I arrived in Rio Dulce on December 7th to find Eric, Katie, and Jessie waiting for me at the bus stop. Our plan was to spend a few days on sailboats on Lago de Izabal, the large lake that feeds the Rio Dulce. Katie and Eric had previously spent a month volunteering on the boat and had a great time. I was happy to see my friends but unfortunately they brought bad news, Eric was flying back to Canada. Eric and Katie were at the stop to catch a bus to Guatemala City where they would spend a day or two before Eric flew out. Katie would plan something else to do after Eric left as she couldn’t afford the flight home. It was tough for Eric to cut his trip short and I was disappointed I wouldn’t be able to spend time with them on the boat. I waited at the bus terminal until their bus arrived.
The two boats are owned by and lived on by a French man who more or less lives in Guatemala. One boat is a catamaran capable of sleeping 6 or 7 people comfortably. The boat has a small “living room” area and a kitchen with a sink, stove and oven. The other boat is a simple sailboat capable of sleeping 3 or 4 people with no other amenities. There is no refrigeration, showers, or bathroom. When it comes time to go to the washroom, everything goes directly into the lake. The deal is a couple hours of working on the boats, usually cleaning or improvement projects, in exchange for a bed and participation in sailing and other adventures that might be planned. Food is purchased and made as a group for Q40 ($7) a day.
The plan for that week was to make our way to the south western end of the lake where some people would be doing a four day hike into the mountains. I had decided not to participate in the hike as I injured my knee and ankle hiking previously and didn’t want to find myself injured in the wilderness. 4 of us would guard the boat until the hikers returned.
I will be diverging from my usual relatively detailed play by play descriptions for my time on the sailboats as it was not an eventful week. We spent the first two nights sailing and the days resting, taking advantage of wind when it was available. The boats don’t have engines so if you want to get anywhere you need wind. Jeesie and Reevsy left after one night and a German girl and Italian man were picked up soon after. Surprisingly Katie ended up coming back from Guatemala City to join the hike. I spent the 4 days of the hike with the German girl, Isreali man, and Italian man. They were all interesting people. We spent almost the whole time on the boats. I read the entirety of American Gods in a day and a half, the first time I’ve read a physical book in a while. The Isreali man shared about 700 e-books with me which I now have on my laptop, I’m excited to look through them. Besides reading I swam, laid around, and worked on the boat. The wind was barely present while we waited so we only got to sail once for a short period of time.
I ran into one big issue on the boat, before the days of the hike. With the 4 French people, including the owner, and some of the others being fluent, French was the dominant language. Particularly planning and problem solving always happened in French. This made it much more difficult for me to really engage with the most interesting parts of sailing around the lake and planning our time.
In the end I did not get to sail very much, which was one of the main things I wanted out of the experience. If I had stayed for a few more days I probably could have done more sailing but at that point I had been there for more than a week and wanted to move on. Apart from reading, just watching the incredible landscape, and some interesting conversation I didn’t enjoy a lot of my time. It was cool to live on a boat for a full week, that isn’t something I’ve done before. I don’t regret doing it, it was a unique experience, but I do wish I could have engaged with running the boats more, done the hike, and generally enjoyed my time more.
Declan Easton 