Rio Dulce and Guatemala City

Today was about getting back to Guatemala City before flying back to England on Saturday!

I left the hotel at 9:15am to catch the boat tour to Rio Dulce. The journey itself was very nice – the water was calm and the surrounding landscape was beautiful .

The tour itself didn’t actually involve any form of a tour. All it meant was that we stopped for about 20 minutes at “hot springs” and then slowly went round a couple of islands where we saw about 5 different bird species.

 

The hot springs were interesting to see – it was a small area of the water where the water was very very hot! When standing close to the rocks, you could see the steam coming off the water. When you step into the water you can feel the hot water at the top and the water becoming very cold below. And then if you move towards the rocks the water gets so hot that you can’t really stay in that area for long without getting burnt.

When we arrived in Rio Dulce, I made my way to a bus company (Litegua) which had coaches to Guatemala City leaving at 12:00pm. The coach was a modern coach with air conditioning and a TV. It was very very much more comfortable than the usual “shuttles” I was used to and was a nice change for only 80 Quetzals!

I arrived in Guatemala City at about 6:30pm and headed to a hostel which was very close to the bus stop (Theatre International). It was great that even though I had picked a random hostel, it was nice, friendly and cheap! The dorm bed cost 55Q.

I had planned to meet Grant as he was now staying in Guatemala City and was working in a clinic there. He joined me at the hostel and when we asked where to go for dinner, some of the staff said that they were going to get some food too and we ended up going altogether.

After food we returned to the hostel and played a few card games. I spent the rest of the evening with the staff at the hostel (Grant had to go home as he had work the following day – yes he was working on Saturdays!) and went to sleep ready to head home the following day. 

The Garifuna town of Livingston

In the morning, we walked to “the junction” where we waited for a bus to take us back to Punta Gorda. It was a long walk and we were lucky that whilst we were walking an open back truck passed by and offered us a lift to the junction.

The boat going from Punta Gorda to Livingston (Guatemala) departed at 1pm and so we had some time in Punta Gorda before we left. We sat on the beach for an hour or so before going to the port to cross over to Livingston.

As part of the standard “exit fees”, we were made to pay $37.50 Belizian (2 Belizian dollars to 1 US $). The boat journey cost $60 Belizian. That was SO expensive – the journey was only 45 minutes but this standard price was able to be used because there is no other way to get to Livingston from Punta Gorda. Apparently there is a road which is being built but this isn’t open to the public yet.

It felt good to be back in Guatemala! The prices of things in Belize were so much more than Guatemala!

 

We found a hotel not far from the port (Hotel Henry Barrison Ford). At the top of the hotel we had a great view of the port.

We spent the afternoon walking around the town, which was similar to most Guatemalan towns – had a nice market place and then living areas around the centre. 

In the evening we walked further along the road that our hotel was and saw some very nice hotels on the river-front. We stopped at one of them for dinner and then went back to the hotel where we watched another movie before going to sleep. 

Chocolate making!!

We took the bus from Punta Gorda to San Felipe in the morning – it wasn’t far and the bus dropped us right outside the chocolate factory.

The place (Ixcacao) is said to be the only place where Mayans continue to make chocolate in its original form from Cacao. They have a large farm (60 acres) where they harvest various crops and they take the cacao beans and grind them to make all sorts of chocolate products (from bars of chocolate to chocolate body lotion).

San Felipe is very much a rural town and the houses are spread out across the town. Most people living there seem to be self sufficient – and when walking around the town we could only see a couple of shops in the whole town.

The place we were going to be staying in was very basic – the building was literally made of wood within a wooded area! There were proper toilets and a plug socket in each room too.

The girl I was travelling with had contacted them to tell them our plans and they were meant to have organised a tour for us when we arrived. However, they were busy with another larger group and were unable to be with us until 3pm! That meant that it was too late to be able to go to see the farm.

However, the man in charge showed us the process of making chocolate from Cacao beans and we were made to do it too – we made our own chocolate which we were able to eat after.

It was very interesting to see how they did it – but I was quite surprised to see that they seemed to just not use technology which would make life so much easier for them. They did so much by hand which undoubtedly meant that they could not produce vast amounts of chocolate in the same way they would be able to if they used the technology available to them. His argument was that they didn’t need to – and they didn’t even sell their chocolate anywhere apart from in the shop that we were in! People from various parts of the country travelled to this shop to buy the chocolate as they didn’t offer any delivery service.

As they did not take us to the farm, we were not charged for the tour.

We were provided dinner there - which was really really good food! We went to sleep at about 10pm.

