Here's the little pool at Mango Marina.  Most of these marinas are inexpensive places to tie up.  They all have nice grounds, restaurants- or at least a barbeque- and plenty of spots to lounge about.  One has a store, another its own rubber plantation.  Some of them have guest cottages, mostly for Guatemalan weekenders.  They're all within a 15 minute boat ride of the town of Rio Dulce, that chaotic marketplace for all necessities.

Hanging out on Rio Dulce at Mango's Marina, named after the tree shown, a lovely spot with the usual local amenities- tiny pool, library, showers, home cooking on request.  The ladies are teaching us to make tortillas, but it's practice practice practice.  We're a 10 minute dinghy ride from town with our 4 hp motor- less with someone else's.  There's a chaotic shopping street with phone cards, fried chicken vendors, banks, shoes, and everything else you could possibly want.  Also pizza (ok), Chinese food (alleged), and a great bakery (sells out of bread in the first hour).  But the shopping comes to us:  a farm nearby sends a boat full of coolers to every marina on Tuesday and Saturday- with meats, dairy stuff, fresh bread, fruit, vegetables.  Nice!

Yesterday we went to the little town of El Estor- 'The Store', named by the British in colonial days.  It was so hot when we got there, we were lounging around waiting for it to cool off so we could go ashore and get some groceries.  A boat appeared alongside us- filled with military and port officials.  They were charming, did a cursory check of our papers, admired the boat and the cats.  And warned us not to leave the boat untended!  larceny is a local failing, and seems to keep cruisers out of the area.  A shame- it seemed like a prosperous town, with a market (what we'd call a farmer's market), a bakery, and two butchers.  I got the shopping scoop from a Canadian girl walking with her little girl- she married into a local family who leads trips up into the mountains nearby.

We're spending a few day at Lago de Izabal, a huge lake at the top of the Rio Dulce.  It's sparsely populated and absolutely gorgeous.  Yesterday we hiked to the thermal pools nearby- one cool pool has a hot waterfall cascading into it, onto your head if strategically placed.  Met some sailors who came down from Texas through the reefs in Mexico and Belize.  That was lots of fun, as we're usually by ourselves.  They left this morning to return to Rio Dulce, but we thought we'd spend a few more days here.  There's a small town nearby, and lots of small rivers to check out.

We moved up into Lago Izabel, a large lake some 30 miles up the Rio Dulce, and anchored out off a little resort. Took a walk this morning along a footpath through the villages along the lake, very nice. Guatemala is magical. 


Joyce uploaded Skype and talked to Alice for awhile.  Third world countries seem to have the most advanced wireless service- otherwise, no phone calls to the US.   And it's cheap- or if you're both on the computer, free.

Rio Dulce, Guatemala

We just arrived at Fronteras-  that's the American wild west part of Guatemala, where cruisers store their boats for the summer.  We're just puttering around trying to figure out where things are.  There's a beautiful deserted gulf, and then there's the part with goods and services.   Guess which has more appeal...

We are back in our beloved Guatemala, in the town of Livingston at the mouth of the Rio Dulce. We will head upriver and hang for awhile, mosquitos permitting.  


This has been an interesting trip, especially the check-out and check-in you go through in every country.  Leave Honduras:  Customs, Immigration, Port Captain.  Enter Guatemala:  same process.  None of these buildings are near each other- or the place shown on your map.  And they are bureaucracies that could put the SF Building Department to shame.  But we're getting used to the drill- and you meet quite a few people in the process.


It is absolutely beautiful, and starting to rain.