At the far end of the Bay of Amatique, between the terminal cranes and the mist-covered hills, Santo Tomás de Castilla doesn't look like a holiday destination, and you have to accept that right away: the town itself is a working port, modest and functional, next to Puerto Barrios. Yet the green slopes run down to the shore, and the mist clings to the ridges until mid-morning, a promise of what awaits farther on. Its value lies elsewhere. From this quay depart some of the finest excursions in Central America, between tropical gorge, Garifuna culture and Maya stelae. Here, the port call is planned as a day-long expedition into the interior of Guatemala, and the choice of itinerary makes the whole day.

First steps on the quay

As soon as you come down the gangway, a colourful welcome often awaits passengers: craft stalls, boldly coloured textiles woven in the highlands, coffee from neighbouring plantations, sometimes a few notes of marimba, the national instrument with its wooden bars. It's the right place to change a few dollars into quetzales, compare tours and organize your time, as the distances force you to choose a single main direction.

The Río Dulce, a gorge between two worlds

The signature excursion takes to the water. By lancha, you travel up the Río Dulce through a striking gorge: limestone walls several dozen metres high, draped in vines and kapok trees, where herons, egrets and pelicans nest. Hot springs seep out here and there right at the water's edge, and fishermen get around in cayucos, boats carved from a single trunk, as they have for generations. Depending on the tour, the trip upriver leads to the Castillo de San Felipe de Lara, a small 17th-century Spanish fort built to block the entrance to Lake Izabal from pirates who sailed up to plunder the colonial warehouses.

Livingston, Garifuna America

At the mouth of the same river, reachable only by boat, Livingston lives apart from the rest of the country. The Garifuna community, born of the meeting between shipwrecked Africans and Carib peoples, cultivates its language, drums and cuisine here: tapado, a seafood soup with coconut milk and plantains, is enjoyed facing the sea, lulled by the drumbeats drifting from the wooden houses. A stop of an hour or two is enough to feel how much this coast looks toward the Caribbean islands rather than the volcanoes of the altiplano.

Quiriguá, a meeting with the Maya

In the Motagua Valley, the site of Quiriguá, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, preserves the tallest carved stelae in the Maya world: sandstone monoliths erected more than a thousand years ago, the most imposing of which exceeds ten metres. Beneath the great trees of the old ceremonial plaza, the faces of the rulers emerge from the stone in astonishing relief, and parrots comment on the visit from the canopy. For a first encounter with this civilization, it's hard to find anything richer in just a few hours. Closer to the terminal, the springs of Las Escobas offer a short option: rainforest trails, clear pools and waterfalls to cool off in.

In the evening, when the hills around the bay turn violet again, everyone brings back a different Guatemala: a gorge draped in greenery, a Garifuna drum, a stone face twelve centuries old. Few ports offer such a gap between the sobriety of the quay and the richness of its surroundings; that's exactly what makes you want to return, this time to venture all the way to the volcanoes.