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Or their version of it, anyway.  It was around the Day of the Dead time for the rest of Latin America, and so the English-speaking Belizeans go trick or treating.

We headed to Placencia to find a beach.  For a country with such a vast amount of coastline, Belize isn’t actually all that hot on beaches.  Even on the Cayes, there’s just patches of sand between jetties.  Belize is a port country, and apparently the vast amount of coral and so forth surrounding the coastline made the Spanish decide it wasn’t really worth their time and effort.  The British had no such qualms, and to this day they still have the Queen on their money.

So yeah, the beach.  Placencia sits right on the extremely calm and tranquil Caribbean Sea, which is warm and nice.  The sand’s a bit coarse, but whose feet don’t need exfoliating?  The village itself is really calm and laid-back, with a very nice vibe to it and plenty of houses on stilts.  Being something of  holiday destination, it’s a got a fair few hotels and guesthouses of varying standards.  But as you drive along the still very bumpy road (and while I’m briefly touching the subject, why does Belize insist on putting in speed bumps?  It’s already bad enough, thanks!) to the town, you’ll pass an inordinate amount of shiny new concrete buildings under construction – clearly, the American market can see that this place has the potential to mean big business.  Hell, Francis Ford Coppola owns a place here.

The sad part is that, as with other countries which aren’t exactly rich, the natural beauty just isn’t being taken care of by the locals.  I had a wander up the shore (at the end up which I found a couple of nicer resorts that clearly imported their sand) and I passed, right on the edge of the water, a good many black bin bags filled with rubbish, waiting for the tide to sweep them away.

As I say, we were there for Halloween, and the whole town was closing down early to get to the only party in town, at the Barefoot Beach Bar.  This bar is the biggest and best in town anyway, so for that night the place was rocking.  We were treated to more reggae than we knew existed, and then a direct launch into the latest music style, Punta, which is like reggae on speed.  Oh, and they really do love their seriously grindy dancing.  There was one point where it was basically a conga line of grinding vertical spooning.  Whatever does it for you, I suppose.

Placencia is a nice place to chill for a few days, and you’ll also get some very high standard of restaurants, serving up all kinds of food.  But like the rest of Belize, you’ll be paying UK prices for far less than you would expect when it comes to hotels.  If you want UK standards, or more to the point US standards, get ready to crack open the wallet.