As we descended from the mountains towards Lake Izabel we were faced with a fantastic view of the river basin. Just before Rio Dulce is the castle of San Felipe, used to guard against pirates with varying degrees of success down the years and is now a well restored tourist attraction. We were assigned a wicked doris guide who showed us around.

Castillo de San Felipe

Our guide doris

Banana boat

Banana train crossing

Driving through Rio Dulce, we headed to Puerto Barrios, which is the main banana growing zone of Guatemala and location of the large port on the Atlantic coast. Here we found an internet connection to update the site, which took ages, so it was dark when we set off into the rainy night to Quirigua. The guards wouldn't let us camp in the site car park so we stopped by the railway line and tiredly climbed into the rooftent. A few minutes later a police truck appeared and we were advised to sleep behind the police station if we wanted to wake up alive the next day. Despite the undoubted exaggeration we decided we may as well do as they asked, so put the tent down again and followed them to the station, where we spent the night in a muddy car park surrounded by mangled up cars.

The best preserved stelae in Guatemala

Heading into the site of Quirigua we had to drive through a large banana plantation, the reason for the nighttime security, and were stopped by the amazing sight of a banana train suspended from above and driven by a guy in a sling seat with a little engine chugging away. Quirigua itself has stunning carved stones up to 8 metres high, certainly the best we've seen in the Maya world, making the visit well worthwhile despite the lack of structures.