The Rio Dolce and a Jungle that Grows Sideways

The Rio Dolce is a river in the eastern Guatemalan jungle that flows through a couple of gorgeous lakes and into the Caribbean. It is a place of intersections....the clashing and melding of Mayan, Ladino, and Caribbean culture....the acute juxtaposition of the richest and the poorest of Guatemala....and a smattering of hard drinking crusty old expats that often tinker about on boats....but more about them later.

Getting There

Ok, lets start from the beginning....always with the early morning pick-up....5:00am this time. Geeeze! I decided to try Guatemalan "first class" travel in the form of a Pullman bus. This however requires catching the bus in Guatemala City in an armpit of a neighborhood. I arrived to find the bus I had planned to take to Rio Dolce had been cancelled and the next one did not leave for hours.....while I was stumbling to speak in something approximating Spanish, the woman behind the counter suggested I take a bus to Morales...close to Rio, and then grab a van into town. What the hell. I went for it.

After hours of bumpy hallucinogenic half sleep, we reached Morales and I was instructed to exit the bus at a strange intersection with a gas station, a couple tiendas, and local vans stuffed with mostly human cargo whizzing this way and that.

¿Donde esta el bus a Rio Dolce? Juan Pablo, a short adorable young college student from Guate said he spoke English and he was headed to Rio also. We found the van stop and waited only a few minutes and then we were stuffed into the vehicle and, as is the way here, picked up many folks along the way.

Now there is something you should know about the vans here. Picture a light-tinny Toyota minivan with 4 rows of seats plus the front. Now envision the isle used to access the rows of seats...at the end of each of these rows there is another seat that folds down so that as each row fulls, it is ultimately closed off with one more seat. Well for claustrophobics like me (ask my sister about holding my hand during an "open" MRI while I sobbed and hyperventilated fucked up on a Valium....not pretty). Well, there I sat in the back of the van, stuffed onto the seat, another 3 seats folded down in front of me and filled with people....no escape rout whatsoever....and somehow I stuck my elbow out the window, felt the breeze, breathed....and we bumped along the road towards Rio without me losing my mind.

The town of Rio Dolce was chaos with an inexplicable traffic jam in the main intersection of this strange little place. I jumped out of the van and into another that took me to my hotel after sitting in the traffic mess for quite a long time....sweating....waiting.

Clean Sheets Again

I stayed at a nice hotel slightly out of town and on the river. I learned that this resort is frequented mostly by rich Guatemalans....the 2% or so that have a grossly disproportionate amount of the wealth of this country and have exerted, in collusion with the USA, a political stranglehold on the poor people of Guatemala. I sat next to them and ate excellent food and enjoyed the comforts of affluence. It was strange....spending my money there...lounging in my privilege....like passing for straight when I am so damn queer...or being white in the south having tea with racists.....so polite and refined and complicated.....but there I sat, undeniably privileged. It was weird. I arranged for a boat tour the next day and slept on clean sheets and a decent bed.

The Rioi Dolce

Captain Daniel and his son Don picked me up at 8 in a 15 foot panga with a bimini top and 40hp outboard engine. We putted up through the eastern end of the huge Lake Isabal and into the Rio Dolce towards the Caribbean....into small lagoons with cormorants and beds of floating water Lillie's and thick mangroves strutting over shallow water thick with underwater growth. We passed by small simple thatched roofed homes of fishermen working with nets out of traditional dugout canoes...buoys made of bits of Styrofoam or a plastic orange juice bottle. We were approached by young children in their smaller dugouts....smiling....a small boy holding up a wiggling crab he had caught, a proud young fisherman. Me, a strange rich gringa...a woman alone venturing about with her male guides....looking.....$500 camera clicking shots of the poor but happy others. Goddamn my education!!

Then into the canyon....hundreds of feet up the canyons climb....and out of them grows the jungle still! Sheer cliffs can not stop the fecundity...the determination and adaptability of the rainforest....and so she grows, trees perpendicular...orchids hanging from cliffs...ferns and god knows what all growing green and lush on the sides of this stunning canyon! And then turning the corner she appeared, the Caribbean, calm and flat and humid.

We pulled into Livingston (see pic) a small town more Caribbean in culture than not. The music distinctly more African and the food more greasy. I spent a few hours walking and sweating and eating something fried.....called my family...bought some gifts. Then back to the boat bringing Daniel and Don ice cream to cut the heat some. We motored back through that gorgeous canyon and I sat quietly, in awe.