The three and a half hour journey from Placencia to Chaa Creek was a delight: the road was flat, relatively straight and with little traffic. In fact, during the whole journey, we were overtaken once and we only overtook two other vehicles. Cornell, our driver, pointed our places of interest along the way, including an international airport being built just outside Placencia as the only current airport in the country is Belize City.
Chaa Creek is a luxurious eco-lodge set on 365 acres of rain forest and the Macal River. Our cottage is spacious but with no wi-fi or TV, and we are back to the wake up call of the howler monkeys and dawn chorus. We have often had bathrooms with his and hers basins, but this room has two showers, plus an outdoor one.
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| Our cottage with Royal Palms |
We are very well in with Duane, Head Bar Man, as we gave him a lift from the road up to the lodge, a two mile track. Last night he persuaded us to try their home-brewed limoncello, made using a cross between a lemon and a grapefruit steeped in vodka. It was so delicious HJ was tempted by their lemon drop martini.
Our first full day started adventurously with a canoe trip on the river. We were doing well until we hit the rapids in a rather shallow area. We managed to just get through although were slightly worried we were scraping a hole in the bottom of the canoe.
On the way back, it was more difficult to go upstream and after trying to cross at several points, RM had to abandon ship and pull the canoe and HJ, majestically sat in the rear, through the shallow but raging waters. Honour was restored when later that night in the bar, Duane Barman revealed he’d had to do the same thing earlier in the day.
After a fortifying lunch we set off for a hike around the property to Mayan ruins. It was pretty strenuous with steep ups and downs. We were going to refresh ourselves after the 2 hour trek with a dip in the pool, but we didn’t need to, as it started to rain during the last 15 minutes and we got wet enough.
We are now sat with the rain pouring down so our canoe trip to the Botanical Gardens is on hold.
I was just checking your inventory at the beginning of your blogs. I noticed that you're doing 90 days during which you had expected to consume around 170 btls of SavBlanc.
ReplyDeleteAs a matter of interest are you on track? I ask this since you seem to spend considerable time knocking back the old grog - not necessarily only SavBlanc.
Clearly the PM is alive to your concerns that a minimum price on alcohol is likely to cause you guys considerable hardship: he's dropping the idea.
Whilst you've been away 3 new pubs have opened in Walthamstow. They await your return with some anticipation.
Dear M
ReplyDeleteThank you for your interest.
My consumption has never been the same since the fatefull night of the Working Group meeting in VM.
Due to regional variations in availability (e.g. when the horse had to be sent up the beach for further stocks), we have set up a second ERM. This one calculates the value of one bottle of SB against a range of other currencies i.e. 1 bottle = 4 G&Ts, 3 heavy duty cocktails, 12 beers etc. Based on these statistics we are in line with HMT tolerances according to the Red Book.
Very glad to hear about the E17 pubs and look forward to visiting with you on return.