An Adventurous Departure
09 April 2014 | Rio Dulce, Guatemala
Beth / mid 30's and calm

We thought it was going to be really wet on Wednesday so, having made a soggy trip up river once or twice before, we called the collectivo that runs from Livingston to Rio Dulce and arranged a pick up in their covered lancha.
Pick up 9:30 am at Burnt Cay Marina in Texan Bay. Sounds simple, right? Even though Wednesday dawned bright and sunny, we decided to stick with the plan to save Casey the trip to town. So he and Linda took us over to Texan Bay shortly after 9. (We still sometimes have the “get there early” mentality.) We piled our luggage on the dock, ordered coffee (that took forever to make) and waited. And waited. At 10, we said we would wait 10 more minutes. At 10:20 we piled the bags back into “Theodore Sturgeon” (Casey’s lancha) and went back to his place where they gathered what they needed for a trip to town and we set off upriver under bright skies, hot sun. About 2 kilometres into the trip, the outboard made a funny sound and stopped dead. Uh Oh.
It was a problem with the prop – not fixable on the water. We hailed a nearby lancha loaded with cases of beer and soda cans, but after circling around, the captain said, “No puedo” and took off. So much for helping vessels in distress! Casey called Jossue to come fetch us and we settled back to wait. At 11:05, we spotted a fast boat headed our way from downriver – “Hey! It’s the collectivo!” We all waved our arms wildly and it came over. Yes! There was room for us (We didn’t ask if he had gone to Burnt Cay on his way by) and for 125 Q each he would take us. So the 5 bags got tossed from one lancha to the other, we clambered over after them, waved a quick goodbye to Casey and Linda and roared off to town while they went back to the waiting game.
It seemed so funny that after all that confusion, we ended up on the collectivo after all. It was a lesson in the wisdom of going to town the day before the bus – no worries about missing it. In the past, we have left Cayo Quemado early on the day of departure and that would have made the whole thing less of an adventure and more of a hassle.
Once settled into Bungalow #2 at Tortugal marina, we enjoyed a visit from Poul and Vibeke (Pi) who are at Monkey Bay marina, followed by drinks with the Tortugal crowd who are arriving back to their slips – a lovely way to spend our last evening on the river.
Bus trip up the long road to the city in the morning!