda did some research for more adventures in the coming days.

Saturday morning we scrambled up some eggs with the waves breaking on the beach. A couple of the neighbors stopped by (Chuck has WiFi) and we found out that not too far away, near the village of Red Bank, the scarlet macaws are wintering. We decided to drive over there to see them. After several hours of searching the dirt roads and asking multiple locals (many of whom did not speak English) where the macaws lived, we were unsuccessful in finding their river home, much less the birds! We gave up and turned around. On the way home we stopped at the same village where we stopped on Thursday, but this time instead of coke light and bathroom, we stayed for lunch. The BBQ chicken was incredible! We got home in time for a swim/snorkel adventure (used our underwater camera underwater for the first time), but then the clouds returned and the winds kicked up, so Linda retreated to the cabana to catch up on computer stuff and reading while Rick visited some more with Chuck and the neighbors until dinner. We prepared burgers out in the kitchen and visited some more with Chuck…he is quite the character! We were also joined by another visitor…Linda picked up her plate to do the dishes and there was a scorpion underneath! Yuck!!! After dinner Linda returned to the cabana, changed her soiled underwear (just kidding) and chatted online with Jason (happy 25th birthday to my favorite son). He was able to reset skype and get it working again and then called us since we couldn’t figure out how to work the dang thing. We talked for almost an hour…it was great! Afterwards, some more reading and off to bed. Any of you who have a computer that has a microphone, we can talk with you too! Just email us with a time and make sure you have a skype account and we’ll see if we can make it work.

Sunday morning we awoke realizing we had forgotten to locate the Catholic Church in the area or find out Mass times. We checked online and found the location, but no Mass times were given, so we just showed up and 0830 and, lucky for us, that’s’ when it started! The presider was a garifuna woman and the church was almost totally filled with garifuna children…the girls dressed in their Sunday best. The music was similar to last week in Punta Gorda, but the accents were much more difficult to understand. After Mass we returned to town to schedule our Monkey River tour for tomorrow, to pick up some conch, a wild sea snail, and veggies for dinner and then went for some breakfast at Omar’s Creole Grub. Delicious breakfast burritos and fresh squeezed oj! We returned home to store our groceries and then took a long, leisurely walk along the beach to hunt for property for sale. Some gorgeous lots available, but at what cost??? Linda spent the afternoon reading (finished “The Dark Half” by Steven King), napping, sunning and blogging, while Rick visited with Chuck and the neighbors. We served up conch, potatoes and green beans for dinner and then more of the above until bedtime. Linda had a touch of Montezuma’s revenge…hope she isn’t getting what Rick is just getting over with antibiotics! Off to bed…we have an early start scheduled for tomorrow…the boat leaves at 0730!

Monday morning up at 0630 for a quick breakfast and then drive to town to meet our tour guide. Alren met us at the tour stand and escorted us to his boat at the dock. We went aboard and started our journey. We had a 30-40 minute boat ride across the bay to the Village of Monkey River (where Alren was born and raised). Everyone in the village was related to each other! We went ashore there to order our lunch for later and then we were off again for the tour of the river. We saw exotic birds, crocodiles, turtles, bottle-nose dolphins, bats, flying fish and a jungle full of spectacular flora. We stopped about half-way through the morning for a jungle hike to see if we could locate the howler monkeys. Sure enough, they were abundant, but high in the canopy of the trees, so we only were able to see one well enough to try to photo (charging the camera battery now, so I don’t know if that photo came out or not). We became lunch for hundreds of thirsty mosquitoes, so we returned to the boat after about 45 minutes and continued on our journey. On the way back to the dock we stopped again in Monkey River Village and had the lunch we had ordered earlier (fish, chicken and guess what else??? Rice and beans!!! It was delicious. We left the river and returned to the sea. We lingered in a bay near horizon caye looking for manatee. We were lucky enough to spot several noses coming up for air and one full body arching out of the water! They move too fast to photo them, but it was great none-the-less. Back in town we stopped at the gelato store for a treat and then returned home. Rick joined the guys in the “kitchen” for more talk, while Linda went swimming/sunning and caught up on computer stuff. Leftovers for dinner tonight. Hope we don’t have any uninvited guests!