Spring Break 2007
Here I am, 27 years old, and I still go on Spring Break trips…who would have thought…Semana Santa, the week-long Easter holiday, is by far the biggest festival in Guatemala, internationally renowned in Antigua (supposedly the western hemisphere’s largest Easter celebration). The year’s best parties happen during this time. In both Antigua and Livingston, I was able to observe the endless processions of floats that navigate through town, sometimes way past midnight. Along the procession route, locals create alfombras, or carpets of flowers that are arranged over intricate designs or pictures. The cumbersome floats pass over these carpets, and every block or two, the men must change crews in order to master the weight that is on their shoulders. It’s really impressive to see…
So this trip might not have been as crazy as previous Spring Breaks (i.e. Panama City during my freshman year of college) but the location was absolutely idyllic…and the company wasn’t so bad either. With my two buddies in tow, JP and Taylor, we first set off for Livingston, a Caribbean town up north near Belize. This entailed a 6 hour bus ride atop a double-decker, that included not only air-conditioning but also lunch service…livin’ the good life baby! (Of course, this slight luxury didn’t come cheap.) Once we stepped off the bus, it was like walking right into a sauna…I was immediately dripping with sweat. After fighting against the crowd to claim our backpacks, we quickly found a taxi to get us to the dock (Livingston is only accessible by boat). After settling in at the front of the boat for the best view, we were forced to put on life preservers….which I guess makes perfect sense because I don’t know one Guatemalan that knows how to swim. It was a pretty rough ride going across due to the competing boats and the winds coming from the sea. We passed a LOT of really nice, expensive-looking houses with elongated docks reaching out over the water. And I have to admit, I became a little nostalgic when we passed one beach that could have been a site for MTV Spring Break. Throngs of scantily clad Guatemalans, beer tents, loud music, and no space to even lay a towel…I was almost expecting a wet t-shirt contest. Fortunately for us, we hadn’t made it to Livingston quite yet…
Livingston is at the mouth of Rio Dulce, on the Atlantic side. And the word that comes to mind when trying to describe this perfect little town is ‘Tranquilo’. It’s a very laid-back, ‘Mayberry’ kind of lifestyle. They have a very distinctive Garifuna culture that is common among Caribbean villages. It was impossible not to see the impression Bob Marley has made among young Garifuna men. Also known as Black Caribs, most of the locals are descendents of African slaves. The people there are mainly dependent on fishing and tourism.
As soon as we hit land, we went in search of our hotel (which Lonely Planet calls the ‘Hilton of Backpackers’), Hotel Casa Rosada. The hotel is owned by a Belgian woman and her Guatemalan husband. It’s literally right on the water, with hammocks hanging at the end of a shared dock. The rooms are cute little adobe huts with mosquito nets swallowing each bed. But the best part of the hotel is their restaurant….the seafood was amazing! The signature dish in Livingston is called Tapado, which is basically a bowl of spicy soup overflowing with sea critters (and sometimes plantains for good measure). JP ordered Tapado one night for dinner…but it looked like it was more trouble than it was worth. I didn’t go wrong with just shrimp and the local fish!
The beach was calling my name the next morning…so we hopped into a local pickup truck that eventually packed about 30 people, including coolers, beach bags, and kiddy floats. It was so freaking hot….and we stopped about every two minutes to either pick someone new up or wait on someone that had to get out for some odd reason or another. Once we made it to the coast, we walked along the beach to what is called ´The Seven Alters´ - basically a tourist trap of limestone pools cascading through tropical forest. Since we haven’t entered the rainy season yet, the majority of the pools were really low…which meant a multitude of slippery rocks (both JP and Taylor fell on their asses!) Because we were traveling during Semana Santa (pretty much the busiest travel time of the year in Guatemala), the pools were packed with Guatemalans…it didn’t make for a very relaxing swim. Lots of people were climbing up the cliffs to jump directly into the pools (JP, the only white person). Funny story: I started talking to a guy that handed me a small crab he had found in the water. I asked him if he was gonna eat the crab for dinner…and I am not kidding, his response was that all crabs out of water are poisonous to eat. I just decided to keep my mouth shut since he obviously thought he was an expert. Maybe this is why you can’t find crab to eat anywhere in Guatemala!
Side Note: On our walk to the Seven Alters, we ran into our hotel owner picking up trash by the shoreline. We thought maybe he owned the land and was just cleaning it up. We were completely astounded to discover that he was picking up litter out of the goodness of his heart, to make the beach more pleasant for tourists and locals alike. You don’t see this too often in Guatemala…but poco a poco, people here will learn, and it takes just one person to start the chain of education.
Anyways, the rest of the day was spent at an eco-lodge right on the water…which was pretty comical because there was nothing ´eco´ about it. The playa was a typical Caribbean beach – very shallow water, no waves, calm waters, but VERY relaxing. Pelicans would skim right over your head while you were sunbathing in the clear, salty water. Absolute paradise!
