Tortugal Hotel & Marina Fronteras

So after leaving the horrible swamp we moved down the river a little ways to Tortugal and now its a week later and we are still here! It's been impossible to get ourselves to pack up and leave this place. It's right on the river and has a dock you can swim out to, a descent happy hour, and we are staying in a very comfortable bungalo. We love it so much we havent been able to get ourselves to leave. One day while here we took a trip out to . The bartender here, Elder, takes groups up in his v...

Last night I went to the internet and organised my Visa for re-entry into the USA in a week or so which was all approved. The 6 of us went down to the waterfront to get a cheap eat at Peches but it was closed so we ventured to another place nearby. They were pretty quick and we got back to the hotel with a few minutes to spare before we had to meet our shuttle. We walked down to the corner and saw a van there - assumed it was ours and put our bags in the back. The driver came back and did...

We had a little sleep in today - well some of us didn't get up until after 8am! I had the continental brekky which came with fresh fruit and home made bread - it was amazing. Still quite steamy today but we'd all had a really good sleep - the beds here are amazing too. This place rocks. Our boat man came at 10am and me, Teryn, Lucy, Julia and Joseph headed out onto the Lake. We passed El Castillo de San Felipe - an old castle built in the 1600's to keep the pirates away, it was turned into a ...

The bus we took from Flores to Rio Dulce was only supposed to take four hours. Unfortunately it had some gear box problems so we stopped on the side of the road for at least half an hour on the way. Eventually we made it to the small but bustling town of Rio Dulce, where we caught a small boat further up the river to Tortugal, or accommodation for the next two nights. From the moment we arrived at the resort-like place, we all liked it. My bedroom at Tortugal is hard to describe. Our room had...

After days of non-stop travel from Lago Atitlan through Coban, Lanquin, Semuc Champey and back through Coban, we arrived in Rio Dulce, on Lago Izabel absolutely exhausted. We splurged our first night in a yachtie hangout called Bruno's in town (not worth the money, except for the very cheap drinks at happy hour...), and then moved to the Tortugal resort further up river, which was absolutely worth the money. Views over the Rio Dulce, free kayaks, and friendly staff. We took a bus out one day ...

Together with the Austrian students I met in Belize on my way to Livingston, I took a very nice boat ride up the rio dulce to a town with the same name. Along the way we made a short, rather uneventful stop at a local development project, but the charm of the ride was the river itself, the small, primitive houses beside it, the locals fishing in small canoes, the water lilies and the birds. Further upstream the river gets wider and river sides look completely different too: big, expensive vil...

The next stop on Lee and Seb´s world trip was Rio Dulce. To get there, we had to set off from the lovely Black Cat Inn in Antigua at 4am. Nice! Even nicer was the fact we were dropped off at one of Guatemala City´s dodgy bus stations at 5am! Needless to say we stood out like sore thumbs and it was very much a case of eyes down as we went into the waiting room and took our seats. In fact, it was so obvious we weren´t local that the guy behind the desk gave us our own passenger announcement to ...