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Published: February 22nd 2006
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On a mission to find hot springs
True to form, I am being towed along... After abandoning our epic sea voyage from Honduras to Guatemala we needed to make our way back overland to Livingston and return to our original itinerary. As we headed off at dawn on the ferry from Utila we were greeted by clear skies and calm seas and I had this nagging feeling that the weather would be like that for weeks to come.
Some of the best fun we had in Honduras was as we were traveling around the country and we really enjoyed our journey from Utila to the small holiday resort town of Omoa. We bumbled our way across a fair chunk of Honduras in coaches, collectivos and chicken buses (we even managed to squeeze in a cyclo ride along the way!). Our Honduran travel mates were pretty friendly and there is certainly something encouraging about a nation when a foreigner can get on a bus full of local and mumble "Buenas Tardes" and have the whole bus scream back at you in unison "¡BUENAS TARDES!"
According to the Lying Planet Omoa is a town that wealthy Hondurans flock to for its idyllic beach setting. Certainly it's by the beach, whether I'd describe a kilometre of black
Mosquito protection
At a restaurant in Omoa. I was assured by the waiter that hanging plastic bags of water from the ceiling is the best method of keeping mosquitoes away. sand speckled with garbage as "idyllic" though. .. But we had fun enough sitting in a beach-side restaurant watching rich Honduran children being dragged along by a boat as they sat on one of those huge inflatable bananas.
We finally escaped out of Honduras the next day and alas there are no pictures of me kissing the Guatemalan soil but lets just say we were pleased to be back.
Livingston is a town only accessible by boat and it certainly did seem to be a world away from a lot of the other parts of Guatemala we had already visited. A large part of the population is made up of Garifuna who are the black Guatemalans. Their ancestry is traced back to shipwrecked slaves en route from Africa and Caribbean islanders. They speak a different language to the rest of Guatemala and have purchased heavily into the Rastafarian traditions (I saw Bob Marley brand cigarette papers on sale in one of the shops - now that is cool).
Positioned at the mouth of the Rio Dulce it seemed to promise a special Caribbean hideaway - however in reality the town was tired and rundown, filled with dilapidated
Livingston
The beach looking a bit grey. buildings and people sitting idly around the streets.
My one highlight was when I had an argument with a woman who wanted to braid my hair ("Rasta style, mon"). I took off my cap and demonstrated to her that y hair was way too short for any type of salon style manipulation. She insisted otherwise. Soon it descended into her tugging tufts of my hair and each of us yelling "pelo corto" (short hair) or "pelo largo" (long hair) at each other. I think the rest of the Guatemalan 5 (and the rest of the street) thought I had gone a bit mad.
Foregoing more than one night in Livingston we boated up the Rio Dulce to a small hostel in the jungle called Finca Tatin. The scenery accompanying the ride up the river was dramatic. The jungle swept all the way down to the riverbank and we jetted through the green canyon with dozens of different birds following our progress.
Finca Tatin was a great experience. We pulled up to the wharf and were greeted by the hostel's two Dobermans. They were such beautiful dogs and they followed us around as we got accustomed to our
Rio Dulce
Motoring up the river towards our new home. new jungle surroundings. The hostel was located on a tributary of the Rio Dulce and offered a host of different activities for us to go wild with. While Julian and James went off to explore a cave, Linda, Ben and I sloshed into kayaks and paddled our way up the main arm of the river in search of hot springs embedded in the side of the riverbank. We didn't spot them so much as smell them - the sulfur tones acting as well as any sign post (unless you are nasally challenged like Ben and Linda) and we spent a good hour or two sitting in the hot, hot water of the river. We chatted to Valerie, a 50-something massage therapist from New Mexico, USA who had sold all her possessions and moved to Belize to ply her wares there. She spoke like a 16 year old Californian and her phrases of "cool man" and "really heavy" were interrupted now and then as boats of tourists would come by, stare at us sitting in the water, stick their big toes in to prove to themselves that, yes, it really was hot water down there an then motor back to Livingston.
Welcome to the Jungle
The hostel's dog welcomes us as we dock. On our return home I raced a local kid in his dugout and won handsomely (I was so proud). Every so often kids as young as 4 or 5 would jump into their tiny canoes and paddle out to us in the middle of the river and say hello and ask our names.
That night the hostel ate dinner as one and we enjoyed another game of UNO. The stares of the other guests suggested that perhaps our games had evolved into a hyper-competitive battle of wits and personalities rather than just a fun way to pass the time. As the cries of "cheat", "liar" or "bastard" rang out the heaviest darkness I've ever (not) seen fell over the jungle. By the time the electricity went out you couldn't tell the difference between having your eyes opened or closed.
Of course, in the tradition of my Central American adventure, as I tucked myself into my cabin that night, shrouded by my mosquito net, the rain began to fall and pounded the thatched roof overhead all night.
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Yvette
non-member comment
Hyper Competitive Gatland? No!
But was there a hissy fit like the time you LOST to Ross in Backgammon?!