Unfortunately, the sun started to set, so we found a local dive that was literally two feet from the water. (When I asked the guys what was their favorite part of the trip, they both mentioned our time at this bar!) The place personified Bob Marley to a tee. It was filled with locals kicking back, knocking down a couple of brews…or more. It is truly the only place I know that you can sit that close to the Carribean, with that kind of view, and drink beers less than $2!
Fortunately, it didn’t start pouring down rain until long after the sun had gone down. So we made our way back to town to meet up with three friends for dinner – Mary Liz, Elisa, and Stacey, also fellow volunteers. Afterwards, we showered up and went in search for some true Garifuna music. Lucky for us, a local group started playing out in the streets, moved through town, and then concluded at one of the local bars called Ubafu. Garifuna music is mainly made up of drum and base with a trance-like beat. (Stacey and I played our own rendition on the drums after the band was finished…it was pretty funny!) To close out our time in Livingston, you could say we ‘lived´ it up…We went down to the beach and discovered a HUGE party – Hello Panama City! I danced myself silly until 5 in the morning…until JP and Taylor had to drag me back to the hotel (Yes, I could have danced forever that night). I took advantage of a late-night swim, and then it was to bed for a couple of hours before we left for Rio Dulce…
Rio Dulce, which translates to Sweet River, is the name of both the river and the town that grew alongside it. The river feeds into Lago Izabal, which is the largest lake in Guatemala. The town is famous for its 860 meter bridge over the river, supposedly the longest bridge in Central America (also the only place you can bungee jump in Guatemala…and pretty much the last place I would choose to jump in the whole world.) The waters have unfortunately been encroached by numberless power boats, jet skis, and high speed yachts. But the boat ride from Livingston upriver to Rio Dulce is altogether indescribable…Okay, unless you are Lloyd Stephens…
“On each side, rising perpendicularly from three to four hundred feet, was a wall of living green. Trees grew from the water’s edge, with dense unbroken foliage, to the top; not a spot of barrenness was to be seen; and on both sides, from the tops of the highest trees, long tendrils descended to the water; as if to drink and carry life to the trunks that bore them. It was, as its name imports, a Rio Dulce, a fairly scene of Titan land, combining exquisite beauty with colossal grandeur. As we advanced the passage turned and, in a few minutes we lost sight of the sea, and were enclosed on all sides by a forest wall; but the river, although showing us no passage, still invited us in.” --Lloyd Stephens
After disembarking in Rio Dulce, we had to search for a separate dock in order to get to our hotel. From there, the hotel ran a water-taxi service to transport us back and forth to town. We stayed at a place called Hacienda Tijax – an eco-lodge in the middle of the jungle that is a working rubber plantation and reforestation project. Each of us had our own log cabin on stilts, placed directly over the swamp, with a little porch on the back to soak in the wildlife. Pretty cool huh?
The first dot on our itinerary in Rio Dulce was the Castillo de San Felipe de Lara – a Spanish fortress that dates back to 1595. The castle guards the entrance to Lago Izabal and was supposedly used in colonial times to protect against Dutch and British pirates. Unfortunate for us, everyone and their brother decided to visit this popular tourist spot on the same exact day. The line was probably 500 people long…which really wouldn’t have been that bad if Guatemalans didn’t always cut in line. (We tried a couple of tactics to prevent this, like forming a human wall and informing the offenders that God would not approve…but neither seemed to work.) Once inside, the fortress grounds were crammed with Guatemalans barbecuing and swimming in the lake. After touring the castle, we had our own Gringo picnic of ham and cheese sandwiches, and then went swimming outside of the roped area in order to get away from the chaos…but I ended up cutting my foot pretty bad on a rock, so it wasn’t the smartest idea.
So with one cut foot, we paid for a guided hike in the rainforest near our hotel. With our walking sticks in hand, we traversed over swinging bridges high up in the trees, glimpsed leaf-cutter ants, swam in a natural spring, learned about rubber trees, and climbed a looking tower to see the far-off hills of Belize and Honduras. We returned after dark – after our guide left us to fend for ourselves and yelled at us over her shoulder to beware of poisonous snakes...What a great tour!
That pretty much concludes our trip! It was really interesting to see Guatemalans as tourists and doing actual tourist activities…instead of seeing Gringos traveling everywhere (we were the minority this time). We caught a bus back to Guatemala City on Easter Sunday…a lot of traffic which doubled the driving time, no bathroom on the bus, and two kids deathly ill sitting behind me. But the evening culminated in a pleasant Easter dinner with my two travel companions and several phone calls from home. I’m back in Nahuala now, and back to work!
Hope everyone’s Easter was as enjoyable as mine,
Blue (i.e. new nickname….slowly catching on in Guatemala)
posted by Carin Robinson @ 4:43 PM
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