Ship's Logs and Trip Diaries 

Detailed information on provisioning, checking in, marinas/anchorages, etc. is available at our SaltySailors.com website.

Guatemala 2006

June 22:  Livingston, Guatemala - Mario's Marina on the Rio Dulce

Got up early so we could hit the bar around high tide.  Blow Me Away draws much more than we do so we went across the bar first so we could give them an idea of the depth.  No problems.   

Entering Livingston is still breathtakingly beautiful.  We anchored at the entrance to Livingston and called the Port Captain.  This time Immigration, Customs, Agriculture & the Doctor came out to the boat.  I've gone into all the check in procedures in detail on the saltysailors.com site so if you want to read about check in, click here.  The officials in Guatemala are still the nicest we have encountered so far.

We've been to Livingston before so we didn't stick around long.  Just long enough to check in and get some lunch.  Oh yeah, we are back in Guatemala ... getting a very simple lunch took about 1 1/2 hours.  Time to really get back into the practice of slowing down.  I'm beginning to feel a little under the weather & we are ready to get to that marina and plug in to electricity. 

We didn't see any of the characters we had met here before ... too bad.  Our first experience in Livingston is recounted in our 2004 Log.  There we explored the town & met lots of interesting people.

Even with having gone down the Rio Dulce River before, you forget how astonishingly beautiful it is.  It was fun having Blow Me Away with us so we could get their first reaction to the beauty of the area. 

We were so excited to call Mario's Marina on the VHF and let them know we were almost there.  Mac & Marcos came out in the launcha to meet us!  Ron & my favorite dog Nemo grabbed our lines as we pulled into our temporary slip.  It was so nice to be greeted by old friends and new friends we had met this year along the way.  We plugged into electric & took nice long showers, had a drink at the bar and visited with all our friends.

June 23 - July 16:  Mario's Marina

As happens so easily on the Rio, time just flies by and it seems like you haven't accomplished a thing.  We moved into our permanent spot at the back of the marina and we like it back here.  We are out of the hustle and bustle of the restaurant & ranchito and have kind of a private resort of our own. 

The rain this year is unbelievable.  It has been raining very hard every night.  The river has gone up to one of it's highest levels ever and the docks are covered by water.  Mario's had to turn off all electric to the docks and had to move many boats around and away from docks to prevent them from ending up on top of a dock when a wake came thru.  We have to wade thru water a little higher than ankle deep to get to the boat.

Worst part is no electric.  Thank goodness we bought that little Honda generator while we were in Florida.  Gas, however, is hard to come by on the river sometimes.  Took us 4 different trips to the 3 gas stations on the river to finally catch it when they actually had some fuel available. 

Fronteras is pretty much the same as before although it has grown some.  Hustle and bustle, loud and hot.  Thane goes into town most days for us to provision.  He loves Fronteras. 

I went on a trip with the Jungle Medic into two remote villages.  The Jungle Medic runs a charitable organization here that provides medical care to some of the remote villages in the area.  Our trip to the villages took about 1 1/2 hours to get there.  We encountered flooded roads and had to stop and wait for a herd of cattle to come by the bus before we could proceed.  We treated 280 patients.  I prefer to tell the story of the trip thru along with the pictures so I've put together a photo gallery of the trip, click here to view it.

July 17 - 20:  Copan, Honduras

We made a quick side trip to see the Mayan Ruins in Copan, Honduras.  Thane put the trip together and 8 other cruiser's joined us.  Along with Thane & I was Karen & Mike s/v Suenos, Kay & Sonny s/v Valentina, Lynn s/v Griffin, Sheri s/v Namaste, Deborah s/v Argo & Randy s/v Wanda Jean.  Our entire group is from Texas. 

Thane rented a van, with a driver, and we hit the road.  The trip from the Rio to Copan takes about 4 hours.  This was Karen's first trip in a car/bus on a Guatemalan road ... we shouldn't have let her sit where she could see the road.  If you've never been on a Guatemalan road, it is quite an experience.  The roads are narrow and curvy.  Dogs, kids, people, horses, etc. walk very close or in the road and the drivers DO NOT slow down.  Can you imagine letting your 4 year old kid walk along a major highway with cars whizzing by at 70 mph!  However, Karen's still in for a big experience next time she rides a bus as our driver was very gracious and took into account that he was driving a bunch of Gringos around ... he drove relatively slow and only came within inches of hitting one dog.  A few rum punches later and all was okay .....

We arrived at the hotel Plaza Copan and all got settled into our rooms that had not only TV, but air conditioning.  Spent the afternoon wandering about town looking in shops and then went to eat at Llama del Bosque.  If you ever get to Copan be sure and eat here.  They serve a family style meal and for about $5 per person they bring you:  a platter of meat which includes chicken, beef & sausage; beans, rice, nachos, cheese, guacamole, all kinds of chutneys & salsas. 

The next morning we all met at Cafe ViaVia for an all-you-can-eat breakfast.  It too was fabulous with more food than we could eat (if you can believe that).  After breakfast, the tuk-tuks picked us up and took us to the Mayan Ruins. 

Our tour guide, Cesar, met us at the admissions desk.  There were about 15 Scarlet Macaws at the entry to the park.  It was incredible seeing them flying around throughout the ruins.  The ruins were fascinating, very different from the ruins in Tikal.  Tikal was grand and large, Copan was artistic. 

