Puerto Barrios

Introducing Puerto Barrios

The country becomes even more lush, tropical and humid heading east from La Ruidosa junction toward Puerto Barrios. Port towns have always had a fame for being slightly dodgy, and those acting as international borders doubly so. Perhaps the town council wants to pay homage to that here. Or perhaps the edgy, slightly sleazy feel is authentic. Either way, for foreign visitors, Puerto Barrios is mainly a jumping-off point for boats to Punta Gorda (Belize) or Lívingston, and you probably won’t be hanging around.

The powerful United Fruit Company once owned vast plantations in the Motagua valley and many other parts of Guatemala. The company built railways to ship its produce to the coast, and it built Puerto Barrios early in the 20th century to put that produce onto ships sailing for New Orleans and New York. Laid out as a company town, Puerto Barrios has long, wide streets arranged neatly on a grid plan, and lots of Caribbean-style wood-frame houses, many of which have seen better days.

When United Fruit’s power and influence declined in the 1960s, the Del Monte company became successor to its interests. But the heyday of the imperial foreign firms was past, as was that of Puerto Barrios. A more modern and efficient port was built a few kilometers to the southwest at Santo Tomás de Castilla, and Puerto Barrios sank into tropical torpor. In the last few years, however, things have started to look up again with the construction of a huge new truck container depot where the old railway yards were.

Last updated: Oct 20, 2009