Boqueron is a canyon/gorge of the Rio Sauce, along the north shore of Lago Izabal. It’s a quite beautiful place, which is living in my memory, since I didn’t want to carry anything that couldn’t get wet. So, instead, here’s a link a pair of photos taken by a man with hundreds of lovely pictures, many of people, from the entire country. I gather he was here as an observer during the exhumation of gravesites from the 36-year civil war. http://www.flickr.com/photos/mimundo/sets/72157603295975186/ Boqueron is at the end of this series.

You get off the bus, and will be instantly met by someone who wants to paddle you upstream. The family that lives closest seems to have the concession; We were paddled upstream in a wooden dugout cayuca with literally two knuckles-worth of freeboard. I did meet one Frenchman who said no one was home when he arrived so he just took a boat and paddled himself. OOOh, I said, you French can do things like that.

We gringoes left our packs in their house/tiny tienda, and changed out of our wet stuff when we got back so we didn’t have to ride back soaking wet on the bus.

So let me just describe = what? Cliff walls loaded with plants, narrow clean fresh water river littered with jumbles of boulders. Central Casting sent a large electric blue butterfly and set design provided sunny blue skies.You can jump in the river and clumsily walk your way further upstream if you stay in the shallower water closer to the side. You could spend a couple hours there, especially if you had a picnic lunch.

I liked it.

Our man Miguel had five children. He had a little occasional work building the highway that was being paved literally outside his door, but tourism was down, times were tight, and he asked if he could come work on the boat with us.