Tikal – dan

We took a two-day road trip to Tikal, the largest Mayan archaeological sight. We started our journey at 8:00 am with a water taxi from our marina into the town of Rio Dulce. From there we took a 4-hour bus ride to Flores were we caught a van arriving at Tikal 4:00 that afternoon.

The first thing about Tikal that hit me was the setting and not the structures. It’s located in the center of a rainforest preserve that’s over 200 square miles. It’s lush and full of wild life; the trees are huge and alive with air plants, hanging nests, spider monkeys, howler monkeys and birds of all kinds.

The next thing that surprised me was how much of a work-in-progress it is. Exploration and excavation is continuous as they have only uncovered and restored a tiny fraction of the over 3000 structures.

The last big surprise for me was how long the sight had been occupied by the Mayans - over seventeen hundred years of continual use. Makes New York City seem like a newborn in comparison.

We hiked into the park and made our way to Temple IV to watch the sun set and hear the jungle come alive for the evening. Right after the sun set we were treated to the sight of the full moon raising over temple I. We made our way out of the park in the last dim light of the day and it was completely dark by the time we got back to our hotel. We went straight to bed after dinner as we had made arrangements to meet a park guide at 4:15 the next morning.

It was pitch black when we meet our guide Chino and three other travelers (one from New Zealand, one from Australia and a guy from Boston). As we hiked into the sight thunder and lighting split the black sky and gave us dramatic glimpses of temples and pyramids. It seemed like the ancient gods were indeed speaking and they had a lot to say. We made our way on to Temple V (probably the steepest climb of all) to watch the sunrise. Susan was glad it was dark when we went up this one; it made it easer for her to cope with the height. Up, up, up we climbed until we reached a small ledge were we all perched to witness the start of a new day in this incredible place.

Because it was overcast we didn’t get to see the sunrise but we did witness the veil of darkness being slowly lifted and the temples of Tikal emerge from the mist. The cry of Howler Monkeys and the songs of birds provided the background accompaniment.

The place is filled with altars the one in the above photo is located in the Central Plaza between Temple I & Temple II. This contemporary altar is used for Mayan ceremonies today.

The above photo is of the pyramid at the Mundo Perdido (Lost World) Complex.

Besides walking around we did a lot of climbing throughout the day. Inspecting the buildings at our leisure and integrating the information provided to us by our guide, we were able to begin to imagine what this civilization might have been like when the population reached an estimated 100,000. Being introduced to a site such as this asks more questions that beg to be answered. Our interest has been titillated.

It was after 10:00 PM when we finally got back to our marina. We got some more thunder and lighting accompanied by light rain that lent more atmosphere to our boat ride home and the end of two very long and fulfilling days of travel and exploration.

Just One Day – dan

We had an amazing day yesterday. It started at 5:22 am. We got up early in order to hear the Howler monkeys in nearby Monkey Bay. We motored the dinghy down river and into the bay, cut the engine and then paddled quite a ways up a creek into the jungle.

I we’d never heard Howler Monkeys before so we weren’t quite sure what we were listening for but somehow I thought we know it once we heard it, and we did. Off in the distance we heard a couple of tentative calls, then a few more and then again. After listening for a while we tried some vocalizations on our own. That got an immediate response; the monkeys responses got lower and more frequent and then they started moving toward us. We could see them coming as they moved through the treetops, a troop of about a dozen monkeys. I was hoping to hear some Howlers but I didn’t expect to get lucky enough to see them as well. We experimented with different vocalizations as the troop collected in the trees directly above our heads. We imitated their own sounds, omed, even howled and they called back in kind. That all seemed to be interesting and ok with the monkeys as long as we never got any louder than the alpha monkey. That is until Susan tried overtone chanting, they didn’t seem to like that. So she backed off and we continued with the fun. After about 45 minutes we’d had enough and headed back down the creek.

From Monkey Bay we headed up river and out into Largo de Izabal. We passed the old Spanish fort that guarded the entrance to the lake. The fort dates back to 1600 and was repeatedly attacked by pirates, destroyed and rebuilt over the next 200 years.

On our way back to our marina we stopped at Fronteras to buy some fruit and then ended up having an excellent breakfast on the waterfront in town at Bruno’s Marina. After breakfast we dinked back to our marina for a hike through the jungle to the rubber plantation, which is part of the whole operation.

Before we found the rubber trees we discovered a pristine pool that was feed by a little stream coming out of the jungle. It was too tempting to resist. The cool waster felt delicious after our hike up the hill on that warm afternoon.

After cooling down we set off up hill again to find the rubber trees. The marina is part of a conservation project that includes a private natural reserve and a sustainable forest management project that includes rubber and teak plantations.