Our guide was very well versed and interesting.  He told us about the Mayan history as he guided us through the ruins.  He explained everything from daily living to having the "honor" of being a human sacrifice.  The tour lasted about 2 1/2 hours ... just about the perfect amount of time.

We had the afternoon to play.  Spent some time enjoying the pool at the Plaza Copan.  Remember I said that the hotel had air conditioning, we had to turn ours off ... it was too cold for us.  Guess our bodies are adjusting to the heat.  A lot of the crowd went out to see the night life of Copan (which apparently is not much).  I am still fighting a respiratory infection that I picked up on the Jungle Medic trip.  Our bodies aren't use to all the new bugs & viruses they have in Guatemala and I'm working hard at building my immunity by catching everything that comes along.  Thane and I stayed in the room and ate chicken soup and watched movies.

Thane and I got up bright and early the next morning and took a walking tour of Copan.  It's a fairly small town so it didn't take to long to walk every street.  It's a very charming little town with true cobble stone streets.  The people are very friendly.  I was surprised by the fact that we did not see any people in Mayan dress since we were at a Mayan ruin.  Guess they all moved to the Highlands of Guatemala.  We did see a lot of caballeros (cowboys) though.

Well, it's back to the Rio.  We were glad to be home to our v-berth.  For a pictorial view of our trip, look at our Copan photo album.   

July 21 - August 5:

Trying to get over river fever which is visiting, drinking, eating, and not accomplishing anything.  We have gone to a few karaoke nights were Thane and the some other burrachos (drunks) have performed and delighted audiences.  And not because they were so good! 

We have movie night on Tuesday, karaoke on Wednesday, Survivor Panama on Thursday, swap meet & Texas Hold Em & the band plays on Saturday.  Life is busy on the river. 

Our afternoon dip in the pool refreshes us each day.

August 6: 

One of my most frightening experiences happened today.  I decided to go for a walk along the road back behind Mario's Marina.  I didn't tell anyone where I was going.  The road takes you to the village of La Esmeralda.  If you continue on the road, you pass a few houses and then the road becomes very isolated.  There are several large hills and I walked to the top of the 2nd large hill and admired the view and decided I'd walked about as far as I needed to today. 

As I was walking back down the road, I heard something behind me and turned around to see a man with his t-shirt wrapped around his head so you could only see his eyes.  His entire face was completely covered.  He had come out of the jungle and was on the left side of the road.  I was walking on the right side of the road.  I walked a bit further and it sounded like he was getting closer so I turned around again.  He had moved directly behind me and was carrying a rope in his left hand.  I could tell he was a young man.  He was wearing only a pair of baby blue shorts & his t-shirt on his head.  He was about my height, but I probably had a good 15 lbs. on him.   

I stopped and turned around to face him and told him twice to go away.  He stared straight into my eyes and kept moving forward.  I had brought my umbrella with me to shade myself from the sun so lowered it between us and again said "go away" very firmly.  When he continued to move forward I screamed "help" at the top of my lungs.  This took him aback and he told me to "shhhh," but he then moved back over to the left side of the road.  He started talking to me in Spanish, but I couldn't understand what he was saying.  I told him "No comprende" and in English firmly stated not to scare me again.

We continued to walk down the road, with him in front, for about 10' and then turned off into the jungle again.  I was quite shaken & walked back to Mario's at my fastest pace!

I was very, very foolish to go somewhere so isolated by myself.  I have no doubt that if I had not turned around before he reached me, he would have put the rope he was carrying around me and I would have been at a severe disadvantage.  I could tell by his eyes that he meant to do me harm.  They are eyes I will never forget.  I think he expected me to be afraid and passive.  The fact that I never let my eyes leave his and I stood tall and spoke forcefully and screamed really, really loud stopped something really bad from happening to me.

I knew better than to leave myself so vulnerable.  Won't happen again.

On a much happier note, we have been offered an opportunity to manage Monkey Bay Marina.  We have accepted and will move the boat over their next week sometime.  Here's a few pics of the marina (thanks Hal).

August 30:

Not much is happening here on the river.  We are settled into Monkey Bay Marina and really enjoy it here.  It's a lot slower pace that Mario's Marina so I've been able to get some of my boat projects done.  Working on the websites & studying internet stuff at the W3C Online School.  We have been adopted by the marina dogs ..... 

We ran the Rio Dulce Poker Run a couple Saturday's ago and that was fun.  All the participants got to go to 8 of the marinas on the Rio, buy a drink & get a poker card.  All the travel was done by dinghy.  When they got back to Mario's, we opened their poker card envelopes and put together their poker hand.  Below are the lucky winners.   

If you looked at the first page, you know we bought another parrot.  Some of you will know that Stubbie our Parrotlet drowned in Isla.  We were heart broken.  But, Thane being Thane, decided that he HAD to have another bird.  After searching and searching, he found a Red Lored Amazon.  He was in a small store right next to Marim's store where we usually buy most of our stuff.  Thane went to town every day for two weeks to visit Paco.  I didn't want him as he is just sooo much bigger than Stubbie was.  But, for my birthday, Thane got Paco.  We've only had him about 3 weeks and he will let us touch him anywhere...under the neck, under his wings, hold his wings down, etc.  At night when we watch TV he lays on my stomach and lets me pet him like a cat.  In fact, he's a pain...wants attention non-stop.

Well, time to go play cards...  back from cards Deb from s/v Argo beat David, Judy & I big time!

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