The Sailing Trip Part One

We spent a couple of hours eating in Rio Dulce, and then wasting time by playing cards. We had no idea at that point, that for the next three days we would be doing a lot of that. We met the other people that we going to be on the boat, two young women from the US living in Guatemala for a year and doing volunteer work in Panajachel, and an American family down from Wisconsin for spring break. The dad was a judge, the mom a nurse type person, and they were traveling with their son, Elliot, and his friend Elek, both in high school.

At first nobody was quite sure which sailboat was actually the one we were going to be on, and when we did find out we were all very incredulous that twelve people could fit of it. (Luckily for us the boat wasn't as full as that, which is the maximum, but it was hard to imagine more people.) We were shown our "bedrooms" first, which happened to be supposedly double beds, which I personally can't imagine sharing (I got to sleep by myself since Rissa slept with mom.) There was about three feet of space between the ceiling and the mattress, and the beds were about five feet wide and seven feet long. (Those are COMPLETE estimates so they might not be even close, but I don't think they're that far off.)

It meant that, besides sleeping, nobody spent anytime time in their "rooms". The top of the boat was fairly roomy though, and everybody had a place to read or lay and tan or play cards or whatever they were doing to occupy themselves during the long periods of sailing from one place to another. The first day we only sailed for about an hour before we got to an island that had a resort/farm (there is no direct transaltion into English for these sites) called Finca Paraiso, where we anchored for the night. The sun was just setting and there were some absolutely gorgeous colors in the sky. While Elias finished preparing dinner, Elliot and Elek swam, and everybody else took pictures.

The first night for dinner we were all very surprised at how well Elias could cook, especially given the fact that the kitchen was miniature and he didn't have an abundance of supplies, because they wouldn't fit anywhere. It was a large pile of chicken and rice and veggies and it was delicious, although it was probably more food than most of us normally eat. The weird part was that we ate every bit every meal, even though most of the time our "exercise" consisted of sitting and reading on a sailboat...During the meal we all talked some and got to know each other a little better, and then went to bed early. It's like camping...when it's dark you fell tired and you go to bed...when it's light you get up even if it's about six o'clock in the morning.

The next morning we all woke up early, to a beautiful morning. Elias made a typical breakfast (scrambled eggs, refried beans and plantains) missus my favorite part the tortillas, and again like camping I ate it all...except the beans, even though usually I can't bring myself to eat anything besides the eggs. Then Raul told us that he was going to fary us onto the shore, and then we would walk for a mile and a half or so to a place where there was hot springs. We all put on swimsuits and sunscreen and set out. We walked through farms and passed by many indigenous people, all of whom ignored us.

When we reached the forest, a man came out and when we told him where we were going he said he would be our guide. (We had paid back at the beach, and we think that the fee was just the ability to walk through the farm to the national park on the other side.) Either way, the man led us down a trail, where we finally emerged to see a gorgeous waterfall tumbling into a pool in the middle of a river. Everything was green, somtimes reaching all the way down to the water's edge, and you could see steam rising from the falls themselves, and they were the hot water from hot springs above. The pool itself wasn't too cold, but going above the falls into the river was pretty chilly. Everybody stood under the hot water, relishing in the fact that it was really hot, and you didn't have to worry about how long you took a shower and waisted the natives water.

We spent about an hour there, exploring where the hot water bubbled out of the stream about twenty yards above the falls, and trying to keep moving so that the fish in the pools didn't come and start eating you're dead skin. When it's little fish it's ok, but these were a good four inches long, and the bits were hard, and every couple of seconds if someone wasn't moving you were hear them jump in surprise and then swim as fast as they could to the other side of the pool, trying to escape the fish. Unfortunately, the pool wasn't big enough for everbody to escape. Elliot, Elek, Larissa and I found some rocks to jump into, although they were probably only about five feet above the water or so. The boys tooks pictures of each other doing flips into the water, and we had a lot of fun until another large group came to the pool. At that point we all decided that we were done, and headed out so as to avoid the large group.

By the time we got back to the boat, we were all really hot, because being at sea level in Guatemala in the middle of March is not a good plan unless you can be in water the entire time. Shade doens't usually cut it usually. Elliot, Elek, Rissa and I all swam back to the boat, thinking we would have some time to swim. El Lago Ixobel felt like heaven every time I touched the water, but all too soon Raul and Elias said we had to go because we had a schedule to follow. We started sailing back towards our original destination, where we were going to visit an old Spanish fort that used to guard the entrance into the lake from pirates.

We took a short tour, where I was my usualy clumsy self and managed to fall down a whole flight of stairs because they were slippery and old and I had flip flops on and wasn't being careful. Everybody said they heard the thunk, and I had a good mark on my leg for about a week and my elbow was stiff. the story is actually more impressive than the side effects, because about an hour later I didn't even remembered that I had fallen. The fort was interesting because it's been rebuilt a number of times, so you can still see really well without a lot of resoration what it must have been like. The doorways and stairways were all really skinny and short and narrow, and the guide said that it was to confuse enemies, should they ever break into the fort. It worked really well, because without knowing it I kept walking in circles. It was even that big a place...

We had lunch while we were sailing, consisting of some kind of soup with fish in it. It was good, although a hot soup in the hot weather wasn't was I would necessarily have asked for. From the fort, we sailed across El Golfete to a place where we spent the night. The whole entire lake was gorgeous, and there were a million possibities for places to anchor for the night, but we ended up in front of a house/restaurant that wasn't in the best condition, with screaming children, barking dogs and bugs all night. Normally that kinda of ting doesn't really bug me, because I think well it's just part of the experience, but I didn't understand why we couldn't move about twenty yards down the river where it would have been peaceful and quite and beautiful..