PHOTOS part 1 CLICK HERE —>> https://goo.gl/photos/P51pEgM1AZsj2wAYA
PHOTOS part 2 CLICK HERE —>> https://goo.gl/photos/SqmH1hAqnivmiWQs7
As mentioned: when we arrived back at Catamaran Chico was straight off the boat and into the gardens. Following him were Ethan and Rhianna to the pool. We have a daily routine by which the people that are staying in catamaran all meet up in the pool at 3:30 onwards. There we relax and enjoy conversation. Then it was off to the restaurant for some delicious pizza.
The following day poor Rhianna had the dreaded stomach bug that usually is attributed to eating something disagreeable. We were not sure if it was the pizza or that she swallowed pool water.
Casa Guatemala
Ethan and Re had brought with them some clothing that was to be donated to a 
worthy cause; I decided it was time to deliver everything. So off Ethan and I set for a place down the river called Casa Guatemala, a home for needy children. Upon arriving we were greeted by the staff in the administration building by the dock. They had limited English and so called a volunteer – Kimmy – who spoke English. We were thanked for the donation and asked if we wanted to have a look around.
The home is for 250 children who come from Mayan families that live in the nearby mountains and are unable to support them. By that these families are termed as ones that are living with absolute poverty. The home feeds them, educates them, and trains them with crafts and trades. Teaches them how to farm, cook, and have 
most practical skills they need for a successful life back with their families. Most of the children travel back to their families for holidays. They ranged in age from 4 – 14 and were 1/2 girls and 1/2 boys. The children were on break time from their lessons when we visited. They were all quite happily playing or chatting, some little boys were making jewelry 
form natural objects, and others were helping in the kitchen or with the younger children. Ethan and I were impressed.
The next day when Rhianna was feeling much better John and she bought a sack of tortia flour, rice and black beans. They then delivered the food and had a tour too. Again they were very impressed with Casa Guatemala.
Rhianna said, “Pappa and I went to the market and picked up some rice, beans and flour for the orphanage kids. When we went the kids were all watching a movie. We had a look around their cabins and where they slept. It was cool to see how people who don’t have much live. They came over and asked us our names and where we were from. They seemed pretty fascinated by my teeth. (Re has braces)
Rio Dulce Bridge
The next outing we ventured was a walk over the Rio Dulce Bridge. John and I had been and found it enjoyable. Off we went up the bridge, only to stop just 100 feet up as we could see a parade assembling below. There appeared to be beauty contestants of differing ages atop a truck that was decorated with flowers. There were several bands of teens 
playing instruments and again all different music, clowns and various other groups of people assembled. After peering down on the entertainment for 5 minutes we set off again over the bridge. It really is a very nice walk with great views across Rio Dulce.
Down the other side we went to Mar Marina and then Backpackers Hostel where we had a refreshing Lemonada. The walk back was less entertaining but still good.
Rhianna: “ Today was very exhausting. We walked across the biggest bridge!”
Boqueron canyon (El Boqueron), on Lago de Izabal
The Río Sauce cuts through the landscape creating the impressive Cañón El Boquerón, or so I read and thought – another outing for us. We got another collective mini bus out of Fronteras and along with our buddy Peter set off to explore this canyon/gorge. This particular collective driver must have been trying to see how many people he could fit in, as the maximum total should be 11, but we ended up with 21 passengers!! Plus one guy on top. It was just crazy, folks hanging out the door and the driver was paying more attention to his phone than the road. Anyway we survived.
Arriving at the river we found that one of the locals will paddle you upstream for about 800 m where I had heard you could swim with the current all the way down the canyon. However as there had been so much rain from the hurricane in northern Guatemala/Belize the river was flowing very fast and was carrying debris – not ideal circumstances. The paddle upriver through the gorge was lovely and quite spectacular.
It’s a deep canyon with lots of old man’s beard and vines hanging down, strange rock formations with differing colouring line the shoreline cliffs. There are supposed 
to be Howler monkeys, but not that day. We climbed out the canoe into the fast flowing river and clambered up and over the rocks and boulders. The water was lovely and cool. None of us were really prepared for a swim, but we all ended up in the water just soaking ourselves. It was a fun experience, but would have been better a outing when the water was clearer and less of a torrent.
Finca Xobel
As we couldn’t travel to Belize, we devised a new plan …. A few days spent at place located in a semi remote location. The name of the place: Finca Xobel, which was located near Poptun, on the road to Tikal. We set off early on the 7:30 launcha from Catamaran. We walked with our large backpacks to Bruno’s and had another delicious breakfast and then headed to the bus. We did the usual wait for a bus to arrive and much to our disappointment there was standing room only!! 2 hours later we finally arrived at our destination. It wasn’t so bad as at least we could look out the windows with this bus. The countryside was lovely, lush green fields, rounded 
hillocks and the local farms passed by as we travelled.
