June - October 2005…….The first five months on the Rio Dulce (Sweet River). 2005

 We guess we are about as settled in as we are going to be here at Mario’s Marina (15deg 40.543’ North, 88 deg 58.950 West). The grounds are very beautiful and are covered in vegetation of all sorts. We are on a dock with 5 other sailboats (3 of which are from Texas Hal and Lynn on Griffin from Port A; Mike, Cindy and Cynthia on Dragonheart from Corpus Christi and Damon and David on Bruadair from Houston).

There are plenty of activities to keep one busy here (over and above the normal working on Namaste’) from Pot luck’s on Monday to Bingo, Dominos and many more. Cheri is volunteering at one of the village clinics, which is a free clinic, 2 days a week. She is in charge of counting and bottling medications.

Travel here on the river is by boat only. By that we mean if you want to go up or down river there are no roads. The current in the river can be substantial so a boat larger and more powerful than “Boondoggle” is just about a necessity so one of our first acts of “we gotta have one of these” was to go to Mar Marine where our friends David and Damon had one built and order one for ourselves. Our rational became “we will be here for at least 2 years so that justifies the “unplanned” expense of a boat and motor (Yamaha 15 Enduro).”  27 knots up and down the river may not sound like much to you, but to sailors whose sailboat sails along at 7.5 – 8 knots----27 knots is flying.

While we are keeping Namaste’ out of harms way (Hurricane season July thru November) we are doing some inland traveling:

GUATEMALA CITY (a very cosmopolitan city)-My (Cheri) trip with the girls was planned three weeks after arriving in the Rio Dulce (Lynn from Griffin, Mary from Camryka and Karen from Ray of Hope, (who runs the clinic) all set out to attend to doctor visits. Fun was had by all. That is if you call mammograms fun.) We did do some heavy duty shopping and celebrated Lynn’s birthday.

 After settling down on the Rio, we got into the routine of shopping at the market every Saturday and Wednesday. Guatemala has some the best produce grown. We eat very healthy and enjoy the variety. We do splurge now and then and eat at the restaurant which is the closest thing to home cook meals as you can get. They do not start cooking anything until it is ordered and it's all fresh. Yum!! 

 EL CASTILLO de San Felipe was a day trip. We arrived by lancha and were joined by Trish & Bob on Barnacle and Al & Linda on Corina. It was at one time the fortress and castle of San Felipe de Lara. It was built in 1652 to keep pirates from looting the villages and commercial boats of Izabal. By the end of the next century pirates had disappeared from the Caribbean and because of its sturdy walls it served as a prison. It is a protected park today and was very interesting to see.

 ANTIGUA was our next big adventure. It was at one time one of the great cities of the Spanish Empire. Sited in a sweeping highland valley between the Cones of Agua Acatenango and Fuego volcanoes. The colonial architecture makes it a tourist attraction. But it stills remains very quaint and a wonderful place to step back into time. Antigua was the third Capitol of Guatemala. But was destroyed by an earthquake in 1773. The capital was moved once more.

We took a bus to Antigua and spent a wonderful week (much to short a time) exploring the City. It is the kind of place you can really set back and enjoy just by walking around the town. The people, as in most places in Guatemala, are very friendly and happy to have foreigners visiting their city.

The best place to really get the feel of the people is to visit the market where you can find many, wonderful hand made goods. The hardest thing is not purchasing all of them all. There are several really nice art galleries and a number of eclectic restaurants to dine at.  We plan to make another trip to this sleepy highland town.

  DENNY’S Beach is the closest thing to a beach on the lake. We took off one morning in the lancha and sped across Lago De Izabal. The water was smooth as glass. It took about 35 minutes to get there, but the view is breath taking and we enjoyed the ride. They have Cabanas for rent if you want to spend the night. We opted to just have lunch and look out over the lake. After a wonderful afternoon we jumped back in our lancha and headed home. It’s a wonderful place to just getaway. There will be another stop there for sure.

