Getting from Guatemala to Belize

Mike and I had been amazed at the overall ease with with our international adventure was going, which of course then invited the subsequent adventure getting from Guatemala to Belize.
Once we had traveled from Lago de Atitlan, through Antigua, up to Rio Dulce, we ventured on to Livingston via a public boat. It was a gorgeous adventure through Lake Izabel and a narrow canyon north... my favorite part of the two hour journey was seeing the mangroves filled with hundreds and hundreds of cormorants and egrets.
Livingston was a bit of a culture shock. More heavily influenced by Garifuna culture than the rest of Latin America, and therefore more Creole spoken than Spanish, it was a lively, friendly, boisterous greeting off of the boat. Our plan was to take a public boat from Livingston over to Punta Gorda, Belize. However, no boats to Punta Gorda until Monday (and this was Saturday). After asking around, we found out we could take a public boat to Puerto Barrios, Guatemala, and then take a boat over to Punta Gorda. But, the last boat departing Puerto Barrios for the day would be leaving at 2pm and we were starting to push it timing wise. And the public boat in Livingston was not going to leave until it had a minimum of 5 people, no matter how long it took. Mike and I were starting to weigh various options, when a group of three other people came over and was ready to go. I felt incredible gratitude for them.
We then zoomed (with various stops on the ride in the middle of the bay for the captain to answer his cell phone) over to Puerto Barrios. This was a lot of hurry up and wait. Rushing to the boat, needing to run to the Immigration Office to get our exit stamp, and then standing on the side walk for an hour while they loaded the boat. Because it was not a normal travel day, the boat was really a small motor boat filled with various cargo, including some very purfumey soap we sat behind for the two hour ride over the Caribbean.
About two miles out from shore one of the propellers broke and we put, puttered to shore while waves sloshed over the side occasionally. We were very excited when we made it, as the sun was starting to get a bit low on the horizon and we began to question the possibility of getting to Placencia in the same day.
Sleepy does not even begin to describe Punta Gorda. Fortunately, it did not have the smarm of most border towns, but it looked like it could hardly keep one eye open. Which meant that we missed the last bus to Placencia for the day. We kept asking around and finally, a man named Pablo, who was lugging an extremely large piece of foam for his bed, came up to us and said that if we stood on this particular street corner, a bus would come by and it could take us to Mango Creek, and then we could take another boat to Placencia. Then about four more people came up and there was a big debate about whether the bus was coming to the corner or to the park. Suddenly, without warning, Pablo started walking to the park. So, we followed him, hoping that he still wanted to go on the same bus as us (otherwise we were following a man with a large piece of foam to a park. Great). There, a group of four men approached us and explained that we had all missed the bus because it decided to come about a half hour early that day, but if we all joined together, we could hire a taxi to take us to the dump, where we would surely beat the bus and catch it at the dump. Mike and I agreed. A side note here: it is fascinating and sometimes difficult to listen to people speak b/c of the heavy Creole accent. It's kind of like a round sounding/ bizarre English where you miss every other word, if you don't speak it.
So, eight of us, and a large piece of foam and our two backpacks piled into a mini van and drove to the dump with Bob Marley blasting from the windows. The humor was not lost on us. We were grateful to the group for adopting us, they were grateful for joining the coop ride.
The bus was a trip- a looong ride very fast in an old school bus filled with a friendly group and some very intoxicated people, fortunately, not the driver. Eventually, in the dark, we made it to Mango Creek. Because we missed the last public boat of the day to Placencia (of course), I proposed to Mike that we hire someone to take us across the way to Placencia. I was determined to be there. Poor Mike, his eyes swirling with exhaustion, agreed. So, we hired a guy to take us across the way... it was beautiful- a fingernail moon, stars glittering overhead, and the mangroves in the lagoon around us. Our boatman was kind enough to walk us into town and stay with us until we found a room. Which we finally did, and then collapsed. We decided to park it for the rest of the week and chill on the beach here. So, we rented our very own beautiful palm roofed cabana about 10 feet from the Caribbean shore and have turned into little slugs on the shore.