It's Friday evening and we are sailing from the Honduran island of Roatan at a speedy pace to our next port on the Mexican island of Cozumel. We have been lucky to have good weather; the early weeks of December saw a period of rain almost every day.  Of course, the sunshine brings hot weather and very high humidity.

Thursday, 17 December 2015
San Tomas de Castillo, Guatemala

The Caribbean coastline of Guatemala is large bay and a very short stretch of land; the primary beaches for tourists are on the much longer Pacific coastline.  The sister cities of San Tomas, where we are docked, and Puerto Barrios, are large commercial ports, primarily used for exporting produce to the US.  From our veranda we can see long lines of trucks depositing large containers for loading on three waiting cargo ships.  There is a market selling local crafts and souvenirs, but not much else to interest the tourist.


Our shore excursion today takes us the last of the three major Mayan sites we are visiting, Quirigua Archaeological National Park.  This site is higher up in the mountains of southern Guatemala, quite close to the border with Nicaragua.  There are no pyrimids or stone structures at this site, but there are five authentic stelae (carved stone monoliths); these were discovered covered with the soil and vegetation of the jungle. Thus, they are quite well preserved and the carvings are intricate and beautiful. The tallest is over ten feet high and there is one that leans like that famous tower in Italy (pictures courtesy of Will).

The government has opened a museum here, but the exhibits are in Spanish only.  There is also a shortage of electric power (throughout Guatemala) that keeps everything--including the restrooms--dark most of the day.  But the grounds are well kept and our guide offers clear expanations of everything that we are seeing. The day is extremely hot and humid and even our eyeballs are sweating, so our vision isn't always clear.

We head back to the ship in the early afternoon and enjoy really good hamburgers and fries from the Waves Grill on the pool deck.
As we get ready to sail at 6pm, all the taxis from town line up on the pier and turn on their headlights and honk their horns to bid us farewell.  A group of local ladies, accompanied by men on drums of various kinds, dance a feverish goodbye as we sail to our next destination.