What to do in Río Dulce ?

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After a very bad 4 hours bus ride from Flores, without AC or a WC in the bus and only 1 toilet stop, we finally arrived to Río Dulce. There we took a taxi boat to our hostel (Dreamcatchers Eco Lodge), which is situated quite far from the mainland.

We loved the place on first sight ! It was a beautiful open hostel in the middle of nature, just on the river bank, monkeys and birds everywhere around. :-D Anja and me took a flying tent and Skander a bed in the dorms. The hostel is open, you’re always sitting outside and you can always enjoy the beautiful nature there. The owner, Liesel, was really nice and welcoming, just as her staff. They have a really good restaurant there and the food is just amazing.

After arriving, we first had lunch, because we hadn’t eaten anything else than cookies yet. I had a shrimp ceviche (delicious!) and they had vegetarian pasta and ravioli. After lunch, we immediately went swimming in the river in front of the hostel and had a lot of fun.

In the evening, I ate the ravioli (black ravioli, coloured with ink of squid) filled with shrimp and they were really good. For dessert, we had the best chocolate cake I have had in a long time and we had some really good wine to go with it. A real feast ! ‹3



That night, it started raining heavily and even if the tent was quite comfortable, I left and went to a dorm in the middle of the night, because it rained inside the tent...

Neither of us slept well that night because we all got wet (Anja in her tent and Skander in his open dorm as well)...



For the next morning, we had booked a boat tour through the canyon to Livingston, but since it was raining as if the world was ending, we slept in. When I got up, Liesel told me that it wasn’t raining in Livingston and that the boat tour would be fine, no rain, we took the tour at 10AM anyway. The way was really really bad, it never stopped raining, we got soaking wet and we were frozen by the time we stopped. This stop was still 30 minutes away from Livingston, just before the canyon and us and a girl from Brussels in our tour decided to go back instead of continuing. So the boat driver, a really young and stupid guy who wouldn’t tell us if he thought it would stop raining soon or not, brought 2 other people to Livingston and then came back for us to take us back to our hostel. I would have gone to Livingston instead of turning back, because the weather seemed to be turning, but since all the otheres wanted to go back, I was ok with it. It turned out that the weather really was turning and that there was no rain on the rest of the way to Livingston and in Livingston, so we were quite annoyed about our decision... But well, what’s done is done.

The way back was much better though and when we arrived back at the hostel, the owner was really understanding and sorry to have sent us into the rain and so she said we wouldn’t have to pay anything for the tour. Sooo nice of her! I don’t think another hostel would have done this, especially since the weather did turn and it wasn’t raining anymore.



We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing and then rented 2 kayaks, 1 for Anja and me and one for Skander. This trip was amazing, we had a lot of fun and saw a few more monkeys. :-)



In the evening, we had dinner with the other Belgian girl, but she was a bit strange and not a very nice person, so we were happy when she left. I had really good pasta with a cream sauce and sea food and some chocolate cake for dessert. We also had a few glasses of wine and played UNO, like every night. :-) It was fun, but I went to bed very early. We had all switched to the dorm inside the building, because we were sure it would rain again and we didn’t want to get all wet again.



The next morning, we relaxed, worked a bit on our travel plans and travel blog and waited for our shuttle at 2PM that would take us to Semuc Champey. There we found out, that in our hostel we had paid 50 GTQ more than the shuttle actually costs, which is quite annoying ! Plus, Liesel had told us the way would only be 4 hours but in the end it took 6 hours. Everybody had told us it would take 6h and we were ok with it, prepared for it, but then, after being happy it would only be 4h, 6h was quite a disappointment....





Río Dulce had been a wonderful place and the hostel just amazing, even if it was very expensive. It was one of the best hostels where I have ever been, but you should bring enough money if you go there. Still, I would go there again any time and I can only recommend it !

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