We entered Guatemala from Belize at Livingston. I’m not sure why the waters of Bahia de Amatique are colored greenish here, but it’s really the end of the Caribbean and should be more gray or blue. We came up the Canyon, ( I called it the Gorge), then through the Golfete. We’re presently tied up in a marina a little to seaward of the ‘Rio Dulce’ line in this view, which looks basically toward the southwest. We can see Cerra San Gil from the marina; if we can’t, it means rain, say ‘they’.

But today I mean to write about my trip to the Polochic Valley and the Rio Polochic up at the far end of Lago Izabal. I went with a friend in a small trawler, a vessel much better suited to the area than a deep-keeled sailboat. How much better we didn’t know until we steamed into an area of thick mats of hydrilla nearly all the way to the surface, which would have snared Galivant and unnerved its crew. You probably know hydrilla as an aquarium plant. It’s not native here, but nobody’s sure where it came from either (‘an American boat’ one man told us). What we saw was all at the farthest end. It’s a problem though, that could spread to the entire lake.

Lago Izabal is also the largest fresh-water fish supplier in the country, I’ve read. Most fishing activity looks like it’s on the feed-the-family scale, but lots of people fish. We did see empty cayugas attending solitary tankless divers fishing for ?tarpon? among the fronds.

Sure was nice to be perched up on the flybridge with a 360-degree view, going a steady six knots, swilling iced flor de jamaica (sorrel) and tamarind, and lemonade, and water, on a sweltering day.
We spend a night in the bay in front of the ‘abandoned’ nickel mine just beyond El Estor at the end of the north side of the lake. This place has a story too – beginning with greed, featuring political heavy-handedness and ending in violence – but I’ll save it for another time.

We couldn’t get the trawler’s 3’6″ over any of the several river bars, although the intrepid skipper was willing to try. So we zoomed in his speedy lancha up the clearish Rio Zarquito until it ended in a cluster of water hyacinths, then turned off into the muddy Rio Oscuro which ran for a good ten or twelve miles.

Mid-day maybe wasn’t the best time for scouting for wildlife. That didn’t stop me from taking a way too many pictures of the tail end of fleeing birds, some of which I recognized at least by class as herons, kingfishers and ducks, all of which had to be deleted for lack of visual interest. The river twisted and narrowed and its banks became grassy. The cloud-clad mountains wove in and out of view. Finally we ran up on a log in a skinny stream and thought it prudent to turn around.

Here at the new edge of the rainy season (end of May), it’s a good seven feet to the high tide mark on these trees.. We wouldn’t have trouble getting up the river later in the year, but just think what would be rushing downstream towards us!

According to Shelagh McNally’s Guatemala

There is great bio-diversity here – over 250 species of mammals, 350 birds, 53 sp of fish and 24 sp of aquatic plants have been identified so far. Because it forms a biological corridor between the Sierra de la Minas and the Sierra de Santa Cruz, the Polochic Delta is home to many endangered species. The corridor is part of the larger Mesoamerican Biological Corridor beginning in Yucatan Peminsula and stretching down to the Panama Canal. It includes over 962 sq mi of humid tropical forest bordered to the north and and west by the Sierras de la Minas, on the south by Paxtanto Ruins and on the north by El Estor.

You can also see the mountains, and the scars of the various land clearings which are an ever-present and growing feature of the area.

National parks – all forests – are under siege throughout Guatemala, it seems, as the pressures for agricultural land increase. Other factors include poaching and logging, and even less savory actitities involving narco-traffic. It’s tough to control – people need to eat, and the pressures to develop, which often come from international conglomerates, are substantial. One tactic is swapping conservation for debt, as described here. http://www.nature.org/wherewework/centralamerica/guatemala/work/art19052.html

I’m standing at attention now, having received this email: “Isn’t there a statute in the bloggers manifesto that says you must post more entries to keep your armchair travellers happy?”

Well, I have been a little slack with the blog posts. I blame the internet: seems I’d rather read about something than write about it.
1. So many questions to answer! Everything I see raises questions, which requires research. More questions arise, etc.
2. So hard to find a good scheme for organizing my pictures. I take too many, delete too few, can’t ever find the one I want, trouble uploading, yadayadayada.
For example, I have WAY too many pictures of “red flower” and “yellow tree”.
Then there’s
3. Boat work, which seems to be the guiding principle of my life. Not just my own work, either. I do a lot of ‘dumb end’ work for Doug, wrench holding and the like. All for the cause, I’m told.
But if I wait until I think I have a finished product, nothing will happen. Blogs like to be fed. So I’ll start emptying my Drafts file.

In my defense, I will quote EB White: “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” To which I will add, hard to get it all done as well!

We’ve run into a few roadblocks on the work list. The awning is finished – a real piece of work – and it makes a huge difference. It would be even longer, but there is no more fabric. The factory in Costa Rica burned down, or something like that.

The windlass, alas, now apparently needs either a new motor from New Zealand, or entire replacement. The outboard is ailing – needs a power pack. You should hear me trying to talk to Oscar the outboard guy on the cell phone. He’s so patient, and understanding, I think.

Both of these items need to come over the customs and shipping fence. People often have big items shipped to Honduras and hire a driver to pick them up. But due to a coup there last week, the border is closed and everyone is waiting to see what happens next. Or they fly to the US and bring back as much luggage as they can. It’s a possible option for us too.

Deck stanchions have been rebedded. Now that we’ve gotten the necessary bolts from our new friends at “tienda tuerca” the starboard genoa track is next. It’s finally beginning to rain a bit more and cool just slightly. Meanwhile, we treat our prickly heat and poached heads with dunks in the pool.

Other people have a bit more excitement in their lives.