Each tree had its bark scored and a little metal cup suspended just below the last cut to catch the latex sap as it drips out of the tree. Latex has been harvested in this part of the world for the past 3600 years. It was used among other things to make the balls used in the ballgame played by the Pre-Columbian people of this region. Those balls were solid rubber, weighed up to 9 lbs and judging by the latex we could smell, were quite stinky. That pungent odor probably didn’t bother the ancient Mayan athletes as they probably had other more urgent things on their minds, such as, the human sacrificial aspect of the games. Who worries about smelly balls when ones life hangs in the balance?

We hiked though the plantation to the top of a hill to discover what they call the Shaman’s Tower. It’s a three story tower that gives one a 360° view of the surrounding countryside, the river, the town of Fronteras, Lake Izabal and the far off mountains of interior Guatemala.

With no one else around and the place powerful and special we decided to hold our own ceremony to honor and consecrate this natural place.

With air temperatures well into the 90s we were fortunate that the hike down was a lot less strenuous than the hike up.

Once back at our marina we jumped into the pool, which felt wonderful. We were soon joined by other boaters and guest whom we chatted with until our skin wrinkled up like prunes. After the pool Susan got a delicious frozen lemonade from the bar and I enjoyed one of the best Margaritas I ever had.

We needed some more quetzals (Guatemalan dollars) so we jumped in our dink and head for the bank. The above photo shows how we get to the bank from our marina. How cool is that? We get an aquatic jungle ride every time we go to the bank.

After the sun set we took our dink up river to a good Mexican restaurant that we had heard of; Las Mexicanas. The restaurant is open air and right on the river and the food was delicious. It was almost 10:00 pm when we got back to Gypsy bringing an end to one very long and eventful day. It was truly an amazing day but we’re definitely going to have to slow down or I won’t survive the week.

Rio Dulce, Guatemala – dan

It’s an amazing river but in order to go up it, one must first pass the bar. I’ve never been good at exams so I’ll admit that I was a little nervous going in. The controlling depth at the entrance of the river is 5.5’ at MLW (mean low water). Gypsy draws five feet even so with fingers crossed we proceed with less margin for error we’ve ever had before. It went well for us with six-and-a-half feet being the shallowest water we experienced during our transit. That’s plenty close for me.

We hadn’t even gotten our anchor down when we were met by the port captain, customs, immigration, health inspector and Raul who was to become our agent and took care of all the clearing in procedures for us. Our cockpit was soon full of officials and I think Susan made friends by the ice tea she passed out to all 7 of our visitors on this hot afternoon. We don’t speak Spanish very well but a cool drink and a smile does a lot to cut across language barriers.

Once we passed the bar exam we motored in our dinghy over to the town of Livingston (pictured above). It’s an interesting town made up Garifuna, Mayan, Latino people. It’s also completely cut off from land travel by the jungle. The only way to reach Livingston is by boat just as we did. While walking around town waiting for Raul to finish his work for us we met an interesting Garifuan man named Philip. He’s well traveled and quite worldly. Philip asked about us and then told us about himself, his town, and this amazing country that we just arrived in. He also hooked us up with a couple of CDs of Garifuna music which I’m enjoying as I type this.

We were thinking about spending the night in Livingston but our agent warned us against it. Guatemala is one of those heads-up kinds of places so being forewarned we jumped in our dinghy, zoomed out to Gypsy, unanchored and headed up the river. Actually it didn’t take much prodding as we were both buzzing with anticipation to see this fabled waterway.

I must say that it exceeded all my expectations, which were pretty high to begin with. Just behind the town of Livingston the hills raise so steep and tall they almost seem to be mountains. We took Gypsy through those hills. Only a mile from the mouth of the river we entered the gorge, which was spectacular. The walls of the gorge are thick with vegetation, mostly huge trees of all types imaginable that grow from the impossibly steep banks of the river which is 200’ or 300’ at its highest.

We have a good guidebook for the river (Freya Rauscher’s 3^rd edition), which was a huge help and still not all hazards are listed and one must remain vigilant on this river. We got a few GPS waypoints from Raul that proved very helpful.

Birds of all types were flying about and some even landed on Gypsy. We saw egrets by the score: egrets flying, fishing, stalking the banks, trees full of egrets and egrets soaring in front of the huge jungle cliffs which provided a stunning verdant background for these startling white birds. Besides being surrounded by the visual beauty we were soon enveloped in all the astonishing and exotic sounds and smells of the jungle.

