Lanquin and Semuc Champey

For some reason my bus was close to empty meaning that I had the luxury of 4 adjacent seats to myself. Sleep was a definite option and I took advantage.

Shotgun wielding civilians

6 hours later we pulled into the small town of Lanquin and got dropped at the El Retiro Hotel. This place was really cool! It is a collection of thatch-roofed houses on the banks of a clear, strong flowing river. There is a huge open plan design to it and a lot of travellers chill out around the river and bar/restaurant. It is here that I meet the first South Africans I have seen for a very long while. They had just completed their Chartered Accountancy articles and were moving down towards South America for the next 7 months.

The hostel does large international buffet meals every evening. That evening it was an American buffet with meatloaf and all sorts of other salads and breads. We played a late game of drinking Jenga which got pretty amusing.

El Retiro Hostel

I signed onto the Semuc Champey tour. In the morning we were cattle-loaded onto 2 small trucks and shipped over to the Semuc Champey valley. Upon arrival we were all given the chance to swing across the river and jump into it. I even managed a front somersault which was soon bested by some Canadian with a backflip.

River swinging

The next activity was the underground caving. The network of caves apparently stretch for over 11km but we were only doing a small section. We trooped up a small way to the cave entrance and were each handed a candle. The cave is filled with water so we were immediately wading through with candles held aloft. The caves were fairly large and had a huge amount of hanging, spiraling stalactites which you had to avoid hitting your head on. We wound our way through and then things became a bit more hairy when the water we were wading in began to get a deeper, a lot deeper. It was also pretty cold too and most people were shivering noticeably. Soon we were swimming through sections frantically waving candles above water so as not to let them go out. We moved up to a small waterfall which we rope-climbed up and then a few more sections where we almost had to totally submerge as we wound through and under small holes and overhangs. Finally we were rounded up at a large amphitheater where we blew out our candles and listened to the rush of water in silence. After a few minutes we were told to make our way back.

Moving into the cave

The water was fairly cold and got deeper than I could stand in a lot of places

We had to scale subterranean waterfalls

Freedom at last!

It was good to be back in the sunshine where we could warm up. Our guide led us onto the Semuc Champey pools. These are natural limestone pools of clear water that are great to look at and swim in. We reclined here for a few hours taking in the tranquil surroundings. We also hiked up to the Mirador viewpoint where we could see the whole pool network. En route it started pouring with rain, leaving us all soaked.

Semuc Champey pools

View from the mirador

We weren't done yet! Back at the river we moved upstream to a large limestone-carved waterfall where we climbed up the side and jumped into an eroded inner basin... great fun! They then handed us inflated inner tubes to cruise down the river to the camp. Our final activity was to jump off the large bridge right near the camp which was around 11m high. Piece of cake.

The bridge jump

We then got herded back onto the cattle-wagon and sent on our way to the hostel. It had been a long day and we were pretty drained. Thankfully there was a Mexican buffet that night to cheer us up. I gorged myself to the point of bursting and retired for the evening very happy. One thing I had failed to take note of before leaving Antigua was that there are no ATMs in Lanquin. I had only a small amount of money with me (barely enough for 2 nights) so that meant that even though I wanted to spend one more day in Lanquin, I couldn´t. Thankfully the hostel accommodates dumb tourists like myself and allows you to catch buses out of town on a goodwill basis. The goodwill is that you hand your passport over and only get it back when you pay them for the ride.

So it was in this manner that I got on the bus to Flores in the morning.