Cruise Day at Santo Tomás

Take one sleepy town. Turn it into Guatemala's largest commercial port. Make it the headquarters of the country's navy. Then build a cruise-ship terminal. The result is a small boom, the likes of which the village of Santo Tomás de Castilla never thought possible.

During the October to May cruise season, boats from Holland America, Norwegian, P&O, and Regent Seven Seas dock at the port's modern, spacious Terminal de Cruceros (cruise terminal) on a few Western Caribbean and Panama Canal itineraries. The facility offers money exchange—you can get by with U.S. dollars if you go on an organized shore excursion—post office, telephones, Internet computers, a lively crafts market, and an office of INGUAT, the national tourist office. Most passengers opt for an organized shore excursion.

Few visitors spend much time in Santo Tomás itself. In the mid-19th century Belgian immigrants settled the town, but scant evidence of their presence remains save for the preponderance of French and Flemish names in the local cemetery.

For urban life, Guatemala–Caribbean style, Puerto Barrios beckons, a quick taxi ride away. Livingston is a 30-minute water-taxi jaunt across the bay. Many passengers go for resort-chic and spend their shore time at the nearby Amatique Bay Resort, swimming, watersliding, kayaking, horseback riding, or bicycling. Boat rides from Livingston up the Río Dulce are also popular.

The ruins at Quiriguá are the most accessible Mayan complex in this part of the country, but operators can also fly you from Puerto Barrios's airstrip to Copán, across the border in Honduras, and all the way up to Tikal, for about $500.