Semuc Champey in Guatemala is an absolutely amazing place to visit. Its relaxing, beautiful, authentic and original. Explained briefly its a river that runs through the beautiful mountains and the water forms both small waterfalls and a handful of big pools with fish and with the possibility to swim and relax.

Semuc Champey is located near the city Lanquín, and from there the way to get to Semuc Champey is to sit/stand on the back of a pickup truck the approximately nine kilometers to Semuc Champey. It's a pretty rough and bumpy ride, but it's definetely worth it, and if your able to enjoy the view during the truck-ride, it' nothing less than beautiful.

Many visitors choose to live in Lanquín so they after all have something that is closed to city life, but I have another reccomendation if you're thinking about paying Semuc Champey a visit. I don't really think that there is much more than the pool-area to visit there, so you should without doubt choose to stay in the hostel El Portal, which is located about 50 meters from the pools. Ah okay, maybe 100 meters.

El Portal is a nice little hostel with dorms and orivates room to a fair price, and the staff is nice. From most of the rooms you have a view right down to the Cahabón River, and it is amazing. They turn off the electricity at night, but have in mind that a visit to Semuc Champey is for relaxing, and you will be totally fine with it.

The pools

When you visit the pools remember your swimming clothes. Even if you have some shoes you can swim in, that would be a good idea. The thing is, that Semuc Champey is as the nature made it. No easy stairs to get to the water or from one pool to another, but its absolutely not a hard task either.

Actually its a very good thing that it is the nature-way, cause you really feel like one with the nature, when you're relaxing in the pools. Going from pool to pool is great fun and sometimes a challenge. You can choose easy and hard routes, and going up again is nice, too.

There are lots of fish in the pools, and if you're there around sunset, you will discover lots of acticity in and over the surface when the sunlight disappears. I can totally recommend a visit around sunset, and thats another plus about staying at El Portal. If you've been in the pools earlier in the day, your ticket is good for another visit, so 20 minutes before sunset you can walk to the pools and jump in for an extremely relaxing and quiet experience. You might be one of the only visitors around that time.

The caves

Another thing to visit in Semuc Champey is the caves. The caves stretches about 10 kilometers into the mountains, but if you're taking a tour, you'll be going about one kilometer. But that should do it, cause you have to get out too, and you will find a few challenges on your way.

First of all the caves are totally dark. You will get a candlelight for the tour, and you have to carry that through the whole cavetrip. The other thing is that you have to swim too. Yep, with the candlelight in one arm over the water. Like the pools the caves are very authentic and ad made from nature, so you'll probably hit a few stones and sharp points at the bottom. Thats why you have to wear some shoes that can get wet and you can swim in.

In my tour into the caves we even had the opportunity to jump into the water from a three meter cliff, and we were forcing a small waterfall with a rope. Inside the dark caves. At the way out, our guide was holding all the candlelights while me and the other tourists were climbing down the rope at the waterfall, and then the guide as the last one wanted to jump down the waterfall with one hand full of candlelight and one hand on the rope.

Of course he swinged into the water and turned out all our candlelights. It was SO dark. You couldn't even see your own hand if your had it a few centimeters from your eyes. Fortunately the guide had placed a few candles longer into the cave, so while we were waiting for five minutes in the dark, he was finding a new light for us. It worked out and just added a bit more fun to the tour.

I will recommend the cave tour, but it's not for to old or weak people, and definetely not if youre scared of swimming in the dark, scared of small places or just scared of the dark.

Jump from 11 meter bridge

As I wrote before the river Cahabón was right next to the hostel El Portal. That gives you the opportunity to raft, tube or swim when you're at Semuc Champey. Me and my friends tubed with one of the hostel staff as a guide. It was okay, but it was a very, very slow tube-ride. Our guide might have taken the same tube-ride a thousand times, cause he was very bored. And probably therefore he wanted some action afterwards.

He asked us if we wanted to jump into the river from the bridge, and why not. Five minutes later I jumped the 11 meters from the old iron bridge and down in the Cahabón river. That was a nice feeling, but remember to do it with a local guide to keep from hitting some stones or cliffs in the water.

Just before the last sentence I just wanna recommend everyone to go and experience Semuc Champey. It's the most beutiful place I've seen so far during my travelling.