After another full on week at school I was busting to get out of Antigua so I signed up for the trip to Rio Dulce and Livingston along with 7 other students: 2 Swiss, 3 Americans, 1 Canadian and 1 Fin, ranging in age from 20 to about 50. Rio Dulce is about 6 hours from Antigua and a further hour up the river is Livingston, right on the Carribean coast.
Guatemala has a pitiful amount of Carribean coast and they want more from Belize. In fact, Guatemala doesn´t seem able to come to terms with the fact that Belize isn´t theirs, some maps kind of blur the border!
We arrived at Rio Dulce after dark and the setting was perfect. A hostel right on the edge of the river with a great bar and disco (sorry, that´s the word they use out here and I can´t think of anything cooler that fits) on a jetty sticking right out over the water.
The highlight of the trip was easily the boat ride up to the coast. Imagine bombing it up this enormous, totally calm river with jungle on either side, locals fishing in carved out boats, brilliant. I grinned the whole way and waved at everyone we passed. I wanted to let out a loud “I´m the king of the world” but I´m not sure my travel companions would´ve appreciated it. Sometimes on this trip I feel like I want to transmit what my eyes are seeing and what an experience feels like back to everyone at home, this was one of those times. Photos (I have some, but won´t upload them yet) just don´t get it across.
We stopped off at a couple of places along the way, a project where they help the local kids who are either orphans or living in extreme poverty. This was proper kids in rags type stuff, very difficult to see and even more difficult was the feeling of showing up at this place, in a speedboat, accompanied by 7 other tourists, all snapping away or videoing the whole affair, bit wrong but what can you do? I bought some stuff in the shop, is that me doing my bit?
Livingston, like Belize, feels like a Carribean island. The Garifuna people (Creole speakers, descended from Nigerian slaves) are here too and we were treated to some Punta rock during a lunch of fish straight out of the sea and on to the grill.
That night the disco was pumping and there were more locals than gringos, amazing! I danced a bit of salsa and merengue with some locals and even managed to hold a short conversation in Español with one of them.
So this was my first ever guided tour and as much as I enjoyed it, I´ve canned the idea I had of doing a month or so on a guided tour in South America. It´s great but you can´t please yourself and I´m just too god damn selfish and impatient for that. If you´re not waiting for someone to finish bartering for a souvenier you´re waiting for someone else who´s trying to find the bathroom. Travelling on your own is the way forward.
This week is all about the Spanish again, I have an exam on Friday so there´ll be no slacking off. Then Saturday I´m off to Nicaragua. Today I booked my flight from Costa Rica to Ecuador, they book up a while in advance so I had to vaguely suss out when I might want to do that and now I actually have a deadline, how exciting. I leave Costa Rica on 7 December, exactly 2 months after I arrived in Central America. So I have 2 weeks to do Nicaragua and Costa Rica before the Central American part of this adventure draws to a close.
By the way, I have so many emails to send to so many of you, but I have to do a couple at a time otherwise I´d spend all my time and money in internet cafes! Promise I´m not ignoring any of you, I love hearing from you all and will reply as soon as I can.
