Incidents of Travel in Latin America

by Lars Holger Holm

  As a happily married man with two daughters, Barney had spent many years of his life on an island in western Canada. At that time he also worked as a technician within civilian aviation. Later he again lived life as a single in Hawaii. At the time of our encounter, however, his playboy self-assurance had been ever so slightly singed by the edges, and he clearly felt lonely and abandoned. For this reason, he was also visibly content to have me as a conversational partner, even exaggerating my crucial role in helping him to overcome his loss. He slept in his yacht while I remained in the hotel until the day we decided to heave anchor and set sail for Guatemala. But though all provisions had by now been securely stored on board and we were ready to rock, a series of nasty squalls from the southeast, exactly the direction in which we would be headed, promised to make our first leg ‘diabolical’, as Barney was always fond of putting it. So we stayed put on board, had beers and rum, grilled lobster tail on the barbecue and enjoyed what was to become our last evening meal in the tranquil bay of Útila.

  In the morning the wind, still from the southeast, but without the rains, promised a nice voyage, even though we would have to beat against the wind for most of the day to reach the Laguna el Diamante on the Honduran mainland. It was a beautiful day and the ship initially took us past the keys east of Útila and then out onto the open sea. Barney the Skipper had carefully plotted our course and told me, the designated helmsman for that day, to just hold steady on a starboard leg for a good three or four hours. This I did. The breeze was reliable but the sea variable, here and there surprisingly choppy, as though the wind’s direction had just recently shifted and left the waves undecided.

  Towards noon, the coast of Honduras had disappeared to the south and didn’t come into sight again until later that afternoon, after we had changed board to port. We reached up to the height of the spectacular rock formations forming the high cape west of the town of Tela as the sun began to set behind us. As a precautionary measure, Barney told me to keep well off the coast at this point since the reefs dotting it are treacherous. Also we had to prepare for an absolute precision entry into the lagoon itself. This, provided the engine worked, would not have been that much of a risk, but Barney had warned me that it just sometimes would break down. He also said he knew how to fix it, but that it would take him up to five minutes to do so. If the engine fails us, he instructed me, you have to turn the rudder and go back out into sea, and we shall have to spend the rest of the night sailing.

  I didn’t like that prospect very much, but of course, as we approached the 50 metre narrow strait, separating a craggy islet from the land making up one arm of the lagoon, the damn thing ceased to run. Barney, once again repeating his mantra: ‘This is diabolical!’ dived headlong below deck into the engine room and began to operate on the recalcitrant motor, meanwhile probably expecting that I would follow orders and turn round. But with the wind now coming in more or less from the aft, this would have been even riskier than to stay on course and I just shouted to Barney: ‘We have the wind to make it Captain!’ And so we did. As the engine reassuringly came on again, Barney, peeking out from the engine room with greasy hands and oily stains on his forehead, found himself in a completely new environment. We were right inside El Diamante, a natural harbour protected against all winds set in a 500 metre wide, almost perfectly circular, lagoon in the midst of the wilderness of the Punta Sal National Park.

  There was only one other yacht swaying in the tranquil lagoon and as we furled the sails and threw our anchor silence descended on the scene. Well, apart from all of the monkeys howling in the verdant density and the incessant chatter of the birds. Through the strait we could see the sun set behind the coastline, illuminating the ochre-red rocks while prolonging their shadows. Before we knew it the night was over us. And what an unforgettable spectacle that was. Blessed with clear skies we could discern thousands of individual stars in the galaxy against the background of the millions and again millions making up the Milky Way. It was a rare feeling of comfort to be so close to nature without actually having to share any of its inconveniences — such as all the little bloodthirsty animals crawling on the ground. We had dinner and afterwards moved up on the deck with our red wine box, inebriating ourselves under the stars. It was an incredibly intense experience of our place, if not in the universe as a whole, at least in the Orion arm of our own galaxy, in turn a tiny seashell in the cosmic ocean, measuring a mere 100,000 light years across… But this time I’m not even going to try to convey in words the magnitude of a starry night under tropical skies unperturbed by the lights of civilisation. Please just try to imagine the impossible: a perfect, invisible hemisphere above and the enigmatic, undecipherable sounds of the likewise invisible jungle along its rim, like an infinitely convoluted, five dimensional Morse code, sent onwards into the universe by two humans tapping on the Teleportation!

  In the morning it transpired, not altogether unsuspectedly, that I had spilled some generous quantities of red wine onto the deck (yes, it was my fault). This is every yacht skipper’s nightmare in broad daylight because red wine, as we all know, so easily and stubbornly stains white plastic. However, Barney had a detergent product we could use to remove it. Even so it involved quite a lot of rubbing before the surface was satisfactorily restored. He also got the engine up and working. After bidding our only human neighbours, and the monkeys, farewell, we heaved anchor and motioned towards the strait. Having passed it we felt reassured that the morning would henceforth be as tranquil as the sea, a light breeze filling the sails just enough to take us along the coast down to Puerto Cortéz in a couple of hours.

