Belize: Flying to Placencia

After a long series of flights (layovers in Dulles and Miami), Dave and I landed in Belize City with relief. Our plan was to grab a taxi into town, and take public buses to Placencia - a long stretch of beach-y peninsula on the southern coast of the country. Perhaps knowing that another long, uncomfortable journey wasn't going to be quite as fun as we had imagined, we revised our plan to stop in Dangriga, the main city in the Stann Creek District, and about two hours closer by bus than Placencia.

Then, the most amazing thing happened. We were approached by a Mayan Airlines ticketing agent "Any connecting flights ma'am?" We looked at eachother, trying to read whether the other person was game. I figured it couldn't hurt to ask, "How much would it be to get to.....Placencia?"

$160 well spent US dollars later ($80 each), Dave and I boarded a tiny 10 seater plane for Placencia. I felt spoiled, but in such a great way! I have to admit, this was perhaps the best $160 we spent the entire trip.

It seemed so unreal flying down the coast of Belize. The entire country, the size of New Hampshire, has only 250,000 residents. Los Angeles has 10 million. It seemed impossible for an entire country to have a quarter of a million people when the city I live in has 10 million. The sparse population lives mostly in villages surrounding only a few main cities. When we flew over the land, it was just that: land. The occassional road or tropical fruit plantation interrupted the almost nonstop scenery of dense forested areas and lazily winding rivers and small ponds that result from Belize's sea-level (non)-altitude. It was beautiful.

Since there are so few roads in Belize, I would recommend the splurge on a flight to anyone visiting - it's one of the only ways to see parts of the country. We wanted to take another flight, but the next stop was San Ignacio and, while it has a small airstrip, no local planes fly regularly in or out of the airport there. For visitors not including Placencia in their trip, the other option for flights is to take a small plane to Flores, Guatemala and visit Tikal. You will likely be rewarded by very different scenery than we were, as that flight goes over the Maya Mountains, but I have no doubt it will be just as beautiful.

Coming from any developed country, it is amazing the amount of untouched wilderness that still exists. It's humbling, really.