First night on "Sweet River"

Our house in Rio Dulce is a  little cottage on stilts suspended over the river, with blue-green waves going right underneath. I am looking out at the green shore on the other side dotted with thatched, cone-shaped dwellings—probably hotels like this one. This is far more rustic (read shabby and moldy) than Howard’s patio at Casa de Café, Copan—but it’s nice in a different way and what can you do against the tropical humidity here?  The grounds are huge and well-kept.  .Rio Dulce is on the edge of the Caribbean and in the morning we will take a local water boat to the sea.

The little town is very different from our first two home bases, based on our first glimpse. The markets are out on the street and extend about four blocks, but there are no tourist souvenirs here. There are supplies like shoes and backpacks and sunglasses, and produce as we have seen in all the other town outdoor markets. The difference is, this one seems to be permanent, not once or twice a week. The hotel industry is clearly big along the river; I’m not sure how much of the local economy is dominated by tourist dollars. A tour guide we talked to  in Copan who lived close by for awhile said tourists come mainly because they are interested in rain forest ecology or adventure travel. Most of the area is still uninhabited, a lot of it actually unexplored, according to one of the books I read, which makes it especially appealing to this tourist niche. Lots of tour buses en route to Tikal stop for lunch along the waterfront. Mark and I are here for an overnight because we have the extra time and we wanted to take a look for ourselves.

Sadly, we have the time because we decided we would not be able to get across Honduras to visit our friends Doug an d Christina for a variety of reasons stemming mostly from the muscles in Mark’s neck, which have never really healed after our trip to Turkey last spring.  Just as a little reminder, we rode a little three-person cab up a bumpy road for about 10 minutes on the 14^th (our 41^st anniversary and it was a lovely, romantic hacienda at which to have dinner overlooking the valley), and he woke up on the 15^th with neck pain. He is okay today after a 6-hour bus ride with a neck pillow. My health whine is that I hit my thumb joint and it hurts like the dickens so this is all the update for now.  More news and photos in a day or two.