Quirigua and Rio Dulce, Guatemala
After the ship repositioned from Honduras, we cleared customs in Guatemala and began our day’s adventure with a bus ride to the Quirigua Maya site. Quirigua is believed to have been a colony or outlier city of the larger Copan ruins in Honduras. Birders were also very pleased to spot the beautiful turquoise-browed Motmot, as well as other colorful species. After spending several hours on the ruins with the Guatemalan guides who explained in detail the Mayan world, we headed for our lunch stop at a restaurant very close to the San Felipe fort.
San Felipe de Lara is an old Spanish fort overlooking Lago Izabal, Guatemala’s largest lake. This medieval-looking structure was built in 1652 to discourage the many British and Scottish pirates who plundered this area throughout the 17th-century, raiding mule trains and stealing provisions. The raids persisted even after the fort’s construction, however, and buccaneers burned San Felipe in 1686. After El Castillo was rebuilt, the Spanish went so far as to stretch an iron chain across the river to discourage unauthorized ships from entering the lake, but even this imaginative ploy was unsuccessful. A series of treaties between Spain and England ultimately put an end to the piracy problem.
The Rio Dulce is a broad waterway that connects Lago Izabal to the Caribbean. We spent the afternoon traveling down the river. After a ride in our speedboats we got into a narrow pass through a dramatic forest-lined gorge, with small thermal springs in places along the banks where the smell of the hydrogen sulfide fumes was present.
We ended our river journey adjacent to the Garífuna community of Livingston, a town only accessible by plane or boat. The Garífuna culture began in the mid-1700’s when shipwrecked West African slaves escaped to the British controlled islands of Dominica and St. Vincent. Today they live along the Caribbean coast of Belize, Honduras and Guatemala. The language of the Garífuna draws on both English and Spanish ancestry.
Back on the ship, watching the sun’s crimson orb slipping beneath the waves, we reflected on how much we had enjoyed a remarkable day of culture and natural history exploration.
After the ship repositioned from Honduras, we cleared customs in Guatemala and began our day’s adventure with a bus ride to the Quirigua Maya site. Quirigua is believed to have been a colony or outlier city of the larger Copan ruins in Honduras. Birders were also very pleased to spot the beautiful turquoise-browed Motmot, as well as other colorful species. After spending several hours on the ruins with the Guatemalan guides who explained in detail the Mayan world, we headed for our lunch stop at a restaurant very close to the San Felipe fort.
San Felipe de Lara is an old Spanish fort overlooking Lago Izabal, Guatemala’s largest lake. This medieval-looking structure was built in 1652 to discourage the many British and Scottish pirates who plundered this area throughout the 17th-century, raiding mule trains and stealing provisions. The raids persisted even after the fort’s construction, however, and buccaneers burned San Felipe in 1686. After El Castillo was rebuilt, the Spanish went so far as to stretch an iron chain across the river to discourage unauthorized ships from entering the lake, but even this imaginative ploy was unsuccessful. A series of treaties between Spain and England ultimately put an end to the piracy problem.
The Rio Dulce is a broad waterway that connects Lago Izabal to the Caribbean. We spent the afternoon traveling down the river. After a ride in our speedboats we got into a narrow pass through a dramatic forest-lined gorge, with small thermal springs in places along the banks where the smell of the hydrogen sulfide fumes was present.
We ended our river journey adjacent to the Garífuna community of Livingston, a town only accessible by plane or boat. The Garífuna culture began in the mid-1700’s when shipwrecked West African slaves escaped to the British controlled islands of Dominica and St. Vincent. Today they live along the Caribbean coast of Belize, Honduras and Guatemala. The language of the Garífuna draws on both English and Spanish ancestry.
Back on the ship, watching the sun’s crimson orb slipping beneath the waves, we reflected on how much we had enjoyed a remarkable day of culture and natural history exploration.