At a checkpoint nearing the end of the ride, Rhianna and I secured a vacated seat at last and the driver asked where we were headed. Consequentially he then stopped the bus at the end of the driveway for Finca Xobel, our destination. From there we had just a 10-minute walk to the eco resort.
Finca Xobel advertises itself as “We are an eco friendly hotel and campground located in the foothills of the Mayan mountains at an elevation of 600 Meters. We are in the northern region of Guatemala, less than 5 kilometers south of the town of Poptún, in a unique setting of pine forest and jungle.”
We were not disappointed the grounds were just beautiful! We passed fir forested
pastures where horses were grazing on such green lush grass. Re was particularly excited as she had been promised horse riding. Unfortunately the clouds were moving in and there was the usual rumble of thunder. We were checked into our tree house – Jupiter. It contained 2 double beds with mosquitoes nets and a pull out single bed, small but adequate. The porch had a hammock and some rudimentary furniture. A rustic accommodation for our 4-day stay.
We had a very nice lunch and then took a walk around the grounds, which are awesome! There is a natural swimming hole – pond I’d call it – after our walk we went for a refreshing swim. It really is refreshing as the swimming hole is fed by a stream that runs across the property the water is quite cool. Dinner was an excellent buffet.
Our horse ride was at 9:00 the next morning. Rhianna was very excited. We had an excellent ride of 2 hours through the pine forest, across lush grassy fields and up hillsides, through streams and some jungle.
My horse chose his own route, so I left him to it and just took 
photos. Of course he stopped to have a bite to eat as well and then we would do a bit of a trot to catch up. We all mainly walked, but did some trotting and Re got to do a short canter, which really pleased her.
Re said: “This morning we went on a very long nice horse ride through the hillsides. My horse was Bronzo. Bronzo was a beautiful chestnut, but naughty. He would come to a halt every 5 minutes and then trot to catch 
up.”
After returning to the tree house we found tics! John who had worn shorts had them in his legs, I had them crawling on my trousers and Re seemed to escape the tics. Anyway as we’re practiced in tic removal we were well able to rid ourselves of the varmints.
That afternoon we had signed up for a cave tour. There were a group of 3 French-Canadian female back-packers who were also coming along too. Not really knowing what was in store for us we were given 2 guides and set out towards the pine forest again. We were told the pathways had not been used in a while and this proved to be true. We hiked through waist high grass, down very muddy lanes and up slippery slopes for an hour and finally on the side of a hill we arrived at a cave entrance. It was a magnificent cave! There were massive columns, stalactites and stalagmites throughout.
We had to climb down inside and move carefully from cavern to cavern around crystal clear pools of water and 
through mucky floors – which I thought was probably a mix of bat droppings too.
Some of the caverns were several stories high and at one point you could look down on an underground river that runs through the cave.
Rhianna responded: “ The cave was soooo big! Ethan and I were intimidated by the cave spiders”
Very few folks get to see this cave as it is on
private land, so it was quite untouched. For an hour we explored the cave system and then back we hiked to Fincal Xobel. We were all covered in mud, our shoes were just caked, what a mess we all were, but it had been great fun!
We had another relaxing evening in our tree house and another excellent dinner that evening.
Next morning we were booked to go to what were called River Pools. The driver pulled up in a Land Rover in we piled and off we drove to an area near Popgun – Las Conchas waterfalls – where the river flowed over rapids that formed pools. It was another beautiful area.
We all enjoyed swimming in the refreshingly cool water. It left you feeling so ultra clean after an hour or so. I enjoyed exploring the river’s shore taking photos. The 
other 3 were trying to slide down the rapids, which was fine for them as they were wearing shorts.
Re said, “Papa and Ethan of course had to go and try and slide down them. I went to give it a try and of course that didn’t end well.” We spent the entire morning there and then our driver took us back to Fincal Xobel.
Our last afternoon was spent relaxing and wandering around the lovely grounds of Fincal Xobel.
Then it was back to Rio Dulce for the last days of Ethan
and Rhianna’s visit. Unfortunately for Ethan and myself one of those days was spent suffering from the dreaded stomach bug. Their last days in Rio Dulce were spent catching up on their schoolwork and such, plus they enjoyed the pool daily and had another movie night. This movie night was aboard Peter’s boat. We all shared pizza, chicken and salad followed by the movie “Solo around the Americas” by Matt Rutherford. It was a great night.
Antigua
We were off to spend a few days in Antigua before Ethan and Rhianna flew back to Bermuda. Only problem being John was now ill with the dreaded stomach bug and he had it bad. So the three of us set off alone on Monday August 15th on the 8:00am bus for Antigua via Guatemala City. After the bus ride down the teens were dreading the return 
journey, but as it turned out it was easy peasy.
