Guatemala, take two.

Trip Start Sep 10, 2006

Trip End ??? ??, 2007

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Flag of Guatemala Livingston, Guatemala
Monday, December 4, 2006

We left Punta Gorda with some confusion about which boat to take, after some asking around and some arguing we ended up on a boat to Puerto Barrios were we got another boat to Livingston. We are now back in Guatemala although here in Livingston its hard to tell. This town has many Garifuna living here but they speak Spanish. But the culture feels very much like Belize. Except the prices are Guatemalan, almost. After having some lunch we decided to take a hike out to an attraction called Los Siete Altares. We were told it is not the safest walk along the beach so we brought nothing of value except a water bottle. The hike started along the beach and through a Garifuna village. The beach was not the cleanest we have seen with human litter and natural litter all over. About an hour into our hike Casey realized we had no money with us at all and that there is a entrance fee to the park. Oops! Well we decided to continue to the park and see what would happen by playing dumb tourists. When we got there we played as dumb as we could which I�m sure was not very convincing, but the gatekeeper kindly let us in anyway as long as we left money at our hotel for him to pick up the next time he went into town. Sweet, we got in!! Los Siete Altares is a section of river with limestone deposits creating pools to swim in. Very cool. We hiked up the river a bit and found a waterfall that we swam under. This area reminded us a bit of Semuc Champey but different. The water was not that turquoise blue color. We did not get any pictures here because we did not bring our camera, sorry. We didn�t stay too long since it was late in the afternoon but still enjoyed the pools and beauty of it all. We wanted to get back to town before it got dark. All in all the hike was very safe and we had nothing to worry about. Back in town we met up with some other travelers and all went for dinner. The Mexican woman who owned the resturant was very talkative and very proud of her place, conceited if you will. She told us many times that she was in 15 guide books and that her food is the best. Well, when we finally got our food, which took a while because she talked more than she cooked, it was ok, but not great. Casey had not been feeling the best this afternoon and at the end of the meal she asked "where is the bathroom?" and before I could answer she quickly got up and ran for the beach. You can guess what she did there, yup that not so great meal of fish, crab and shrimp soup went right back to the sea! We had planned to go out to a bar playing Garifuna music, but as late as it was after the extended dinner and Casey�s state of health, we headed straight to bed once we got back to our noisy hotel. Surprising both of us, she felt just fine the next morning, so we decided to keep pushing on to Rio Dulce.