Travels of the Bay family and the Yoda Van

Our next stop was the Caribbean Coast and the Rio Dulce area.  When we were leaving Semuc Champey we caught a bus with 2 Spanish girls and they had recommended a place called Finca Tatin near Rio Ducle.  Oddly enough, somewhere along the way I had picked up a flyer for Finca Tatin and we decided that is where we wanted to go.  Finca Tatin is only accessible by boat.  When we got to the town of Rio Dulce our first goal was to find a boat that would take us there.  There is no shortage of boats, but we wanted to make sure we got a fair price, so we asked around at a couple of people offering their services.  We finally found one that also had a parking spot for us, so we were set.  Matthias tried to call Finca Tatin to see if they had space for us.  The number on our flyer was out of service, but we decided to risk it anyway and hope they had room.  William found the boat ride too bumpy, but Julian couldn’t have enjoyed it more.  He had a huge smile on his face the entire way and kept pointing to things and chattering excitedly about them.  The water is sparkling green and surrounded on all sides by green jungle.  It is about an hour boat ride to Finca Tatin and we arrived safely and they had plenty of room.  In fact we were the only visitors at all.

We rented a bungalow right along the river for two nights.  William and Julian both squealed with excitement when they saw we would all be sleeping under nets!  Matthias and I weren’t so excited when we saw the spider the size of my outstretched hand on the wall above one of the beds.  When we arrived we were floored at how neat this place was.  This area was very different from what we expected it to be and definitely transcended all our expectations.  Both Matthias and I had a moment where we felt that just the opportunity to spend a few days here was one of those times that makes this whole trip worthwhile.

Finca Tatin is a great spot for relaxing.  There is a main area with hammocks, sofas, books and games for all to share.  The two dinners we ate there were probably the best food we have eaten since we came to Guatemala.  On the dock there is a rope swing you can use to jump out into the river.  You can also rent kayaks, there are nearby hot springs and lots of trails for walking in the jungle.  They only have electricity for about 4 or 5 hours.  The owner has a generator that he turns on when it gets dark, and shuts it off when everyone goes to bed.

We arrived in the early afternoon and went swimming.  Everyone except Julian had so much fun swinging out and jumping into the river.  The river was clean, very warm and a nice way to escape the humidity of the jungle.  That evening we had dinner, played some dominoes and went to bed early.  The rains that night were tremendous and the jungle is an active place at night.  The memory of the spider on the wall left me lots of bad dreams and a very restless sleep.

The next day we took a boat to Livingston after breakfast.  Livingston is also only reachable by boat and the stretch of river from Finca Tatin to Livingston was even more spectacular than the ride in.  We spent a few hours walking around this town, which is right on the Caribbean coast and definitely has a Caribbean feel.  Many of the slaves from Africa remained here and there is a large Garifuna population in Livingston.  It has a much different feel than any place we’ve been to in Guatemala.  We went swimming again that afternoon and later the owner offered to take us over to the hot springs.  The hot springs are just a hole in the side of the river wall where hot water comes out.  We pulled up to the dock and jumped right in.  It was very relaxing and we watched the sun set.

That evening we had dinner with the guests that had arrived during the day, a group that consisted of 2 Argentinians, a woman from Uruguay, a woman from the Canary Islands, a Swiss man and a girl from Israel.  It was so interesting to talk to all of them and see where they had been and how they were traveling.  Our friend from Israel has been traveling on her own for over a year.  One couple travels around the world in a catamaran.  The other couple has lived on their sailboat for a number of years and they support themselves by repairing sails on sailboats.  This woman (who grew up in Uruguay) was the daughter of a German woman and grew up speaking German.  She now speaks German with her 5 year old son, her husband who is from Argentina speaks Spanish with their son, and he just picked up English along the way.  Their son is tri-lingual and seen so much more of the world than most Americans.  It really would be interesting to follow everyone’s lives and see where we all are in 20 years.  I left wanting to spend more time with all of the people we had met here.  Luckily, though, we left relaxed and invigorated to continue our travels.

Matthias has put more pictures on the web here.

This entry was posted on Friday, October 27th, 2006 at 1:17 pm and is filed under Guatemala. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.