  So Barney turned on the outdoor barbecue on the aft of the ship and started to make us bacon and eggs for brunch. It smelled lovely, but unfortunately not only to us. We must have been at a distance of at least two nautical miles from the coast when we were suddenly attacked by a swarm of hungry bees, setting out from land like a squadron of jet fighters. This was, to once again paraphrase Barney, another ‘diabolical’ event. I was at the helm while he tried to fight the beasts off with a towel, whereby they became really irritated and started to also attack me. In the process of trying to fend for myself I again had to sacrifice a pair of Ray Ban Wayfarer II’s to Neptune (can’t even keep track of how many I have lost in this and similar ways over the years), but it’s very possible that it was a small price to pay for finally getting rid of these molesters — luckily it doesn’t seem to have been the entire hive on an outing but only a special unit. Even so fifty angry bees can be very annoying too, as we came to witness.

  Without further disturbances we arrived in Puerto Cortéz in the late afternoon. This industrial town has a busy commercial port and we cautiously circumnavigated the enormous cargo ships that were waiting to load or unload outside it, to seek sufficient shelter in an adjacent wide bay beneath coastal mountains reaching an impressive altitude. Once anchored we managed to hail down a smaller boat with locals to get to shore and from there a taxi to the supermarket to replenish our provisions. Apart from that, and the store, I don’t remember much more from that evening and believe we must have hit the bunks quite early.

  Only to get up fresh and perky in the morning and cross the comparatively shallow waters of the Bahía de Omoa, and where the coastline too is flat. Apart from ensuring that the water depth would always be sufficient, there was almost no need for Barney to plot the course since the distant cape Punta de Manabique in Guatemala, which we were aiming for, could be discerned as a glistening Prussian Bluish speck on the horizon, growing more and more tangible as we neared it. In a matter of just a few hours, on a very agreeable downwind, we made it across, rounded the cape and its lighthouse in order to throw our anchor below Cambalache, which is the name of the narrow peninsula separating the Bahia de Amatique to the south from the wider Gulf of Honduras to the north. This time we could almost, but luckily only almost, sight another busy port of the Caribbean, Puerto Barrios, set in the southeastern corner of the A
matique Bay. I said lucky because I sincerely hold that there is nothing there to see. The only phenomenon worth observing in Puerto Barrios is the legacy of the United Fruit Company, which once held something like a third of Guatemala, but only used some of their land to grow bananas. This was back in the days of the Cold War. When a Guatemalan president of the epoch named Arbenz tried to alleviate the hardships for the poor of his country by nationalising the land that United Fruit had allowed to fall fallow and abandoned, so that it could be leased and cultivated again by the peasants, the mega corporation pressured the United States government and the CIA to intervene and oust Arbenz in a staged military coup.15 The reason I mention this here, is that although United Fruit no longer exists as such, its previous presence in Central America can still be felt, notably in Puerto Barrios from where nowadays the Fyffes Bananas are loaded and shipped around the world.

  It was a hot afternoon and we had been working pretty hard to beat against the wind to get as close to shore as we dared to. Once we had found a good spot to anchor, I decided to take a dip and was suddenly, while just swimming around the haul, surrounded by a school of dolphins playfully jumping and diving through the water as they passed by. Some of them were so close that I could see their eyes staring back at me and I found that very exciting — as though they were curious to find out who I was and what I was doing on their ‘turf’. During the course of the afternoon some clouds rolled in and we could no longer make out the contours of the Guatemalan mainland across the water. In the morning there were some mists, but this of course didn’t prevent us from making the short distance over to the small town of Livingston, located at the embouchure of the Rio Dulce, Guatemala.

  Here we had to get our passports stamped. Barney, additionally, had to pay some transit fee for his yacht. Waiting for the Captain’s office to give us clearance — there was a customs inspection of the boat and its cargo as well — we hung out in this rather incredible place where, apart from more Hispanic Guatemalans, Indians and Garifunas co-exist in what seems to be a peaceful symbiosis. The Garifunas are originally Africans. Legend has it that some of them were considered so impossible to domesticate for slavery that an English slave ship set them ashore on Roatán to fend for themselves. I know there are still Garifunas there because I have visited their village Punta Gorda on the eastern flank of the very oblong island’s northern coast. Another legend says they managed to escape from slave transports and in this way ended up populating coastal areas and the archipelagos of today’s Honduras, Guatemala and Belize. Whatever the truth is to these claims, the Garifunas themselves are convinced that their ancestors were never subject to slavery and fiercely maintain their freedom and relative independence from modern national governments too.

  Their language audibly, and as can be expected, is a bewildering mix of old African tribal dialects and some European tongues, such as Spanish and English. There might also be elements of local Indian dialects in it. However, not only their language, which apparently is not similar to either Belizean or Jamaican creole, but also their traditions and spiritual practices set them apart from many other African communities of the Caribbean. I’m personally a great fan of their music, which I find successfully combines the best of West African folklore — not the least the music and lyrics associated with the traditional African lute, the Kora — and music styles with a more Caribbean vibe. Above all, their music is easy-going, not violent and brutalising as so much of the contemporary urban music of Latin America. Theirs is a more traditional, laid back beat, which alone would be reason for me to like it. On top of that it’s also very harmonious. While waiting for Barney at a café I recognised one of the ambulating Garifunas (this was actually my second visit to Livingston) and I managed to buy a few records from him containing some traditional music. It later proved to be an excellent purchase.

