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Published: December 3rd 2006
Tijax hut
Our cosy little hut.Rio Dulce:
The next stop after Flores was Rio Dulce and the trip gave us our first real experience of chicken buses… they’re called chicken buses because the people inside are cooped up like chickens. The buses themselves are old American school-buses that have been kinda pimped and now have yellow red and green designs and massive engines to deal with the steep mountain roads around here. The tiny seats would maybe sit two people but here they sit at least 3 on each side of the aisle. Its intimate to say the least…
It took us a few different chicken buses and about 5 hours or so to reach Rio Dulce. Our hotel there was pretty cool as it was a sort of jungle lodge again but entirely raised a few feet from the ground as the land it was built on was usually swampy. The hotel was just across the river from the little town where we bought masses of beer to keep us busy as the hotel itself was a bit isolated and there wasn’t much to do. our cabin was cool this time and we had our own little veranda complete with hammock and kitchenette
Boat trip1
We set off in our boat across Lago de Izabal heading for the hotfalls. underneath our raised bedrooms. Perfect for group drinking sessions after a hard day doing nothing.
This was also our first taste of the cold nights of southern Guatemala and fleeces were required along with healthy doses of vodka (a ridiculous $6 a bottle!!!) to keep us warm. The only real activity we did in Rio Dulce was a trip to some warm waterfalls, an hour or so by boat across the Lago de Izabal (connected to the Rio Dulce). A leisurely hours walk from the lake shore brought us to the site of the waterfalls, hidden a bit in the jungle but absolutely stunning. The pool under the waterfalls was tepid and things weren’t looking so good for the ‘hot’ part of the hot waterfalls. However, once I got under the actual falls I was in heaven! The water was sooooo warm and the falls were pretty fast so I got a fantastic hot water back massage. We spent ages in the falls, mostly sitting on a rock being toasty, and a bit of time snorkeling in the pool because there were loads of not very shy little fishes. In fact, Ross’ feet seemed particularly attractive to these fishes
Boat trip2
The trip across the lake included some sight seeing. this is a naval fort used to repel pirates. and we eventually got out of the pool before they ate him alive.
We spent another night drinking beer, vodka and rum on the veranda (get us, eh?) and left around 9 the next morning to head to Antigua in a very uncomfortable private van.
On a side note, while there were massive beast spiders around in Rio Dulce, attacks were kept at bay by the trusty mosquito net around our bed. Only one quick and easy spider check required inside the net and I got some of the best sleep of the trip so far. Yay for mosquito nets! Ross didn’t have such a good time as he took a dislike to the dysfunctional cockerel that thought it was fun to crow dawn every half hour throughout the night.
Ross:
Rio Dulce was pretty cool not got much to add to what Claire has already written as we never really done much, other than get very drunk and the hot water falls, the pictures speak for themselves.
Claire’s comment about the chicken buses they’re certainly pimped (need to wait for the next post for photos) but the massive engines are the same lumps of American
crap that were installed 30 years ago and haven’t in any way had anything done to them. Pretty much like Pimp My Ride then: tart up the car but leave the same gutless fuel guzzling engine as is.
Didn’t get much sleep here that bloody chicken crowing dawn from 3am. Gonna ring its neck.
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