Having spent a few weeks in Guatemala now, and getting a real feel for Rio Dulce, I’ve come to understand why Rio Dulce is known as “The River that eats Gringos”. There are alot of people here from the States and Europe that have all found some kind of refuge here. Many of them are boaters who sailed in for a short visit, and end up keeping their boats here for years without ever venturing back out into sea.
Before I got here, I found that notion quite strange. I still do, but at least now I understand a little more why it happens. It’s hard to resist a place where you can do pretty much what you want, buy beautiful, waterfront land dirt cheap, pay next to nothing for everything else and have an idyllic existence here.
Alot of people here come every year and spend a couple of months a year hiding away here. Others split their time between “home” and Rio Dulce, and then there are the hardcore dwellers who haven’t left Guatemala in years. This creates a truly colorful, ever-changing cast of characters around here, let me tell you.
Teresa left last week, but not before we got a good road trip in to get to Flores, and then Tikal. We basically just stayed in Flores for cheap lodging. It is in itself an interesting place, however. It’s an “island” in Lake Peten with a little town on it, and supposedly good shopping to be had, though we didn’t really get a chance to do that this trip.
From Flores, we caught an early morning bus to Tikal to get there by sunrise. It was a nice ride into the jungle, which nestles Tikal’s ruins, as it has for centuries. We had a couple of aggressive “tour guides” on the bus trying to negotiate a good price to show us around Tikal, but we decided that we didn’t want to have a guide.
When we got there, it was a nice walk through alot of woods to get to main location of the excavated ruins. Only about 20% of Tikal’s overall ruins have been excavated and can be accessed. Most of the city is still underneath tons of earth and vegetation. When you see the scale of this thing, and you realize the time that it was all built, the idea that most of it is still underground and trees is pretty staggering.
When we got there in the very early morning, it was still very foggy. So it was hard to see what was around you when you were walking around. You didn’t really know what you were looking for, or where anything was. You just followed these marked paths through the jungle and forest. Within a few hours however, the fog started to burn off, and before you knew it, all of these stone temples and towers started showing up out of nowhere. It was all very surreal, and truly awe-inspiring.
For me, as probably to most everyone, the highlights were climbing the ancient temples and checking out the views from the tops. Some of the climbs were a bit challenging. This was because there were these very hairy and vertical wood ladders on some of them to get you up to the top. These were built mainly because some people have tried to climb the original stairs on the temples only to end up falling/rolling down the stairs to their deaths.
After a good day at Tikal, we headed back to Flores where we spent one more night. The next morning, we headed back to Rio Dulce, because Teresa had to prepare for her trip back to Guatemala City to catch her flight back to Belgium.
Since getting back, I’ve been splitting my time getting Andiamo ready for the Bay Islands, kicking back a little, and helping out with the La Esmeralda School Project, by teaching English to kids and adults (and not getting hurt on the way to the school!) and helping them raise more funds for the school project (we still need donations, so click on the link for the project and read about it if you haven’t yet!). Raf also volunteered at the local clinic with Lotte and Pauline. We have also had a heck of a time locating a new dink and motor for Andiamo (don’t ask me what happened to our previous one, it’s too embarrassing.)
Just a few days ago, Bill from “Rapture” showed up for a few days. So we had a few good days with him, along with some good dinners onboard and muchos cervezas. He left yesterday to head back to Belize to pick up some more friends to do some sailing. It was great seeing him. We probably won’t see him again this time around, since he’s going to be working his way back north to Texas.
So now, we’re hoping we can get back out and on our way to Bay Islands early this coming week. Hopefully I’ll be able to get my remaining pics up before we go, since it will surely be awhile before I get this kind of hot internet connection again.
In the meantime, I’ll try not to get eaten by this very seductive river. 