We also saw dozens and dozens of graceful dugout-canoes being paddled and fished from all up and down the river. The local watercraft are slender and low slung and are paddled with such great skill that they seem to glide almost effortlessly across the water.

The river varied in depth from 8.5’ to 80’, mostly it ran in the 30’ to 50’ range. Safe but demanding one’s complete attention in some spots. At other times my attention to navigation was severely challenge by the beauty of our surroundings.

At one point I was taking a photograph while at the helm when Susan let out a yell and grabbed the wheel. I had gotten so lost in the beauty of the place, lost track of our course. We were heading straight for the nearby bank of the river when Susan intervened.

From time to time we saw grass huts along the banks where the terrain was gentle enough to allow habitation. We witnessed people gathering wood, fishing, traveling and even doing laundry in the river. This river truly is the lifeblood of all the inhabitants that live and work along it.

Because we had left Livingston late in the day we stopped for the night at Texan bay, which is 6 nm up the river from Livingston. It’s the first little bay in the wide part of the river called El Golfete. We dropped anchor in 12’ of water and watched enchantedly as a couple of young kids in a canoe fished with a cast net next to Gypsy in the late afternoon light.

It was an amazing trip up the river. At one magical moment Gypsy was transformed into the African Queen, Susan became Catherin Hepburn and I was the guy who smoked and lived a rough life on the river. Luckily for us there weren’t any Fascists around to ruin the moment.

As we watched the sun set on the river I remarked to Susan; “If this was the only thing we did on our entire trip, just this one day, it would all have been wroth it”.

We raised anchor early the next morning to transit the next 11 miles of the river to Fronteras, that town that’s known to the locals as “Rio Dulce”. Morning is a beautiful time of day on the Rio but then again any time of day seems beautiful on this river.

Once out of Texan bay we were in El Golfete, a section of the river that gets up to 3 miles wide. It was about 9:00 when we arrived at our marina. (the photo below is what we saw upon our arrival) We anchored out front and dinghied in to find out where to tie up.

We were fortunate to end up with a side-tie on the end of the dock. It’s an easy approach and we don’t have to use our anchor as some of the med-tied boats have to do. Plus we seem to get a little extra breeze where we are which is much appreciated.

I must say that I’m thrilled and amazed by the Rio and we’ve only just arrived.

Placencia Belize – dan

It’s a tiny fishing village and downscale resort community at the end of a peninsula with a snug harbor. It also happened to be the sight of the most challenging part of our trip. Susan has told that tale so I’ll only say that it’s through adversity that we grow and that we have done. But there’s much more to the tale of Placencia than adversity.
It’s a tiny fishing village and downscale resort community at the end of a peninsula with a snug harbor. It also happened to be the sight of the most challenging part of our trip. Susan has told that tale so I’ll only say that it’s through adversity that we grow and that we have done. But there’s much more to the tale of Placencia than adversity.
Before I tell my tale let me describe the setting. As I said Placencia is situated at the very tip of a peninsula, a 16 mile long and thin peninsula with the ocean and cays on one side and a huge lagoon on the other. The photo above is of the very tip of Placencia. There are two main routes that run through town (north & south): one is a road and the other a walkway. This gives the villager a very charming aspect and projects a very human scale to the place. Most people walk or bike around, cars are definitely in the minority. There are many sandy paths and boardwalks that connect the road to the walkway (east & west). It was on one of these that we met Cindy one morning as she rode by on her bike, yoga mat in her front basket. We had just been talking about how we should find a place to practice yoga in the morning and then no more the two minutes went by and along came Cindy, obviously from yoga. We asked her how her class was and where she practiced. She said that they don’t have a formal class but that her and a few of her friends get together and practice every morning at 8:30 in the “sanctuary”. She then went on to invite us to practice with them.

It turns out that the meditation sanctuary was built by Wivian. She does regular shared meditations and teaching there. She also lets the yoga practitioners use the space for free. We joined the four other yoginis who practice there regularly for some of the most wonderful yoga practices we ever experienced. As well as being a great place to practice yoga it’s also has some remarkable acoustics.

Susan and I had some incredible chanting sessions there where I omed while she did overtone chanting. It proved to be a powerful and enchanting practice that moved us both. So almost every morning we chanted and practiced yoga. After yoga we would walk to one of our favorite eateries, The Shak on the shore for fruit smoothies then we’d head back to the boat for a swim and some reading.

It was a grueling routine but somehow we managed to holdup. On our way from yoga to the shore we walked right by Karla’s Tortilla Factory were we could get fresh hot tortillas.

