Garifuna Day, Part 1

So, I've decided to split up the Thanksgiving weekend into two blog posts because in my memory there are two distinctly different emotions I have associated with the four day weekend. I'll start with the grateful emotion, because good news is sometimes more fun to hear first :)

Aubrey and Claudia in Nature's Hot Tub

Aubrey, Claudia and I met at the bus station in Zona 1 at 6:28am on Thursday and the bus left at 6:30. It was actually really nice and comfortable ride with a bathroom in the back and at only Q.75 a ticket for a 6 hour trip, we weren't complaining. This was the first time we had traveled Northeast in Guate so we were able to see some pretty incredible landscapes along the way. When the bus trip ended, we were still another 45 minute boat ride from the actual city of Livingston. The boat ride was basically a whole bunch of people crammed into a vessel driving way to fast, a few dolphins jumping around in the water around us, and me trying my hardest to not wet my pants. We got to Livingston, urinated, and then took yet another boat ride to our hotel. After a quick meal we got on a plane and... no just joking... we got on another boat (are you catching on to the theme that Livingston is basically a water town? Like with water taxis and other awesome things?) and went to Aguas Caliente which was an area in Rio Dulce that had sulfur coming up from the rocks underneath the water. The sulfur made the water smell like hardboiled eggs and made the water incredible hot on the surface. It was recommended to us that we move the water around constantly because we could suddenly be sneak-attacked by water burning the crud out of our skin. In that same trip we went to a bat cave. It may not have been THE bat cave but it sure was creepy. Even though Aubrey continued to reassure me that bats do indeed have echo-location that would suggest that they would not run into me, it was close to impossible to not jump every time a blood sucking, flying animal flew past me. I do have a lot more respect for bats though as we totally invaded their space with flashlights and they still were nice enough to not kill us.

Acting all tough for the camera in the batcave

The next day we went on a walk on the beach for an hour and half until we reached this jungle-like structure called Siete Altares, which was a bunch of crater lakes stacked on top of one another. It was quite frankly one of the most beautiful things I had ever seen. Everything was green, including the water, and the only sounds we could hear were those of water falling and birds singing. It was definitely a relief from the busy sounds of fireworks, honking horns, dogs barking, and music playing we hear every night in the city. We were able to spend a good amount of time swimming in the lakes and just soaking it all in before we started our walk back to the hotel.

Dang, gina :)

When we got back to the hotel we made some crappy dinner and got ready to head back to Livingston for Garifuna Day. The Garifuna are the people in Central America who live on the Caribbean coast that descended from Caribbean and African countries. They speak their own language, have their own style of dancing, and apparently have their own day that we happen to be in Livingston for. It was basically a big party all day with people outside at all times eating food and spending time with one another. We were able to watch some traditional Garifuna bands play and everyone seemed to want to form a semi-circle around the band and then push one of their friends in the circle to do their own rendition of the booty shaking dance. It was pretty cool to see people from ages 6 to 86 rejoicing in their culture. We met up with Katie and two of her friends she had met the day before and though we all considered trying to learn the Garifuna dance, we decided our ginga selves would be better off spectating this time.

Traditional Garifuna music and dance

We headed back to Guatemala City on Saturday, not according to plan but rather according to necessity, and decided to write down all the awesome things about Livingston so our un-awesome experiences with the town didn't take over our memories entirely. I'll post pictures when I have a better internet connection and maybe they can do a better job of showing you the good side of Livingston than I just did :)