"But everybody knows that around here it always blows from the west in the daytime! Doesn't matter what the weather forecast says. Those guys don't know anything. All you have to do is leave at sunset and sail at night and you'll have no trouble."
So we had a few hours to spend and decided to go for a slap-up lunch at one of the good restaurants we had seen in the town. A very friendly Italian neighbour in the marina agreed to come too.
The restaurant was a steakhouse and we must have been looking hungry because they recommended their special dish called the King Ranch Special, which turned out to be the biggest, juiciest, tenderest steaks we had seen in many a long year. Marie and our friend ordered theirs cooked rare and tucked in with blood dripping down their chins. I ordered mine medium and it was not done enough for me so I sent it back for a bit longer on the grill. This got me some teasing but I'm superstitious about undercooked meat.
So we set off, feeling well-fed and happy but our departure was not without incident. There is a bar across the river mouth which we knew about and had cleared by a good two feet coming in. But the wind had been blowing hard and we did not count on the four foot swell it had raised. Suddenly there was the most almighty CRASH as a wave picked us up and dropped us hard onto the (muddy) bottom. We didn't get stuck, as the next wave picked us up again and then we were clear. It did give us a start, though!
Once out we hoisted sails to a fine northeasterly wind blowing us to where we wanted to go, just as the local advisor had promised.
We had about 110 miles to go to a little bay where we had intended to anchor to await the right tide to cross the bar at the mouth of Rio Dulce, Guatemala. Thinking to make the passage by day we had planned to break it about halfway but now that we were sailing by night and going well, we decided not to stop. Besides, Marie had begun suffering from severe abdominal cramps, evidently food poisoning, so we thought it best to head straight for our intended anchorage, where we could hole up until she was feeling better. I couldn't resist saying something about undercooked meat!
We dropped our anchor in a pleasant open bay, well sheltered from the swell and the only sign of life was a solitary Indian fishing from his dugout canoe. Marie went to her bunk, still feeling bad.
She woke me about three in the morning in agony. This was no ordinary food poisoning. She needed a doctor. I tried calling for help on the radio, without answer. There was nothing for it but to sail to Livingston, at the river mouth, where there should be a doctor. This was where we were intending to go anyway, except not in the middle of the night and not without having calculated to cross the bar at high tide. Leaving the bay in the dark was no problem since we had the GPS fixes that we had used coming in. The crossing took two and a half hours, by which time it was daylight. I was not worried about getting stuck on the bar because we needed help in any case. In the event we made it miraculously without getting stuck, anchored off the little town and got on the radio.
After what seemed like an interminable delay, a motor boat came out with an immigration officer and a doctor who inspired no confidence whatsoever. The doctor examined Marie briefly, muttered something and gave her a prescription.
All that achieved was to waste a day while we gave the medicine a chance to work and Marie continued to get worse. Meanwhile, looking in a tourist guide of the region, we found that there was a 24 hour emergency service for tourists. Marie called them, explaining her desperate situation. At our request they contacted an American volunteer medical clinic we had heard of called Jungle Medics who might know what to do. This was some 25 nautical miles (50 km.) up a winding river full of shoals. There was no transportation available; we would have to go on our own but there would be people alerted to a medical emergency standing by waiting for us.
So at daybreak, as soon as it was light enough to see the river, I hoisted anchor and set off at full speed ahead, six knots boring up the river. This is supposed to be some of the most spectacular scenery to be found anywhere but I had no attention to spare, eyes peeled for shoals and Marie was barely conscious. Four nerve-racking hours later we arrived at a marina where they had cleared a space alongside and there were line handlers and a car standing by. Marie was helped ashore and I was left to take care of mooring the boat. By the time I had done this, Marie was gone. Somebody said "Hospital," but "What hospital?", "Where?" got me no information. There was nothing to do but wait, chewing my fingernails. I supposed that somebody would contact me sooner or later.
In fact it was Marie herself who called in the evening, sounding just fine. She had been taken on an agonizing five-hour drive to the main hospital in Guatemala City, where they had known exactly what to do. She would need an operation next day, but the emergency (and it really had been an emergency) was over. It seems to have been the indirect result of that steak. The violent churning had tied her guts in a knot and caused an obstruction.
