Travel Rio Dulce to Jungle Lodges

LIVINGSTON, Guatemala- In a couple of hours my small family and I will leave Livingston and venture up the Rio Dulce through the eastern jungles of Guatemala. The plan is to stay a week at a few of the jungle lodges in the Biotopo Chocon Machacas nature reserve, just to see what is there, sit around in a hammock or two, ride around in boats, look at some birds, and, in the words of Halliburton, “do nothing all day except fling monkeys at the coconuts.”

Though I have never been too good at this.

We chose to travel slow on the Rio Dulce rather than go to Belize. The jungle lodges in Guatemala seem to charge roughly the same amount of money per night to stay there as other budget hotels all through the country. The kicker is that food is twice as expensive — and when you are in a hotel in the middle of the jungle, you are a captive audience. But with the money that we would have otherwise paid just to exit Belize, we will eat well.

Though we have provisioned ourselves with bags and bags of food to take in with us. It is our hope, at least for the first few days of our visit, that we would have packed enough food to boot us through two meals a day, leaving us only dinner to pay for at the lodges.

The first place we should stop at is called the Finca Tatin, the next The Hotelito Perdido, and then possibly a place called the Hotel Perico.

I do not know how much internet access I will have during this stay. Since leaving Antigua, I have been publishing soley through a Verizon Blackberry with a global data plan. I have not had a WIFI connection in over a week, and cannot say that I have missed it too much. The Blackberry has picked up the publishing load well. Though it operates off of a cell signal, and I do not know — I highly doubt — that there will be service in the jungle.

If you don’t hear from me for a week it is because I’m flinging monkeys at coconuts.

Though I will take notes, as always.