Livingston

From Tuesday, 3.3 to Thursday, 5.3

On Tuesday, I had another long travel day - at 7 o'clock in the morning, I went from the hostel back to the village of Lanquín by off-road vehicle, followed by a 5-hour bus ride and a 1.5-hour boat ride to Livingston, a village on the Caribbean coast. I spent the rest of the day walking to a beach and around the village center. I found a particularly affordable restaurant, Sonia, the owner, served me really good fish with rice, beans, and tortillas (the classic sides in Guatemala) and a drink for €5 😍

The next day, Mareil and I from the hostel went to 7 Altares, which are natural pools where you can walk around and swim a bit. There were almost no other people there and I was fascinated by the ants carrying heavy loads here. When I returned to the hostel, I noticed the power outage, which lasted until the next day. People are used to this here, many have generators. I went back to the same restaurant as the previous evening with 3 French people from the hostel, and we had fish by candlelight. The last power outage was half a year ago - welcome to Guatemala.

Unfortunately, there are no really beautiful Caribbean beaches in the village, so I took a boat tour to Playa Blanca. I met Alex, Joana, and Barbara from France, as well as Jonathan from Guatemala, and we spent the afternoon together on the beach with Cuba Libre, Coco Loco (coconut with rum), salsa music, sun, beach, and sea. In the evening, we went out for a beer and listened to Garifuna drum music. Livingston is known for its Garifuna culture, there are many Afro-Americans who also have their own language, music, cuisine, and culture. Dancing is also a big part of the music here, everyone can dance from an early age. However, I had to go to bed early because the next day I took the first boat at 5.30 a.m. to Puerto Barrios, another long travel day to Lake Atitlán was on the program.