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Coban to Rio Dulce, 4 buses and 5hrs of travel. Takes you from the highlands to the mouth of one of Guatemalas biggest rivers. The longest bridge in Central America traverses the river and the town straddles both sides. The town at first looks like a dump, with more time though you realise that there are quite a few nice places in the town, and nearby quite a few things to see and do. We had wanted to nip over to Livingston, a coastal town only accessible by boat, but at $10 each way we decided that it was too expensive for a day trip, plus we were a little hungover. We decided that rocking in a small boat for an hour or two probably wasn't the best medicine.

Rio Dulce is big with the yachties, many yachts are moored all around the river. Chatted briefly to a guy who asked me to leave my email address because I had mentioned that I would like to crew a yacht sometime and he was probably sailing the 5 1/2 month trip to Australia sometime in the new year. I'm not quite ready for that kind of adventure yet, but I hope to pick up some kind of work on a yacht in Auckland, New Zealand, maybe a week or two. Test how seasick I get before embarking on something longer.

Lizette had decided to join us for the trip Tikal and despite a brief detour via Copan, Honduras (not Coban - easy mistake though) met us in the Rio Bravo Restaurant right on time as arranged by email (entitled "WE'RE IN COBAN!!!!") a few days before.

We stayed at the Hotel Backpackers, run by Casa Guatemala, a charity that runs an orphanage nearby. The profits from the hotel and bar go to the charity. People sleep in a large dormitory in an airy open room, there's a cool bar overlooking the river. Gallo - Guatemala's beer - is only 10Q, about 80p.

Our tight schedule required us to visit something each day, around Rio Dulce we had several choices, the easiest for us to visit were the Hot Spring Waterfall and the Lago de Izabel. Getting on a chicken bus to El Estor at about 12pm, that eventually left around 12.30pm about 45mins journey takes you to the junction for Hotel Pariso and the hot spring waterfall. A 10min walk through the jungle takes you to the section of a river where the waterfall cascades in. On route I saw leaf cutter ants walking in lines carrying small sections of vegetation back to base. Due to having watched numerous wildlife documentaries on TV I know that these sections of leaves are taken deep in to the ants hive and chewed into a pulpy mash. The pulpy mash then cultivates small mushrooms that only grow in this exact environment, the mushrooms are then eaten by the ants - amazing.

To be honest the river looked pretty rough to me, I was thinking twice about the swimming section of the visit. The jungle paths and the misty sunlight through the vegetation down to the waterfall were enough. We met the days other tourist, Debbie from London, she'd already swam across so we had to as well. I'm very glad I did, the water from the waterfall was like a natural shower and the river water was cold, a really interesting experience. Behind the waterfall were some interesting looking caves, didn't have the torch so didn't explore.

Back at the hostel (sorry hotel) we rested. Lizette spotted a spider, a huge 5 inch across beasty, a few inches above Sharons head. After calmly moving away from the spider we took photos - Sharon and Spider, Ali and Spider - Lizette wasn't quite as stupid and went nowhere near it. I was trying to find a really big glass and piece of cardboard so I could capture it and take it to the jungle, but Lizette had gone off to find a professional. It could be dangerous or poisonous or something. The professional arrived with a torch and a spray can - bug spray. He squirted the spider which leapt into the air, and scurried to the nearest dark corner - I haven't ever seen anyone deal with a spider in such a stupid way - we spent the next 30mins searching for the beast. Inside packs, bed spreads... everywhere. No one who knew about the spider slept well, well I did.

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