Livingston

Woke up to howler monkeys in the treetops making a lot of noise around 6am. Its possibly the best way i can think of to lose sleep :)

Zero driving today yay. The only way to reach the altantic coast town of livingston is by boat down a river. Abdel managed to hire our own personal boat and driver who also agreed to take us to a waterfall and a nice beach in the Livingston area. Livingston is a garifuna population which is comparable to jamaicans and is the only place in Guatemala with garifunas.

The boat ride to livingston was beautiful. Jungle lining both sides of the river, and mountains as a backdrop. And there were also lots of hidden canals of tiny islands in the river hidden by dense vegetation with homes and cafés popping up behind huge leafy plants everywhere. Also came across a floating store, meaning a couple in a dug out canoe selling jewellery and hand crafted items. Large cranes and pelicans were everywhere too.

We bypassed Livingston and went to the Seven Alters, which is a series of cascading pools of water feeding into each other in a jungly setting. Climbed a million rocks and jumped in and out of different pools of water, and for quite a while we had it all to ourselves.

From there we boated to a gorgeous white sand beach with really warm waters. Spent two hours here relaxing by the ocean before backtracking to livingston and finally checking into our hotel. Spent a few more hours lounging by the pool and then took tuk tuks into town for dinner by the ocean. There's no cars in this city, just tuk tuks. I had an insane local soup where i almost expected half of its ingredients to crawl out of the bowl. Then back to the hotel for another hotly contested Catan game.Read more