I treated myself to a good days sleep after the volcano-trekking on Acatenengan before I headed on to Lanquin to see the stunning scenery and bathe the natural pools in Semuc Champey national park. Since the public transport here in Guatemala is kinda tricky and slow, especially when you´re going up north, I ended up booking a seat on a shuttle. The shuttles aren´t that much more expensive than the public option, but i reckon I saved about half a day in travel-time this way. Unfortunately, I chose the wrong day to take on this particular trip. Only about two hours from Antigua we stumbled upon the biggest queue of cars I´ve ever seen. The traffic had been stuck for hours and the queue streched for several kilometres along the thin mountain roads. As it turned out, the block was made by a group of teachers in the surrounding villages who were pretty upset about not getting paid from the government for months. I must say, even though it was a pretty boring and steaming hot experience being stuck up there in the sun for hours, the teachers picked a good way to show their anger. They threatened with not moving until all had been paid, and this being only days away from the national elections, and the fact that this was the major transport route between the capitol and the north, the goverment pulled all their fingers out their bums and actually paid the teachers their whole salary. So after hours in the sun we were finally on our way again, and the village-teacher had gotten their well diserved salary!

Lanquin is a tiny village placed on top of a hill sentered in gorgeous scenery. There isn´t really much else there than a couple of small tiendas, an internett-cafe to please the tourists and a hostel or two in the village. And even though there´s more than one, it seems that everybody travelling in theese parts goes to the same hostel. We were no exception and the whole shuttle crew, consisting of me, Pilar(Mexican), Netta(Israeli), Gilly(Israeli), guy(Israeli) and an unnamed Israelian guy, all settled in in the hostel we all had been recomended to go to: Zephyr lodge. Despite of this bein the low season in Guatemala, this place attracts nature-loving tourists all year around. Not wasting any time, we all signed up for transportation leaving to Semuc Champey the day after,

Semuc Champey is an absolute paradise. It´s one of those very few postcard-places that actually looks exactly like the postcard. In addition to the wonderfull pools and the impressive river running beneath it, it is also home to an extensive system of caves and some awesome swings and bridges from wich you can jump of into the river. The 10(+-) bridge particulary appealed to me as I got to ´practice some flips and flops landing in the flowing river below. Fun!
I dind´t really expect to much from the caves, but I was positively surprised. The caves are deep, and you have to climb up waterfalls, swing past natural pools and even "cliff"-jump within the caves. Although the caves broke my 30NKr watch, we all had alot of fun.

The last stop on our day-excursion was the natural pools. As I wrote earlier, this is one of the few places I´ve been were the scenery actually is identical to the perfect postcard-picture. The list of beautiful places I´ve been the last 8 months is long, but the list covering the places that makes justice to the postcards sold everywere only includes places like Angel Falls, Roraima, The Great Blue hole, Galapagos, Macchu Picchu and the really top sites on the continent. And it´s not only beautiful: swimming around, jumping and playing with the rest of the 10-man strong group was a lot of fun!

The rainy season here in Guatemala really earns its name. Every night, more or less all night, lighting storms are seen all around the horizon and rain poors down. For us in the zephyr - lodge this only made the nights more fun and more spectacular. As in every backpacker - lodge on the continent the evenings here were dominated by beers and tequila with travellers and locals in the hotel-communal area. This, spiced up with the arrival of the canadian hobby-musicians Shawn and Leith, who sporadically preformed classical rock-songs on banjo and with tequila-empowered energy, made night - life in Lanquin a highlight of Guatemala.
I ended up spending four nights in the Zephyr lodge. And some of the poeple I met here I´ll have a hard time forgetting. The Yoga-teachers Netty and Pilar, who gave me free yoga classes in this spectacular place, opened my eyes to this for me strange form of excercise. Also tubing on the river, belly flopping from trees and just hanging out, reading and relaxing made this an experience I´ll never forget.