Races, Parades & Small World Moments!
The ten-day festival of Río Fer wraps up with lots of parades and other events. In addition to the festival, we attended a couple of other events.
Friday, October 16 – Thursday, October 22, 2026
RÍO FER 2026 continued on this week wrapping up on Sunday, with Saturday and Sunday being rather rainy days. Jimmy and I made it to town for some of the festival events on Friday & Saturday.
Water Competitions
Friday (10/16) was Lanchero Day of Río Fer where several activities were to take place on the water. A schedule posted online showed water competitions to begin at 8:00 a.m. so that is when we departed Utopia and headed over to a dinghy dock near the bridge.
The first event of the day was swimming, followed by kayak racing, and freediving. Next on the schedule was boat racing in 15 hp & 70 hp categories, with a jet ski race to wrap up the competitions of the morning.
While walking around the waterfront we searched for bouys that might indicate where the races would take place but saw nothing. In a conversation with a lancha driver we learned that the swimming race would begin at 9, starting across the river and would end on our side of the river. That would explain the lack of racing buoys.
Swimming Race
About a quarter to nine, we saw a lancha take the swimmers across the river and the race started pretty close to 9:00. Four male swimmers started out strong, but eventually a clear division between the first two swimmers and the other two. As they got closer to us I could see that they swam without goggles nor swim caps. At one time one of the lagging two swimmers began a backstroke, something I had learned to do if I felt short of breath during a swim race. I could also see one of the race officials in a lancha holding out a life jacket to offer it to the lagging swimmer, something else I am familiar with from my “racing” days, which the swimmer declined. The winner and second place finishers where a father and son duo with the father taking first place. All four swimmers finished the race, and each was given an electrolyte drink in a bag. The race took probably 5 to 8 minutes to complete.
Kayaking Race
The kayak race started about 10 minutes later. This race also consisted of four male competitors, and each had a different type of kayak. From the start line they paddled across and upstream the river disappearing into a bay where they turned around and quickly returned to the finish line, taking about 20 minutes from start to finish. The racer in the two-man kayak was the only one that did not complete the race on his own accord and needed to be towed back by a lancha.
Boat Parade
A lancha parade was scheduled to take place once the water competitions were over. Since I was to take part in the lancha parade later that morning, we missed the remaining competitions. The owner of the local pirate ship invited cruisers aboard for the parade, and I could not resist the opportunity. I was instructed to arrive at 10 a.m. for a 10:30 departure. Amazingly we left at 11:15 only departed 45 minutes late.
Captain & Crew
The crew handed out pirate hats and props for us to wear as we headed towards the bridge.
Sondra on a pirate ship
Many other boaters got up close to the pirate ship for photos.
It turns out the boat parade is not a single file event. It basically consisted of a bunch of boats working their way up river starting at noon.
Most of the boats on the water were lanchas, with some rafted up and others weaving around, many of them decorated for the parade. Amongst the lanchas dinghies and jet-skis were zipping around adding to a very festive atmosphere.
Around noon, a lancha with a guy playing a drum circled close to the pirate boat then rafted up against us as the drummer and two other musicians boarded our boat.
For the next hour they provided live music and some entertainment as we motored upriver towards the fort.
Just past the fort, the captain turned the ship around and quickly worked our way downstream, making it back to dock around 1:30. Afterwards, Jimmy met me for lunch at Hoppy House. The rest of the afternoon I worked on cooling off in the pool and then staying in the air-conditioned boat.
Costume Parade
Saturday morning, we decided to do our morning walk around town to see what Río Fer activities and sites can be found. As we completed a big loop that passed the fairgrounds, we wandered by canvas contractor’s shop and chatted with him a bit before reaching downtown just in time to see another parade.
I’ve seen three different names for this parade:
Desfile Dia de Los Comerciantes - Merchants’ Day Parade
Desfile del Baile Convite – Dance Invitation parade
Desfile de Los Disfrazados – Costume Parade
It was a short, but very cool parade of people in what looked like a variant of Mayan costumes, each wearing a mask. They paraded through the main downtown area passing the Río Dulce merchant area, down to the location of the dance competitions that were to take place all day under the bridge.
Rain!
Early Saturday afternoon the rains began. In Río Dulce, it typically just rains at night leaving us dry and warm during the day, but this rain started early and lasted until Tuesday morning. There have been a few dry spells here and there, but they have been short, and we opted to miss the final day of the fair. It looked like the mountain bikers started their 50-kilometer race in the rain, and not many people showed up for the pet costume event. In the evening we missed the final Río Fer event: a lighted truck parade that started at 8 p.m. about two hours later than advertised but they only had some light rain to deal with.
The rest of the week
In addition to lots of rain, the marina’s covered lancha has not been operating after getting some bad fuel. So, with wet weather and the lancha out of service, we mostly stayed close to the boat for several days. But we did sneak out here and there.
We both joined in the dinghy raft up, where we had a small world moment when we met Mark B, an attorney that went to FSU and attended some PHRF races at ABYC back in the late 80’s and early 90’s! He says hello to Pat R!
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