This past weekend in celebration of my birthday, Julio took me on a wonderful trip to Livingston.  Livingston is a town located on the eastern, Caribbean coast of Guatemala.  This region was quite a contrast from the western, indigenous, Mayan highlands where I live, as the majority ethnic group here is Garifuna.  Garifunas are black Guatemalans, culturally more Afro-Caribbean than Latino.  In spite of the incessant rain, everything about the trip was fun and fascinating.

Casa Rosada

We left Guatemala City by bus at 4:30 AM Friday morning, arriving 7 hours later in Puerto Barrios where we caught a boat to Livingston.  Upon arriving we found our hotel, Casa Rosada, which is owned by a Guatemalan-Belgian couple and located right on the water.  After reading about the local food I was pretty set on finding tapado, and after receiving a recommendation (everyone was very friendly there), we went to Margoth’s where I tried tapado, the most delicious soup in the world, for the first time.  It’s a soup with a coconut milk-based broth and in this case filled with plantains, shrimp, squid, a whole fish, and a whole crab.  We also sampled gifiti, a local, homemade liquor that was actually pretty tasty.  Apparently common in the area is to make it with marijuana.  We did not try that kind.

Tapado

Friday afternoon we just toured the town – you only need an afternoon to really see the town of Livingston.  We checked out the beach.  It was windy and pouring rain.  In the evening we caught the very end of a traditional Garifuna dance.

Saturday morning we took a boat to Siete Altares (7 Alters) and la Playa Blanca (white sand beach).  Siete Altares is a site with a series of seven little waterfalls.  There was a slight drizzle, so already wet by the time we arrived, we went swimming anyways.

Our next stop was Playa Blanca.  As all the Pacific coast beaches here have black sand (due to the many volcanoes in Guatemala), this was Julio’s first time seeing a white sand beach.  Unfortunately, once again, it was raining and the sky was gray.  The boat dropped us off and told us they’d pick us up in two hours.  I wished out loud that all I wanted was a half hour of sun to lie out, warm up, and get a little tan.  Within five minutes the rain clouds disappeared and we had two full hours of uninterrupted sun and blue skies.  It was glorious!  We both fell asleep – Julio in a hammock and I on the sand.  Just as we were packing up our things to go, the sun disappeared.

We enjoyed the late afternoon and evening on the dock of our hotel watching the sun go down over the boats in the harbor.  We sought out some local live music and dancing and Saturday night arrived in time to see the same family group from the night before perform.  There were two grown brothers and their sister with at least seven children between the three of them who all performed.  They were fantastic. They drummed, sang, and danced to Garifuna rhythms, which obviously have heavy African influences.  The language is interesting as it is a mixture of primarily French, Spanish, and Swahili, but other languages as well.  At one point they each came out to invite people from the audience to dance with them.  The most adorable little boy came over and brought me onto the dance floor with him.  Julio got me on video.  I don’t move my body quite the same way.

Sunday morning we headed by boat down the Rio Dulce.  In spite of the nearly torrential downpour at times (we barricaded ourselves under large protective tarps) the Rio Dulce was gorgeous.  It would have been great to have had a third night to spend on the Rio, but I suppose that will be another trip.  There were sheer rock walls, waterfalls, tropical greenery, and thatched roofed homes and inns all along the water.  We stopped at a little spot with naturally hot (very hot) water that was great to dip our feet in.  At the opening to Lago Izabal is the Castillo de San Felipe, an old fortress.  We disembarked in Rio Dulce Town just before Lake Izabal, where we caught a bus back to Guate.

Monday morning, my actual birthday, I headed back to Toto to work in Xenajtajuyup, my Monday school.  A few weeks ago one of my tercero students and I discovered we have the same birthday so I brought her a little gift, a golden Virginia souvenir spoon, which she thought was pretty cool.  In the evening I went to dinner with my Toto gringa friends at Dino’s, the nicest restaurant in Toto and owned by new host family and neighbors.

Me & my student Odilia on our 26th & 16th birthdays

Birthday Dinner in Toto