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:-)

Contrary to how it may seem, I actually do like to update this blog. But most the time, I don’t really know what to write about.

So, I thought I would put up a request to anyone that reads this blog, send me some ideas on what you would want to hear about our trip that we have not covered already.

Add it to the comments or send an email or lemme know on Facebook.

Yeah, that is us. Bad Ass right? :)

One of our main reasons for staying in El Salvador for so long was so we could provide Palarran with a safe home while we traveled around Central America. We have never been here before and wanted to really have time to check it out. On May 22 CB and I took off from the marina and jumped on a chicken bus to San Salvador where we would catch a First Class bus to Guatemala City (King Quality Premium bus line). These buses are as nice as first class on a plane. When we got to Guat City we took a less than a first class bus (damn near chicken quality) an unexpected 8 Hours (uffdah) to Northeastern Guatemala to a place called Rio Dulce. Rio Dulce is where all the boats on the Caribbean side hole up for Hurricane season. We met several cruisers from “that side” and enjoyed comparing notes. The area itself is beautiful. All the hostels and hotels are outside of a small, but really loud town. Most are only accessible by launch (panga) or if you had a vehicle to travel the little jungle roads. I’ll let the photos tell the rest of the story.

Rio Dulce is a river that comes off Lago Izabal and makes it’s way through to the Caribbean side of Guatemala. Due to this fact, a lot of sailboats make this their hurricane hole against the Atlantic hurricane season. Most transport on the lake is via launcha (pangas) to various marinas and hotels around the river and lake area.

We stayed across the river at the Tortugal Inn and Marina. This place was quite nice with a tree-house like setting.

We had the room on the right with the open bamboo window…

The Hotel had kayaks that were free to use to check out the lake and the nearby Spanish Fort…this place was awesome.

This is Castillo de San Felipe de Lara, a fort the Spanish built in 1644 to keep out the pirates from the Caribbean.

The fort was restored in 1955 and later became a World Heritage Site. For a very small fee you can go and explore every nook and cranny of this place….including pitch black tunnels where ammunition boys ran cannon balls up to the gunners to fight off pirate ships.

The obligatory brig selfie…help!

The next day we took a panga over to another lodge called Hacienda Tijax. This place was amazing. A local guy had bought about 600 acres of land along the river for conservation and ecotourism in mind. When he bought it there was a working rubber tree plantation. Over the years he has built a resort and restaurant and built numerous nature trails. You can only hike the trail with their guide, Lucy. She is a kick in the pants and very knowledgeable about the flora and fauna. Along the hike you stop at a jungle pool fed by fresh spring water….it was cold and refreshing after the jungle hike.

Spring fed pool perfect for skinny dippin’. Usually the pool is crystal clear, but due to the heavy rains it was cloudy.

This double suspension bridge crossed over a deep ravine with giant ferns growing up 50 feet or more. Straight up King Kong territory!

The hike peaked at this observatory. From the top you can see all the surrounding mountain ranges, river valley and volcanoes…we tried to get a panorama of it, but it was too hazy to turn out

This is the rubber tree plantation. It is still in operation, but since rubber is no longer in as great of demand due to synthetics, only a small portion of the land is still worked.

A special tool is used to slice and peel a small area of bark where the rubber seeps out into this tiny cup. After a few hours the rubber hardens and stops flowing. Apparently this does not harm the tree and this scar can continuously be reopened to get more rubber. That little white ball is pure rubber and smells like absolute shit!

Stay tuned for parte dos, where we travel down the Rio Dulce by launch a to Livingston, Guatemala.