When the sun sets over this town, Turbo and Ariel leap into the air in a ritual that dolphins have known for millions of years.
Their thick, slick bodies arc gracefully through the cool mountain air in a moment of fleeting freedom before they resume their current reality: swimming circles inside a training pool that is 40 feet across.
The two were abandoned in late May by the owner of Latin America's last traveling dolphin show after the Guatemalan authorities expressed suspicion that the pair had been captured illegally in coastal waters.
Their plight, animal and conservation advocates said, is a sad result of the brisk business in capturing dolphins who are trained to perform tricks or give swim-along rides in a rapidly increasing number of Caribbean and Central American resorts.
The rapid growth of those shows, animal advocates say, has been spurred by their success in American aquatic theme parks and by the fact that tourists are willing to pay $100 or more to cling to a dolphin and glide through a pool.
Though the shows and swim-alongs are promoted as having educational or even therapeutic benefits for humans, animal welfare advocates say they are little more than prisons for the dolphins, which have been displayed in such odd places as a Swiss disco and a Canadian mall.
''Dolphins in the mountains,'' said Ric O'Barry, as he watched Turbo and Ariel swim slowly in their pool here. ''That's bizarre.''
He should know. Mr. O'Barry made his name training the five dolphins that starred in the ''Flipper'' television series.
But he has been an ardent opponent of shows featuring captive dolphins ever since one of the ''Flipper'' dolphins died in his arms more than 30 years ago.
He has been asked by the Guatemalan government to return Turbo and Ariel to the wild -- the first time any Central America nation has rescued illegally captured dolphins. In doing so he will not only give the dolphins the freedom they briefly savor in their leaps but will also earn a bit of absolution for his past.
''I learned a lot about dolphins,'' Mr. O'Barry said of the years he spent working on the popular 1960's television show. ''I caught them, trained them, watched them give birth to babies, and I put them in the ground when they died. I did everything but turn them loose.''
