Quest to See the World

I didn´t end up going to Finca Ixobel afterall. I took the bus to Poptun where i went to a restaurant named La Fonda Ixobel, owned by the same person. On the outside of the building it says ¨Information Finca Ixobel¨ so i went inside and asked the guy how much it is for a bed there, but he said that he couldn´t tell me, i´d have to take a tuk-tuk to the farm to find out. i asked if he had a phone number and he wrote down 2 of them for me and first said that he would call for me, but then 2 seconds later changed his mind. fine, so i called the numbers and was not able to get through with either one, so i said forget it and hopped on a bus to rio dulce 2 hours south. the transport was quite luxurious for being public. the first bus was like one of the larger busses they use in antigua for tourists and the second one was a greyhound type and i had both seats to myself. i felt spoiled and it was cloudy all day which kept the temperature down.

once in rio dulce i found bruno´s hotel and restaurant and got my dorm bed for $4.60, a big change from my nice, private room in flores. i got the top bunk. by this time i was pretty hungry and had gone over my budget in flores so i looked for a cheap place to eat. you can never fail with pupusas!!! 2 for 5 quetzales ($.66) and i also got a strawberry licuado for another 5 quetzales which is just strawberries blended with water and a bit of sugar. i asked for it to go and got it in a plastic bag with a straw, strange, but it works.

bruno´s is an okay place to stay because it has the restaurant right on the water where guests can hang out, but it tends to be a hang out for retired people living on and traveling around on their sailboats. you hear reggae and english there. i sat on the end of the dock reading about costa rica and panama in preparation for Dave´s arrival in a few weeks. there was a conveniently placed light right at the end of the dock so i could stay out there for a while after dark. if anyone is traveling to rio dulce, you might want to stay at the backpacker´s hostel-hotel on the other side of the bridge. it seems to be better since there aren´t the retired sailboat people there and it´s on the water too. i had a pretty relaxing night and went to bed early.

yesterday morning i woke up and bought some snacks, tp and roach spray since i read that finca tatin is not a place for people with bug fobias, and i don´t really like big spiders or scorpions which can be found there. i think the fact that i saw a HUGE spider in the place where i stayed near palenque in mexico had something to do with purchase of the bug spray. by saying huge, i mean huge, like the diameter of a very large orange, and it had pretty thick legs! i got on the boat around 10am armed with my bug spray for my stay at the jungle lodge and was on my way. it was a relaxing little ride down the river and we stopped at some hot springs along the way, but i didn´t swim.

finca tatin is such a nice little place. the only access is by boat and the electricity is on from 530-1030pm. there were only 8 of us staying there and they have communal dinner, so if one hasn´t gotten to know the other travelers by then, it´s a good opportunity to do so. i arrived around noon, picked my dorm bed that had a mosquito net around it, talked with some of the others and went for a walk through the jungle. at first it was fine, but then it kept getting more and more dense-it was a bit scary being by myself, especially when i heard something really big run through the brush nearby. i was hoping it was a jaguar, but i didn´t get a good look. i eventually came to a stream with some small waterfalls where there were a few people having a picnic. i crossed the stream and didn´t see the trail markers anymore, so i asked a mean looking man with a big machete where the village was (which was my destination) and he said that it was on the other side of the stream which is where i just came from. i couldn´t see anymore trail markers, so i turned around and went back to the finca and decided to rent a kayak for a bit. I was paddling around and passed some little girls in their cayucos which are hollowed out trees made into canoes, they asked me my name and wanted to share theirs. i then paddled up to the store on stilts and bought a pepsi. i think that a good number of the people living around there have probably never seen a car because they use boats to get around and if they don´t leave that area, they´ll never see one. it was a nice little excursion. i would´ve liked to have gone to a natural reserve where there are some manatees, but it was quite far to go by myself, so i stayed close to home.

when i got back i worked on my ping pong skills with claire, carl and jason and then did some reading up on livingston and honduras, my next destinations. it´s kinda weird to me that some people can just ly around a place for days not doing anything. i know that that´s what vacation is all about to some people, but i get bored too quickly if i´m not doing stuff. i also can´t believe that i met a girl there who´s traveling with her dog that she brought here from germany! he goes on the boats and busses with no problem apparently. i asked her if the dog would pee on my stuff if i left it on the floor of the dorm and she assured me that he wouldn´t, and he didn´t, but i just wanted to make sure because that would really stink! i just can´t imagine traveling with a dog, and she´s going to be doing it for 7 months!!!

at 7pm we all ate dinner together which was quite nice. 3 of the people staying there are outdoor guides and they travel all over the world doing rafting and biking trips with super rich people. they go to cambodia, belize and africa and get paid to take people on these trips, not bad. it would be really difficult though, working with those people who complain about the smallest things and don´t acknowledge or care about what the people in the countries they´re visiting have to deal with their whole lives.

after dinner we all played cards for a while and then went to bed before lights out. luckily i didn´t find any spiders or scorpions in my bed or even have to use my spray. there´s a sign up that says ¨if you need us to remove a spider or scorpion from your bed, please let us know before 7pm.¨ well, what do you do if it appears at 7:05? when we were playing ping pong sometimes the ball would go flying into the edge of the forest (the place is all open air with just a roof) and when i would go to get it these really big colorful beetles would go running into their holes. they were a bit creepy so i´d always poke with a stick before stepping. i didn´t want to stay there any longer because everyone spoke english and listened to music in english and i wasn´t practicing my spanish skills or learning much about the culture here, so i went on my way once again.

this morning i got a private boat, not on purpose and not expensive, to livingston on the caribbean coast. it´s very different here. there´s a mix of normal looking, spanish speaking guatemalans and garifuna people who are descendents of slaves from long, long ago and they also speak spanish, but speak english patois to each other. the two groups of people seem to be quite segregated in this little town. i´m only staying here one night and moving on to honduras tomorrow, probably to the town of tela on the north coast. i was going to try to take a train ride from omoa, but from what i hear from other travelers, it doesn´t seem to be running, surprise, surprise. the place where i´m staying tonight is called casa de la iguana and the dorm section is only 3 weeks old so all of the beds are new and clean. it´s $4.60 again and i have a bed right beside the window with a fresh breeze and view of the rio dulce. we´re having communal dinner at this place tonight too. i like that because i get to meet people and get travel tips. i already changed my plans based on someone´s tips, maybe i will again, who knows. i head out tomorrow morning on a boat at 630am, then a short ride to the honduran border. i should be in nicaragua by the beginning of next week where i want to volunteer and take a week of spanish classes. hopefully they have language schools there too. if not, maybe the following week in costa rica before Dave arrives.

I tried to upload more pics, but the site seems to be having problems right now so i´ll try again tomorrow in honduras. hopefully i´ll have better luck. i´m going to update my map too really soon. miss you and talk to you all later.

Tags: Central America 2007, finca tatin, Guatemala, livingston, rio dulce

This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 17th, 2007 at 6:09 pm and is filed under Central America 2007. 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.