Beyond the bridge at Fronteras lies Lago Izabal, the biggest fresh-water lake in Guatemala, at about 30 miles long and 12 miles wide, and up to 50 feet deep. At first it’s bordered by waterfront houses, but gradually they dwindle and land appears in the form of a coastal plain and a ridge of mountains to 4 or 5000 feet arising on each side.

Yep, that’s right, a waterfall of hot water which pours steamily down into a cool stream, and on to you, if you can stand it! My guess is about 140 degrees. Doug thinks it’s less. But when I asked the ‘attendant’ for more information, he just told me that it was as God had made it. Claro! But Nico helps God by sweeping away all the leaves with a fine-twigged branch and whacking any offending limbs with his machete.

It’s a beautiful spot and I could easily spend hours here adjusting my temperature.

We’ll definitely go back to Agua Caliente and the caves, better prepared. The upper cave is lovely enough (Fernando said it was a ‘special Mayan place’)
A stream runs through the lower cave, another waterfall comes down inside the cave, and maybe you can swim through to the other side of the mountain.
But you have to swim in, a hundred yards perhaps, so I’m not going without a good and waterproof light. It will take another couple dozen fish nips before I get inured to them, and able to look curiously around at the bats and whatever else there might be.

I’ll be writing more about cows after some additional Googling. Whooppee, I hear the cheers! But seriously, once you get away from the water, cows seem to be a main raison d’etre for this area. This fine animal is perhaps a Brahma, brought from India because of their heat tolerance. .
And don’t forget cowboys and their rides. All the saddles (and half the bicycles) have machete holders.

By the end of the day milk from these cows will have been turned into some kind of cheese.

So all in all, it was a pleasant stop, and I’ll hope to go back several more times.
“Una pregunta mas, por favor!”

Finca: n.

A rural property, especially a large farm or ranch, in Spanish America.

There’s an intrepid gringa who’s living a full life on a handmade finca down the river from here. She comes to the Saturday morning swap meet. One of the things she sells is snakeskin hatbands and bracelets. When I asked her about them, here’s what she said:

“The locals kill every snake they see. I try to discourage this by telling them how good some snakes are, but even I make an exception for the fer de lance (barba amarilla) when they live around people’s houses.

Wikipedia says:

Bothrops asper chiefly inhabits tropical rainforest and evergreen forest, but it also occurs in drier areas of tropical deciduous forest, thorn forest and pine savannah near lakes, rivers and streams. This species is mostly nocturnal, hiding in leaf litter or among roots during the day,Sometimes referred to as the “ultimate pitviper,” these snakes are found in a wide range of lowland habitats, often near human habitations. Large and nervous, this species is the main cause of snakebite incidents within its range. They are deadly and death can be instantaneous.

“So when they kill those snakes, I’ve asked them to bring me the skins, and sometimes they do. In fact they bring the entire snake, at the end of a long stick or wrapped up tight in bags. They hate them and don’t want anything to do with them.”

Anyone who has seen my present number one hat knows it’s in serious need of a decent hat band, and more. But much as I’d like to support this woman, it just doesn’t seem right in any way to have something like that wrapped around my brain.

I’m too busy looking around at stuff like this, although now more mindful of leaf litter, which I’ve noticed is pretty assiduously cleaned up.

(alas, she’s not me, and he’s not Doug)

We came into the marina at the first of June, and it’s been nothing but work ever since. Well, okay, a little socializing too. Happy hour, potluck dinners, trying to figure out who will still be speaking to us at the end of the season, and vice versa. POT LUCK SALAD (green mangoes, cucumber, beet, onion, lots of lime juice. This photo is included because I wanted to try the ‘food’ auto setting on the camera. Does a nice job, doesn’t it!)
Actually, ‘they’ say it’s exceptionally quiet on the Rio this year – plenty of boats but almost all the people have gone home, and some businesses are crying the blues.
The work list: First the windlass, which has been manually operated for a couple months, came off and went to a machine shop for a new shaft.
Then the sun awning project: shade is proving absolutely essential, and the only fabricator available was me. No blood (except that drawn by some nasty ‘tabano’horseflies, but plenty of toil, sweat (dripping from the elbows) and tears. Luckily, right in front of the boat is a lightly used, shady little palapa, which made the task more pleasant.
Eero Saarinen-like it’s not but it is effective and is beamier than the boat, so the rain, when it comes, might drain too. Next week, the front end.
AWNING

Then, spring cleaning. Ah, the thrill of running a toothpick under a piece of trim and gouging out a pile of greasy grit. The excitement of buried treasure from ancient eras in the bilge. The drama of the plunger on the sink drain. The endless wonder of wood grain revealed by sandpaper. And the sick, guilty pleasure of peeling up loose varnish with improper tools. Folks, there’s just nothing like it!

But more about our estate. We have a cool dipping pool,and a beautiful tree- and bird-song-filled garden that will surely feature in every blog post henceforth.

The afore-mentioned palapa, serves as a porch and patio and has a lovely small view over a ‘fish pond’ and the kaleidescopically sun-dappled orange building at the top of the stairs. It’s not thirty steps to a bathroom big enough to dance in, should I feel the urge, and nearer than in some houses I’ve been in. It’s all mine to enjoy but maintained by someone else. There’s a store with good bread, fresh eggs, wine, ice and fun stuff too. I have a night watchman, resident musicians, I think I have satellite TV, tho I’ve never watched it, being too busy with the Wifi, on the boat. I could however chose from a variety of corner offices, or hammocks.

My fitness group does a brisk walk every other morning along the pipeline through the rubber plantation.
I even have a handsome hound, walked and fed by the folks next door, but barking for me. SAPPHIRE isn’t the only one hot but happily wagging her tail.

Health is the greatest possession. Contentment is the greatest treasure. Lao Tzu