Livingston

At the end of the boat ride down the Rio Dulce I arrived in Livingston. Livingston is a Garifuna town unconnected by road from the rest on the country. Garifuna people were brought to America as slaves but revolted and lived independently along the Caribbean Coast.
The town felt a little run-down but still had its charme.
I stayed in a hammock at Casa de la Iguana - a party hostel run by some nice people who engaged the party atmosphere by promoting drinking games and the "guifiti challenge". Guifiti is rum infused with herbs and the challenge was to drink 4 shots in a row. After you have mastered the challenge you can raise the number behind your country on a board. The number behind Germany was 99. But i figured there are enough crazy drinking germans traveling that will raise the number over 100. I think it's a nice place if you wanna party but to me it felt a little overdone.
The hostel was also organizing some tours to beaches and other spots in the area but I decided to explore by myself. I took the walk to the nearby waterfalls Los Siete Altares which took me through the whole town and along the beach. The beach here was not to beautiful but nice to walk along in the water. The water was pretty warm but every now and then there were little rivers with fresh water running into the ocean and then suddenly the water would be really cold.
Los Siete Altares was a series of waterfalls and pools which you climb up from the lowest pool just before the river connects to the ocean. It was nice to be there completely by my self but I was still happy when I met a couple with their little daughter at the highest pool as the guy showed my where to climb up here to jump down from the last waterfall.
After I had made it back to the hostel a nice surprise was waiting for me: Sandy, Courtney and Peter who were with me on the adventure road trip through Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve in Belize had just arrived. It was great meeting them again and catch up about what we had done since we last met.
Later that night a Garifuna Band was performing at the hostel playing some traditional drum rhythms. Again it was nice till it got a little to much when they made people come in the center one by one dancing in front of everybody. But it was still a nice night and we danced quite a lot.
The next day I took another Lancha across the bay to Puerto Barrios to catch a bus from there to Guatemala City.Read more