We Are in Guatemala!

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June 21, 2024 (and completed July 2, 2024)

Actually, we’ve been in Guatemala since June 3rd. We’ve been busy with projects, fun and just soaking up the culture.

We last visited Guatemala in 2018 (via airplane) and man oh man, has it changed. Much more affluent and the multinational corporations are beginning to invade. But, it is still very much Guatemala which is wonderful.

Why the Rio Dulce? It is a hurricane hole, a place that in general is not impacted by hurricanes. So, Caribbean boaters flock there during hurricane season; June to November. We also wanted to get Rincon painted and Rio Dulce is a very good place to get it done. About a 3rd of the price as the US, but they use the same products and the quality of the work is very good from talking and seeing others boats who have done so here. And, it turns out, it is a fun place to boot!

Checking in

We spent a lovely night across Amatique Bay from the mouth of the Rio Dulce (our destination in Guatemala with Rincon Feliz). Dropping our anchor for the night we could hear howler monkeys in the trees! Very cool, but sadly, those were the only howler monkeys we heard or saw during our time in the Rio Dulce (this time.) Just not in the right places at the right time to see them.

We were able to come in close to shore as the bay is quite deep until you get close to shore. The water crossing over from Belize was a bit rough as it is open all the way across the Atlantic. This piece of Guatemala sticks out and if you slip around behind it, it is very calm. A perfect spot for the night.

We had an early morning (0-dark-30) departure so we could cross the bar (sand bar that is) into the Rio Dulce at high tide which was around 5:45 am on June 3rd. The depth is only 5 – 6 feet and thus, important to time it for our 5 foot draft boat. There are lots of routes that folks have shared and we sort of averaged them to pick our path. We never saw less than 5 ft, 4 inches.

Coming back to Rincon from Livingston after checking in to Guatemala. We needed to get moving as the tide was changing and the water was getting a bit rough; tide against current of the river.

We hired an agent to manage our entry into Guatemala. It is just easier. Raul made the process simple. He showed up at our boat with the various agencies who looked at our documents. He then gathered the documents and headed to shore telling us to drop by his office in 2 hours to collect our permits and pay.

From the water Livingston seems a bit rough and ready. It is actually a nice town. There are no roads to Livingston so everything is brought via water. For a town of over 70,000, that is a lot of freight.
Definitely a bit more of a Caribbean influence than the inland Mayan culture so well known in Guatemala.

We launched Rinconsito, went to town, looked around a bit and had lunch. We tried to get enough money to pay Raul but the only ATM in town did not cooperate. Luckily my niece who lives in Guatemala (thank you Stina!) fronted us the funds and deposited them into Raul’s account. We collected our documents, put Rinconsito on the boat deck and headed up the Rio Dulce canyon.

Enjoying the Rio Dulce

The mouth of the Rio Dulce has a nearly 10 mile long canyon with 400 – 500 foot limestone cliffs covered with vegetation. A rather spectacular entrance to the Rio Dulce gulf ( El Golfete). El Golfete is the first lake you come to heading up the Rio Dulce. It is a large lake, about 10 miles long surrounded by mountains. We anchored here and spent a few days visiting some of the tributary rivers and just hanging.

The early part of the Rio is quite spectacular with the towering cliffs. We had traveled the river in a lancha back in 2016, but it was so exciting to do it in our own boat.
I woke Chicha up to see it as she often likes to watch the scenery. She was not impressed and went back to sleep.
There are quite a few traditional fishermen who paddle into the river and use either nets or pull up plastic bottle floats placed in the river. There are not lots of big fishing boats here yet, this small boat fishing provides seafood for a population of 16 million Guatemalans.
Our anchorage in Cayo Quemado in El Gofete after exiting the canyon portion of the river. Beautiful sunsets were available each night.

El Rio Lampara

We did several dinghy trips, my favorite being the length of the Rio Lampara. This river heads up through valleys and hills to the headwaters of the river. Reasonable birding along the way and little villages.

