Part 4 Rio Dulce jungle cruise, caves, Livingston, and the Q'eqchi'

Getting a good night's rest isn't included in the type of traveling we have been doing through Central America. Like my mom always says, "You can sleep when you're dead." To be able to reach your next destination you must allow yourself the appropriate amount of time since things can be rather spread apart across the landscape. Our morning was once again an early riser-5:00 a.m. We had to be up bright eyed and bushy tailed at this hour because we were sharing a rented vehicle with Ben and Nancy to take us to Rio Dulce. Four passengers, a driver, and all our overly stuffed luggage/backpacks were piled into a Rav4 for the trip that normally takes five hours. Our driver, Sergio, had other ideas about how long this trek should take and was able to cut it down to three and a half. At times it felt as if my cheeks were being pulled back by the ludicrous speeds he would reach. I wouldn't doubt it if on some of the sharp turns (which had no guardrails) we were on two wheels instead of four. All in all it was a pretty exciting road trip. We had reached the dock that would take us up the Rio Dulce to Livingston with time to spare. The Rio Dulce is a wide river that flows from Lake Izabal, Guatemala's largest lake, into the Caribbean Sea. It is located on the small piece of coast that Guatemala has between Belize and Honduras. The river is known for its marine wildlife such as manatees and crocodiles. Hot springs are commonly found along the river's edge gushing from underground currents that flow through the jungle rocks. Faith and I didn't know much about the Rio Dulce and Livingston except for the minor role it has in our Let's Go! Travel Book. Nancy, who was showing Ben all of her favorite places in Latin America, highly recommended it and we enjoyed their company so much we decided to follow along. We originally planned to simply stay a night or two in this area and then continue on to Copan, Honduras and possibly Antigua, Guatemala on our way back home to San Cristobal. These plans dramatically changed once we sat our butts in the boat that took us on an epic jungle cruise up the Rio Dulce. Our boat was launched at 9:30 a.m. and took us through mangroves that had majestic cranes sunning themselves in the branches, we passed thatched roof huts on stilts where the owners could be seen traveling or fishing out of their hollowed out canoes. Livingston can only be reached via a boat ride up the Rio Dulce and the villages that we past along the way are far more remote than anywhere we have been thus far. The sense of an older way of life was everywhere as we spent the next hour and a half passing by tall cliff walls covered in vines and effervescently green plantlife. Pelicans and other aquatic birds flew beside us as if they were racing us.

We made a couple stops along the route and one of them had a small riverside bar/restaurant and a cave that could be explored for 15 Quetzales (just under $2 US) each. Do you think we could pass something like this up? Of course not, so we met our local guide and he handed us flashlights. Three other travelers and us hiked into the jungle where the cave mouth opened inviting us in. The opening to the cave couldn't have been larger than six feet in heighth and four feet in width. We expected to simply view a hole in the ground and come back, that wasn't the case, we were going to get our Quetzales worth.

The guide took us into the cave, the natural light faded behind us, we went down a wood ladder and made a 180 degree turn into the caverns below the Earth's surface. We continued through the pitch black passageways naturally formed by rushing water and the temperature and humidity began rising due to the hot springs nearby. The guide pointed out interesting rock formations as he proceeded to take us further into this subterranean world. The ground was muddy, our boots stuck to the wet floor, and we noticed our guide was barefoot, probably for good reason. We squeezed through narrow cracks until we reached an area large enough to stand upright. Bats huddled in dark corners and squeaked expressing their annoyance with our intrusion. We had walked over ten minutes and I asked how far these cave paths continue, to which our guide said about forty minutes. We took some pictures, let the claustrophobic panic come and pass, and then retraced our steps back to the dock where we found Ben and Nancy casually drinking out of coconuts. Onwards and towards we went until we passed a Spanish fort on the delta where the Rio Dulce dumps into the Caribbean. We were beginning to think that Disneyland's Adventureland had been strongly influenced by what we were surrounded by. The Spanish fort was built sometime around the 1600's to fend off pirates (of the Caribbean) because they often used the Rio Dulce as a hiding place to await ships coming from Europe which they would plunder for all their booty and dabloons. Livingston, with its atypical name compared to those such as Huehuetenango, Chisec, and Sayaxche which come from Mayan languages, received it's name from the American jurist and politician Edward Livingston who wrote the Livingston Codes which were used as the basis for the laws of the liberal government of the United Provinces of Central America in the early 19th century. The population of Livingston is somewhere around 10,000 and is composed of people of the Garifuna culture, Maya, and ladinos. The Garifuna are descendants from the slaves that were brought into the islands of the Caribbean. Their culture blended with that of San Vicente island and they make up 75% of the inhabitants of Livingston. The language they speak is a mixture predominantly of French, Spanish, and English. It was very interesting to hear and see so many different people and languages all in such a small place.

