The hot waterfalls at Finca Paraiso

Life in the Rio Dulce is another world. It´s hard to believe that it´s the same country as Lake Atitlan and Antigua. It reminds me alot of when I lived on the coast in Ecuador. It´s probably all the bugs that has me reminiscing the most. On Saturday Brenda, Adrian and I had a fabulous day, hiring a private boat and a captain to take us to Livingston. Livingston is unique for 2 reasons – you can only get to it by boat and it has a large population of Garfuna people. We got off the boat and thought we were in Jamaica!

Yup, they speak English, they are black like the Jamacians and it felt like another world. It was a total culture shock! After a few hours wandering through the town, eating and drinking, talking to some very interesting folks, we headed back to Rio Dulce. The river, although not the largest by any means in Central America is considered one of the most beautiful and our captain took us through narrow tributaries where we could have been on a Universal Studios movie set in Hollywood.

Sunday we went for a walk and found a fabulous hotel on the river where we had lunch and we explored the castle that is at the entrance to a massive lake. There were lots of pirates in this area for centuries and the castle has been beautifully rebuilt. It was also great to see lots of Guatemalan families enjoying picnics on the grounds and enjoying their day off together.

Monday morning Brenda and Adrian were off with their private driver to Guatemala City and flew home today. Back on my own for the next few weeks, I´m catching up on my suntanning and work!

As I woke up yesterday morning to my avocado partially eaten by what would appear to be a rat, they fumigated my place and put out rat poison on bananas. This morning I woke up to 14 dead cockroaches in just the livingroom and kitchen. I stopped counting when I got to the bedroom. I could hear the rat in the roof last night but hopefully he stays along ways away from me and we´ll get along just fine.

Instead as there was no electricity this morning, I hopped on a boat into town and caught the local transport out to Finca Paraiso, a local place that is raved about in the guidebooks.

Now local transport was something else again. As Brenda and Adrian chose to do the trip as first class as possible, we have been hiring our own boats and drivers. It really is so affordable to do it that way here but today I was back to my usual setting – what do the locals do? So instead I was in the equivalent of a Chevy van and there were 20 people in it. People were standing, sitting on top of each other and the door was open for part of the trip. The driver, although he was driving fairly slowly was on his cell phone, making change, adjusting the radio and manouvering around corners where the roadsign said, “Dangerous Curves”. It was not a trip for the faint of heart although I never felt like death was imminent which has been the case in other countries.

I arrived at Finca Paraiso 35 minutes later and thankfully another Guatemalan family disembarked with me because there were no proper sign or directions. $1.20 was admission and again no signs as to where to go. I headed off on the path through the jungle and found my own way. Amazingly enough, there was an entire tour bus full of French-speaking people who were just finishing up their swim in the hot thermal waters and then I shared the place with about 15 people from New Zealand and Australia! Incredible how people get around.

Finca Paraiso is unlike anything I have seen. It´s a pool in a river that has cold water with scalding hot waterfalls that warm the water. I take the hottest showers of anyone I know and this was too hot for me. Later the guide took me to the source of the water which bubbles out of the earth at about 76 degrees Centigrade or 169 degrees Farhenheit. The plants in the water are actually white they are so burned by the sulphur and heat.

Needless to say, it was a fabulous experience bathing in the hot/warm/cold waters – it was your choice as to where you wanted to relax. After a very cold beer at the tiny restaurant that wasn´t open except for beer, I got a ride back to Rio Dulce in a similar van – fortunately with only half the people as the trip in.

A bit of shopping, a nice lunch of garlic shrimp and a boat trip back home. Thankfully electricity was back on and I can work for the rest of the day. Tomorrow I will tell you about this amazing little house I am staying in – despite the rat and the bugs, it´s very neat. And how I got it had Brenda spitting nails. It´s a great story of creating what you want.

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