 We decided to take a trip with our friends John & Diane, on  Dragonet, who are from Clear Lake. We took 4 weeks from Guatemala, thru El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama. It all started by catching a bus to Guatemala City. Once there we purchased our TICA bus tickets that will take us all the way to Panama, with stops at all the Capital Cities along the way. From those stops we are able to get off and jump on (Chicken buses) to travel with-in these countries. Our first stop was San Salvador, the Capital of El Salvador. We arrived during rainy season and took a couple small side trips. The first to Santa Ana, the second most important city in El Salvador. It lies in the Cihautehuacan valley and the second one was Sonsonate. It is set in tobacco and cattle-ranching country. The weather was far from cooperating (RAIN) and discovered that everything we wanted to see was closed. So, we went back to San Salvador and jumped back on the TICA bus and decided to go all the way to Panama in the hopes that we could catch these places on the way back.

We arrived in Panama City 3 days later after having to stop over night in two of the countries, Nicaragua and Costa Rica (an 18 hour over night from Costa Rica).  First thing on the agenda is to find a hotel. We had a cab driver recommend a place called Hotel Latino. Not a 5 star hotel, but it was clean and in a very good area. After checking in we had to make a trip to the shopping area from H#*& to replace a camera lost in Nicaragua. Then on to the site seeing.

Panama is 78,200 sq km. The Capital is Panama City. The languages are Spanish, Kuna and 14 other languages. The money is called Balboa-aka the US Dollar. The countries population is 2,893,000. Panama City has a population of 700,000. What a skyline.

Panama City encompasses the former Canal Zone known as the Town of Balboa, administered by the United States as de facto sovereign territory from 1903 to 1979. Panamanians who lived or worked here were subject to US law. After the canal was turned over to the Panamanians Fort Amador, a former US military base had been transformed into a massive tourism development. It is very well maintained and beautiful. One Panamanian man we talked to told us that they miss the US being here and wished they had never left. The people here were very nice and treated us with much respect. We plan to sail Namaste’ here in the next couple of years and really explore the area.

Our main purpose of visiting Panama was to check out the Canal.  But first, a stop at the Balboa Yacht Club on the Pacific side near the Bridge of Americas and the new Flamenco Marina to put signs on the note boards as volunteers to handle lines through the Canal. We hope someday to transit the canal ourselves. Each yacht must have four line handlers for the trip through the canal.  Then it was on to the locks with our good friends, John & Diane on the S/V Dragon Net and don’t forget Paddington. The part of the canal you can visit as a tourist is called Miraflores Locks. We watched ships being raised some 16.5m between sea level and Lago Miraflores in two stages, each using a 197 million liters of fresh water, which flows through culverts 5m in diameter to fill each chamber in ten minutes. Once the ships are guided into the lock by electric locomotives known as mules it takes thirty minutes. The ships come from the Pacific side between 8 and 10:30am and from the Atlantic side at 3pm. What an amazing site. It is well worth checking out.

After four day’s in Panama City we decided to see some of the country side. There was no better place than El Valle, 96km west of Panama City.

El Valle is a beautiful small village nestled inside a fertile valley that was once the crater of a volcano. At 600m above sea level, El Valle is a great place just to chill and catch up on your sleep with the cool temperatures and fresh air. We checked out the market of fruits and vegetables, local handicrafts (including carved soapstone, traditional earthen ware and the most incredible hand woven baskets) and flowers. We made a visit to the small local zoo. Cheri's relaxing in one of the hammocks.

On to Costa Rica. With our bus tickets in hand we boarded the TICA bus in Panama City and headed back to San Jose, Costa Rica. We arrived there at 3:30 in the morning and knew we would not be able to check into a hotel at that hour, so we had a cab take us to a Denny’s, which we all know is opened all night. Later that morning we had a cab take us to the town Alajuela, 20km northwest of San Jose.

Alajuela is known as Costa Rica’s second city. It has a population of 35,000 people. Although it was founded in 1657, there is little to distinguish it from San Jose. You do gain a since of what San Jose looked like twenty years ago. It is less congested and you find yourself smelling bougainvillea an orchids, instead of diesel.

