Hey-hey people! We are here in Río Dulce next the the Atlantic Coast. It was an interesting ride across Guatemala from the Pacific. We are about to leave on our week long sailing trip out to the Belize Cayes this Friday so we won´t have any means of communication until next Thursday. Sweet!
18-Tues to 23-Sat
Staying at the park in Hawaii grew on us the longer we stayed there. When we took the 4:30 AM bus on Saturday to Guate City it was difficult to leave for multiple and obvious reasons. We got accustomed to hitchhiking into town. A young couple who picked us up one night and gave us a ride back to the park, we invited them the following night to see some hatchlings being released. We had become close to the park dogs, Sessy and the puppy Suerte.
I had bought a T-shirt from the park as well (not that I needed another one). Hope to get pictures emailed to us of the leatherback turtles from Eduardo, the park director, when the nest hatches around late February.
On Saturday we rode a chicken bus for 5 hours to Guate City on our way to Cobàn. It was another 4 hours via coach to get to our destination. The day we arrived the weather was bright blue sky. The city of Cobàn is quite smaller than what we were used to in Xela and consisting of many hills. Walking around the city today, both we saw one of the street dogs get run over by a shuttle bus. It was a harsh reminder of our different cultures and attitudes; while Kylie and I felt terrible seeing the dog run away yelping in pain, the locals nearby laughed at the sight. It had been a long day of traveling; we got dinner and went to bed early at our hostel.
24-Sun
Today we did a little sight seeing around town. Here is the Templo El Calvario, a church from 1810.
It sits on a hillside at the top of many, many stairs. This spot allowed a great view of the Cobán layout below.
Close by is Parque Nacional Las Victorias,
a natural evergreen forest consisting of 170 acres that we walked though located in the city´s center. Here is a shot of a line of leaf-cutter ants bringing their haul back to the nest.
After lunch we got a taxi ride over to Vivero Verapaz, an orchid nursery just outside of town, only to find out is was closed when arrived! At least we knew where to go now when we walked there tomorrow.
25-Mon
Today we walked to Vivero Verapaz. The local name for the rainy mist that occurs here is chipi chipi and today was a great example of such weather. One of the caretakers showed us around. Most of the orchids were not blooming at the time.
These miniature orchids growing in champagne corks were some of my favorite.
Back in town, we got a tour of a coffee farm right in Cobán.
Dieseldorff Coffee was founded by Germans in 1888 and still in operation growing, picking, sorting, roasting, packing and selling. The entire process of from plant to product is very labor intensive. The white blossoms of the upcoming season were just beginning to emerge. The red beans are ready to be picked,
which is done by hand. Here they are spread out to dry in the sun after being filtered through water here
(good coffee sinks while the bad floats). Once more the beans are sorted for quality by hand before being roasted. Of course we bought some beans to take home, just one more item in our overstuffed bags to lug around.
26-Tues
We left Cobán to a rural town outside to stay at an expat´s house who rents out cabins on his property and serves vegetarian meals. Our Moon guide book billed the place as a working blueberry farm, but when we got there, Tim informed us that the berry´s had succumbed to fungus and he pulled them out years ago, well before the publication of the guide book we have. Here is the porch view from our room.
The chipi chipi was still in the sky and we ended up only staying the night before moving on, turning down the mountain hike in the morning since it would only be covered in clouds. The food was great, as is most food that is cooked by someone else, and the room was a nice change from the hostels and shacks with mosquito nets that we had become used to.
27-Wens
A short bus ride in the morning took us to the town of Lanquín and our stay at El Retiro. This hostel consisted of several thatched roofed suits on a hillside over looking a stream. It was full of backpackers and young travelers. Not having a reservation, we were shown in a loft room that required we climbed a latter. We ended up staying three nights. There was a restaurant and bar by the water which served buffet style meals with different themes each night. It was too easy and nearby to eat anywhere else and the town didn´t have many options either.
28-Thurs
Just a couple of kilometers out of town, we walked to Lanquín Caves National Park.
The cave was huge and long and the floor was covered in shit. At dusk we sat by the mouth and watched a million bats fly out into the night sky.
29-Fri
Semuc Champey had been on our list of must do´s since the beginning of our trip. It was 11 kilometers outside Lanquín and we opted to hitch hike rather than pay for a ride and guide.
Inside the park, we climbed some trails to an overlook of the pools. The water was warm and very clear, only you needed to keep moving or else little fish would begin to nibble at your feet and butt. Kylie didn´t care for that much.
30-Sat
We left our hostel by morning and headed north to the small village of Raxrujá. On the way while waiting roadside for a lift by the turn for Lanquín, we saw Alex and Raphael, the Canadian couple we climbed Volcano Tasamulco a month earlier, get off a truck coming from the direction we were headed (there is a picture of them with Kylies in an earlier post). They that been to El Salvador, Honduras and Belize since we saw them last. Our trip up the dirt road was fun since we rode on top of the packed shuttle.
The landscape was beautiful and great to see unobstructed from the roof. We spent the night at Hotel Cancuén; a place both Kylie and I would come to refer to as the roach motel. Understandably, we only stayed the night.
31-Sun
Our reason for heading north to Raxrujá was the Candelaria Caves. These are very sacred sites to the local Mayans. The rain was falling that morning so we wore out rain coats and hailed a shuttle.
After a little miscommunication and confusion, we arrived at the caves. The Candelaria is not lit by a diesel generator like the Lanquín caves, but rather natural light coming through windows in the walls.
This aspect made us feel like real explorers. There were tubing rides in the cave river offered by the park, but the rain and chilly weather turned us away. Later that day, trying to get a bus to Río Dulce, we took the advice from a local and went to Poptun, a town north of our destination and 5 hours down a dirt road. We had to stand most of the time and were miserable by our arrival. Luckily, the Tropical Inn was just across the street from where we got off the bus. A private room with clean sheets and no sign of roaches! Quite nice!
1-Mon
By 11 AM we boarded a coach down to Río Dulce, two hours away by paved roads, on which we had to stand. The Hotel Backpackers in Río Dulce is on a dock right over the river and under the overpass.
The sounds of passing trucks and boats soothed us in our sleep. About a 40 minute walk from town is Castillo De San Felipe De Lara, a Spanish fortification built in 1652.
2-Tues
Down the road lining Lake Izabal going West, we visited Finca El Paraíso. Here a hot springs waterfall enters the cool river water.
The same biting fish we encountered at Semuc Champey were waiting for us. The springs were steaming hot, even during the mid-day sun. By contrast, downstream from where the gringos were bathing were the locals doing their laundry in the river. Later that night back at the hotel, I caught some drunk local in the dorm helping himself to money and cameras of other people staying the night, yet he took off down the road before I realized what was going on. A harsh reminder to be careful to those that lost belongings.
We were able to score a room even though it was packed with guests. Our room was off a little stone walkway from the main house.
It had a very rustic feel. Checking out our room, I noticed the light was not working. When we brought this to the attention of our host, he didn`t seem surprised. "That`s cuz the power is only on from five to ten." Check. The rope swing off the dock was a nice bonus.
Finca Tatin provided the two person kayak. Neither of us were impressed by the condition of it, yet it floated, so... We paddled over to Rìo Dulce canyons, where vertical cliff faces drop off into the water.
Herons and pelicans were abundant.
Here is a shot of lunch we ate on the river.
Sort of regret not buying a disposable water camera to capture those sights. On the paddle boards we chased a four foot nurse shark shortly (glad to have viewed it from above the water than in).
