We planned our trip so we could enter the mouth of the great river in the morning hours. We wanted to check in with customs early and you can only enter the mouth in the daylight as there is a large sand bank that blocks the entrance and one needs light to navigate this bank. The morning was grey and large dark clouds hung low over the surrounding mountains. It was this greyness that made our trip to the mouth of the river so majestic, it seemed the world was shrouded in mystery, hidden mountains subtly exposed, and we felt quite alone bobbing on the flat steely water with not a soul in sight. By the time we reached Livingston, (the town sits on a high hill marking the entrance to the river) the sun had burned through and the steamy blanket of the jungle hit us full force. Only ½ an hour after we dropped anchor the customs and immigration officials came out in a little panga 
(fiberglass fishing boat) and squeezed into our cockpit to fill out all the paper work. It was a quick and friendly exchange and while our paper work was being processed we were told to go and enjoy the town of Livingston and in an hour we could stop by the office to pick up our documents. Livingston is a small, quaint town. The surrounding jungle makes it beautiful, huge fruit trees, palms and numerous other plants act as the backdrop to small colorful buildings. Our first stop was the ATM, as we needed some Guatemalan Quetzales to pay our customs fees. After going to the only ATM in town, and discovering that it was out of money, we had to go back out to the boat grab some US$$ that we had thankfully stashed on board in case we needed it, and went to the bank to exchange some money so we could pay our entrance fees.
Our pockets laden with Quetzales, it is 7.50Q to the dollar, we treated ourselves to lunch. We 
found a pretty blue and white restaurant that served the traditional Garifuna seafood soup called 'tapado'. When the waitress brought the soup out our eyes widened, it was the largest bowl of soup I have ever seen, a huge serving dish size bowl, brimming with seafood that has been simmered in coconut milk and spices. It is quite truly the best meal I have had on our entire trip and a meal that I will forever remember. It had clams, whole shrimp, squid, a whole blue crab, a whole fish all plied into the bowl. It took Keith and I a good hour to work on our meal as we sucked the sweet crab meat out of the claws, worked the tender fish meat off of the bones, pulled the heads off of the succulent shrimp and slurped up the clams from their shells. To make the soup even more exciting every now and then your spoon would dive deep into the soup and pull out a soft plantain that had been soaking up the spices at the bottom. I am not sure where we put the entire bowl of soup but at the end of the hour we both had only dregs at the bottom of the bowl and we were entirely bloated and well satisfied.
By then, I was already soundly convinced that I would love Guatemala. We settled our tab with the customs agents and headed back out to Penzi to prepare her for the trip up the river. The sails stayed rolled up and tight, we would not be able to do any sailing on this part of our voyage. Penzi would have to transform into a river boat for the next leg of our journey.
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