The next morning we all pulled ourselves out of bed. I was feeling pretty awful. I'd gone to bed relatively early (midnight, which is late here), but got repeatedly woken up by an obnoxious girl screaming into her cell phone. Ah, dorm life.
Everybody was planning to go in different directions that day. I was planning to stay in Rio Dulce and see the "hot springs waterfall," the local wonder. The others had seen it the day before. Some were going back to Antigua, some were headed south. Johann (from Germany) and Richard (from the UK) were the only ones planning to go to Livingston, an Afro-Carribean town on the Carribean, reachable only by boat. They had talked to a lancha driver, who was going to pick them up at 9 (the hostel was on the water and had its own dock). The more they talked about the 4-hour boat ride, the more people from our group decided to go.
Finally, I was the only one still planning to stay in Rio Dulce another day. But ten minutes before the lancha was to leave, I succumbed to peer pressure and decided to go as well. I had wanted to go to Livingston anyways, and I figured I might as well go with a good group of people that I was already having a lot of fun with. So I hurriedly stuffed my posessions into my backpack. As it was, I was the last person to leave the dorm. As I was putting my backpack on, I heard a roaring "SARAH!!!!" from the dock - everyone else was on board and ready to go.
The trip was really stunning. The Rio Dulce is a very historically important body of water- for a long time it was the only accessible way to reach most of Guatemala from the Carribean. This also made it vulnerable to pirates, who would sail up the river to ransack Guatemalan towns. So the Spanish built a fort on an island in the middle of the river, which we, like good little tourists, got off to see.
The river itself is hemmed in by mountains on either side, which, as we got closer to the Carribean, got closer and closer until we were traveling down an impressive gorge, towering, jungle-clad cliffs on either side.
Finally we turned a corner and there was the Carribean, sparkling blue and wide open.
We got off the lancha and were immediately besieged by five young, dreadlocked hustler guys ("Jamaica by way of New York" was how Jonathan quite aptly summed up their look and demeanor). They whisked us off to a dumpy but serviceable and friendly little hotel, where each only paid about $2.50 for our beds in rooms with a private bathrooms. The things that seem amazingly luxurious when you´re on the road. A bathroom i only have to share with two other people? Yippee!
A few of us went for a walk around the town, which was small, friendly and had a great feeling. We had all heard horrible things about the town (dirty, dangerous, nothing to do...) and were universally pleasantly surprised by how great it was. True, it´s no Carribean paradise (it doesn´t even have a beach, really), but there was something just really nice about it. People were genuinely friendly and laid-back, the culture was different, and the seafood was amazing. That night we had a seafood feast - fried fish, enormous grilled fish, fish soup, and more shrimp than we knew what to do with.
I spent a few very pleasant days in Livingston. After the first day of sun, it rained the next couple of days, so we just spent most of the time sitting around and shooting the shit and meeting some of the strange characters that populate Livingston. For instance, there was the tall, 40-ish rasta guy who kept trying to hustle us. His most distinguishing characteristic was that he would randomly insert the word "Africa" into every sentence (i.e., "you want any - Africa! - ganja, just let me know, Africa!"). After that, whenever we ran into him, he would call out "Africa!"
The first day we were there, we had stumbled upon this Mexican-Indian restaurant. Actually, the owner, a very gregarious Mexican woman, practically chased us down the street with her menu. She told us that she was from Mexico but had lived in India for years and could cook real Indian food. We decided to have a cup of chai and were very impressed - it could have been from a chai stall in India.
Anyways, nothing very eventful happened in Livingston, but it was a nice few days, and I was glad I went.