As we disembarked from our boat onto the Livingston dock we were met by several Garifuna teenage boys who offered to assist in our hotel finding. We walked with Ben and Nancy to their hotel, and the boys followed. They pointed out a few interesting things along the way-crocodiles in a concrete enclosure, a large iguana resting on a palm tree all while recommending the hotel they must work for. We wanted to check out the hotels we had read about in our travel book and they insisted on accompanying us. We walked up and down Livingston's one major street that is lined with shops, restaurants, travel agencies, and small outdoor vendors. Along the edge of the street on both sides are gutter type trenches where the liquids of these buildings are deposited. Certain areas the flow must have been blocked because they were releasing unpleasant odors. This and the presence of garbage around the main part of town was evidence of how hard it is to manage waste in such an isolated place.

Faith and I met several hotel owners and peaked into the rooms they offered. We are not picky about where we stay, but we definitely prefer places that seem clean and safe. After a few options we came upon Casa Rosada. We opened a cute wood fence and noticed the nicely manicured plants and flowers. One of the happiest little Latin grandmas hummed a tune as she showed us the cabanas they offer. Inside the bamboo huts were simple accommodations-two beds with mosquito nets, a mirror, and a night stand. The furniture in the rooms were exotic and rustic and had a Gilligan's Island feel to them. The bathroom and showers are shared with the other six neighboring huts at Casa Rosada. We loved the energy here and immediately booked the cabana. Casa Rosada runs their business in a unique fashion. They allow their guests to freely open the refrigerator and take the sodas, beers, and waters inside. There is a binder where your name is on a piece of paper and you are to mark down everything you have helped yourself to. You don't even consider cheating this system because it is so refreshing to see such trust being given to you.

Casa Rosada is a five minute walk away from the busy main street of Livingston and has a beautiful view of the Rio Dulce and all the jungle and mountains on the other side of the river. They have a long dock that goes out into the river that has a palapa at the end with hammocks where you can swing over the water and watch the birds and boats go by. You can reach the point of ultra relaxation here. They have a canoe you can rent, they have grass to sit on, sand to dig your toes into, and a restaurant that cooks amazing breakfast, lunch, and dinner.



We wanted to experience Livingston culture while there and were recommended a small restaurant that served the traditional dish of Tapado. Tapado is a soup made from coconut milk broth chock-full of plantains and locally caught seafood-crab, calamari, fish, shrimp, scallops, etc. I am not much of a seafood eater, but I loved it and even ordered it again another night at Casa Rosada. The seafood is still in its natural form and you have to do all the work to get the meat, makes you appreciate it more having to earn the bites.

We slept the best we had on this entire trip under mosquito nets that were draped over us. The next morning we heard about some local sites and decided to walk along the beach to find them. Along the way we met a Garifuna man named Polo Martinez. According to Polo he is a local celebrity and has traveled the world playing reggae. We chatted for a while with him and he gave us his perspective on the Garifuna lifestyle and socio-economic issues facing his people. He offered to take us through the Garifuna community and we met families along the walk and even entered a home where an elderly woman who was bedridden due to a recent hurricane welcomed us in. We were honored to have been given this experience and wanted to know more about the Garifuna. Polo mentioned that he runs a feeding program for the less fortunate Garifuna in Livingston. We offered our help in the kitchen or wherever we could get involved, but he told us the people might be alarmed by outsiders so we donated a small amount of money to his cause instead. We then leisurely walked along the beach admiring the seashells, canoes, birds and the never ending ocean before us. It was a beautifully warm day and we loved the contrast of landscape where the jungle meets the beach. Much of this brought back pleasant childhood memories of when I lived in Puerto Rico with my family for two and a half years.

Back at Casa Rosada we were looking over things to do while in Livingston and they had a guided jungle hike by the local Q'eqchi' Maya which included food and other activities. We signed up and were met the next morning by Avelardo and Humberto, two Q'eqchi' Maya in their twenties dressed in clothes that looked too nice for a jungle hike. We started off going further away from the busy part of Livingston where the road changed from paved to dirt. We chatted with our new friends about how old they were, where they live, and the planned hike. We passed homes and a group of men forcing a noncompliant ox out of a boat and into a truckbed. The dirt road that we were on is the only road to and from our guides' village of Plan Grande Quehueche. According to our guides their small community of around 350 individuals began when five families decided to relocate from Coban to the Livingston area about 60 years ago. Since then the descendants of those five families combined with other Q'eqchi' now make up the 60 families who reside in the Livingston area. The Q'eqchi Maya are one of over 30 Maya groups present in Guatemala and can be found in regions such as Coban and Peten.

