Day 73-74 Semuc Champey

Today was a long day of commuting but well worth it. Our shuttle bus picked us up at 6am, we were the last pick up stop. So this ment that we had the last 2 jammed seats in the 15 seater van. It was already sticky and hot that early and there was one real seat left and one home- made metal thing that they wedged in between 2 other seats that Brendan sat on. This was going to be a fun ride.

After 7hrs of travelling and only a few stops, we arrived into Lanquin. We dragged our sweaty bodies out of the van and jumped onto the next mode of transport, a ute with bars across the top for a canopy, or for us to hold on to. We stood in the back of the ute with the other 5 people travelling to our hostel in Semuc Champey and began our bumpy ride just 9kms down the road. The scenery was beautiful, thick green jungle, hills and mountains, rivers, streams, coffee plantations and small huts dotted along the way with half naked children running around chasing chickens and puppies. It wasn't long before the bus infront of us broke down and as the smell of burning rubber filled the air, our ute was suddenly inundated with locals scrambling to get some standing room. Children were thrown in and then parents followed. We now had about 15 people in our little ute. Now the ride was interesting. We finally made it to our hostel, Las Marias, which was situated right on the river. A cute littleplacel with simple yet great food and welcoming cold showers. We bunked in a dorm room with an American and a Canadian girl we met along the intimate journey there and then all decided to go for a swim down at the river before dinner. There was a huge trapeze to swing off into the river which we had a go at and again, Brendan more than others as he tried his hand at a few flips and twirls in the air before crashing into the water. The water was a beautiful cool temperature which was exactly what we needed to get the thick jungle sweat off us.

We woke the next day for an early morning walk with our new friends to the falls of Semuc Champey. They were only a few kilometre away from our hostel and the park opened at 7am, we were there at 7:02am. We first headed up the thick jungle trail to get a view from the miradore. It was a tough walk up but well worth it. The view looked down onto the cascading blue pools of Semuc Champey. Each pool a slightly different colour, size and depth and surrounded by the green jungle. We were sweating like crazy from the walk up and couldn't wait to get into the pools to cool off. We went to where the waterfall and the pools started. There was so much water moving from this waterfall and it all disappeared underneath the limestone formations of Semuc Champey,where the calm, blue pools lay above. This was such an amazing place and we were the only ones there. The sun was shining and it was just awesome. We lay around exploring the pools for a while, walking or jumping down between each one. It was a prefect way to start the day.

We headed back to the hostel for some breakfast and then got picked up by our guide to take us for a tour of the caves nearby. This was one of the coolest things we have done. All we were wearing was our bathers and thongs which were strapped on to our feet with string. We walked down into a cave that had about a metre of water in it and before we got too far our guide, Sebatian, handed us each a long thin candle. He had one head light torch (which he rarely used) and two other candles stuck into the band around his head. We entered the caves with big smiles on our faces, guided just by the very dim candle light. It was like something out of Indianna Jones or the Goonies. We walked through these caves with water up to our thighs until suddenly we were now swimming. Holding our candle in one hand and swimming with the other. It's amazing how quickly you fatigue when you are trying to swim in a pitch black cave and keep a candle above the water. Lets just say that Brendan had to re-light his candle the most. The current got stronger and we started to have to use the walls to drag us through, this was why our thongs had to be tied on. We had to climb up over a few areas, using rope and bamboo ladders between squeezing through other holes in the rock to finally get to a very fast flowing waterfall. We couldn't see anything but Sebatian guided us under a powerful waterfall one by one. There were a few candles that had been placed on the rocks by earlier groups which made it look even more like we were in a scene from Indiana Jones. The highlight was climbing up a rock formation to them jump down in a black pool which you could not see. At one point as we were swimming, trying to keep our candles above water, Sebatian thought it would be funny if he swam ahead around a corner and then blew his candle out leaving us swimming aimlessly and calling his name until he heard us fatiguing and started giggling. He was sitting on a rock enjoying watching the gringo's struggle through the cave.

The whole day was fantastic and well worth the struggle to get out to such a remote place.