A pretty river wherre the water was deep until the very end. We could have easily taken Rincon up here.

When we reached the end, I wanted to visit the waterfall that feeds the river. The land was posted private property, but Carlos the caretaker of the finca agreed to take us. A short (very brisk) walk through the jungle on a little trail, and there we were.

Carlos leading us to the waterfall. We were glad there had not been rain as a few spots would ahve been very slippery.
Now that the Rio Dulce is getting rain, the waterfall is likely much more spectacular than it was during our visit. Where we are standing is underwater during the rainy season.
One of Carlos’ boats. The canoes do not have motors, but larger lanchas often do.

El Rio Tatin

We also took a short trip up the Rio Tatin. I had wanted to anchor at the mouth but various boaters suggested we should anchor near Cayo Quemado and just dinghy there. It was a reasonable plan, not because of the safety concerns folks had, but rather because the river was not very long or wide. The Rio Lampara would have been a better bet.

The mouth of the Rio Tatin. It was wide here but quickly became very narrow. The river was only a couple miles long where as the Lampara went on for miles.

Final pic of Cayo Quemado

On to the Town of Rio Dulce

We were ready to move closer to town. There were some things we still wanted to do around Cayo Quemado, but we’ll do them this winter when we return. This also gave us a head start in getting ready to haul the boat for the hurricane season and working with the yard to outline the work we wanted done.

RAM Marina

RAM (Richard A Monstein Marina) is Rincon’s home until November and was our home for a couple weeks. We were surprised at how organized, clean and professional it is. Much nicer than most of the yards we’ve seen in the US. They have a great reputation for fiberglass work and paint which is what we have on our agenda.

Our dock at RAM Marina. We were here for nearly 2 weeks.

We had a couple of weeks there, getting things lined up with the marina and experiencing the Rio Dulce from the water. It is quite a vibrant boating community with morning VHF radio announcements, flea markets, a thrift store supporting local community projects, vendors selling quality food products around to each marina and movie nights and BBQ’s. We only partook of some of them, but did reconnect with folks we’d met back in Mexico and Belize and some we’d only talked with via e-mail or text.

Video of grocery store

We are glad we arrived early as it took awhile to meet with the various craftsmen and the project managers and get the projects well defined. Our very poor Spanish at this point (but more than most boaters there) and the project managers good English did the trick in getting good solid fixed price quotes.

RAM has two roads with this double sided covered storage, plus a long row of uncovered concrete uncovered storage and two big areas of gravel storage. Plus maybe 15 – 20 covered in-water slips where I think even Rincon would have fit. Everything was very tidy.
They even have a small work area for customers with a drill press, vice and a press. Around the corner a boater was rebuilding their engines. Parts are not as readily available, but there are a couple stores (even a small West marine for you boaters). They can ship things in fairly quickly.

The yard has been quite accommodating to us; because we are spending a lot of money, we are easy to work with or because our new friends Mark and Christine who had lots of work done last year and are having more this year are well liked at the marina. One or all works for us. We get what we need!

Rincon being hauled. It is always a bit scary but they did a great job getting her out and blocked.
Rinconsito even got hauled on her own. She was off as she had been our transportation. It had been quite a few years since I’d driven a bot onto a trailer, but all when well. You can see Rincon ahead on the right. We then used our dinghy crane to move Rinconsito to a rollable cart wherre she is temporarily stored under a catamaran. next to Rincon.

Getting a Rental Car

When we leave Rio Dulce, we’ll load up the kittens and all our stuff (too much, we are learning to take less stuff back and fourth now that it is plane travel) and head to Antigua to visit my sister Patty and niece Christina for a week before we fly out. Taking the kittens on a shuttle was not going to work easily. We decided to go to Guatemala City for a day, rent a car at the airport and drive back to the Rio Dulce. Load everything up and head to Antigua.

