When I list the things I'd least like to find in my hotel's shower, a few things come to mind. Right at the top of the list, along with mold and Ned Beatty, would be exposed electrical wiring. That's what we discovered in our hotel room here in Livingston, Guatemala. See, they have these things I've taken to calling "heater heads," electrical devices used in lieu of hot water tanks that substitute for a shower head and warm the water a little just as it comes out. Ours had been disconnected but the wires left hanging. A little disconcerting.

"You can't really get here from anywhere."
Other than that our hotel is very nice. Three beds, private bath and no noticeable giant spiders. Livingston, while not exactly "nice," is interesting. There's a black population here unlike anywhere else in Guatemala, so the city's culture is very different from the rest of the country. It's also a little difficult to get to. In fact, you can't really get here from anywhere.

We got up Saturday morning to make our escape from the clutches of Finca Ixobel. After the Last Breakfast at the finca, we walked to the road and flagged down a bus heading for a city called Rio Dulce. Located on

Soccer by the Shore

Guatemala's minuscule Caribbean coast and surrounded by dense jungle, Livingston can be reached only by boat... or I suppose some vertical takeoff and landing aircraft. It's a long, beautiful ride from Rio Dulce to Livingston.

"A year's worth of cover photos."
If you've ever looked at the photos in National Geographic, just get on one of the small boats that run between these two cities. In an hour and a half, I could have shot a year's worth of cover photos for that magazine. Kids on boats casting fishing nets, entire families rowing across the river in small boats, birds walking across lilies among giant white flower blooms. It was like riding through a series of postcards.

And there's a thing just outside Livingston that's just as gorgeous. Today we walked to "Las Siete Altares," The Seven Altars. While it may sound like a bad movie title, it's actually a series of waterfalls that run through the jungle down into the sea.

Aaron and Me by the Carribbean

Absolutely beautiful. And of course I didn't have my camera. I will, however, try to explain it. First, think Tarzan movie. Some of the early ones I hear were shot here. Now think four waterfalls about twenty or twenty-five feet tall with pools in between that you can swim in. You can also climb the rocks up the waterfalls and into the next pool. All the while you look upstream into the dense jungle where the sun cuts through in a few spots and lights up the water... or downstream to the waves breaking on the beach. At one point I was by myself standing in one of the pools and realized this was one of the moments I'd been promising myself all those months I'd been saving money. Then I realized I probably shouldn't be alone and went back down. That's also why I have no photos. We'd heard it could be a bit dangerous, so we left all our stuff at the hotel.

"We looked over our shoulders a few times."
Leaving the waterfall we walked back toward Livingston along the beach. We'd been told it can be a bit dangerous to venture out here, but all the guidebooks said the robbers were a thing of the past. We'd seen some of the new police patrols and figured we'd be fine. We looked over our shoulders a few times in the more isolated parts of the trail but saw nothing.

We were walking single file, Aaron in front and Rinat in back, less than half a mile from town when it happened. On the last secluded part of the path a guy appeared out of nowhere wearing ski mask and carrying a machete. Rather than coming directly for us he walked ahead of us, looking back. In complete denial about what was happening I thought maybe if we just walked around him everything would be fine. This is when I heard Rinat shout from behind and felt a hand yank at my backpack. There were two more... both with machetes. Three of us; three of them; three knives big enough to hack off a head.

"My robber even stuck his hands in my pockets."
I don't remember exactly what order this happened in. At some point I seem to recall all three standing there sticking their machetes in our faces. Either just before or just after that our backpacks were on the ground and we were being frisked. My robber even stuck his hands in my pockets.

All I could think was that as long as we didn't scare them or anger them we'd probably walk away with all our body parts attached. I was a worried that when they didn't find anything worth stealing they'd take it out on us. Since we'd known it was a little dodgy out here we didn't bring anything of value.

"Rinat got the worst of it."
Turns out these guys weren't exactly professionals. You might think the safest, most efficient way to rob somebody at machete-point would be to get their backpack, then run away and sort through its contents in a secluded location of your choosing. Not these guys. They got our packs off and all but one of them dropped their machetes and proceeded to go through them on the scene. Rinat got the worst of it. They dumped the whole contents on the ground and started rummaging.

We stood dumbfounded as these masked guys sorted through loose change, photographs, papers and the odd forgotten piece of candy. This went on for a long time. It felt like three or four minutes. I stood perfectly still doing whatever I could to not look threatening. I got a little preturbed when Aaron became impatient with their inept robbery and started telling them to hurry up and finish.

Then they were gone. They grabbed their machetes, gave us one more look and took off into the woods. Was I imagining that one of them looked at Rinat and said "lo siento," "I'm sorry" as he took off? They left the backpacks, taking with them only their loot.

"She missed the film more than the camera."
Aaron lost an old Ironman watch and the equivalent of about five dollars. Rinat lost about ten and an old camera that wasn't working very well anyway. She missed the film more than the camera. I, shockingly, lost nothing. I had my watch, five dollars and my absurdly expensive Gore Tex rain jacket in my backpackk... which was never opened. I have no idea why. My robber seemed more interested in my pockets... which were empty because I'd gone swimming at the waterfall.

We quickly packed Rinat's stuff back into her backpack and headed down the trail dumbstruck. I don't think we even said anything to each other for a few minutes. When we finally broke silence Aaron said he thought the machete-men were probably kids, maybe fourteen or fifteen years old. It had never occured to me during the event, but thinking back it made sense. They were small and rather incompetent.

"You feel better just reporting the event."
Funny how when you go through a traumatic experience like that, you want to tell everybody you see. Not to brag that you survived or to talk about your feelings, but somehow you feel better just reporting the event. We had dinner at the same Italian restaurant we'd eaten at the night before. It was run by a nice Guatemalan woman who'd lived in Italy and planned to return soon. She was the one who'd told us not to take anything valuable to the waterfall.

We told her what had happened, expecting a compassionate reply. "I told you," she said. "Doesn't surprise me. It's bad out there." We'd have to go elsewhere for a shoulder to cry on.

We're off tomorrow to head toward a town called Lanquin. I'm not sure we'll make it all the way, but that's the final destination. Livingston's been good for the most part. A little scruffy and dirty, but a welcome change from the "sanitized-for-your-protection" world of Finca Ixobel.