In this episode CB and Tawn take a panga down the Rio Dulce to Livingston…I’ll let the pictures do all the rambling.
The Rio Dulce goes way up into Guatemala and serves as transport to numerous villages. The lower portion where we stayed is a one hour launcha ride out to the Caribbean.
The river goes through straight up jungla…the sides go straight up into the jungle canopy. There are numerous rustic villages along the way that are accessible only by launcha.
?Numerous resorts and floating homes are found along the flatter areas of the river. Some are on posts up above the water. The birds are thick in here and roost in all the trees.
This little guy was captured with my new telephoto lens that CB got me on his last trip to the States!
It’s kinda sad to see the deforestation along the way…the hard woods are cut down for housing and cooking sticks forcing people to go higher and higher up into the jungle every year.
Some local flora that reminds me of back home in Michigan…this is for you Mom
As we got closer to Livingston (which is only accessible by boat) we saw more launchas transporting people and more stuff around….what? How else you gonna get your motor cycle to town?
As you come around the last bend of the jungle you are welcomed by the sights of Livingston, a rough and tumble little frontera town…from here you can take launchas into Belize, Honduras or back to Guatemala.
We stayed at Hostel de La Iguana this cool little hostel with a small bar and great happy hour and amazing owners from England and Ireland…they also can hook you up with all kinds of tours and tickets for the launch a ride to Belize.
This is a cool little wash center for the locals providing clean water to hand scrub your clothes…as it was hot as an armpit, I kinda wanted to jump in, but figured that would be frowned upon…
This is the staging area where boats wait to go over the sandbar and up into the river Dulce. A pilot boat will attach a line to the boats halyard which is raised to the top of the mast. The pilot boat pulls his boat to the side to heel the boat so the keel passes over the bar. I tried to get a photo of the actual event but it was too far away.
Our next post will be about our time in Belize…you’ll have to wait for it Papa Miller:-)