Day 17: St. Thomas De Castilla, Guatemala

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Today we had a most interesting field trip. We disembarked from our ship and immediately got onto a smaller covered boat that took us on a 45 minute trip over to the Rio Dulce Canyon. We were lucky enough to watch dolphins cavorting as we sped across the open water towards our destination. Rio Dulce is a river with heavy tropical vegetation right down to the shore. There is no access to this area by road. Birds were everywhere! Beautiful white egrets posing against the green of the forests were especially stunning.

This is an area where Mayan families still live fairly traditionally - there is no running water or electricity. All along the shores we saw their homes - small, fairly open enclosures with thatched roofs, usually with a line of brightly coloured clothing hanging outside. Small children could be seen playing in the water or in the hand carved wooden canoes they've traditionally used. At one point we were approached by young children in small canoes - they offered wares such as wooden spoons or small zippered cases made out of coconuts, all for "only five dollah".

We were taken under a rock overhang they call the hanging gardens, so we had a rock wall on one side of us, and hanging vegetation on the other. Fresh water was dripping down from the rocks - apparently this is one place the Mayans will come to to get their water. Our next stop was at some sulphur hot springs. Then we arrived at a Mayan school called Ak Tenamit, which you could probably look up on the internet. After following a winding uphill path through the forest, we came upon several very large thatched roof buildings. This school, way out in the tropical forest, is school for 500 Mayan children from 120 Mayan villages. The children stay at school for three months, then go home for a two week visit, then again back to school. Most of the girls wear traditional Mayan dress, while the boys wear T-shirts and pants. This school has no electicity, so the school rooms we went into were quite dark. We also went into the kitchen area, where we saw the big hand grinder used to make cornmeal. We saw three Mayan women making mounds of tortillas which were then baked on the wood stoves. On another stove were three large pots boiling away - one with beans, one with rice and one with coffee. Finally we went into the lunch room/auditorium where we saw a beautiful marimba, which three young men volunteered to play for us. It was great!

Then, back into our boat, and over to the town of Livingstone, also accessible only by boat. We had some time to wander the town (lots of people selling merchandise to the tourists), then back to the dock to catch our boat back to the ship. While waiting for our boat, we saw a provisions boat come in. Locals arrived with very beat up trucks, to load sacks of bananas, crates of eggs and tomatoes, new bikes, etc. Just watching that happen was very entertaining. This has been another favourite outing for us! Back to the ship to strip, shower, and spend time recovering from the heat of an outing in the tropics.

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