Day 23. We left the island of Flores all too soon to spend a long ride in a minibus. Our driver wanted to put our bags on the roof in the pouring rain (they get 2000mm per year here) so we decided to sit on our bags instead. By the time our bums were well and truly numb, we reached Rio Dulce where we were met by a smiley-faced Hidalgo who took us by speed boat to “Kevin Island”. (We wondered if there was an Isle of Annie round the corner …)
Factoid: Kevin Island (more usually known as Catamaran Island) is a small lump of rock in the middle of the lake containing one hotel bought and run by an American called Kevin. The island has its own currency called Kevin Dollars which is the only currency accepted when buying drinks at the bar.
Kevin Island
A group of us hired the services of Hidalgo to take us on a tour of the beautiful Rio Dulce down to the isolated Caribbean town of Livingston. We had already set a precendent for drinking rum and coke on boat trips so we picked up some 8 year old aged Guatemalan rum (and some American Coke) from the supermercado on the way to Rio Dulce. As it happens, we found a few other interesting products for sale at the supermercado:
This supermarket will home deliver your placenta
The trip to Livingston was as interesting as Livingston itself, a one hour trip through mostly uninhabited rainforest with a few wooden huts at the river’s edge where the only mode of transport was a dugout canoe. We passed plenty of wildlife on the small islets en route. (We’re still not sure how the iguanas got onto these islets and whether they’ll ever leave). It was idyllic and would be an amazing tourist destination if marketed properly. Livingston has a good fish restaurant which, like the inhabitants of the town, has a mix of Latino and Black Caribbean cultures.
Girl in a boat on the way to Livingston
Pelicans at Livingston
Kevin Dollar