We arrived in Antigua after 2 buses and 1 taxi ride to our hotel. We were staying in Uxlabil Galeria, which is an eco hotel. It was really an old, old, home that had been converted into a small 9-room hotel. Our room was on the top floor, had an open covered porch outside our door, which led to the roof. The view from the roof was amazing! Ahead we had the Volcan de Agua and around the other peaks. Our 
bathroom also looked out towards the volcano. We were all very happy with the room.
The three of us set off to stretch our legs and get aquatinted with Antigua. We found our hotel was ideally situated, just up from the Iglesias La Merced and not far from the Parque Central – the main square. Antigua is just delightful; its lanes are still original with the large cobblestones. The buildings too are untouched from when they were originally built.
Antigua is at an elevation of 5,029 feet (1,533 meters). The old city is known for its magnificent setting at the base of the surrounding volcanoes. Its spring like climate means that the weather is very comfortable. This was noted by Ethan who said he could walk all day in the Antigua climate.
Having been the capital of the former captaincy general, Antigua was once the most important seat of Spanish colonial government between Mexico City and Lima, Peru. It was founded as Santiago de los Caballeros de Guatemala in 1527 and it was destroyed by an eruption that swept down from the slopes of Volcán de Agua
(“Volcano of Water”). The village that became reestablished on the site came to be called Ciudad Vieja (“Old City”). Antigua is noted chiefly for the ruins of colonial edifices, many of which were churches and monasteries that make it a museum of Spanish colonial history and an UNESCO World Heritage site.
For our first day in Antigua and as I was alone with the teens, I felt I needed to be somewhat imaginative to keep them “entertained” so decided on a walking tour, which I turned into a “hunt” or “ navigate our way to the different sites like a treasure hunt”. I’m sure if I’d said Nana wants to visit all the ruins, churches and such they would have revolted, however the “hunt” for our trail worked really well.
We set off by getting a taxi to Cerro de la Cruz. Cerro de la Cruz provides fan excellent view looking south over town toward Volcán de Agua. The prominent cross at the head of the lookout point is devoted to the Antigua’s patron saint. Ethan and Rhianna were very impressed with the view; they both said it was awesome!
We left and walked down the wooded pathway back towards the old city. I was a bit apprehensive as there had been some muggings along this path, so we timed our decent with a large group of fairly fit looking folks.
From the bottom we followed our Lonely Planet route. Instructions said: “At bottom turn right, down a cobbled street. You’ll come to a basketball court backed by the ruins of Iglesias de la Candelabra.”
From there we were told to go left along a high yellow wall to glimpse the Templo de Santa Rosa de 
Lima a small church on private grounds.
From there we were directed to: Converto Capuchinas, with its unique tower, a convent that cared for orphans and women in the 1700s but was badly damaged in the volcanic explosion.
The Iglesia El Carmen, and the handicraft market were our next stops.
Followed by, Converto de Santa Teresa and Iglesias y Converto de Santa Clara just a few of the convents and churches all kept in excellent condition.
It was nearing lunchtime we were close to Iglesias de Nuestra Señora de La Merced, which is close to our hotel. This church and monastery was not as badly damaged by the volcanic eruption. We wandered around the old monastery and then into the church. It really is a magnificent church.
Ethan applied some Holy water on Rhianna’s head, both were somewhat uncomfortable wandering around the church, not being used to churches they found it unnerving, – so they said.
After a lunch break we hit the trail again. Walking to the Calle Del Arco and under Arco de Santa Catalina, which was built as part of the 17th century Convent of Santa Catalina Virgin and Martyr, was for “imprisonment”, which means that its nuns avoided contact with people of the city in general. They could walk over the arch/bridge from the convent to the church without having any contact. It again is a lovely street with the quaint buildings, shops and vendors.
At the end there is the Parque Central where we were instructed to ascend to the balcony of the Palacio del Ayuntamiento to see the square from above. From there 
we walked the square seeing the Catedral de Santiago and various other historic buildings. It was then time to return to our hotel to meet John, who had felt well enough to travel that day to Antigua.
Our next day we explored the lanes and alleyways on our way to the market.
Just expecting a regular market we were surprised by its size. It is a 
huge market where you can find absolutely everything and anything. We spent the rest of the morning walking the tiny alleyways between the different vendors looking at the rich variety of produce and merchandise.
Afterwards we found our way via several alleyways to the craft market. Here we all enjoyed looking at the beautiful crafts for sale. The textiles are just wonderful. The workmanship is excellent. I just loved all the colorful fabrics, masks and bags.
John took Ethan and Rhianna to the airport at 4:30am the next morning, it was time for 
them to head home. Afterwards we enjoyed Antigua for a few hours and then headed into Guatemala City for our bus back to the Rio the following day.
“The question is not what you look at—but how you look and whether you see.” – Henry David Thoreau
