Last time I left you, I was at the Casa Perico in Rio Dulce relaxing in a newly acquired hostel room. I told you I was thinking of hitting up the complimentary kayaks and I did just that, although kayak may be too grandiose a term for the crude dugout canoes with no seats and wooden paddles that the hostel offered.
But proper kayak or not, I made a jaunt around the surrounding waterways, encountering some difficulty navigating in my cumbersome vessel the narrow channels of open water in the dense mangrove forest until a hotel employee passing in a motor boat told me to sit “más atrás” or farther back in the boat. After making that adjustment, I discovered that keeping control of the kayak was much easier. Boy did I felt stupid.
That night, we ordered dinner from our hotel. I went with the spaghetti carbonara while several others went with a burger with fries. The food was pretty good until we dipped into the stores of hot sauce by the bar; then suddenly it became really good. Everyone tried some hot sauce expect for Angela who is a wimp and doesn’t like spicy foods.
The dinner was particularly special for Travis and I, as we were reunited with an old fling, Marie’s Sharp’s Habanera Sauce, with whom we spent one very intimate week in Belize, before we left thinking we’d never see her again. But, lo and behold, she showed up in Rio Dulce and old feelings and desires were rekindled. Suffice to say, Travis and I wholly surrendered our bodies to the throes of habanera passion.
After we had exhausted ourselves with an evening of habanera hedonism, we couldn’t help but want more; I seized the moment by stuffy that saucy tart Marie in my gym shorts pocket, absconding with her to my room where I could have her all to myself. Travis and I justified my kidnapping with the logic that we would appreciate that biting wench considerably more than any other suitor or condiment pirate.
Later that night we tried to get our work-in-progress band with its work-in-progress name, “The Fuck Before Time III” together to iron out some songs. We discovered that we needed a substantial amount of additional practice and/or training, or at least so guitar tabs in front of us to be worth a damn, but it was nice simply to have a guitar in my hands again after four months of sparing the world the ensuing auditory punishment.
Exhausted from a full day of traveling that started at 3:30 in the morning, I called it a night early and slept for nine plus solid hours.
In the morning, we caught a lancha to Livingston at 9:30 a.m. The boat took us on a tour of several notable attractions on the river. We saw a castle, lots of birds, a water lily garden where precious little wide-eyed kids canoed around us in convenient photo opportunities, a sulfur-y hot springs and a canyon. The two-man crew of the boat had a bit of trouble keeping their mutinous motor going and we stalled a few times while they repaired it.
We arrived at Livingston docks around noon we were promptly swarmed by a small but boisterous group of hustlers trying to convince that the hostel they were promoting was the best. We let ourselves be carried away by a garifuna man with dreads and a Terrell Owens jersey who kept yelling, “Rastafari!” at the slightest provocation. He promised we could take us to a place that would let us stay for 35Q a night. I should explain that the garifuna people are black Caribbean people who ended up in Livingston and other places on Central America’s Caribbean coast after they escaped from slavery. They have kept their culture distinct from Guatemala’s other cultures and one of the main draws in Livingston is to see a Garifuna beach celebration complete with polyrhythmic drumming, dancing, and special mystery rum infused with medicinal herbs. Unfortunately we didn’t get the chance to witness that, but we can attest that Livingston had the highest concentration of black people we had seen in Guatemala. We could probably count the others we had seen on one hand.
Rasta mon, as I will call him since I don’t remember his name, and his friend in a Pittsburg Pirates cap took us the Casa de la Iguana, a sweat-inducing fifteen minute walk from the docks. The staff came out to show us around and we began the lengthy process of figuring out rooms. While we were choosing, rasta mon offered us some of his medicinal rum and hit on our females. Ultimately, four of us decided to share a two-person room called “Sex on the Beach” which was in the attic of one of the buildings because it cost us only 20Q each, while two others shared a single dorm bed and the final two were in hammocks.
Rasta mon offers Angela some of his special rum.
Rasta mon and his friend were expecting a big commission for bringing eight guests to the hotel, but our frugal ways thwarted them, as the hostel couldn’t offer much for guests that paid only Q170 in total by squeezing into two beds and two hammocks. Rasta mon yelled something like “I’ll cut your throat!” at the Iguana staff who only laughed.
While rasta mon may have worn on us after awhile, the Iguana staff made a good impression from the start. When we arrived three of them, Corey, Matt and Rad Matt were strewn about on couches watching The Office, a luxury we have been denied during our stay in Guatemala as we can’t get the episodes on cable or the Internet. They apologized for their lack of energy and explained that they had been up until 7 in the morning partying. They were charming even in their depleted states.
Matt, a bald but proudly so gringo ex-pat (think Moby but slimmer) showed us our rooms. Corey, a gringo world traveler, who kind of looked like a dark haired Patton Oswalt, explained to us how the hostel worked and opened up tabs for us. Rad Matt, the lone Brit of the bunch in glasses and bad teeth sat on the couch while the other two made fun of him. Corey claimed he got the name Rad back in the day when he was a techno DJ performer under the name Radical, which he categorically denied.
Corey gave us the down low on the city and told us about the Seven Altars, a series of waterfalls 8 kilometers from town. He told us that unfortunately, the wet season hadn’t gotten its feet turning yet and the river was flowing as a trickle rather a roar, but it was still worth seeing.
We decided to eat lunch at a little hole-in-the-wall place that offered meals for 10Q each and the head out to the Seven Altars. The plates of rice and ground beef were nothing special but that saucy temptress Marie saved the day, accenting the bland flavors.
We opted to take a taxi as far as we could on the path to save time, but we didn’t know how to going about doing that until a friendly Mexican lady with ample arm pit hair who told us that every car in town was a taxi and pointed us in right direction.
We were able to secure two taxis for the eight of us and it was only a 15-minute ride to the bridge where we had to get out and walk the rest of the way along the beach. We let the warm waters of the Caribbean lap up against our feet as we walked. When we reach the altars we paid a garifuna man in a hammock 10Q each to enter the site and went on our merry way. The river was rather sedated and water barely creeped over the falls. We navigated the slippery rocks upriver until we reached the biggest waterfall, where we hoped to cliff-jump into the pool below. I hopped in the cool refreshing pool to test out the depth and discovered that once you where five feet from the cliff-face the water was quite deep, so you only had to make sure you got a good jump to clear the jagged rocks hiding close to the wall. We all did it although I, for one, was quite nervous I would slip and fall into the shallows below. Luckily we were all sure-footed.
The river was rather tame at the Seven Altars.
We took a taxi on the return too and went to the Internet café to check on e-mails. We realized it was happy hour at the hostel bar so we went back and took advantage. Since we saved so much on food we didn’t feel bad about splurging on a few drinks. We couldn’t help but order a drink called Dr. Pepper which is half a beer and half a coke mixed together. You drop a shot of Amaretta in it and chug the whole drink. Surprisingly it tasted exactly like Dr. Pepper.
For dinner we got a delicious meal of shish kabobs, coconut rice and salad for Q30. We sat with a young lady from Manchester named Catherine, with whom we had great fun shooting shit about politics and differences in US and British language use. In celebration of our last night in Guatemala we all did a tequila shot and a crack whore (don’t worry mom it’s a drink not a disease infested prostitute/junky).
Unfortunately we planned to leave at 6 the next morning for Honduras and had to cut our night short. Pictures to come with this post, I just don't have the time or patience right now.
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