This was the first day I felt like I was in The Beach, with Leonardo DiCaprio. Livingston is the sort of place you go to hide from the authorities, or from responsibility. There were hotels like something straight out of The Beach or Brokendown Palace, enough khaki shorts to do a commercial for the Gap and a history and people very different from the rest of Guatemala.
Livingston, according to legend, is inhabited by the descendants of renegade slaves. After mutiny aboard a slave ship, they escaped to the coast of what is now Guatemala. Garifuna language and culture are rich and unique. We missed an opportunity to see live Garifuna music, but didn't miss our chance to learn a bit of the language. Unfortunately, time and lack of use have led me to forget those tiny bits.
We started day three early, waking to the sound of the hostel manager banging on our door to tell us that our bus was here -- we had overslept again in typical Angelroth fashion. We scrambled to throw our things together and wash up (always a challenge when the water is so bad for you).
Once in the minibus (a van actually), we encountered our travel companions, two American women, Jocie and Pam and a Norwegian woman, Brittelyn. We road for what seemed like ages as hunger and the need to use a bathroom grew more and more urgent. Finally we stopped for breakfast in the middle of nowhere. Apparently people lived in the middle of nowhere, as there was a huge birthday party at the restaurant, a sort of truck stop, early in the morning when we arrived. We ate and got to know Roberto, our driver. He is divorced, charming and had a sort of tired look in his eyes that was there always.
Back on the road, Roberto had me sure we were dead a number of times, as we swerved in and out of the path of semi trucks on winding mountain roads. All the while, Michelle was giving me a lesson in Spanish verb conjugation, as I had done for her in French when she came to visit me.
Along the way to Livingston, we stopped at the ruins of Quirigua, where we climbed ancient Mayan ruins and bought a coconut from a man with a machete and far too few fingers.
Our boat to Livingston (the best way to get there is by boat) left from Puerto Barrios, the seediest place I have ever been. Even at the height of day, this was a seedy port city. It was the worst quarter of Marseille worsened, or so it seemed in the roughly 15 minutes we spent there.
Fortunately our hotel in Livingston made the stop in Puerto Barrios worthwhile. We all took turns using hammocks in the courtyard and even the rooms were cool and comfortable despite the heat and lack of A/C.
Brittelyn, Michelle and I hit the beach, where I changed clothes behind a towel and chatted with Brittelyn about her skydiving hobbies. We caught up with the others later that afternoon. Pam had been braided.
Pam, we began to find out, was a crazy woman in the best sense of the word crazy. She is a teacher on the east coast. She got the drinks started that night and is the one responsible for our meeting up with Roberto after dinner.
I held my own pretty well that night with the Spanish conversation, impressing all when they found out I hadn't really studied the language. (Pat myself on the back for a second...) Apparently 11 years of French is worth something in other Latin languages.
It was a touristy day like none I have ever had. We'd known eachother less than 24 hours and already we were tight-knit.
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