Livingston y Rio Dulce

Eva y Mary se fueron ayer, asi que nosotros cuatro seguiremos camino a Tikal. Despues de pasar un par de semanas bastante movidas, yendo de un lugar a otro, ahora estamos preparandonos y descansando en una marina llamada Nana Juana. Estamos en Rio Dulce. El fin de semana fuimos en una lancha a Livingston, en la costa del Caribe. En camino pasamos por diferentes rios, cascadas, lagunas, aguas termales, y antes de llegar al pueblito el rio serpentea un canion que nos dejo maravillados. Toda esta zona esta llena de diferentes tipos de garzas, comoranes, y mis favoritos; los pelicanos. En Livigston nos quedamos en una posada (del Delfin) y a pesar de que en menos de dos horas uno puede recorrer todo el pueblo, nos quedamos tres dias. Aquí viven ladinos, mayas y los garifunas, que lamentablemente estan mas que marginados. Una maniana conocimos a un musico garifuna que nos explico el verdadero origen de su pueblo, y su triste realidad actual. Livingston atrae a muchisimos turistas promoviendo desde la comida, hasta la musica garifuna, pero de mas esta decir que ellos son los ultimos en beneficiarse de ello. Los pobres ya estan desplazados del pueblo mismo, y a muchos se les ve con pequenios puestos de artesanias, y pidiendo lo que sea en las calles.
Uno de esos dias fuimos a hacer una caminata a un lugar llamado Siete Altares, a unos cinco kilometros del pueblo. Se trata de siete saltos de agua fresca, en medio de la selva. A pesar de que la caminata en si fue larga, y que nos aburrimos de ver basura durante todo el camino por la playa, fue refrescante el banio que nos pegamos. En camino a las cascadas, tambien nos topamos con una viborita verde (foto) tranquilamente colgada de una palmera. Al volver nos tomamos una rica sopita de gallina que tambien fue mas que gratificante. Esta zona culinariamente hablando, tambien es muy diferente al resto de Guatemala. Aquí usan mucho la leche de coco y el curry, que combinado con mariscos, y platanos son mas que ricos. Asi que se pueden imaginar que mas de una vez nos mandamos unas ricas sopitas de camaron! Uno de los platos tipicos llamado tapado es una sopa con todos estos ingrdientes. El domingo regresamos a Rio Dulce, despues de despedir a Eva y Mary, para encarar esta nueva etapa. Aquí, en la marina conocimos a unos australianos que estan recorriendo el mundo con sus dos hijas de cinco y tres anios en un catamaran. Ayer nos dieron un tour de su “casa” y quedamos con ganas de viajar de esta manera cuando vimos como viajan. Despues fuimos a comer unas pizzas al pueblo con ellos y alli a Mateo le cortaron el pelo. A la noche cocinamos una pasta en la combi, y ahora despues de un rico cafecito, estamos comenzando a empacar para salir a las ruinas de Tikal.

Eva and Mary left to go back to Ottawa yesterday, so once again it is just the four of us and we are in Rio Dulce trying to get organized for the next leg of our journey. Here is an update of the last few days: we left the westy parked safe and sound at a marina/hotel complex called Nana Juana, and all took a boat tour up the river to Livingston on the Caribbean coast. The guide took us first to see a small fort built by the Spanish to protect from pirates coming in from the coast, right where the river meets Lake Izabal. Then we cruised by a small island called Isla de Pajaros which was full of cormorants, egrets and big white herons, visited the Laguna de las Flores (also filled with cool birds hopping around on lily pads), and a hot water spring that flows into the river, all the while admiring people as they paddled around in their amazing dugout balsawood canoes. The river eventually narrows through a big canyon, with cliffs and trees on both sides, and the bird- watching there was pretty spectacular. In Livingston we especially enjoyed watching the pelicans with their disproportionate anatomy, and who seem to have taken over the boats floating in the harbor. We stayed at a little place called Posada del Delfin for three nights, where we just hung out in hammocks, took a hike to a place with waterfalls/freshwater pools 5 km along the beach called Siete Altares, where we saw a brilliant green tree snake on a palm tree, and got to know the town. It is a small and fairly grungy place and it is too polluted to swim in the water there, but it is fascinating culturally (insert rant about plastic bags, bottles, shoes, and other miscellaneous garbage that constanly washes up on the Caribbean shores….) There is a real mix of ethnicities here, with the town being divided into the Mayan, Ladino, and black Garifuna cultures (there is also an Asian element here). The Garifunas are especially interesting, as it is the only place in Guatemala where they live and they are marginalized (even more than the Mayans, and that is saying something!). Guide books play up the Garifuna element, and restaurants and business on the main tourist drag also take advantage of tourist interest in the culture while apparently the people themselves are quite discriminated against. There are of course different versions, and I am sure that the Ladinos and Mayans have their own perspectives, but it is pretty clear that not many of the people benefiting economically are Garifuna and that they have been pushed back further into the outskirts of the town. Next door to our hotel was a place that rents cabins that has a pretty good restaurant, and there we tried a soup that is advertised as Garifuna food (but that a man told us really is not) called Tapado, which is a seafood and fish soup with coconut milk and plantain – delicious! Another day Gustavo tried a “coco loco,” which is basically fresh coconut water mixed with rum (served in the coconut, of course). Another neat thing about Livingston is that they speak Q’eqchi Maya, Garifuna, Spanish and English so when you walk down the street you hear all kinds of languages. We woke up at six in the morning on the last day and took Eva and Mary to the main dock so they could head out to Puerto Barrios. After seeing them depart, squished into a loaded down boat, we went and had a sad breakfast of coconut bread and a cappuccino at the hotel next to ours. Teo and Ariel had one last game of fusball and played the marimbas for a while and we left at 9:30 am. On the boat trip back we stopped at some of the same places as before, plus the Tatin river where there was a place in the jungle where the river begins that sells artesanias made by a Mayan women’s cooperative, and where we bought a small bowl made out of banana husks. Once we got back to Rio Dulce we settled in to relax by the pool at Nana Juana for a few days to get used to being just the four of us again: the people running the place here have been really kind to us and don’t charge us very much to park here and use the facilities. Rio Dulce is an interesting place in itself, filled with “yachties” who come here during hurricane season because it is the safest place to be in the Caribbean at that time. The town itself, just a tiny strip along the road, is surprisingly well-provisioned – surprising until you realize just how many foreigners live here and all along the river! There is an Australian couple with two gorgeous little girls staying here at the marina who have been in the area for about a year already. Yesterday we were lucky enough to get a tour of their catamaran, which is very cool: next time we want to tour the world in a boat like that! We also went out for lunch with them to a place in town called the Sun Dog Café, owned by a friend of theirs from Holland, which had good pizza. Mateo was excited because he got a ride over there in their dinghy, and he also got a fancy haircut from the café owner’s Irish girlfriend. On the way back, the girls got a ride in our westy over the bridge (which is apparently the longest one in Central America). Today we are planning to head to the Tikal ruins in the Peten jungle (yay – more howlers!) and then probably on to El Salvador. We were thinking of going to the Bay Island of Utila in Honduras to do some more snorkeling first, but apparently there has been a lot of flooding recently and the roads in Honduras are in really bad condition.