Lívingston

Introducing Lívingston

Quite unlike anywhere else in Guatemala, this largely Garífuna town is fascinating in itself, but also an attraction for a couple of good beaches, and its location at the end of the river journey from Río Dulce.

Unconnected 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, Honduras and Puerto Barrios with a minimum of fuss.

The Garífuna (Garinagu, or Black Carib) people of Caribbean Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua and southern Belize 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 Honduran 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 mélange of Caribbean and African languages with a bit of French. Other people in Lívingston include the indigenous Q’eqchi’ Maya – who have their own community a kilometer or so upriver from the main dock – ladinos and a smattering of international travelers.

Last updated: Oct 20, 2009