We turned off the main road and headed into farmland owned by some of their fellow community members. We became increasingly interested in the lifestyle of the Q'eqchi and began asking questions about their agricultural methods and land use. Avelardo and Humberto were very open and candid with their answers and really helped to paint us a picture of how life is in the rural areas surrounding Livingston. During our hike they pointed out plants that they use for different medicines, plants for basket making, edible plants, the crops being harvested, and names and descriptions of plants we were curious about. For being so young we were impressed by the abundance of knowledge they had about their environment. They broke sturdy branches and gave them to us to use as walking sticks when they noticed our occasional slip. Faith and I enjoy the outdoors and hiking, but this was nothing like we had done before. These trails were only recognizable to our guides and the terrain was rather treacherous at times. We let these virtual strangers get us lost in the jungle and let them guide us blindly into the unknown. At one junction of the trail Faith almost jumped out of her Chaco's when we saw a snake on the ground that had to have been over six feet long. Luckily the snake was dead, but Faith wasn't taking any chances and kept her distance from it anyways. We were on the trail for over four hours when we finally came upon their village. We knew we were getting close when we started hearing and seeing the pigs run freely on the trails we were on. Fences were built up around their milpas (corn fields) to keep these loose pigs from eating their crops. The Q'eqchi' build houses on a large scale and we passed several colossal wood slat structures with thatched roofs. We were shown the path to their restaurant which had been decorated with live ginger plants lining the walkway.

Before we could rest our feet our new friends had something they wanted to show us. They took us past the restaurant kitchen and into the jungle once again. We stopped when we reached a hole in the ground no bigger than three feet in diameter. We were handed lit candles and were told to follow them into this portal into what lay beneath the surface. This cave was even smaller than the one we had gone into during our jungle cruise and were forced to crawl on our hands and knees at times to keep from bumping our heads against the top of the cave. Hot melted candle wax dripped onto our hands while we spelunked and the dim firelight cast nefarious shadows across the cave walls. We went further than we were comfortable with, but Faith was a good sport even after having to walk inches past the largest cave spider to have ever lived.

Plan Grande is a community made up of individuals who sustain themselves through agriculture. We learned how families lend helping hands to one another and are repaid when they are in need of assistance. The land that the original five families accumulated has since been distributed between their descendants, each receiving the appropriate amount of land needed to sustain their families. If the family is to grow and require additional farm land, other families lend pieces of their property under the condition of receiving a portion of the harvest. The community has leadership positions such as presidents and secretaries whose terms last two years. At the end of each term the cabinet gets together and decides on who in the community will be the next to take the seat and the individual is surprised with their new role. If anyone doesn't fulfill their duties appropriately the community comes together and gives advice and ideas to better assist the person. We asked about crime amongst their community to which they replied they rarely have incidents. The community is so small in size that everyone is aware of each others' business and this transparency is a strong deterrent to act up. Since everything seems to be communal and shared we wondered how the restaurant and cabanas available are set up. According to Avelardo and Humberto twenty families from the community combined their efforts to build this restaurant and cabanas with the hopes to create tourism. The other families opted to not be involved, but from what we understood they are given chances to essentially "buy in" if they would like to. The lodging here within the jungle has been given the name Hotel Flor de la Montaña (Flower of the Mountain Hotel). The cabanas available can house up to twelve guests at a time in large wooden buildings with comfortable beds with mosquito nets and a shared bathroom. Included in our tour was lunch which was served in a kitchen where the women made the tortillas by hand. The table was set with fine dining place settings of the fork, knife, spoon and napkin. We had heard that the Q'eqchi' have been involved in a project where free schooling is provided for those willing to dedicate two years of working within the tourism industry that the organization has also put together. The youth receive free education and then learn practical skills such as restaurant work, hotel work, artisan craftmaking, and tour guiding. The organization's name is Ak' Tenamit and can be seen here at http://www.aktenamit.org/. All of these skills were evident by the level of service these young men were providing. We saw that they were going to eat their food at a table by themselves and invited them to share our table. Our half day excursion was almost over, but Faith and I felt like we hadn't gotten enough of this magical place we had just discovered. We asked about the lodging, pricing, and transportation back into town. Plan Grande is highly structured and organized. The community shares two vehicles and operate them on a set schedule. Every hour one of the two vehicles returns to the community and offers rides into town to anyone who would like to go for the cost of 10 Quetzales. Along the way any of the community members can hop on if they would like to ride into town as well. Faith was beside herself seeing this level of organization, she loves that kind of stuff, and I wanted to know more about them in general.

