Falls, of the Water and Slipping Varieties

Before the trip, Steph and I did just a bit of planning, finding general ideas or guidelines for different countries but not going too much in depth. For this, Guatemala was the country I felt most prepared for thanks to Humberto. However in our research, neither of us had come across Semuc Champey, on of Guatemala's national parks. As we made our way through Mexico, Belize and into Guatemala, multiple people said that it was something we just could NOT miss. After hearing this from 4 different people, we decided to make a point to stop in Lanquin, the closest city to the park.

A brief sidenote about our trip from Flores to Lanquin. It was definitely one of the least enjoyable rides I've had in quite a while. The very beginning wasn't so bad, just a lot of bad 80s music. But before we left Flores, we stopped to pick up who we are assuming was the driver's girlfriend/wife and kid. For the rest of the trip, she proceeded to kiss him and hit the baby whenever it cried, both of these things causing the driver to drive pretty recklessly. Additionally, we had to stop for them to have food and for the driver to take a nap. After about 7 hours, they piled in three more people with only one available seat, and we rode packed like sardines down the worst part of the drive. It was only 11 km, but took nearly 2 hours because it was through mountains, downhill on a one way, unpaved road.

So we finally arrived in Lanquin and got posted at El Retiro, a relaxing hostel (minus the Frederico incident. Something came into our loft the first night and took our bread. We assumed it was an opossum because Steph saw one close to our building, but it's just a guess. Either way, we switched to a room with a door the next day). We spent the first day just lounging about since we got our third night at the hostel free, and booked a tour based solely on the fact that it was the cheapest and that we thought it included everything we wanted to see.

We had no idea just how much we would be doing. To start the day, after waiting for an hour we piled into the back of a pickup truck to make our way 10 more kilometers down in the mountains on that same bumpy road from before, only this time while standing. Once we got to the park, we did a hike to the top at the lookout point. This is where I had my first mishap and slipped on the wet wood, cutting my hand as I tried to catch myself. But it was minor enough, and after some quick photos we were heading down to the river.

It was during this time that the big spill happened, again thanks to the slippery, wet, wooden steps. I could tell that my shoes did not have very good traction, so I was already going slowly, but that didn't seem to make a difference. Before I even realized what happened, I had somehow grabbed one of the posts with my elbow and was hanging by that and nothing else. The drop wasn't extremely far, but it still would not have been fun...not that this was ideal either, as immediately following the fall my arm was numb and limp, but it beat the alternative.

Luckily there were no more falls after that, though my legs were wobbly for the rest of the day. And even though it was painful to get through, thinking back now on what we did, it was totally worth it. After descending from the viewpoint, we swam through various pools of water. Then where the pools ended, we scaled the rocks near the waterfall to get down to cave area where the river spout back out after going underground for a bit of a distance.

Most of the group with the pools behind us.

Once we were done seeing the caves, we looked around to see a way out and failed to see anyway but how we came, which is exactly what we ended up doing, climbing back up the ropes and swimming back through the pools (for some people, this was after they cliff jumped one more level down, though I thought best not to risk it after my previous misfortunes). We did a bit more hiking and then went "tubbing" at a different spot on the river before breaking for lunch.

We finished our day with what was the highlight for me, as we went on a guided tour through a water cave system using only candlelight to see. As we swam with one hand, climbed ladders, bumped into rocks and each other, we could only see the very bit of the cave we were in at that moment. Once all of us had moved ahead just a bit, where we had just come from vanished into the darkness completely. This gave the entire tour a mystical feeling, sort of eerie but crazy fun at the same time.

Inside the caves!

After having this experience, it was completely clear why everyone we met had told us not to miss it, and it will definitely be a piece of advice we continue to pass on to other travelers.