We went home for hurricane season on July 18th and spent the summer visiting with family and friends, doing projects around the house and celebrating my dad's 99th birthday. Although we were home for 3 1/2 months, it seemed like time was so short. We had to get some solar panels fixed on the roof and some repairs to the driveway so it was sort of like being on the boat with projects except we weren't doing the work for the most part. Friends Greig and Caroline visited from Halifax and then flew back to their boat a week before we did.
We returned to Guatemala on November1 and spent the night in Guatemala City before taking the long bus ride back to the boat the next day. The boat was in good shape when we got back with all our bags loaded with boat parts ready for another round of projects.
Greig and Caroline had to fly back home for a couple of weeks before we even got to the Rio due to a death in the family. We did a few projects like installing a propane detector, replacing the propane regulator and hose and replacing the furling line for the staysail.
On November 13th, we took the bus back to Guatemala City to meet Greig and Caroline at the airport and headed off to Antigua.
We stayed at a lady's house in Antigua that had been recommended to us by some other cruisers. Eugenia had lived in South Africa for quite a long time and her house had a very tasteful African themed décor. The home was beautiful and she was an excellent host. Eugenia was also a volunteer docent at a colonial house that had been restored in Antigua and gave us a very informative and interesting tour of the Popenou home.
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| View of Volcano Fuego from the rooftop terrace at Eugenia's house |
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| You can barely see some ash coming out from the top |
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| Our terrace |
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| Some of Eugenia's beautifully carved African chairs |
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| Courtyard and fountain in her home |
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| Beautiful Bird of Paradise in the Central Park |
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| Pretty tile work under the roofline above the balconies |
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| Wooden masks for sale in Antigua |
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| Mosaic tiles on the columns in La Merced church |
The Popenoe house:
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| When William Popenoe restored the house, he made a few changes too. He added a fireplace to his study. Previously they only used a coal brazier in the rooms. |
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| My favorite thing in the house was this beautiful wood and mother of pearl inlaid mirror. |
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| Part of the large garden Popenoe added. He was a horticulturist who studied and taught in Guatemala and Honduras. |
We spent our time touring Antigua, visiting the park, churches, good restaurants and a walk to the cross at the hill overlooking the city. We enjoyed having coffee (juice for me) in the mornings and wine/rum in the evenings and looking out at volcano Fuego from the terrace at Eugenia's house. Her home was a bit outside of the main part of the old city, but still within walking distance. A couple of times we tried taking an Uber but there was a big meeting of all the Latin American presidents going on in Antigua while we were there and security was really tight with some streets blocked off, making it difficult to get into or out of the neighborhood by car.
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| Cross at the top of the hill overlooking Antigua |
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| Beautiful ivy on a building in Eugenia's neighborhood where we stayed in Antigua |
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| Volcano Fuego still spewing ash sporadically. Quite a sight with the sunset as backdrop. |
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| Fuego again |
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| Lunch at the Sky Bar and restaurant was very good. |
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| Enjoying a coffee on the terrace in the morning |
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| Volcano Fuego smoking in the background |
We hired a driver to take us from Antigua to Lake Atitlan where we spent a few days at Hotel Uxlabil located between San Juan and San Pedro. The hotel is run by local Mayans and is the friendliest hotel we have ever stayed in. The people working there seemed genuinely happy to be there and could not have been nicer. Always a smile on their faces. There was a very large porch with chairs, hammocks and even a bed for relaxing. The restaurant at the hotel was limited but adequate. Our rooms included breakfast which included a first course of an oatmeal "soup" (mostly milk with some oats and cinnamon in it), then several different choices of eggs or pancakes or a fruit plate.
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| Fantastic porch for chilling. Literally too. It was much cooler at Lake Atitlan than on the Rio Dulce. |
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| Views from the porch |
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| Walking the path up to the road to go to town was more strenuous than we expected. |
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| One of the staff picking avocados along the path. |
We walked to San Pedro one day and checked out the market and souvenir shops.
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| View of San Pedro from the road coming from Hotel Uxlabil |
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| Baptist church and facilities. Biggest building in San Pedro. |
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| Lots of tuk-tuks |
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| Several art "galleries" in town and some on the buildings |
The next day, Greg and I walked to San Juan and visited a local artisan co-op where the women weave beautiful scarves, table runners, shawls and lots more. We saw the coffee beans growing on the bushes at the side of the road and the farmers were in the coffee co-op turning in beans and weighing them to get their pay. There were beans out to dry in the sun. It was late in the afternoon so we needed to head back to the hotel as we had walked along a path that would not be easy to follow in the dark. But we went back the next day with Greig and Caroline and went back to the co-op. We also found the square where there was a huge kite from the kite festival that takes place every November 1 for Day of the Dead. We missed that as that was the day we flew in to Guatemala City. But the kite was amazing in size and design.