The children seemed to be born of the sea. They swam like fish and loved boats. One day four young boys swarmed the dinghy while I was leaving the dock. They climbed aboard looking for a ride. I told them that we could go anywhere they could paddle and then gave an oar to two of them and a one of my sandals each to the other two. They could have been Chris Columbus and crew in the passionate way they paddled that dink around.

We met Gail & Lee one night at a party. They’re an amazing couple who are living their dream (actually many dreams) and they shared some of their story with us. We ended up riding our bikes up the peninsula to their house on the ocean and they took us on a tour of the area in their truck. What we saw was quit a shock. Just up the road from them a huge, upscale resort, casino, 18 hole golf course and 50 acre marina (210 slips) for boats from 30’ to 200’ in length. There’s also an international airport in the works too. It looks like big development and big bucks is headed toward this tiny and charming little fishing village.

We were lingering in this charming place, waiting for our friends Elaine and Tom Hills to arrive for a visit next month when Susan had a brilliant idea as she often does; why don’t we sail over to Guatemala and check out the Rio Dulce as it is supposed to be fabulous and it’s only about 60 miles away. So that’s what we did, we hauled our anchor and pointed Gypsy south once again.

We figured we have almost a month to make the trip to Guatemala, up the river and then back again in time to meet the Hills. As much as we loved Placencia it felt great to be sailing again and especially wonderful to be headed up a jungle river.

Learning as we go…. susan

It has been clear from the start of this journey that one day we just didn’t wake up as cruisers and know what that really means. Processing, processing - sailing seems like the easy part!

We were visiting aboard Gypsy with some new friends we met and in our laughter about surviving with your beloved in a very small space, I admitted that, honestly, that has not been problematic for us. Our biggest challenge caught us by surprise with the unexpected but hoped for visit with Chelsea, my daughter, in Placencia, Belize. As I sat in the cockpit reading in the middle of the afternoon, a dinghy came towards our boat. It was the laughter that gave her away. She had creatively hitched a ride with one of our harbor neighbors. I was ecstatic! She had two traveling companions and after all of our exclamations, Dan, Chelsea and I gathered together our things and went to shore to meet up with them and share a meal. Home has always been a place where my kids could bring their friends and be welcomed. It’s different on a boat: comings and goings are intentional, space is limited, systems are unfamiliar to guests (operating the stove, for instance), and respect for one another is crucial. Things started deteriorating by day #2. The visiting group had their own agenda and being our “guests” was not their primary plan. Dan and I, in our effort to be a good host and hostess, initially tried to take the group out for meals and to shuttle them back and forth to the boat but as they very appropriately put it: it was like herding cats! They were unclear about their ongoing plans and with that indecision Dan and I were unable to make any plans for ourselves. One of Chelsea’s friends started acting out, conducting herself in town in a way that caused serious concern. This resulted in our need to have a heart to heart talk with her. Tension ran high and emotions were strong but we worked through it and in the end lessons were learned. Dan and I have different ways of dealing with these kinds of situations. We have different tolerance levels. We had stopped working together and our communication with one another was unclear. The frustrations we were individually feeling became projected onto each other. We now have taken the much-needed time to evaluate how we faired. It was tough. We struggled. We stopped seeing ourselves on the same team, which is unusual for us. What we learned (relearned) was, once again, the importance of communication. The greater the challenge, the more important clear communication becomes. We also learned the need to set clear guidelines and boundaries for all future boat guests. Past challenges did ultimately help us weather this storm. Even when things were at their worst we still had a sense that we would somehow get through this and that life’s natural buoyancy would lift us up which it has and we’re back on the same team.

Dan and I have not always reacted the same to the destinations we have chosen. Something would spark a connection for him in one place and I may be attracted to particular features of somewhere else. One thing that we agree on all the time is that we do not want to become colonialists.
Beachfront property is tempting because of its affordability and availability in many of the places we have visited. Stunning vistas and comfortable ocean breezes making the climate ideal are some of the attractive features that attract “foreigners” land buyers. Favorable currency rates make the deal all the more attractive. Meanwhile the native people are crowded in substandard housing frequently clumped together in the congested village. Placentia, our most recent port, has been a glaring example. The native people, who were primarily fishermen, are not living on the water. It is true that the colonialists have made some improvements that have benefited everyone but on a recent bike tour of the peninsula the FOR SALE signs line the roadways that are not already dotted with upscale houses. The exchange rate in Belize is 2 to 1. Every US dollar is worth two Belize dollars. Our intention when setting out on this journey was to meet and observe folks in other cultures and learn from their wisdom. It was not to take over their land and drive them out.
This is not a vacation, it is our life. We are learning and living as we as we process with each other on our journey through other cultures and foreign lands. These insights that