The next stop was a region and river known as Rio Dulce, a safe haven for the yachting crowd during hurricane season, and generally beautiful jungle region that attracts a lot of local and international tourists. The drive to the town of Rio Dulce would take us 3 hours per GreenGo’s proprietor who recommended taking the most direct route through a big mountain pass, saying it was the most beautiful drive in all of Guatemala. He was right about the beauty but he clearly drives a hell of a lot faster than we do.
The drive took us 6+ hours, 4.5 of which was to slowly rumble our way up the climb of the massive mountain pass, including several stops to let the radiator/transmission cool off enough to proceed.
The very rough and rocky unpaved road is 1 lane, and most of the time there is a cliff going up on one side and a cliff dropping off on the other. At one such cliffy spot when I was driving we encountered an illegal roadblock manned by 2 dirty and not-nice-looking men who first demanded 1Q (about $0.17 USD) for “road maintenance”. When Dmitri sarcastically thanked them and commented about how smooth (“suave”) the road was, they upped it to 100Q (about $14 USD). Ted was growling at them and staring them down and for once we did not tell him to knock it off. We were fuming mad, so while I yelled some bluff about calling the Tourist Police – which they do actually have in Guatemala but we had no cell signal – Dmitri jumped out of the car, threw the decent-sized boulder blocking the road over the roadside (his back would have something to say about this later) then got back in and we “sped” off. Just before we bumped and swayed away I handed one guy a 1Q coin which he threw back into the car at me. We were a bit worried that they might phone ahead to friends to harass us later but nothing happened. Maybe they didn’t have cell coverage either.
When we finally hit the pavement it was brand new and smooth like butter and such a change from the jarring, squeaking, bouncing, and rolling that we were all just quiet for a while. The pavement also marked a return to mobile coverage via our SIM card so we did a little research and decided that we weren’t going to make Rio Dulce and would need to spend the night at Fray Bartholomew, a fair-sized town with zero reviews on Trip Advisor or iOverlander.
Google had a couple reviews for a Hotel San Jose so we aimed for that. The hotel was family owned, very inexpensive, and up on a hill a couple blocks off the highway.
On our walk to one of the only restaurants in town for dinner, we stopped at a trash-covered playground so Nina could join several local kids in a little pre-dinner romp.
We were the only customers at the tiny little restaurant, where the menu choices were carne asada or a slightly different preparation of carne asada. Although the town was definitely not a tourist town, we felt plenty safe. Safe feeling or not, since it was full dark after dinner the 4 of us crammed in a tuk-tuk to return to the hotel.
The next morning we made for Rio Dulce, and arranged for the hotel’s boat to come fetch us at the dock. Finca Tatin was recommended by our Norwegian aristocrat friend and we were looking forward to it.
It’s right IN the jungle at the river’s edge and you stay in little cabañas that they haven’t even attempted to seal off from the elements. The size of the purportedly harmless spiders……oh my. I try really really hard to swallow my arachnophobia so I don’t pass it on to my daughter (let her develop her own phobias, I say, no need to inherit mine). When I want to scream and leap into the river for spider safety, I try to instead say “Wow, look at that cool looking spider! It’s a really really big one! How neat!”. I’ve done a fairly good job at that on this trip so far but the residents of Finca Tatin really put me to the test.
The jungle was also home to all manner of frogs, snakes, monkeys, jaguars, etc. but we didn’t see anything noteworthy of those. It also possessed a very large Rottweiler named Negro who made friends with Ted right away. He had the deepest, biggest bark I’ve heard from a dog before or since – it positively echoed through the jungle. There were some small dogs across the river that would antagonize him – barking at him and running along the shore – and Negro would give this huge bark back at them. Half the time the bark alone shut them up but the other half of the time they’d keep at it until Negro swam across the river and chased them off. Hilarious game.
The Finca boasted an awesome rope swing off the dock into the refreshing water. To my surprise, Nina was totally into it and swung – and remembered to let go – several times and was super proud of herself. Rightfully so!
On our first full day there we did a guided 3-hour jungle hike which included a cave formerly used for Mayan “rituals” and a local Mayan village. The cave usually includes an option to jump about 10+ feet into a pool of water but on this particular day the rope ladder to get back out was missing and there really isn’t another way to exit so we had to skip that part.
The village was very peaceful – a school, homes in the traditional thatched-roof sod hut style, and of course farm animals allowed to roam. We had to leash Ted up because he decided the pigs looked like they needed a good game of chase. No animals were harmed in the making of this blog post – we grabbed his collar as soon as he looked a bit too interested in the pigs!
The nights were shockingly cold given the heat and humidity of the days. We wore long sleeved layers, and piled on blankets at night. The blankets and sheets were a stinky because the humidity never lets anything truly dry out so everything’s got a mildew to it. I did not love that.
Our second, and last, day at the Finca we did a family kayak to a hot springs. It was a pretty short distance – a little over a mile – but we moved slowly trying to avoid whacking the kid and the dog with oars and looking in the trees for wildlife. As we paddled up to the dock for the hot springs we saw several passenger boats docked there and a LOT of white people standing around staring at us. In fairness we must have been quite the sight. Turns out they were all from a cruise ship from Florida that had anchored at the river mouth. Touring the river and hot springs via speedboat was one of the activity options. The springs themselves were rather underwhelming – just a small strip of warm water directly behind the boat dock. We had a way better time talking to the cruisers.
We got up early the next day to catch the first boat back to Rio Dulce. Back at town, Nina and I hung out on the dock with our pile of luggage while Dmitri and Ted tuk-tuk’ed around town until they found a vet who could provide the necessary paperwork for entry into Honduras.
Loco Dirty Familia 
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