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| Coffee beans drying in the sun |
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| The coffee beans growing on the trees along the road |
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| Old building in San Juan |
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| Local Mayan woman demonstrating how they spin the cotton into yarn. She makes it look so Easy! |
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| She tried to teach me. |
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| It is a lot harder than it looks! |
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| Dyeing the yarn in beet juice |
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| Several yarns drying. All dyed with different plant-based dye. |
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| A young lady prepares the yarn into skeins |
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| The background threads of the weaving are made. |
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| Then the cross threads are woven according to the pattern desired |
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| The town's kite for the festival in the square |
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| You can barely see Greg standing to the right of the kite. That is how huge it is. |
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| Hotel Uxlabil |
We got back to Guatemala City and spent the night at Angie's Guest house, affiliated with Casa Guatemala, the children's home on the Rio Dulce. We made a trip to the farmacia (pharmacy) and picked up some supplies for the bomberos (volunteer firefighters and ambulance staff) as we had gotten word that they had no more lidocaine for use when stitching people up and needed bandages, etc. We also found a great grocery, LaTorre, where we stocked up on the few non-perishables that we could fit in our bags for the bus ride home. Had a great steak dinner at La Estancia near the US Embassy. The next day it was another 6 hour bus ride back to the Rio and the boat.
Two days after we got back to the boat was Thanksgiving. All the cruisers here at Catamaran got together and bought 3 turkeys and cooked them in the restaurant's kitchen, made a huge vat of mashed potatoes and everyone brought sides and desserts. We treated the marina staff to a Thanksgiving dinner and had a great time.
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| Dan carving one of the turkeys. |
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| Greg made the gravy |
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| Derrick carving another turkey. We had three! |
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| A vat of potatoes |
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| Steve and some of the staff working the big mixer for the mashed potatoes. |
Greg made gumbo with the turkey leftovers and we all enjoyed that a few days later.
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| The gumbo line |
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Some would say the best part of Thanksgiving... leftover turkey gumbo.
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We took another trip to Tikal , a Mayan ruin in northern Guatemala, accompanied by Greig and Caroline from Lequesteau and Melissa and Dan from Slow Dancing. Tikal is much larger than Copan but the ruins are plainer and less well preserved. There was very little in the way of carvings but we had a great Mayan guide who knew the history and was very passionate about his culture and history. We stayed in Flores, a town about an hour from Tikal which was very tourist-friendly and clean.
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| The Christmas tree obviously sponsored by Gallo beer in Flores town square. Note the Gallo rooster head on top. |
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| One of the many mounds in Tikal under which are Mayan ruins. This one has been partially unearthed. |
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| Yes, I climbed to the top. 40 steps. |
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| A coatimundi, or pizote as it is locally known. |
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| The most colorful turkey I have seen. |
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| Saul, our guide climbs out of one of the storage areas the Mayans had for seeds, beans, etc. |
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| View from the top of one of the temples |
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| Dan and Melissa, Greg and I, Greig and Caroline |
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| The girls and Saul |
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| One of the few carvings we saw in Tikal |
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| Temple of the Jaguar |
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| Standing on the top of the Princess Temple with the North Acropolis in the background |
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| Acropolis del Norte |
Back to the boat and boat chores...………….
Greg went on a day trip to an eco-farm with several people from the marina. I wasn't feeling well that day, so I stayed on the boat. They had actually planned to go on a trip to a waterfall and then tubing on a river but the road was blocked so they went with Plan B.
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| The owner of the farm, left |
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| Now that looks like a Christmas turkey! |
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| Passion flower. Passion fruit make great juice. |
We are still dealing with a slow leak in the dinghy, having to pump water out every day. Have not been able to fix that. Greg went up the mast and replaced the block at the top for the spinnaker and ran our new spinnaker halyard. We also replaced two blocks at the base of the mast as they had cracked after 20 years of use. We finally got our new cockpit cushions back from the upholstery shop (they had been waiting on thread) and our bimini with the two new solar panels sewn on top. Greg wired those up and we are making power again. Unfortunately, in the process of checking the rigging, he found that the running backstays which were metal, were rusted and about to break. We decided to replace them with dyneema and he was able to source some locally. Now we just need some thimbles to splice the line onto. Dan and Melissa went home for Christmas and are serving as "mules" for many of us who need stuff from the States. They will bring back the thimbles we ordered when they return at the end of the month.
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| Our nice new cockpit cushions. |
We finally picked our date to leave the Rio and did our checkout a couple days in advance. We went down to Texan Bay on January 5, 2019 and then down to Livingston at the mouth of the river on the 6th. High tide was at 2030 which meant crossing the bar in the dark. Something we were NOT looking forward to. We used different waypoints than the ones we had used coming in last May. The wind was up a bit and against the tide, so the sea was a bit choppy. Not what we wanted when trying to get over a shallow area. We headed out about 1930 with Lequesteau following us as their depth sounder was not working. We bumped a few times and then had to plow through the sand pretty hard. I thought for sure we would get stuck. We made it through but Lequesteau did not. They got stuck and we waited on the other side of the bar and sent text messages for them to the local guy who tips boats over to get across. However, he was very delayed in getting there and Lequesteau managed to get the sails up and get un-stuck. Their engine was not working well (Probably dirty fuel stirred up from the bouncing around in the waves) and they decided to go back in to Livingston. They radioed us when they got re-anchored and we went on to Tres Puntas to anchor, arriving about 2300. They wound up having to go back up the Rio to the marina and get their engine problems sorted out.
We discovered that our running lights were not working so we spent the next day re-wiring those and waiting to hear from Lequesteau if they got their engine problems sorted out. But they were waiting on the mechanic. So, on January 8, we sailed out of Guatemala for Belize. Another new country, here we come...…………...
