We are back home again and home is great...as always. But Placencia was pretty great, too! The skies cleared for our last couple of days and the sun came out. If we were on a two week, once a year vacation that would have been amazing. But honestly, we get all the sun we need. The couple of cloudy, cool days were very appreciated and once the sun returned the heat and humidity were pretty oppressive. But, even still, we found lots to do and balanced that with doing not very much! Perfect.
This was a trip of all sorts of weird coincidences. Maybe coincidences isn't quite the right word but it seemed that every time I turned around something was making me say...'that's cool'. On one hand, it may seem like we moved so far away from our roots in Canada but it truly is a small world and I was reminded of that more than once in Placencia.
Cool thing #1...On our visit to Harvest Caye I met the owner of a local dive and tour shop...Splash. Splash is great and it's always our first choice for excursions in Placencia. Ralph (the owner) is a Canadian. We got talking and Ralph asked where we were from. When I get that question I always start out on a broad scale and then work down until I can tell that all recognition is gone! It usually goes like this...western Canada...British Columbia...way up north...a small town on the Alaska highway...and if they are still with me, Fort Nelson! Turns out that Ralph knew Fort Nelson and had worked at the Mobil Sierra plant years ago. This is actually not the first time we have crossed paths with someone who has a history in that neck of the world but it's still neat. And then we talked about the Eskies and Riders game that afternoon!
Cool thing #2 - On the same boat trip I got talking with a family that was visiting from Calgary. After a bit, they dug into their backpack and pulled out a bag of Hawkins Cheezies. Now, I didn't know until we moved to Belize, but Cheezies are a uniquely Canadian treat. And they are Adam's favourite! This was the first time since coming to Belize that we have seen Cheezies outside of our own pantry (Adam has people smuggle them in). I had to comment and they were kind enough to share!
Cool thing #3 - At the end of the day our boat was cruising through the canals back into town. I noticed a beautiful big house on the water. In front of the house was a For Sale sign with a couple of little maple leafs on it. I looked more closely and realized that I recognized the last name on the email address. And then I clued into the phone number...1-250-788-****. That's Chetwynd! For those who don't know, Chetwynd is a small town in north east British Columbia, only a few hours from our home town. The house belongs to the brother in law of a friend that we went to high school with.
Cool thing #4 - We ran into some of our Belize neighbours at a hotel across the road from where we we staying. We had no idea that they would be there! That's not that unusual really. Belize is very small and we always seem to run into people we know in places that we don't expect. The neat thing was that their daughter was visiting them from Germany and her name is Larissa. That's our daughter's name and it's not that common! And she's just about the same age.
Cool thing #5 - We decided to check out happy hour at a new little casino just on the edge of the Seine Bight village. It's called a casino but they don't have any tables, just electronic game machines. Not my thing but I'm sure that some will like it. But, as soon as we walked in I recognized the beautiful wooden cabinets that the video terminals are housed in. Our neighbour and friend Felipe and his business partner Lionel built them! I knew that they had a contract but I didn't know where they were going. What a nice surprise and they are gorgeous! Great job, guys!
I've gotta' say that's pretty cool!