To the End of the Road

We decided to ride the spit through Placencia to break up the monotonous scenery of the Southern Highway, and what a change it was. We passed numerous mansions on the precariously narrow spit and and the Placencia Residences where your house comes with boat access canals. We found some public beach access for a nice break before we reached Placencia, bought some over priced juice and caught the Hokey Pokey ferry (its real name!) back to the mainland at Independance. We spent the night at a church in a small hamlet along the road and finished the ride to Punta Gorda the next day. The heat was intense, so we were relieved to reach the ocean again just north of town and swim in the warm waters of the Caribean. After a tasty lunch we went looking for a hotel and spent the afternoon relaxing in front of a fan (and hand washing clothes in fits of productivity). PG was fairly sleepy on a Sunday, but the market and the streets came to life the next morning as we grabbed snacks for our boat ride to Livingston. On our way to customs at the dock we ran into Gaetan, our friend from Whitehorse, who we had known we might cross as he was heading north through Belize, but it still felt so surprising to just bump into him on the street like that. We swapped travel tips and stories, then stamped out of Belize and by 1:00 pm we were headed back to Guatemala.Read more