A side trip to the Volcan Poas was a must. We boarded one of the local buses that took tourist to this destination. It is 37km north of Alajuela and is the most accessible active volcanoes in the world. It has a history of eruptions that goes back 11 million years. Its last gigantic blowout was January 25, 1910, when it dumped 640,000 tons of ash on the area surrounding it. At the moment it is very quiet. They have very nice maintained trails. One leads you next door to the Botos Lake which fills an extinct crater. Wow, what a trip.

We spent a couple of days in Alajuela and then jumped on one of the local (chicken) buses and headed to the highlands. 30k northwest of Alajuela we made a quick stop in the town of Sarchi to see the hand painted ox-carts that are still pulled by oxen. Moorish in origin, the designs can be traced back to Spanish immigrants from the provinces of Andalucia and Granada. It is very much a tourist destination and they are now selling the large ones for $1000 plus and the small (made to be a bar) ones for $150 -350. Not much else to see there.

  We jumped back on a bus and headed to La Fortuna, which use to be a simple agricultural town and has since turned into a booming tourist destination to watch the lava ooze down the lip of Volcan Arenal, one of the most active volcanoes in the western hemisphere. Despite it being geared to tourist we still enjoyed the locals, food & beer.

Another one of our favorite excursions was a trip to the Cataratas waterfall, a 230 ft. fall cascading down into a hole near a river bed.  Unless you are really in shape, you have to take a cab there, up the mountain and then walk down in to the area. It was breathtaking. Sandy & I, along with Paddington, took a leisurely walk down the hundreds of steps made of stone. Took lots of pictures and then realized we had to climb back out. What a climb.

From here we boarded a van that took us to a ferry, that took us across Laguna de Arenal. We then caught a van on the other side and it drove us to Monteverde. Mind you, this is the rainy season and their idea of a road is like driving down an unpaved, rock filled, slide for 2 hours. When we arrived in Monteverde it of course was raining. But we did not let that stop us. We decided to go on a nature walk the next day and look for wild life in the rain. We did see several types of birds and a sloth, which we were sure never existed. With all the rain we decided to move on. The next day we boarded the (chicken) bus from H#&%.  Remember the road conditions.

We are now headed to Malpais. The first bus took us to Puntarenas, it took 3 ½ hours, where we caught a ferry across the Golfo de Nicoya, jumped on another bus to Paquera where we caught a third bus to Malpais.

Malpais is a surfing community. We stayed at a very nice hotel called the Malpais Surf Camp and hooked up with an old friend of Sandy’s (Elise) who use to work at West Marine in Kemah, and now helps run the Surf Club. She and her husband (along with their 3 yr old) are building a house over looking the Pacific. We walked along the beach and found wonderful shells and stuck our feet into the warm waters. This area is a big surfing place, with surfers from all over.

We had a wonderful two days there, and wanted to visit another area on the Nicoya Peninsula called Tamarindo to see the turtles lay their eggs and so it is back on the chicken bus to restep our travels across the Golfo de Nicoya and on 3 buses that took us 11 hours of travel time. Remember the sliding roads and the bus from H#&*. Here we go again!

Tamarindo is another surfing community on the Pacific Coast, although, it is not a small town. It has many restaurants, large hotels and a very lively nightlife. The sad part was, when we arrived we found out we were too early for the turtles to lay there eggs and it was time for us to go home. We waited an extra day to let our friends John & Diane catch up with us. We had left them in Malpais. They arrived that day and the next morning we took off for Liberia, the next stop for us to catch up with the TICA bus. We decided to continue are trip on our own because they were going to hang there and then to move on to somewhere else.

We had two more over night stops (Nicaragua & El Salvador) before reaching Guatemala, a one night stay there and we caught the bus back to the Rio Dulce. It was a great adventure and we will always take the time to stop and smell the roses.

 We are flying back to the states the first week in November to see the kids, rest of the family and friends and will be back here after Thanksgiving to get Namaste’ ready for “cruising the Caribbean” again. Until then take care and we will continue the saga at a later date.