AmbergrisCaye.com Home Forums Belize by District Stann Creek Placencia Lodging

Kitty's, which is a fine place, been for sale for a couple of years. I'm told it almost sold last fall, but at the last minute the deal fell through. Of course, half the hotels on the peninsula are for sale one way or another -- Nautical Inn, Luba Hati, Barracuda & Jaguar Inn and others. Like Kitty's, most continue operating as usual until a buyer comes along. Placencia is just a tough place to make a living in tourism, a lot harder than San Pedro which is hard enough, though in the end I guess most owners make some money on their real estate.

--Lan Sluder

I,ve never been to the Soulshine Resort but if it's as close to the Suger Reef as Lan says it is count me in!

I do think that SoulShine is currently still for sale. It was close to that bar across the lagoon - we could see it but we didn't hear any noise from it. Granted I was there for only one night and it was not a weekend so that may make a difference.

We have been to Placencia Peninsula a couple of times and loved it, stayed at Kitty's Place. Town was fun too...

But when we stopped there on the way to the Rio Dulce, it was very very depressing. I understand that most of the resorts up the beach have been rebuilt, but much of Placencia has not yet been cleaned up too well after the hurricane.

Worse, people seemed very dispirited, sullen and unfriendly. The bar on the beach ("JR's?" or something like that) was not the way it used to be, the people running the place were unfriendly and downright rude to us, even though we bought several rounds of beers and of course we tip (and no, we were not drunk or loud or dirty..)

We stopped off at a little store to buy a few provisions and the owner (I think her name was "Olga" or at least the store was called "Olga's") was very unpleasant, even accused us of being shoplifters because our Belizean friend opened a little tin of sausages while we were shopping, told her to put it on our bill and went outside to eat (I was still inside the store putting stuff into my shopping basket.) She screamed at us at the top of her lungs while I was paying for the stuff we bought. I almost left my purchases on the counter but we did not know if there were any other grocery stores in town.
Maybe they just don't like cruising sailors (we came aboard on the dinghy) but gee whiz, we were there to spend money, and to get dissed by two vendors we spent money with was not pleasant.

As a consequence, we are telling people who sail to bypass Placencia Village, it's not sailor-friendly...people were much friendlier and niceer when we stopped at Tobacco Caye.

About Placencia - and cleaning up ........ the amount of debris was horrific after the storm. I was there a week after Iris. Compared to where these poor souls began, they have literally moved mountains of debris. The problem was and is, where do you put all that stuff? The latest plan to take care of the last of the debris is in place. The road is being paved. Trucks bringing in material for the road work will leave filled with debris and take it to appropraite dump-sites. This should make a major impact on the remaining junk laying around.
As for attitudes ....... hurricanes are exhausting and traumatic. We went through Keith on AC, and the entire island was truly suffering from PTSS for at least a year. Most folks in San Pedro, if they really fessed up, admitted that they did not sleep through the night for at least 6 months following Keith. Many spent a lot more time drunk or drinking than ever before in their lives. Kids drew scary pictures for a long time. The jitters got worse, not better when the NEXT hurricane season approached. Tired, scared and broke, it's hard to see storm season back in your face.
Please give these good folks another chance - they have been through a lot and they deserve some compassion and support.

You're right, Diane, about the sense of helplessness felt by people of the Placencia area. As a businessperson from there wrote recently in a Belize newspaper editorial letter, "If Placencia were a person, BTL would be standing trial for murder." Almost a year after the storm there are still no land line telephones (there are 100 such lines for select persons/businesses, not nearly enough), just to mention one extreme handicap to the resumption of normalcy.

I can't imagine Olga screaming at the top of her lungs at anyone without some sense of provocation. She's a serious businesswoman with a good reputation and I'm sure she has plans and hopes that include future success for her and Placencia.

I do understand that stress makes for short tempers..but we did nothing to provoke either of these establishments other than spend money. As I stated: We were not intoxicated, loud, dirty or otherwise obnoxious. We spent money.
As for "Olga's" loud temper tantrum, as I stated: We were in the store loading up our cart, walking around discussing what we needed to buy. One of us took a can of sausages outside, stopped by the cash register to let her know to put it on the tab and went outside to eat it (mindful of the sign that says "no eating inside the store..") and we continued shopping for about 5 more minutes. We were obviously all together and obviously engaged in shopping.
When we got to the cash register and I pulled out my money, we were treated to a LOUD lecture about why did you try to steal something from my store without paying for it, did you think I wouldn't catch you," etc. etc....all this as I was pulling out money and she was wrapping our items! As we left the store, she was continuing to yell and gesture and as we left, she pointed at us and told the next person in line "those people are thieves."
Of course we had not stolen anything and paid for everything (including the little tin of sausages....) And as I said, I was sorely tempted to throw everything back on the counter and tell her in precise terms what she could do with her stuff but I didn't. I just told her that she was out of line in her manner of talking to customers, paid for the stuff, and walked out.
My point was that this is not the way you treat tourists especially when they are spending MONEY in your establishment.
I hate to say it, but....I suspect racial prejudice. We were a mixed group and one of us was obviously a Mayan person. I was the only Caucasian looking person in the group.
Maybe the lady was having a bad day, But her behavior was inexcusable.

Susan, I don't think she was acting that way towards you because you were "sailers" or your skin color. You must have said something that let her know you were a lawyer. You know how they pronounce lawyer in Belize? More like "lier".

[This message has been edited by bywarren (edited 09-07-2002).]

Bywarren, you must be right. She must have said.....let's by some Lawyer's food.

Bad day at Olga's.
Perhaps she is hard of hearing and didn't hear your friend say, add it to the bill.

It doesn't make for a fun visit when things like that happen.

Sorry folks, but the only "conversation" we were having while shopping was about whether to buy this or that. Ms. Olga had no idea what I do for a living (nor did she know how much money I had contributed to the hurricane relief fund, for that matter!)
Look, the lady was being nasty and bitchy. Sad but true. You just do not talk to customers that way. Ever. It's just not acceptable.
(And I don't think it was MY skin color that was the issue....My Mayan friend told me that it was not the first time he has experienced that kind of disrespectful treatment in his own country.)
Look, it was no big deal for me, I am thick skinned. Our response is simple: We won't go back there...but the point is: Someone who behaves like that towards a customer is unlikely to only do it to one customer.
The point is also that people talk to each other and when the word gets out that the townspeople are not friendly to tourists, tourists stop coming. And the word does get out.
Perhaps it would behoove the local tourist industry trade group to do a little bit of training in the Placencia Town community on the fact that everyone who deals with the public is part of the tourist business -- even shop keepers. Nobody wants their ass kissed, they just want to be treated with simple respect.