Guatemala I – Livingston to Flores

The 45min boat ride from Punta Gorda (Belize) to Livingston (Guatemala) has been the most interesting border crossing so far. The tiny boat – called tiburoneta – was carrying 4 tourists, a local lady who gave us plenty of information, and a case of whisky that our skipper bought at the duty free. Who or what would have been saved in case of an emergency we’ll leave for you to imagine.

The blue stripes represent the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans. The motto reads “Libertad 15 Septiembre de 1821”, which is when Guatemala became independent from Spain, and the Quetzal is the national bird.

After all, the ride was quite pleasant and we set foot in steaming hot Livingston in late April. Livingston is located on the Caribbean coast of Guatemala and it can only be reached by boat.

Welcome to Guatemala!

We spent the rest of the day walking around town, trying the local dishes (keep an eye for our gastronomy section coming up soon!) and watching the locals socialising and playing sports at night time (too hot otherwise).

We thought that Belize couldn’t get more multicultural and that we would understand everything that the Chapines (people from Guatemala) would say… but we couldn’t have been further from the truth. Guatemala is home to the 3rd largest indigenous community in the world (behind Mexico and Bolivia, with more than 1/3 of its 14 million population) and around 20+ different languages spoken, Spanish being the second language.

As far as safety is concerned, the different gangs of ‘Los Maras‘ were our main concern. However, they’re mainly based in the city and don’t tend to come out anymore as the people are quite violent towards them.

I think they get it…

7 Altares is a nice excursion from Livingston. After a nice walk crossing a maya settlement and a rainforest you get to the natural pools that helped us to cool down. It was a shame that the rainy season hadn’t started yet so the waterfalls were a bit dry (we were only 8 hours early but of course no one knew that!).

The big thunderstorm and blackout met us as we were transferring photos to dropbox… but despite the annoyance, the rain was really welcome as we were able to sleep fresh.

The next day we took another tiburonera into Río Dulce (the only way to get to the rest of Guatemala) and we spent a couple of days in a hostel by the river.

Rio Dulce is supposed to be the best spot for boats to hide from the hurricaines that hit Central America

Our English&Dutch hosts told us a lot of interesting stories about the river, being the highway for narcos to transport drugs up north. In fact, they claimed that 95% of the cocaine that is later sold in the States has passed up the river.

Cliffs surrounding the river

Far from stressing them, they’re actually quite ‘thankful’ to the narcos as they keep the area safe and out of the TV news, which at the end brings them more tourists and less attention from the police! As you can imagine, keeping the area clean requires some bad-asses to do the job… Once every four years or so they run a cleaning spree…the last ended up with over 160 dead. Among them, robbers, criminals, rapists and assassins. We felt really safe at all times and it was really interesting to understand the different perspectives about drug traffickers of the people who actually live there.

Staying by the river was a great experience and we had plenty to do, from going kayaking…

… to exploring the local communities living by the river, swimming in natural hot springs, caving, clearing our pores in a natural sauna or swimming in phosphorescence at night. Every stroke filled the water with magic sparkles!

The only thing we missed was spotting the manatees…  but the early morning was beautiful as the fog invaded the river and the birds awoke.

Another boat ride finally set us on Guatemala mainland, in a tiny town consisting of a busy street packed with market stalls and chicken buses connecting the river to the other spots in the country.

Most of the tourists go straight to the Tikal ruins, but we decided to spend a couple of days in a Finca, half-way to the ruins. The little stopover was well worth it as we were able to meet some great people there: Adri & Lani, 2 volunteers working in the finca in exchange for accommodation and meals, and Ana & Mike, a Spanish-Irish couple that we’ve been sharing our journey with over the last week.

The finca also employs lots of locals in all sorts of activities, from farming, guiding tours and running the comedor. We were lucky enough to join Adri & Lani, Harry, Edgarcito (a straight mulleted 9 year old who wants to become a guide and would be quite suited to it since he never shut up) and Fifi…who would you believe was a great dane, on a walk to the caves in the farm.

Cueva Ixobel

The finca also runs a nice bar at night where we had the chance to meet some locals and some American soldiers from the special forces who were working in a base nearby. Funnily enough, when asked about what sort of work they were doing there, they got a bit awkward and gave different versions each time..

After sharing lots of travelling tips with our new friends, playing lots of card games (rainy season means quiet afternoons and finally, using blankets), ping pong and some blogging, we caught the next shuttle to Flores.

Flores is the base for visiting the Tikal ruins (coming in the next post), but also a tourist trap type town disguised with pretty buildings and clean streets…some of them flooding…

the water level rises every 50 years flooding the streets.

The nice thing is that Flores is surrounded by a lake and we were spoilt with some beautiful sunsets before exploring the ruins.

This is a summary of our quiet first week in Guatemala, stay tuned for 3 action-packed weeks coming soon!

Hugs,
Sal & Xavi