lunes, 28 de julio de 2008

The Hustler of Livingston

This past weekend Esteban, Perla and I took a mini-break and went to the Caribbean coast, to a town called Livingston. There are no roads all the way there, so we took a bus to Rio Dulce and then an hour lancha trip to Livingston. Livingston is distinctive from the rest of Guatemala in that a large portion of its population is descended from ship-wrecked slaves that (to make a long story short) spread out up the Caribbean coast from Honduras to Belize. And the food's different too, more coconut and seafood than you find elsewhere. We ate a lot of seafood. We actually got denied in our first hotel choice in Livingston because of our canine companion (didn't think to try to pretend she was our guide dog, like the joke... "they gave me a chihuahua?!"), so we ended up in a Hotel Ecologico, as it was called, outside of Livingston out where people go to the beach and we were actually very happy to be out there, even if we did have to take a taxi to go to Livingston. We could swim right outside of our hotel, and water was bathwater warm and the beach had an extremely gentle slope. Lovely lovely. Anyway, there were a bunch of dogs around and one was this good looking young fella and he and Perla had the best time playing, but when we left the two of them alone he took the opportunity to go into our bungalow and steal Perla's bag of dog kibble! We didn't realize it until Esteban went to go look for Perla, and apparently she was watching the other dog as he was chowing down on her bag of food, occasionally trying to get a mouthful herself but getting swatted away at each attempt. Rude! When the dog saw Esteban coming, he grabbed the bag of food and went to an area enclosed by barbed wire that Esteban couldn't get through. Well played, doggie hustler, well played. He actually kept playing with her after he'd eaten all her food, though, so it doesn't seem like he'd solely been working her just to get at her food. At any rate, great trip. Photos here...

4 comentarios:

heidi dijo...

I like the jungle cruise! And the crab bone for Perla! Glad you seemed to have had a nice time and had such a fun little companion.

Unknown dijo...

Learning to protect her food is good training for Perla. When she comes norte she'll have to deal with Josie, the ultimate kibble bandito, who regularly steals food from Ollie who's twice her size.

Amy dijo...

who is your "friend" esteban? is he different than your boyfriend esteban?

Anita Sarah Jackson dijo...

Sounds like a lovely trip! Bathwater warm ocean, that's a dream here in CA... and I have to admit, I laughed so hard at the chihuahua joke. I could just hear you saying it!