To the Beach! – Livingston, Guatemala

Enrique and I have just returned from the best vacation ever!! For the first time in many years, i dipped my feet in the Atlantic Ocean, only this time, it was the WARM tropical Atlantic, instead of the cold north Atlantic.

Livingston, Guatemala is located on the small piece of Guatemala that extends to the Atlantic Ocean (or actually the Bay of Amatique) just south of Peten. It is not connected by road to the rest of Guatemala, so to get there, you have to take a boat from either the town of Rio Dulce or Puerto Barrios. We decided to park and take one of the public ferry boats from Puerto Barrios … about a half hour pounding boat ride through the ocean surf.

The entire trip took us 7 hours from our door in El Remate to Hotel Flamingo in Livingston.

The first thing i did was to head out to the beach and walk into the ocean!

Because of its location at the mouth of the Rio Dulce, shrimp is caught and sold daily in the streets and restaurants all over town. It seems that every food in Livingston is made with shrimp … from fried shrimp to Tai Pad with shrimp, to pizza with shrimp, to fried rice with shrimp. And ceviche with shrimp EVERYWHERE!!

We walked A LOT … all over town … and along the beach in both directions. Way way way up the beach from Livingston, we crossed a foot bridge where the Quehueche River meets the ocean. This is also the end of the road and people who live further up the beach from here must either walk or boat in.

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The weather was perfect … sunny with a nice breeze every day!

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The beaches were a treat of soft black sand for walking and full of interesting shells for beach combing.

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We found an excellent hotel right on the ocean-front … Hotel Flamingo. It is off-season so we had the place to ourselves. We had a hotel room on the second floor facing the beach. The service was excellent. And we preferred the out-of-town location to the other major hotels that are in downtown Livingston and facing the river instead of the ocean. From here, we could walk both ways on the beach, or up the hill behind us and into the centre of town.

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Every morning the neighbours were up and out in the water early … bringing in their fishing nets and cleaning out the fish they caught overnight. As they work, huge flocks of pelicans and other long-beaked sea birds show up to eat the extras.

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We got together with Diego, a friend of Enrique’s from many years ago and chef at Happy Fish Restaurant, and he gave us a walking tour all around town while buying the ingredients for his special Ceviche, which he made for us for lunch. DELICIOUS!!

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When we were walking home along the beach after dark, we discovered areas of the beach that were totally COVERED in crabs … thousands of crabs. Baby crabs and big crabs. It was too dark to get a photo, but as we were entering the hotel, we saw one climbing the gate where there was a bit more light. They can really scuttle along

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