After a few days while she recovered a bit from the operation, she called me, suggesting I pack a bag for both of us and come to Guatemala City. By the time I arrived she had left the hospital and was comfortably installed in the house of friend of Ghislaine's, who had taken her under her wing. Sonia and Luizo
Very good people and they could not have been more welcoming but of course we couldn't stay. Marie needed a comfortable place where she would be looked after and quiet, where she could exercise and get her strength back. Sonia and Luizo insisted that we should go to La Antigua, only about an hour by bus, so that was where we went. It turned out to be one of the highlights of the entire voyage.
Originally Spain had claimed an empire stretching from what is now Venezuela to Mexico. Little thought seems to have been given as to how such a vast territory, consisting of mostly disease-infested jungle, could possibly have been administered but obviously a great new empire needed a great new capital. Broad avenues, laid out in a rectilenear pattern,
Magnificent cathedrals and public buildings by the best architects of Spain with all of the riches of the Americas to build them with. 
The reason for building the new capital where they did is not obvious. It's almost inaccessible, right in the middle of the most difficult country. High in the mountains, the climate is perfection--springtime all year round. The scenery is superb, with spectacular mountains all around.
This must have been the reason. Starting from scratch, to build the absolutely nicest possible environment for people to live in.
Unfortunately, they overlooked one detail. Almost all of those picturesque mountains are volcanoes.
I suppose that people used to think of nature as eternal, created and unchanging. Any geologist of today would see at a glance that this landscape was anything but unchanging. Less than a century after this wonderful city was finished, there was an earthquake and flood and it all fell in ruins.
undaunted, they rebuilt it as good as before, only to have it fall down again. With a dedicated patience that is hard for modern people to comprehend, they rebuilt it once again. But after the next earthquake, they abandoned the ruins and built Guatemala City where it now stands.
The philosophy of city-builders had changed in two centuries. The empire of the New World had disintegrated in a succession of Glorious Revolutions into a bunch of small, poor countries, Guatemala beingt but one. These people needed a capital so they let one happen, a typical ugly, modern, third-world city.
Meanwhile, in La Antigua, nothing had changed. None of the destruction, bad taste and money-driven ugliness that characterized the last hundred years everywhere had touched it. A butterfly in amber.
Like vegetation creeping back to a burned forest, life is returning,
A delightful holiday town has grown up among the picturesque ruins, while the economic and administrative life has gone for good. The funny little three-seater taxicab is called a tuk-tuk, which is what they sound like. They're made in India and you see them all over. Flowers are everywhere. There is almost no traffic and the streets still have the original volcanic stone block paving. Because the city it is a relic of a pre-mechanical age, it is of pedestrian dimensions. You can walk from anywhere to anywhere and that's what we did. The only buildings of more than two storeys are those that have survived. Either nobody dares build higher or they may simply be uninsurable. One does not miss them.
Sonia and Luizo had recommended a hostel run by a friend of theirs. Marie was in no state to move around, so that's where we went. It would have been OK for a short holiday, clean, inexpensive but not what we needed. Painted cement decor and very noisy, being on a bus and truck route. Marie need a home in which to convalesce, so the next day I left her in bed and went hunting.
I didn't have very far to look. It would have been an affluent residential area in the old days, with lovely old houses built enclosing a central garden and mostly undamaged.
Many have been converted into hotels. Within walking distance with suitcases I found a perfect jewel of a so-called "boutique hotel". Beautifully kept, the interior garden full of flowering plants and a staff whose only aim in life seemed to be to look after us. It was the third one I looked, all more or less adequate, but I knew right away that this was home, no need to show it to Marie. I booked us in on the spot and went back first for luggage, then for Marie, hobbling along, leaning on me.
We stayed there three weeks. At first we would walk for fifteen minutes and Marie would collapse, exhausted. Every day we extended our range until we could walk all over town and had got to know it quite well. By this time Antigua felt like home and we could easily imagine ourselves moving there. 
For all that we hated to leave, it was time to return to the boat.
We were lucky enough, just before we left, to see an Easter Week procession. This is one of the big events of the year in La Antigua. The people carpet the streets with flowers and the procession passes over the living carpets, destroying them. After the procession they remake the carpets, working all night, in order that they may be demolished again the next day. This goes on all week.
