We wanted to head towards Rio Dulce, so to break up the trip we spent a night at Las Pozas. The family owns a large piece of land along a river, where the water gathers into pools for swimming. We arrived in the afternoon on the weekend and there were many local families in the park enjoying the water, the rope swings, the picnic shelters and the soccer field. The owner told us to wait until a little later in the day when the crowds thinned and then we could move our truck to the river and set up for the night.

Our spot for the night.

We swam in the river and enjoyed watching some young men take turn after turn swinging out into the pools on the rope swing. As they were leaving they stopped to chat with us. The one man had really good english and we found out that he is the head of gynaecology at a nearby hospital and his friend was the head nurse. They were really friendly and very interested in both Piper and our trip. Seeing the rope swing hanging unused was too much for Derek, so he swam over and managed a nice big swing out and into the cool water too.

Some of the pools.

We see traditionally dressed Maya woman all over Guatemala.

Later, we were in our camper cooking dinner when the owner came by to tell us that the doctor we had met earlier and his friends had asked if it was okay if they did some shooting with their 9 mm pistols, but that he had told them that he was concerned that it might alarm us, so he asked that they not do it. We thanked him.  Apparently, people like to come by with their AK-47’s and shoot a “few” rounds in the evening, quite often…

We left the next morning, the owner was sad that we were only staying one day. He tried to convince us to stay another day, maybe have dinner with him. Basically, it turned out to be a nice place to stay but we wanted to get some more kilometres under our belts so we drove on to Rio Dulce.