Richard, the owner of RAM advised us to fly to Guatemala City. It is a 4 – 6 or more hour trip one way by car, depending on the traffic, protests, accidents, etc. The plane is just 1 hour. It flies from the Puerto Barrios military base to Guatemala City. Richard says he will pick us up and take us the hour to Puerto Barrios as he wants to go check on a home he owns there anyway. It’s about 3 times as much go by plane than bus, but it was fun and only about $150 USD total. Well worth it to shorten the day by half.

Our plane awaits boarding in Puerto Barrios The plane was nearly full coming into Puerto Barrios but only had 4 passengers back to Guatemala City.
It was fun sitting right behind the co-pilot. Just like one of those simulators.
A view of Puerto Barrios which is the major import/export port in Guatemala. A piece of the port is in the foreground. Livingston is on the other side of the mountains. You can see a piece of the mountains that break up hurricanes reaching into the Rio Dulce.
It was so cool to see the mountains and path into the Rio Dulce from the air. You can see El Golfete where we first anchored in the Rio Dulce.
I can’t resist showing you a picture of the valley we flew up from the Rio Dulce before going up and into the mountains to land in Guatemala City at 5000 ft.
Here you can see a piece of the road we took to get back to Rio Dulce.

To make things easier, we needed another giant suitcase to get things back to New Mexico. We were going to buy one while in Guatemala City, but Richard lent us one! We needed every inch of space of the 4 giant bags, two cat carriers and two backpacks! Embarrassing. We’ll bring Richard’s bag back when we return to check on Rincon; full of goodies we want to take to the boat.

Antigua

We loaded up the car and headed to Antigua. It only took us about 4 ½ hours which was nice. It was good to see Patty and Christina (we’ve seen them both in the US since 2018). So much has changed in Antigua. There were always good restaurants, but there is quite the foodie scene now (with local Guatemalan chefs) and several small shopping centers with lots of items one might expect in the US. Needless to say, we did lots of eating, a bit of shopping, got the cat papers the airline and Guatemala require for us to take our US cats back to the US (the US needs none of the paperwork) and did some repairs around their house.

There are some amazing fincas right in town that have been turned into high end restaurants and BnB’s. The food was very nice and that gardens were quite inviting.
Jim and I walked the neighborhood one morning. We’ve passed El Calvario (laid out in 1618, built in 1652 and partially destroyed by an earthquake in 1773) many times but never much thought about it. The doors were always closed. Today they were open so we went in. We were surprised that the temple is just a façade where the temple does not currently have a roof. It is now being restored as has been going on since the 19th century. There is a small museum and lovely gardens now. They have a ways to go.
A small piece of the garden.
Religion does not seem to be waning in Guatemala as it is in other places. Later on that same walk we noticed this small workshop.
One evening we had dinner with Magali and Andre whom we’d met back in Mexico. They were on a little road trip around Guatemala and also leaving their boat in the Rio Dulce for hurricane season. From our restaurant table we could see the inside of the Catedral San Jose, the large church on the main plaza. Built in the 1540’s, it too was destroyed by the 1733 earthquake. Side Bar: Called the Santa Marta earthquakes as the 1st was on the feast day of Santa Marta in May. The quakes, the largest being 7.5 and lasting until December, lead to the colonial capital of Central America being moved from Antigua to Guatemala City. The Cathedral of San Jose has only partially been rebuilt as is true of many of the old churches in Antigua.
The roads are much better than on our previous visit, but the traffic is just as congested.
We ate well at so many places in Antigua. Another local Guatemalan chef doing farm to table and foraging to create his menu. My niece Christina and sister Patty with us here. Joe, Christina’s boyfriend took this pic for us.

We Are Back in New Mexico

Our flight was not until 1 PM, but given that drive time from Antigua can be anywhere from 1 ½ hours to 6 depending on traffic, accidents, protests, you get the picture…., and not knowing what would really happen at the airport with the cats, we booked a hotel near the airport. Quite nice for not much money.

