Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Lívingston
POP 26,300
Quite unlike anywhere else in Guatemala, this largely Garífuna town is fascinating in it-
self, but also has the attraction of a couple of good beaches and its location at the end of
the river journey from Río Dulce.
Unconnected (for the moment) by road from the rest of the country (the town is called
'Buga' - mouth - in Garífuna, for its position at the river mouth), boat transportation is
logically quite good here, and you can get to Belize, the Cayes and Puerto Barrios with a
minimum of fuss.
The Garífuna people of Caribbean Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and southern Bel-
ize trace their roots to the Caribbean island of St Vincent, where shipwrecked African
slaves mixed with the indigenous Carib in the 17th century. It took the British a long time,
and a lot of fighting, to establish colonial control over St Vincent, and when they finally
succeeded in 1796, they decided to deport its surviving Garífuna inhabitants. Most of the
survivors wound up, after many had starved on Roatán island off Honduras, in the Hon-
duran coastal town of Trujillo. From there, they have spread along the Caribbean coast.
Their main concentration in Guatemala is in Lívingston but there are also a few thousand
in Puerto Barrios and elsewhere. The Garífuna language is a unique melange of Caribbean
and African languages with a bit of French. Other people in Lívingston include the indi-
genous Q'eqchi' Maya (who have their own community a kilometer or so upriver from
the main dock), ladinos (people of mixed indigenous and European heritage) and a smat-
tering of international travelers.
 
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