Thanksgiving at the Beach in Livingston: My New Favorite Tradition

To celebrate Thanksgiving a group of 26 Peace Corps Volunteers and three brave friends who are not in the Peace Corps decided to go to Livingston and Rio Dulce. (Middle right in the map right under the B for Belize). We were there for 4 full days (Wednesday-Sunday). It was super far away from the Western Highlands where we all live, but it was totally worth it. We did the trip in two days. First we all took the PC shuttle to Antigua (about 4 hours from my house) where we spent the night, then at 5am the next morning we all boarded a shuttle that took us to Puerto Barrios (about 5.5 hours away). From there we hopped on a 30 minute boat ride to finally end up in Livingston. Livingston was a cute little touristy town, although it did feel authentic and not overly commercialized. The area is probably best known for their African-Guatemalan population. There actually weren’t as many black people as I had expected (having been to Africa I think that I had unrealistic expectations), but there certainly were many more black people than there are where we live (approximately none).

On Thanksgiving we had the perfect weather for a beach day. It was awesome. First we took a boat ride to Seven Alters where we walked up a beautiful rocky river bed and ended up at a waterfall where we all took turns jumping off. This was my first time jumping off a waterfall! 

 

After spending a couple hours there swimming and jumping we got back on the boat to head to Playa Blanca (the white beach). Here we spent the remainder of the afternoon swimming in the warm waters, hanging out, drinking coco locos (crazy coconuts – a whole coconut with rum mixed in with the coconut water), and playing beach volleyball (my team was undefeated thank you very much). It was so sunny and warm. The water was calm and shallow, perfect floating and relaxing. No offense family, but I wouldn’t mind if I spent every thanksgiving sunning myself on a beach on the Caribbean Sea. We had Thanksgiving dinner at our hostel, Casa De La Iguana (House of the Iguana). This hostel was made up of little bungalows. It was cute and I had my doubts, but they actually prepared a really good Turkey with stuffing, mashed potatoes, and cranberry sauce.  There wasn’t the usual quantity of food that is usually associated with Thanksgiving, but it was tasty.

Tapado soup

Tapado. Yum. This is a traditional dish from Livingston. It is a coconut milk broth with all imaginable kinds of seafood in it. Each soup had: a whole fried fish, snails, shrimp, the fish that live in Conch shells, and half a crab. ¡Que rico! I am positive that it was so rich that it couldn’t have been healthy, but I couldn’t have cared less. 

Livingston

Livingston

Livingston

Seven Alters

Our hostel

 

Beach Volleyball at Playa Blanca