true life planet

Last off, we were in Quirigua, visiting a banana plantation on an impromtu tour…from there, we headed to the sweet lovely lakefront town of El Estor. To do this, we had to get a bus to Rio Dulce, and then board a hot, sticky chicken bus for the bumpy ride through K ´iche´ (for now on referred to as Quiche´in this blog) country.

When we finally arrived in El estor, we rather gratefully got off the bus in the center of town and walked to the best looking hotel in our guidebook-the Restaurante Ti´pico Chaaabil-which our book said had the best deal in town. It also said it was a bit overdone on the l¨log cabin¨look, but we didn´t think so. In fact, I found it wonderful-and true, strangely odd for it´s location, but still very cool. The entire room was paneled in wood, the sink was carved wood(even the faucet!) and you sort of felt like you were in a hotel in Michigan on the edge of the Great Lakes.

Once there, we wandered down to the eatery, and I tried the famous tapado. (If you come here, order early-it takes an hour and a half to prepare. I literally think they went and caught the fish for it during this time..) Tapado is a Garifuna speciality-it´s kind of like a stew with cocnut milk and a lot of fish. This time it also had a dead cooked crab perched on it, sort of looking like it was climbing out of the bowl…it is alittle hard to eat your meal when it is staring back at you. The soup itself was delicious though.

After lunch, we visited the office that manages the Polochic Refuge, an ecological and animal refuge that can only be reached from El Estor by boat, and made arrangements to visit there for 5 days.

What entries follow are the day to day entries of my experiences there. After the diary entries, there is an interview with Alfonso Prez, the local Qúiche´man who served as our guide and is the Quíche representative for the refuge.

gg

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