Down to earth with a bump - quite literally

On Saturday hubby and I had to prise each other off the beach chairs and get back in to "traveller" mode. I've discovered that I really rather like the beach and hubby agrees. When we first arrived in Placencia we thought we'd only stay there two nights, then it progressed to five. We actually stayed 12 nights in all. We didn't go on one single solitary "outing", all we did was wander from beach to restaurant to beach to internet cafe to beach to supermarket - you get the picture.

Sadly, that all came to an end on Saturday when we flew to Belize City. In a 12-seater 'Tropic Air' plane. OMG, I was more than a little nervous since I'm not a big fan of flying. The 'airport' did nothing to allay my fears - please see photo of runway and steps required to board the planes. After depositing our luggage, which consisted of leaving our bags on a patch of earth slightly less dusty than the surrounding patches outside the 'terminal', we went through security which consisted of nothing. All we did was tell the lady behind the 'check-in desk' our names and we were handed two boarding cards. Then we took a seat, by-passing the plate of 'journey cakes for passengers' - nice touch, but I was waaay too nervous to eat, which just goes to show how nervous I was as I never normally pass up the chance of free food (or any food, come to think of it.) Finally it was time to get on the plane which came bouncing along the runway. We were the only two getting on and were told to sit in any of the seats at the front. Being mere inches away from the pilot and being able to see everything he was doing didn't really help my nerves. I was mostly perturbed by the fact that from where I was sitting it looked like the pilot couldn't see over the 'dashboard'. And then I was a bit more perturbed when I overheard a fellow passenger telling hubby that the planes don't normally fly "this high" (5500ft), and that they usually only go to about 1500-3000ft. Apparently though we were trying to avoid the clouds. Heck, I'm happy with clouds if it means flying nice and low. Luckily the flight only lasted 30mins and there was some rather nice scenery to admire once I'd managed to open my eyes. I even took some photos after letting go of the seat in front.