Livingston and the Dreadlocked Rastas

Today we continued ever eastward, all the way to the Atlantic Ocean. We hired a lancha to take us down Lago de Izabal and El Golfete, into the Caribbean Sea and the town of Livingston. The ride was absolutely beautiful, past the Castillo San Felipe, speeding down the immense golf before it bottlenecked into narrow channels, with sheer rock walls and rainforest rising above us, and shallowed out into lagoons complete with lily pads and little birds that walked on water.

Livingston is often called La Buga, the mouth, as it’s situated at the mouth of the Caribbean Sea. Livingston is accessible only by boat, and is unlike anywhere in Guatemala. It’s populated by black dreadlocked Rasta-types, and has a distinctly laid-back feel, complete with black women braiding their babies’ kinky hair on front steps, teenagers listening to LA hip-hop and Caribbean reggaeton while playing soccer in the streets and old men smoking ganja and shooting the breeze. These Anglophone Afro-Latinos are the Garífuna.

The Garífuna, which means cassava eaters, are descendants of the Arawak indigenous group and the survivors of two slave ships which wrecked in 1635. The Garífuna originated on St. Vincent, in the Lesser Antilles. In the late 18th century the British, seeking control of St. Vincent, imposed treaties, waged war on, rounded up and deported and otherwise decimated the Garífuna with man-made famine and disease. The British abandoned the remaining population in the Honduran Bay Islands, where the Spanish began hiring them, first as agricultural workers and then as mercenaries.

Today there are enclaves of Garífuna on the Belizean, Honduran and Nicaraguan Atlantic coasts. There’s also been an exodus of Garífuna to New York, Los Angeles and New Orleans. Most now Garífuna work as fishermen, in agriculture, or in tourism. The Garífuna still face terrible discrimination, especially in Guatemala, where they are isolated and number only a few thousand, and since they have such a unique culture.

We heard Garífuna people speaking both English and Spanish, and language is a blend of Arawak, French, Yoruba, Bantu and Swahili. Apparently most Garífuna people are Evangelists or Catholics, although many also practice Dugu, a form of ancestor worship akin to Haitian Voodoo. While Garífuna popular culture definitely draws influence from Caribbean, especially Jamaican, and African-American culture, Garífuna music, called Punta, still has a strong West African feel.

We only had a little while in Livingston, so we had a leisurely lunch, sitting on the front porch of a big plantation style house, sipping iced tea and eating ceviche, pan de coco and fried plantains. Then we hired a boat to take us up the Caribbean coast, past beautiful palm lined, gently sloping white sand beaches to Siete Altares. Siete Altares is a series of seven pools, prefect little swimming holes connected by picturesque waterfalls, hidden in the jungle. It would have been the perfect place to while away another day, but alas, we had to get back to Rio Dulce and on with our adventures to the North.

Credit to Corbis for this photo of Livingston, taken in the early nineties. I didn't want to harsh the buzz by pulling out my camera.