  By now it was time for us to head upstream on the Rio Dulce, which for me turned out to be a revelation akin to that of opening the first page to God’s The Illustrated Book of Creation, perusing the illumination next to the passage describing how Paradise was initially created and then, in all its pristine glory, presented to Adam and Eve. The greenery of the river banks here comes all the way down to the water, making the interface a privileged area for fish and fowl. There are cranes and egrets leisurely walking the water edges, while a constant swirling of birds in the air seemingly announce a more eager hunt. The sun, vibrating in the hot afternoon, dives in and out of narrow valleys, sometimes hinting at the diffuse contours of human settlements tucked away in the jungle. There we were, in the midst of the winding river itself with the infinite blue sky as our canopy. I was sitting upright, my head covered by a straw hat and my back propped up against the mast, a soft drink at hand, watching the river bends unfold as Barney calmly steered us up towards the lake system making up much of the interior of this waterway.

  As the river opened up and transformed into the lake El Golfete, the landscape too appeared to change character. In reality the banks are probably not that much less steep, just farther away. In principle, and on a good downwind, one can sail these waters, although we found little reason to question our acquired level of comfort. So we continued to motor up the lake and in due course made it to the Texan Bay Marina, thus called on account of its then Texan ownership (I believe it has now changed name to La Laguna Marina Lodge, although the amenities are presumably pretty much the same), where we docked at one of their piers after Barney had finally decided to make contact with the management over the shortwave (he waited until we were just outside of the bay to call.)

  The Rio Dulce with its adjacent lake system is not only a place of spectacular natural beauty. From a practical point of view it offers yacht owners an extraordinarily safe haven during hurricane season, which in the Caribbean runs from June to November. Having one’s boat anchored in one of its many marinas is like seeking shelter in the womb of Mother Nature herself. This is the primary reason why the Rio Dulce inlet is teeming with sailors from all over the world. Some of them just hang out in and around their boats for much of the hazardous season, leading an aquatic trailer park existence. Others leave them there to go north during summer. By all means, arriving there in the second half of April, as we did, is to witness the marinas slowly fill up with ships, captains and crews. There is a constant talk about comings and goings, and of spare boat parts, especially engine parts, that need to be ordered and shipped from far away and arrive there before a specific vessel can take to the seas again — and it should all preferably happen before June if you’re heading towards the Pacific or the North Atlantic. One meets with all kinds of sailors as well: everything from professional yacht captains making a living from delivering boats halfway round the world on behalf of their owners, to grandpas and grandmas who have decided they don’t want to spend the rest of their days staring vacantly at each other across a flamingo decorated balcony of a Florida condominium. There are also, and quite a lot of them, lone sea wolves, who will occasionally welcome a deckhand or two for a trip down to Panamá and the San Blas Islands, but are more than capable of handling a ship by themselves along an indefinite stretch of nautical miles. In addition, there are the gringos and Europeans, some of them dedicated landlubbers, running the hotels and marinas catering to all the sailors.

  Barney was happy to charge Teleportation’s batteries with fresh electricity and to even get his air conditioner working — indeed it can get hot to sleep inside such a cabin under tropical skies. Meanwhile I began socialising with the crowd of this maritime melting pot, still not quite part of the conglomerate of marinas to be found further south around the town of Rio Dulce and its busy bridge — an important link in a heavily utilised transport system connecting the northern Petén region with Puerto Barrios and Guatemala City. The Texan Bay, inversely, is located on the upper reaches of the El Golfete and because of this is an integral part of its peaceful natural surroundings. Although the lively people visiting this marina get togethe
r under its thatched roofed restaurant for barbecues, card games, quizzes — and God knows what else — their sounds are quickly absorbed into the primordial night, leaving one with the impression of a party island for mature people happily lost in time and space (the amount of weed fed joints in this place is quite impressive — oh no, the hippie generation is not yet quite extinct!)

  During our entire trip Barney and I had discussed and made plans — more in jest than in real earnest for sure, but all the same — to open a bar once we got to the town of Rio Dulce. Its most popular waterhole, frequented by sailors and straying tourists alike, is the Sun Dog. It’s run by a very sympathetic Swiss guy from Basel, and in addition to drinks also has a small menu. Barney told me that right across the street from Sun Dog there is a property that has housed a bar in the past; it was just for us to get it up and going again. My suggestion to name ‘our’ bar Copy Cat immediately won Barney’s favour and we had a great time speculating about what would happen if we ever came to turn our plan into reality. But I think we both knew at heart that our intense planning was more in the nature of a pastime during long days at sea, and as we both have plenty of imagination we were the owners of an establishment in Rio Dulce long before we even arrived there. Needless to add that as soon as we were on the actual premises we quickly abandoned the idea.