Well folks, its back to work! But only one of the greatest jobs in the world. Today we were in Santo Tomas de Castillo, Guatemala. This is a relatively new cruise ship port and highly recommended to take a ship sponsored tour or relax onboard. However, there are taxis and water taxis that do independent tours. For my newest adventure, we went by boat from the cruise ship pier to the Rio Dulce river. Here is where culture, people and rainforest all live in harmony. Livingston is a garifuna village (european africans) that settled at the mouth of this river. There is also monkeys, houses, private residences (we saw the family of Gallo beer fly off their residence in a helicopter) all along the river while a dug out canoe paddles against the wind and current. But the true beauty of the Rio Dulce are the canyon walls that raise well over 500 feet above sea level. Modern boats and dug out canoes converge on a daily basis traveling from village to village and fishing spots. Divers on the edge of mangroves search for crabs. Others go along the limestone wall searching for the elusive jade vains that may embed in these rocks. As the river winds it narrows and you see where sail boats spend weeks in rental houses along the river. Right now the pelicans are preparing for their migration up north. There are hundreds of them. Imagine a modern jurrasic park scene as you travel up river. Further up river is a fork where a private reserve and off shoot that leads to Ak Tenamit. Upon arrival children are on holiday so they are not in class. They are doing homework on the rivers edge around the school. Most times the kids are in class making tortillas, planting corn and learning about rotating the crops to different spots every year, doctors help the women learn how to give birth (mayans are scared of hospitals) and other teach the children about creating souvenirs for tourists and at the same time conserving the rainforest they live in. These kids still go by the Mayan Calendar which as you know ends on Dec 21st, 2010. But they are being helped to cope. Most of the kids speak spanish but are being taught to keep their mayan language. The mayan alphabet has over 800 letters, so no wonder there is 22 different dialects. This is a missionary school where descendents of the mayans can get an education in tourism. They spend upwards of their entire life (to 18 yo) at this school. Volunteers poor in from all over the world, teaching these kids to embrace their mayan roots and live in harmony with nature. Doctors, engineers, farmers and teachers help these mayan children make it in the modern world. If allowed to travel to the biggger cities, many of these kids would be scorned and discriminated for being mayan. For those who didnt know the Civil War in Guatemala was between the government and the mayan people. They have lived on this land for centuries and has been handed down over generations but no official deeds to these lands, so the government was trying to just take it away. There are many more facets to this school, this region of the Dulce River and culture of this Guatemala. This blog just isnt big enough for all the details, so I highly recommend to go yourself...
We ended the day with a nice lunch at a hotel on the edge of Livingston and then quite a rough boat ride back to the ship. We traveled nearly 2 hours in land along the coast and river, seeing the real Guatemala. Don't just cruise to these ports of call...explore and experience.
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