A trip down Rio Dulce

Awesome Castle

Saturday morning we needed to be up and functional by 6:45am. Which somehow felt entirely too early, but likely only because of the late night. When our boat arrived at 7:30am I was definitely ready to start our tour of the river. With all of us finally packed in we made our way to see Castle San Fillipe in all it’s splendor...at least from the outside. I suppose you sort of have to see a photo to understand.

After this we were taken to see the “bird island” which essentially all the cool birds hung out at. This also meant that all these cool birds made messes here and subsequently the odor was slightly overpowering. I was delighted when we finally hit a fresh breeze. After this we made our way to other nooks and crannies along the river. You would pass massive yachts next to rickety thatched homes. The difference between the two was at times shocking. We did stop near a lilly pad patch, which was quite serene and it also included these two girls in wooden canoes paddling by trying to sell us tacky tourists turtle shells and necklaces.

From here we made our way towards some caves for 10 minutes of exploration. Admittedly it was really cool to see and I am glad to have done it, however it was all sort of a bit random. Possibly because I had NO idea what was going on. I sort of opted to do this trip because it sounded amazing, but didn’t really read into it. It definitely added to the excitement.

Especially when our driver handed us flashlights I realized that I had missed something. What I missed was that we stopped here to view some caves that until six years ago where underwater. It was definitely interesting to walk into the dark depths and try to squeeze through some tight areas. Somehow though it would have been neat to know more about it here, but somehow nothing seemed to translate. That or my brain wouldn’t function anymore. So instead I just opted to enjoy my surroundings for what they were. Caves.

The only slightly unappealing part of the entire experience was when we all thought that we had to pay 15Q after seeing the caves. When we got back the guide said we needed to make a donation. None of this we knew about and frankly we were a little miffed. Luckily our driver heard what happened and came running and explained that he had already paid. Quetzales returned, we departed for breakfast. We stopped at a restaurant, literally across the river from the caves. We had three options: pancakes, eggs & beans, or nothing. I opted for nothing. We managed a couple games of “shithead”, a card game, before heading to Livingston.