It’s a tiny fishing village and downscale resort community at the end of a peninsula with a snug harbor. It also happened to be the sight of the most challenging part of our trip. Susan has told that tale so I’ll only say that it’s through adversity that we grow and that we have done. But there’s much more to the tale of Placencia than adversity. 
It’s a tiny fishing village and downscale resort community at the end of a peninsula with a snug harbor. It also happened to be the sight of the most challenging part of our trip. Susan has told that tale so I’ll only say that it’s through adversity that we grow and that we have done. But there’s much more to the tale of Placencia than adversity. 
Before I tell my tale let me describe the setting. As I said Placencia is situated at the very tip of a peninsula, a 16 mile long and thin peninsula with the ocean and cays on one side and a huge lagoon on the other. The photo above is of the very tip of Placencia. There are two main routes that run through town (north & south): one is a road and the other a walkway. This gives the villager a very charming aspect and projects a very human scale to the place. Most people walk or bike around, cars are definitely in the minority. There are many sandy paths and boardwalks that connect the road to the walkway (east & west). It was on one of these that we met Cindy one morning as she rode by on her bike, yoga mat in her front basket. We had just been talking about how we should find a place to practice yoga in the morning and then no more the two minutes went by and along came Cindy, obviously from yoga. We asked her how her class was and where she practiced. She said that they don’t have a formal class but that her and a few of her friends get together and practice every morning at 8:30 in the “sanctuary”. She then went on to invite us to practice with them. 
It turns out that the meditation sanctuary was built by Wivian. She does regular shared meditations and teaching there. She also lets the yoga practitioners use the space for free. We joined the four other yoginis who practice there regularly for some of the most wonderful yoga practices we ever experienced. As well as being a great place to practice yoga it’s also has some remarkable acoustics.
Susan and I had some incredible chanting sessions there where I omed while she did overtone chanting. It proved to be a powerful and enchanting practice that moved us both. So almost every morning we chanted and practiced yoga. After yoga we would walk to one of our favorite eateries, The Shak on the shore for fruit smoothies then we’d head back to the boat for a swim and some reading.
It was a grueling routine but somehow we managed to holdup. On our way from yoga to the shore we walked right by Karla’s Tortilla Factory were we could get fresh hot tortillas.
The children seemed to be born of the sea. They swam like fish and loved boats. One day four young boys swarmed the dinghy while I was leaving the dock. They climbed aboard looking for a ride. I told them that we could go anywhere they could paddle and then gave an oar to two of them and a one of my sandals each to the other two. They could have been Chris Columbus and crew in the passionate way they paddled that dink around.
We met Gail & Lee one night at a party. They’re an amazing couple who are living their dream (actually many dreams) and they shared some of their story with us. We ended up riding our bikes up the peninsula to their house on the ocean and they took us on a tour of the area in their truck. What we saw was quit a shock. Just up the road from them a huge, upscale resort, casino, 18 hole golf course and 50 acre marina (210 slips) for boats from 30’ to 200’ in length. There’s also an international airport in the works too. It looks like big development and big bucks is headed toward this tiny and charming little fishing village.
We were lingering in this charming place, waiting for our friends Elaine and Tom Hills to arrive for a visit next month when Susan had a brilliant idea as she often does; why don’t we sail over to Guatemala and check out the Rio Dulce as it is supposed to be fabulous and it’s only about 60 miles away. So that’s what we did, we hauled our anchor and pointed Gypsy south once again.
We figured we have almost a month to make the trip to Guatemala, up the river and then back again in time to meet the Hills. As much as we loved Placencia it felt great to be sailing again and especially wonderful to be headed up a jungle river.
