Rio Dulce... Soft River
21 March 2009 | Fronteras, Guatemala
Sunny, Air Temp 87F, Water Temp 85F, Wind calm
Estelle heads up the Rio Dulce
We left Livingston at 8:30 am in company with Seabird. Two other boats that spent the night anchored in Livingston were also getting underway with us. The river was buzzing with small boats shuttling people up and down the river. The most striking feature of the Rio is the huge gorge at its mouth. As we motored up the river, we found ourselves motoring under cliffs towering 400' above us on either side with a covering of jungle trees and vines covering the steep cliffs.
About a mile upstream we began to see natives fishing out of dugout canoes much as they must have done for centuries before. Further up when the gorge cliffs began to move back from the rivers edge, we saw thatched huts still providing shelter for the local inhabitants... a very basic form of life. Interspersed with them we saw the odd elegant home obviously not native.
The natives took no notice of us, apparently used to seeing yachts as over 600 boats spend the hurricane season in the river, considered to be below the hurricane belt. There is no record of a hurricane ever striking the Rio, although Hurricane Mitch came ashore in Honduras, about 100 miles south of here, a few years ago.
After about 5 miles of motoring through the gorge, we passed into an area of softer terrain and dropped anchor opposite to a hot springs. I stayed on the boat to watch while Jeannie went ashore with Bruce and Nancy on Seabird. And its a good thing I stayed. With no one apparently on board, a couple of dugout canoes quickly approached us, but when I showed myself, they quietly moved off.
The Rio has a reputation as a place to be careful, and it seems well deserved. There are safe anchorages and places where you should not anchor for personal safety reasons. We moved a bit further along and anchored again, this time in front of a restaurant where we had lunch, keeping the boats well in view. After lunch we continued on our way and after a mile or so we were sailing out into El Golfete, a small lake about 5 miles long and 2 wide. Along the south shore we passed Texas Bay with its marina and Gringo Bay, one of the safe anchorages, then passed down the lake to where it narrows into a river again.
About 3 miles up the river we came to our destination, the town of Fronteras. Fronteras is like the name implies, the frontier, the wild west. I have put some photos on the blog taken in town. And law and order are just barely under control. At a bank we entered we found an armed guard standing next to an airport style X-ray machine with a set of lockers in which you check your belongings. No bags go into the bank. While we stood there, asking where the ATM was, a man came out and calmly retreived his revolver from a box and left. At an old fort we visited, they have a "check your guns" sign and we watched a boat load of families come in, all 5 men checking their guns. The navy patrol the river, and at night the rule is "stay off the river after dark". We went for a hike in a nature preserve and the guide quickly turned back when she caught sight of a man ahead of us on the trail. She used her cell phone to call the owner who quickly came out to pick us up in his truck. We later learned that one of his armed guards had been killed the previous day in some sort of vendetta.
Clearly a place to be careful! But for all that its certainly a unique location. Having said that, we now plan to leave the boat here at Marina Mar (excellent security) and head inland to the town of Antigua, reported to be a beautiful old city. From there we'll head to Guatemala City and fly home next week for a week. Then back to start back north!