So, needless to say, we extended our stay in Livingston and set up another guided tour for the following day, but this time we would be spending the night in their village. We walked through their community, passed their plaza, church, meeting house, and small general store to get to the dirt road where the next vehicle would take us back to Casa Rosada. Had we known all this was available we would have stayed that night too, but we had left our backpacks back in town. The next morning Avelardo and Humberto greeted us and we boarded the truck bed and began riding through town. When we got far enough down the beach we got out, left our bags with them and began walking along the beach. We collected seashells that look like beautiful sunsets. We were headed for the Siete Altares (Seven Altars), a series of natural water pools you can swim in. The lower pools were shallow since there hadn't been a good rain in a while, but the main pool was delightfully deep and cold too. We excitedly changed into our bathing attires (Faith has a whole new concept of privacy now) and set our stuff aside. There was no one there to bother us, but nature wanted to intervene- jumbo disgruntled black ants were livid with our being there and showed us how mad at us they were by stinging us between the toes. Honestly, mosquito bites are nothing when compared to these ant stings, I would rank them up there with bee stings. After the swim we hiked through the jungle on different trails than the day before back to Plan Grande. Our packs had been nicely stowed in the cabana we would be staying the night. We had lunch with our friends and it seems the word had gotten out that there were extranjeros (foreigners) that were going to be staying within the village. Small children shyly peaked between the cracks in the doors and giggled and looked away as we smiled and greeted them. We learned of a community meeting being held, so we rested in our rooms and enjoyed the rainforest noises, sights, and smells until dinner time. We ate tortillas made by hand, chicken that was probably killed that day, and fresh lemon grass they had just cut. As we were finishing up dinner people from the community started showing up and introducing themselves to us. We were the only visitors, but the entire community came out to welcome us. Part of their welcoming involves a traditional Mayan ceremony where flowers and candles are placed in a circle on the floor. Each candle was a different color and so were the flowers which were shaped into a cross inside a circle. Each candle represented a cardinal direction and were the four colors of the corn (red, white, yellow, black). There was also a blue candle representing the sky and a green candle for the earth. Four women in their typical dress held incense burners and walked around the circle, went outside, and repeated this three times.

One of the traditional instruments in Guatemala is the marimba, a xylophone type instrument that is hit with mallets and can be played by three individuals at the same time. Once the welcoming ceremony was through the party began! Marimba tunes were jammed by three Q'eqchi' men and the women got up to dance. After a short while Faith and I were both invited to dance by members of the community and we had a great time.




As the night wound down we thanked everyone for a lovely evening and bid them a good night. We couldn't believe we had just experienced all of this and felt like more people should know of this magical place. The next morning we had breakfast with Avelardo and Humberto and spoke with them about how they advertise and promote their business and hotel. It seems they only have two ads in two hotels in Livingston, one being Casa Rosada. We explained to them how special our time had been with them and that we would love to be able to contribute to the promotion of their jungle resort which we have begun through this blog.





Our trip was coming to an end and we had to get back home by the first of January because we were going to be hosting a guest back in San Cristobal. Faith and I exchanged information with Avelardo and Humberto and told them, "We don't want to leave here as tourists, we want to leave here as friends." We waited for the next vehicle to come by, sat by the general store, and then noticed a white eagle flying overhead. A beautiful ending to such a spectacular time.





We left Livingston with a very special feeling and we know this will not be the only time we will be there. I personally am interested in incorporating their lifestyle, being highly sustainable, and their ecological tourism into my future anthropological research. The people we met, the paradise they live in, and all the factors influencing their lives is highly fascinating.





We began our reverse jungle cruise tour and stopped at the same bar/restaurant as we had before where we went caving. This time I noticed the owners had dug out canoes and asked if I could take one for a spin. He helped me in, put a block of wood to keep my butt from getting wet, and set me off with a paddle. The canoe propelled easily, but was equally as easy to tip from side to side. It was a cherry on top type of experience to our unforgettable time in Livingston. Now all we had to do was get clear across Guatemala and into the middle of Chiapas by the next day.