We had by this time decided that our sailing days were over. Marie had very nearly died simply because we were out of reach of competent medical care and that put our voyaging into a new perspective. Up to now, health was something we never even thought about; this seemed like a sign that it was time to stop. We would clean up the boat as best we could and put her up for sale. But first, Emily was coming for a long-promised visit. This was supposed to have been a sailing holiday in the Bay Islands of Honduras, a spectacular cruise that we had been looking forward to. Marie's illness had rendered that impossible. The boat was overdue a lot of maintenance that would be necessary before we could sail her, let alone sell her. It would not be the holiday she had expected but Guatemala is a wonderfully scenic country with many things to see. We reckoned we could show a good time.
The village where the boat was moored
was something straight out of the American Wild West--even the name, Fronteras. Emily was fascinated.
There are no roads through the jungle except the one
main road to Guatemala City. Transport is by canoe.
There is a rubber plantation across the river from our marina. Established about a hundred years ago, it has adapted to the advent of tourism by making a small marina, adding a few guest cabins and a bar/restaurant and providing a few things to do, including an organised riding tour of the property--tailor made for our inveterate horsewoman-- and a walk in the jungle.
We absolutely had to show La Antigua to Emily, who fell in love with the place as we had and insisted that we retire there. We walked her all over the town and showed her some of our favourite places.
Being a tourist town, there is a number of excursions that we would have liked to take but we couldn't do them all. We elected a visit up a nearby active volcano (we didn't know quite how active!) and a visit to one of the famous Mayan ruins sites, Tikal. The volcano, Pacaya, visit is a long uphill hike.
You can buy a walking stick in a village at the side of the road and sell it back for half price on the way down. There are horses to carry the weary all or part of the way up but we didn't need them.We did not go up to the summit, which is much higher and more than a day's walk. Besides, it was erupting busily. Every two or three minutes there would be a gigantic PHUT! and a fountain of white-hot rocks would spray out. They were landing nowhere near where were walking, happily, although the ground was littered with head-sized spherical lumps of cold lava rock. It was obvious where they had come from. We climbed up to a side spur, which, though not erupting, was smoking gently. The guide reckoned it was safe to approach. Perhaps we made too much noise, at any rate, as we approached the top of the spur it woke up. Suddenly the ground was hot underfoot and one man lost the sole of his shoe. Then the mouth of Hell opened just above us
and it was time to leave, fast!
Emily, younger and more daring, who took the last two pictures, was feeing a bit heroic.
By the time we were a safe distance away, looking back, the
top of the spur looked like this,
This picture, taken on the way down,
illustrates the madness of siting an important city in such a place. How many volcanoes can you count? No wonder they had tectonic problems!
The other thing one MUST do in Guatemala is visit at least one of the Mayan temple ruins. There is a number of them, the closest being Tikal, a longish bus ride, a stay overnight in a little hotel followed by a tourist bus to the site in the morning.
The site is large, covering many square miles of dense jungle. The landscape is very hilly, but, as you come to realize, following the cleared track that winds among the hills, these hills are not natural. They are made of masonry, completely covered in vegetation,
such is the scale of the place. It becomes startlingly evident when you come upon a clearing and in front of you is an enormous stone building that has been unearthed.
That's me at the top in a pink shirt and Emily descending the wooden stairs. The original steps have become too dangerous. Emily and I did climb one by the original stone steps
and an arduous climb it was because the stone steps have a tremendously steep pitch, as you can see by comparing the pitch of the stone steps with that of the wooden stairs. One could imagine these buildings to have been constructed by a race of giants but we know better. Their descendants are still here and they are tiny people. We managed to get Marie up one pyramid,
demonstrating that she was fully recovered.Not all the buildings are high-rise. There are also high-density, low-rise complexes,
some of which can be explored inside.
The site being just a rough clearing in the jungle, the wildlife is abundant. The presence of a few tourists doesn't seem to bother them. They mostly
ignored us,
perhaps sometimes licking their lips...
Finally it was time to return to the boat, where we still had quite a lot of work getting her cleaned up ready to sell. Guatemala really felt like a ridiculously out-of-the-way place to be selling a fine yacht, but the yacht broker in Rio Dulce seemed to be doing good business. We would leave her with him and the following year, if nothing had happened , we would take her to the United States, where would do a thorough fixing-up. We were not very optimistic for a quick sale. The economic conditions were certainly not favourable.
In the end it was easy. Before leaving La Antigua we had placed an advertisement in a local magazine, offering TIMESPINNER for sale "as is" at a very attractive price. Just before we left Rio Dulce to return to Spain, a resident of La Antigua bought her on the spot.
So that, family and friends, is the end of TIMESPINNER'S TRAVELS. We hope you have enjoyed it.