Next stop: Punta Gorda (South Belize)

The next day, we took a bus to Punta Gorda. This was a town from where we were planning to go to San Felipe the following day and then also to Livingston (back in Guatemala) the day after.

We spent the morning checking our travel plans and ensuring that it was all possible and found a room in a hostel very close to the port.

The town itself was much nicer than Dangriga – despite being smaller, the houses were well maintained and actually looked very well kept. Although the town was on the coast, there wasn’t a beach as such – the coast was made up of rocks and a bit of grass. There was a tiny slither of a beach just on the edge of the town which is where we sat and relaxed for a while.

We explored the town – although there wasn’t that much to see. In the evening we watched another movie and slept. 

On to Dangriga (South Belize)

We took the boat at 6:30am to Belize City – where we walked around for a while. There wasn’t much to see – a clock tower, an old church (which apparently is the oldest Anglican church in Central America). 

After walking around Belize city for an hour or so, we collected our bags from the port and walked to the bus station where we took the James bus to Dangriga.

Dangriga looked very run down – despite being one of the biggest towns in South Belize. The houses were all very dilapidated and looked like they had not been cared for at all. We stayed in a place which was on the beach – and that turned out to be a great place to stay.    

In the afternoon we walked to a museum where they showed the history of the Garifuna population, which made up a small proportion of South Belize. The history was interesting but the museum itself only contained things to read.

The rest of the afternoon and evening, we spent on the beach relaxing and then watching a movie before going to sleep. 

Rain rain rain....and the world cup!

It rained for a lot of the day – in fact, the weather was so bad we couldn’t really do much at all. We ended up spending a lot of time indoors.

 

At 1pm, the world cup final was on and so we went to a restaurant/bar to watch the game. There were lots and lots of people there – many, of course, were foreigners and next to us there were some Germans who were over the moon when Germany won. 

Later on in the afternoon, the weather cleared up a bit and we went to the Split where we relaxed and went for a swim.

In the evening I had dinner and we went for a walk along the beach. Whilst we were walking along the beach it started to pour with rain; thunderstorms and lightening.

As we planned to go to Belize City the next day – taking the boat at 6:30am, we went to sleep quite early.  

Snorkelling Trip

As I hadn’t been able to go on the snorkelling trip on Friday, I was scheduled to go on the trip today instead. I tried on the snorkelling gear at 8:45am. As I have prescription goggles, I had to improvise to create a “prescription snorkelling mask”. I took my goggles apart and put each side into the mask which worked perfectly. Unfortunately, my camera isn’t waterproof and so I couldn’t really take any good pictures!

We left at about 9:30am. There were 5 of us along with the guide and his helper. The other 4 were all Israelis in a group together.

The guide was really good. He knew about the sea life very well and was very good at making sure we were at the right place at the right time.

As soon as we left Bella’s Backpackers, there was a place where lots of big fish were present. We watched them jumping out of the water as he fed them.

The first stop we made was at a place where we would see “Loggerhead turtles”. At each stop, we put on our snorkelling gear and jumped into the water to swim with the sea life. The place we stopped at was where some fishermen were cleaning what they had caught earlier in the morning – they were washing the lobsters and this was drawing the loggerhead turtles to them. We were lucky that we got there at the time we did because about 15 – 20 minutes later, the boats cleaning the lobsters left and the loggerhead turtles disappeared with them.

At the next stop we made, we saw two manatees. These are very rare creatures which are endangered and we were lucky enough to see a male and a female resting and then swimming around. We followed them for a while and watched them as they rested on the sea bed again.

Sharks and stingrays was the next stop!! The sharks were “nurse sharks” – they were small sharks which happily swum around with us! When the guide fed them they all leapt to the food and we followed them. The guide even held one of them so that we could pet the sharks! We were also able to touch the stingrays.

Our penultimate stop was at a large area where the guide took us around lots of corals and showed us lots of different types of fish. He explained what they all were and how some were protected fish which could not be caught.

Our final stop was where we were left to swim around as we wanted. A few of us had opted for “spear fishing” – where you get a spear gun and try to follow a fish and shoot it for dinner!

This was actually very difficult – and once you had shot the spear you had to fetch the spear from the bottom where it fell. None of us were able to actually catch anything but it was good fun trying nonetheless!! Even the guide struggled, but was able to catch one lobster.

We returned to the hostel at about 4:30pm. Soon after, I met with a girl who I had met travelling from Antigua to Lake Atitlan. She was planning to travel to the South of Belize just like me. We had decided that we would travel together.

At night, I spent some time with others at Bella’s Backpackers and we walked to the split where some people decided to go swimming in the middle of the night!