A view towards the airport from our hotel room. A bright sunny day for our flight from Guatemala City back to New Mexico. It gets cloudy every afternoon. We should be fine at 1 PM.

Next day all when well checking into our Delta flight with the kittens; even taking them out of their carriers and carrying them in our arms through the magnatrons at the airport with us. We paid for a lounge for the hour wait as it was so much quieter than the general boarding area. Only problem there was the kittens though they should be able to roam as it was so quiet and they had done their duty of being good. Sorry kittens.

Nik under my seat awaiting take off.

We had to then get on the plane and try and fly home. One does not really understand it all. We sit on the plane for a couple hours waiting for weather (not at the airport, but to the south), Then we taxi around the runways for awhile waiting for the weather. Then we go back to the gate to get more fuel and to wait longer. Then we back from the gate. Oh wait, the plane has a problem. Back to the gate. They fix the sensor problem and we taxi out again. By now we’ve been on the plane now for nearly 6 hours for a 3 hour flight. Luckily we were in 1st class and they fed us during the various waits.

After 6 hours of nothing, the kittens were getting pretty tired. I took Chicha to the bathroom to let her roam a bit, but she would not drink any water. She did enjoy getting out though.

I do have to admit, sometimes the storms looked a bit threatening, but other times it looked just fine. Other planes, large and small were taking off, just not us…

We managed to get to Atlanta around midnight. Well past any possible connections. I had managed to change to an early morning flight for us. We checked in with Delta and they verified our flight and seats, booked a hotel for us at their cost, gave us food vouchers good for 48 hours and off we went to our hotel for the night.

Our dusk departure from Guatemala City did provide pretty views of the clouds and volcanos. I believe Antigua is between the two big mountains Agua (closer) and Fuego (farther) in the back ground.

Sadly, we had to go through all the TSA checks, recheck our luggage, etc in Atlanta. The kittens had to come out of the carriers and they made us take their harnesses off! It was SO busy and SO noisy. The kittens clung to us. Extra crazy, the decided I had to take my shoes off (while holding a cat) as my phone was in my pocket when I first when through the magnatron and then they had to do the swipe test on on hands. Really? Nik did really well hanging on and my cat punctures and scratches are healing nicely.

We got home about 12 hours later than expected (June 28th) and man were the kittens ready! We are very proud of their 1st flying adventure. Nikki was a real trooper. A bit surprisingly, Chicha, the cool calm and collected kitten was more nervous, drooling profusely and having the poo and pee issues. Next time we’ll give her some happy drugs. A side bar; the vet in Guatemala told us the cats would do fine, we just needed to take a whiskey before we flew. So true!

What Next?

We are still unpacking, so many bags. We’ll take one or two short trips back to Guatemala to check on boat progress (sans kittens). It’s very hard for us to do boat projects when we can’t haul projects back and forth very easily, so hopefully we’ll be able to enjoy New Mexico time a bit more. This winter we are thinking of doing a loop through the southern Caribbean; the Greater and Lesser Antilles and Leeward Islands, provide they survive this hurricane season. Very disheartening to see such a strong early season. It also is painful to know that Beryl will hit places we have just visited, whether in Mexico or Belize. I believe we will get a test this year on how good of a hurricane hole the Rio Dulce really is.

One more cloud shot leaving Guatemala City.

Comments

We Are in Guatemala! — 4 Comments

  1. Was one of the bags you too the big rectangular sport bag I brought down with your blinds and stuff? Seems that would have been useful.

  2. Not clear why but I never thought much about how hilly/mountainous (sp) Guatemala is overall – really enjoyed the pictures from the plane

  3. Great to know you’re back in New Mexico. I was in Antigua in 93 when we did La Carrera de la Paz. It was a great experience. Hope to see you soon.

  4. Yes, we took it back. But, without the very stiff blind in it, the bag is really quite floppy. We now have some additional ginormous bags that cam back to the both with us in December.