(jen) a long bus ride lay ahead of us from Antigua to Rio Dulce to the east of Guatamala, but this passed without much drama. Buses in Guatamala are affectionately referred to as chicken buses, and are all old American school buses painted various colours depending on where they are going. However, great excitement, we were supposed to be on a Pullman luxury coach... well it may have been luxurious when built in 1950 but no longer... and very hot especially when every 30 minutes about 6 large ladies got on the bus to sell Aguas, Aguas! Tacos! and all manner of things you may or may not need, then they would get off a few miles down the road and wait for the next bus. I gues it's more exciting than a Granada service station....

Arrival in Rio Dulce which is on the river, and has even a yachting community, who would have thought. It's quite a shabby little bit of town, well the bit we saw, and we found a room no probs and then a really nice little comedor for tea. The lady and her pregnant daughter made me some veges specially and it was all in the realms of very cheap. We chatted to them in halting spanish ( we've improved a lot in the last couple of weeks) and promised to be back for Breakfast.

Eggs, beans and corn tortillas later the next morning we set off for Livingston, which can only be reached by boat and is on the coast. The journey was quite exciting, down the river spotting wildlife and so on, in a very small launch which could go very fast. We arrived in Livingston and were immediately hustled into a super cheap room which sadly resembled a prison cell with a toilet block not unlike the kind of outside loo you might see in someone's allotment, ie dating from the 50s rarely cleaned and far more suitable for growing strawberries in.

( Evan)seeing as it was super cheap we decided tonight would be the night when we splurged on tea and instead of eating from someone with a few hot coals and so gunk in buckets we went to a proper recommended bistro and jennifer ordered the local speciality called topado and i was hustled again into a curry, as otherwise how could i expect to get a salad and garlic bread, little did it occur to anyone i didn't want those things i just wanted a nice burrito but the hard sell baffled us. My curry fortunately was very nice, alas the same can not be said for jennifers meal . Topado is supposed to be a succulent seafood soup, with coconut milk, plantain, fish and topped of with some crab, it is not supposed to be a fish that died of natural causes the month previously slapped on top of some dishwater... JEnnifer was gutted unlike the fish, her eyes did not light up but were more reminiscent of the poor departed fishes eyes in that they sank and receded. The smell of sewage wafted from her plate but thankfully could not overcome the odour of curry and my meal was a success. phew, i know...

jennifer gamely prodded away at the arthritic flesh of her fish whilst eating my salad and considering how best to tackle him. one chunk later and the fish was dismissed as a bad lot and prayers were said over his corpse. Unfortunatley that was not his last role in proceedings as his stagnant flesh returned to haunt jennifer the next day in the form of an upset tum.

oh well, lesson learnt. fortunately the evening was not a right off as we decided to wash the foul stench of fish from us with a evenings drinky. The beverage of choice for me here is a beer called
Brahva which is very pleasant, jennifer had been eyeing a drink called cocoloco for a while and was permitted to order one. It is basically a coconut cut open and rum poured in with some coconut cream and served with a straw. It was crowned the best drink ever tasted by jennifer which may be true or may just be a relfection on the fact that the previous ordeal her taste buds were subjected too was a not so recently deceased turbot.

another loco coco later and it was back to our cell for some cheap sleep. We woke fairly early as our probation period allowed us to move to a nicer room with a small balcony area and its own bathroom, feeling happier tho still occassionally reminded of our encounter with marine animals that would have scared roy schneider, we organised our exit from livingston.

( jen) we had heard several stories about how often the boats left for Belize, from twice a day, to once every half hour to twice a week. tHe latter turned out to be correct, so Friday morning it was, that we were due to depart. We got our immigration trip done and our passports stamped, and then went to drink some more coco locos... yum yum. Sadly street food in Livingston is not Jennifer friendly so whilst evan gorged on a nice beef sandwich I had a tin of cold beans. Not too bad. Until in the middle of the night I woke up to hear a rustling sound, woke evan ( as you do) and he declared that there was in fact a large cockroach in the bin eating my leftover beans. DOH!

All in all we were not sorry to leave Livingston and thusly caught the ferry to Belize... sorry did I say ferry what I meant to say was small launcha which should hold about 8 but held about 15, plus luggage and naturally no life jackets... but that's another story....