Guatemala Day 6: Livingston

Somehow, we were lucky enough to be traveling to Rio Dulce on the one day of the week that they have a truck taking a short cut from Lanquin. On Thursdays, only Thursdays, it takes a back road cutting the travel time in HALF! Normally it's a 2 hour drive to Cabon and then another 5-6 to Rio Dulce. On the back road it is just 4 hours. woo hoo! I can't believe our luck. We "reserved" the cab seats of the truck for 8:00 am. Yep, we paid extra for the cab. We got up early so we could eat breakfast (best meal of the day) but it was super crowded and always slow so that even with our careful planning we were running close - and then miracle of miracles, the truck was on time, ready to pick us up at 8:00am. Ugh! We had to leave half our breakfast and hop in the back of the truck. Yep, the back. At first the driver wanted one of us in front and one of us in back but we didn't want to split so we both went in back. So much for paying for the cab. It just wasn't worth trying to explain. Besides, it was not a bad ride, we actually enjoyed going through the mountains.

Here we are in the back of the truck.

Kylee got hungry :)

Half way there we stopped and the driver told us to trade places with the girls in front. The other couple in back with us didn't want to go in front and neither did Kylee. Go figure. Kylee loves me so much that she never wants me to leave her side so... we stayed in back. Had we only known...the last hour of the trip was on a soft dirt road and our driver took it at about 50 mph. Holy cow, dirt flying everywhere! By the time we stopped, we were covered like little dirtballs. In the hair, on the eyes, lips, yuck.

We stopped in Rio Dulce long enough to get money from the ATM (the limit, 2000Q - less than $300) and then hopped on the boat to Livingston.

No no, not this boat...but this one:

We were so afraid that our poor little bags would get soaked up there! When it started to rain, they covered them up...mostly.

Dirty from the truck ride, this was still fun. For 2 hours. We passed some very cool places: The Island of the birds:

A grafitti wall from the 1800's:

Island of lillypads:

And other things, like boats:

Some hot springs (not a chance we were going in that...):A river house:

and just plain river :

When we finally got to Livingston we were dropped of at the deck of "Casa Rosada" (Pink House) where we were lucky enough to get 2 nights.

This is just the office. The rooms to the right. Little huts, kind of. The shared bathrooms are down the sidewalk and there are still bugs in our room but it is SUCH an improvement from last night that we don't even care. Kylee found a cockroach on the wall by her bed and won't go to sleep with it there. I had to accost a nice little guatemalan and enlist his help in killing it. He was so nice. Most people here are really nice. The cockroach dripped blood on the wall and the bed. Double Yuck.