More on trip to Guatemala

As I said last week in our blog, we made a boat delivery to Guatemala. We have now been in and out of there a lot over the years we have been down here in the Western Caribbean and we know people there. We know where we like to go in the river. This time our time there was short so we just hit the high places. Livingston has it’s on way of life at the mouth of the river and is laid back but not a good place for boaters to hang out, the town is to open to the sea. Going up the river through the gorge is and eye opener and no place we have been in our boat compares to the high banks of the gorge and Jungle. They say the banks go up 300 feet straight up in places. You go by thatched roof houses and there is always dug out canoes, you finely come in to a large lake lined on both sides by mountains. If you circle around to the south side of the lake you can find a good anchorage in a hole protected on all sides. This hole is nicked named Texan Bay for a man that built a marina in the protected little anchorage there years ago. Over the years he sold the marina but has managed to stay mostly there and now runs a restaurant tucked back in the still waters.

Anchorage at Texan Bay

The restaurant is built out over the river with no doors or windows just a covered deck really. 

Texas Mike’s restaurant in the back ground

As we were headed down from Belize we had some friend’s met us there and they made arrangements for us to have steaks on a grill, something you can’t find in the Caribbean. People here don’t grill steaks. Most beef here is so tough they slice it in strips no more than a quarter inch thick, cook it all day and it will take you all day to chew up a small piece. Texas Mike as they call him has found some one to buy from that is importing meat down here. After we were anchored we found our way over to the restaurant and it was late before we made it back to the boat we were delivering. An array of people from all over the world come through the restaurant. Spanish will always work there but most of the time I don’t know what people are saying. I know the steaks were good and with the Spanglish I know along with a lot of hand motion we laughed a lot. Before we left the conversation had got a round to breakfast. Breakfast down here is like finding a good steak. It’s hard to find something you find in the states. You can find eggs maybe with beans whipped in to a paste and a slice of cantaloupe for breakfast. Our friends told Texas Mike they had a pound of Jimmy Dean sausage on their boat that they had some how come by and breakfast was set. We went back early the next morning and sat down to a huge cast iron pan of sausage gravy and biscuits.

 

WOW! look at that pan of sausage gravy

You can not find a biscuits anywhere down here either. They don’t know what a biscuits is. Pam knows where there is a store that imports US flour down here sometime and if the store has any I have biscuits sometimes. It’s a gamble each time and we are about even with the weevils. Open a box of flour and if the black specks are moving around you know the weevils win this one. Some people say Texas Mike is a character but the saying you can take a boy out of Texas but you can’t take Texas out of the boy fits him well. As we were leaving he told me I could take a biscuit with me and I said no I would never do that with every one laughing because I was holding one in my hand I already had wrapped up in a napkin. “All in all this is what makes life good where ever you are.” Later that day we delivered the boat to our old marina, another place we really like in the Rio. It’s very quit there and as I put in one of our past blogs, it’s where I was working on our boat one day and looked up to see a wild monkey watching me work and where a iguana high up in a tree used the tree as a bath room and messed on my tools several times. You think the problem is solved because you have not seen the big iguana in a while and then you hear Pam running and saying, “In coming! We are being boomed again.” If you read our blog to learn how to cruise, remember warm soapy water works great on removing iguana poop off your favorite tool and a good shower will lessen the smell if you take a direct hit.

Boat Delivery to Guatemala

This week we went back to Guatemala on a boat delivery. Back to Livingston to the port of entry there in Guatemala. All of this because of the policy each country has down here. You can’t stay as I have said before in Belize with your boat more than 3 months unless you import your boat. Lots more money. You have to go to customs and pay each month to stay the 3 months you can stay here with your boat. Mexico it’s ten years the boat can stay. I’m not sure how long you can stay if you ask for an extension every 3 months there. Like I said it’s every month here and you pay each time. Belize is the most expensive country here to stay in and live in. It’s only been a few weeks ago we had to make the run south to clear up our paper work on our boat and it cost $450 US to do it plus fuel and time. For the people that dream of living on a boat with not a care in the world, going where the wind will take you, wake up. This week the boat delivery was to take a women here, by herself, on a boat she had delivered here by a paid captain from the US out of the country before she ran out of time. Paying a captain from the US to come down here to move the boat cost money and she had paid it before. We did it for free and maybe that is why we are and have always been poor sailors but we are here and sailing around in the Caribbean anyway. Why do we all do it and go to these countries? A lot of boaters stick together every where they go like a club, drink together a lot. Go every where together but Pam and I almost never run with the herd and never have. We have a few boater friends we travel inland with and we do travel inland to see the real country not just what’s on the beach. It’s the seeing and doing that keep Pam and I here.

