Court Short

We woke to sparkling sun, changed our plans again and headed for the water and a trip around Lake Atitlan. We used the 'public' lanchas (water taxis) and headed for San Marcos, the home of all things mystical and hippy! We could have spent quite a few days chilling there but after a wander around […]

Hmmmm .. think we may have got this one wrong!! Not quite the view we saw on the website! After a 3 hour air conditioned bus trip, as the only passengers, we have arrived in the city of Pananajachel which is described as the portal to Lake Atitlan. It's also described as a portal to […]

We're now in Antigua, the original capital of Guatemala until earthquakes destroyed much of the city - so badly the centre of power was moved to Guatemala City. Antigua is surrounded by 3 volcanoes, so it seemed rude not to climb one! Since none of them are smoking at the moment we chose the closer […]

We spent 5 hours in an ancient creaking bus stuffed to bulging with people to get to our hotel in Flores, but it was worth every second. Flores is an island on Lake Petén Itzá, linked by a causeway to the town of Santa Elena and known as the gateway to the Mayan culture and […]

We are making progress, so much so that we think we can go travelling inland on Monday! Victor Volvo is back in one piece; new exhaust elbow, new coolant, rust removed and everything shiny again. Looking good for an old chap. The end caps on the stay sail boom have been drilled out and replaced so […]

So back to OR, 40 hours travelling but thankfully not all of it in the bus!! After pretty good flights (having got our slightly overweight bags onboard), we arrived in the dark, were met by Claudio (s/y Makani) with a taxi (what a great friend) and returned to the yard to find Ocean Rainbow in […]

Well this is it, we’re sitting at Guatemala City airport and about to fly on a rather convoluted route via America and Canada back to UK.  The rum and gin bottles are empty, Ocean Rainbow is packed up, the dehumidifier is programmed and we have said our farewells to Makani and the Suzie Too Rallyers […]

From ancient lorries with the loudest airbrakes imagineable, cattle trucks and Tuc-Tucs to the traditionally dressed Mayans, this town in all its colour and noise has taken us back in time.  The street vendors line the one and only street selling wonderful fresh veg, freshly cooked tortillas or fried fish and chicken; the sidewalk shops […]

 Whatever Guatemala can do, we know that Scotland can do better, but look who visited us while we were cleaning the boat in El Golfete.   Loch Dulce's very own 'monster'.   Luckily this male basilisk failed to get on board despite Herculean efforts and we have the scratch marks on the hull as evidence! […]

We are now at anchor in a lake 10 miles from the mouth of the Rio Dulce, Guatemala.    We negotiated the sand bar at the entrance to Livingston (0.1 below the keel) on Friday, checked in and sorted out all the paperwork before entering the Rio itself on Saturday en route to Fronteras (where we […]