Woke up early to a beautiful morning at Jungle Jeannie’s in Hopkins. Instead of heading back to our home base in San Ignacio we decided that we should check out Placencia, 40 miles to the south of Hopkins. Placencia is a 17 mile long very narrow peninsula on the southern coast of Belize. Half way down the peninsula there is a small Garifuna village, but to the north and south of the village there are big resorts and million dollar homes.

We drove the entire peninsula until the land ended. At the end we found a nice little open air restaurant called “The Shack” right on the beach, where we grabbed a light breakfast before we started heading back.

There was a strange looking boat at the dock there that must have had a clear bottom or windows below the water line called the “Reef Looker”. Because of the way it looked I assumed it was a slow moving  boat, but when it took off they were up on plane in no time at all. Maybe next time we are there we will check it out.

There were also a couple of other interesting boats that we saw. One that sank, that looks like it could have been on the cover of a Jimmy Buffet album and another that was either put in front of a resort or was blown there by a hurricane.

As we neared the Placencia airport there was a plane taking off. The highway crosses the runway just before the it would go into the water.  On the two lane highway there is a crossing arm that comes down to stop traffic at the end of the runway when a plane takes off. After he is airborne the crossing arm goes up and traffic resumes until the next flight comes in. All just a little odd, but that system must work.

While leaving Placencia we did spot a coati crossing the road and what seemed to be a feral pig. I also assume there are turtles around, because there was a sign telling me to watch out for them.  I really find it hard to believe that the turtles down there wear little hats and walk upright, but then again we have seen a lot of new and strange things in our travels around Belize.

Then there was the fence of lost soles and a “Merry Isthmus” sign. We thought both of those were pretty good.

As we leave Placencia and start working our way back towards San Ignacio we pass through many citrus orchards before heading up into the jungle. Also came across this small Mayan structure that looks like it was just finished being built. Not sure what it was as there was no sign or marker and it looked to be maybe 20-25′ tall.

A couple years ago when we last traveled the Hummingbird Highway we had heard about Bertha’s Tamales. It is a little roadside shack that is known country wide to have the best tamales in Belize. Last time we passed them they were closed and then I had heard that they burned down. This time when we passed they were open for business, so of course we had to stop. We got a half dozen tamales to go and figured we would eat them on the road. Wow were we wrong, these are soft, saucy, gooey, chicken tamales wrapped in a banana leaf that you have to use a fork to eat. Of course we still had a good drive in front of us before we could get to a fork. We eat lot of tamales in Mexico, but never anything like these. We vowed to never pass by Bertha’s again if they are open and chances are we will drive 2 hours out of our way just for their tamales.

After we got back and ate probably the best tamales ever, we were unloading our duffel bag and found this little bright green hitchhiker. Not sure what it was, but maybe some type of caterpillar? We put the small alien creature on a plant, sat back with a cold beer and thought about what tomorrow might hold.