When you find the sea buoy at Livingston you can already see the beautiful country of Guatemala

There in Livingston as we were walking up the street, I know a place there they sell fried chicken (with out putting garlic in the batter), here came a pig with a baby pig with her and no one seemed to care. Just a normal day in town with people, pigs and chickens. I love life when it’s that simple.

Mama and baby

Pigs in the street, no problem

They don’t sell fried chicken in Belize like they do in the US and some other counties, it’s here a little but not the same. The best fried chicken here in Belize where we are is at a run down Chinese place where they fry chicken and then cut the chicken up after it’s fried with a saw and lay the parts now cut up with the bone still in it on you rice. Why they cut it up after it’s fried I don’t know. Maybe way down deep, all these things being so different is why at least in part we keep traveling around down here and love seeing it. More next week about the trip to Guatemala.

Just a normal day in Guatemala

More In The Caribbean

In a lot of our blogs I have put that being down here the food is bad, the music worse and it’s hot. Most people laugh but some do take affiance in what I say. The truth is the food is wonderful if you like black beans and rice every meal. The music is great too if you like rap music done in Spanish, as for hot most of the time, this time of year the heat index is always over a hundred every day and not that much cooler at night. So why do we stay? It’s the adventure of what may happens next each day in the Western Caribbean. Yesterday I was setting on a porch laughing with the local workers here at the marina store when one of them laid down on the dock and scooped up a live sea horse in a cup.

That’s the adventure I’m speaking about. What were we laughing about? Banana sandwiches. Down here banana are every where. Seven for 50 cent if you buy some but no one eats banana sandwiches let alone one made with peanut butter. This was causing a hoot with them trying them out and ever one was laughing. They said it was okay but would not be part of there diet any time soon. I like Pepsi with my sandwich. When have you had a nice glass of watermelon juice? They like fresh squeezed watermelon juice here with there beans and rice. The worse food I tried to eat was in Mexico, “Blood sausage” made like sausage but instead of meat they pack all the ingredients in a pig gut with blood for the meat. I’m sure that is making your mouth water just thinking about how good that is. Mexico had the worse cheese too. Here in Belize most of the cheese is expensive and imported from the US. Mexico they make there own. You need a strong stomach for some of it. I’m getting old now but in my day I could hang with what most anybody ate. On a dare I eat a live minnow one time and found it’s not hard to eat a little live fish. Just drop it in and swallow. Fishing on a dock or bridge with some women who could not bait her own hook you will find she is not in to you fishing beside her eating your bait live either. Hearing a women scream is a terrible sound but some times it can be funny but I guess every thing can be taken too far. I was setting on a table one time in a nuclear power plant and two young people just hiring in with the rest of us brought me two little live minnows in a cup they bought at a bait shop that sold hamburgers at lunch. I’m sure they thought they could get a good laugh out of bringing me the little fish live. I popped one in and swallowed it and then drank the water they were in along with the other little live minnow. All was fine with a moment off total silence until a women setting on the table beside me stared throwing up and could not get off the table where she was making a mess. It was almost like politics with her leveling charges to every one she met that I was unfit to work in a nuclear power plant. Just one little thing can identify who people think you are some times and my supervises told me so and that crazy would not get you far in a nuclear power plant so maybe you understand eating Mexican cheese is not for every one either. By the way none of us tried to eat the little sea horse, we just put it back where we found it and it swam away.

We don’t know what it is but they said just cook it like green beans??

Someone’s Toy? Left beside our boat. Maybe we can get a ride.