Our Caribbean Resort Week

Our planned "soft landing" in Central America has taken us to the Amatique Bay Resort in Puerto Barrios in eastern Guatemala, just south of Belize. The resort is composed of individual villas built on the grounds of a stronghold or fort which existed when pirates and Spanish galleons plied these waters. A number of the old crumbling ruins can still be seen around the area.

We've had an interesting and pleasant few days and we will soon be heading to our Language school in Antigua for two weeks. We've been housed in a spacious villa with all the mod cons. Except for our first evening, we've cooked our own meals so have not yet sampled much of the local cuisine. It has been strange to be in this resort which is almost totally deserted....only ourselves, one or two other Guatemalan couples and the staff. At least there isn't a problem getting a loung chair by the pool!

The beach here is nothing to write home about as the water is brackish and brown from the mangos lining the shore nearby and the small strip of sand is stoney with lots of small flies about. We haven't even dipped a toe in the sea! The surrounding jungle, on the other hand, is almost awe-inspiring....a sea of green laced with flowers and blossoms of red, yellow purple, orange and white. The jungle is thick with hundreds of varieties of palms, towering hardwood trees, vines and grasses. We have very much enjoyed our morning walks along the roads cut through the jungle around the resort.

On our walk on Wed morning we had quite the adrenaline rush. As we approached our resort after a good walk, we suddenly heard the yelp of dog seemingly in some distress, a couple of hundred meters (so we judged) into the jungle. This was followed immediately by what only can be described as the growl or roar of a big cat...almost like the roar of a lion or tiger. This was followed by more yelping from the dog, another growl from the cat and then silence. We knew that jaguars frequent parts of Guatemala and we immediately concluded that what we were hearing was one attacking a dog nearby. I scanned the dense foliage hoping to get a glimpse of something, but Sue was already making a bee line for the resort gates, urging me to follow immediately. Our guidebooks say that a tourist would be very "lucky" to see a jaguar in the wild (we are not so sure we'd want to be so lucky andmeet up with one anyway, especially being alone) but we are both convinced we did hear one and its poor prey.

After a couple of days of sunning by the pool, we decided to visit the town of Livingston, 12kms across the bay. The taxi driver we were using to get us around town, Jose Ortiz, dropped us off at the boat docks where we bought tickets for the 30 min trip (30 quetzales each - or about $5 Cdn). The boat taxis, known as "lanchas" are 25ft skiffs equipped with 75 hp outboards. They leave the docks "when full" which is 14 passengers, so we waited about half an hour before setting off on the very bumpy ride across the bay. A weather system was just moving in that morning and as we set off the winds picked up and skies became dull and threatening rain. Our "captain" Lorenzo, told us he could take us up the Rio Dulce river once we had completed the crossing to Livingston, for 400Q, which we decided to do as the river trip was highly reommended in our guide book. Our lancha trip up the river for 2.5hrs was indeed fascinating though unfortunately the weather had turned rainy with squalls and wind sweeping down from the surrounding hills. We passed towering hills covered in verdant jungle. Everywhere there were egrets, cormorants and hawks circling along the banks, obviously searching for fish, which we learned were plentiful in the river. Thatched shelters dotted the shoreline where native Mayans lived. Their main livelihood is the river. We saw dozens of narrow dug out canoes the sole occupants paddling along or drifting with fishing line out. Lorenzo stopped at one point to buy himself a fish or two from one of the natives whose canoe bottom was a mass of small river fish. At one point, we motored slowly along a small tributary and stopped for a walk along a path through the jungle. We then continued on to a hot springs flowing into the main river (aguas calientes) where I paddled for a few minutes. Our upstream trip concluded at the Laguna de la flores where thousands of water lilies covered the still waters between two islands.

We returned to Livingston, a quaint and historic town which is inhabited largely Garifuna. The Garifuna are descendants of survivors from two Spanish slave ships which floundered off the coast over 200 years ago. They took refuge in small colonies along the coast and today the descendants of these native Africans form a unique collection of dark-skinned peoples with their own language and culture, in coastal towns stretching from Belize to Honduras. A Garifuna man who looked a little like Bob Marley, sat behind us on the lancha back later in the day and told us a number of things about their culture. (He was from Belize where the official language is English).

We wandered around the colorul town of Livingston for a while. It is much cleaner and laid back than the dirty and hectic city of Puerto Barrios across the bay. We decided to have a late lunch there as the town is known for its restaurants and tasty food. We found a place serving "sopa maricosas" - a soup replite with a whole crab, whole grilled river fish, shrimps, squid, clams and other assorted sea food in a rech tomato broth. Deliciouis! After lunch we bought a couple of rain capes to fend of the heavy-at-times rain (something we'd been planning to do anyway for our planned forrays into several rain forests throughout our trip) and headed back to the docks for our return trip to Puerto Barrios. A boatman was offering to leave immediately for 50Q each thereby avoiding an uncertain wait for a lancha to reach its requisite 14 passengers. So we decided to fork over the extra cash (some of our last quetzales) and we took the even-bumpier and wetter boat back. All in all a most interesting and rewarding day despite our sore bums and wet clothes.

We have been delighted with the friendliness of teh Guatemalans so far. People seem to make a point of speak to us. They babble on in Spanish, smiling and gesturing. Our blank looks result in more attempst, more slowly and clearly (and louder) - just like we do when trying to communicate with someone who doesn't speak English - in hopes of being understood. Actually we can usually pick up a few words and thus get the gist of what they are saying and even reply in our rudimentary Spanish. It would be really tough for someone here if the spoke no Spanish at all, as unlike Mcxican resorts, few people here speak any English. Upon landing in town, we asked Jose to take us to a local ATM, but after trying all five of the banks in town with not one of the cash machines being operable (joy of life in a third world country) we had to head back to the resort to change some of our precious American cash.

So far we are enjoying our trip though we do miss everyone at home - part of the price the traveller has to pay I guess. We've had some great experiences alread and are looking forward to more. The fabulous sights of Antigua, Lake Atiklan (some say the most beautiful lake in the world) and Tikal, the ancient Mayan city, await us in the next few weeks.

That's it for this installment. Hasta Luego