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.

So a dogwalker, a devil and a Mexican walk in to a bar....

Actually it was a bunch of Mexicans walking in with us. Eric was the paseador de perros, I was la diabla, and Steph went as a Mexican. We were dressed up for a Halloween party that we had been invited to earlier that day by some locals who were friends with the guy working at the hostel we were staying in, Mezkalito. When we insisted that we did not have costumes, we were told to put something together quickly and that it wasn't a big deal.

We ravaged the markets for anything we could find. I came across some light-up devil horns and paired that with a red dress, Steph had just bought the poncho she had been wanting and added a hat from the hostel, and Eric bought two blowup dogs off the street. We thought our outfits were pretty creative, but when we got to the bar, those already in attendance were not too impressed. Granted, they had gone all out, full face paint, wigs, props and costumes, but we were getting proper dirty looks.

All dressed up with somewhere to go.

However after a bit of Mezcal got flowing, that changed quickly and everyone was super friendly, offering us nonstop drinks and food. It would have gone all night, but around 3:30 we decided to head back to the hostel because some of the guys were feeling the Mezcal a little too much. When we got back to the hostel, I was very confused about the time. As it turned out, Mexico's daylight savings started that night, a week before the rest of North America set the clocks back.

On top of that, Steph woke up with one of Eric's blow-up dogs in bed with her, which had actually been left at the bar. I discovered why when I woke up and was startled to find that the guys from the party the night before were actually staying in the same dorm as us. Later that morning we were able to get more information from them about advice for the rest of our trip, including into Belize since the main guy was actually Belizian, and swapped information so that we could share photos and in case we had any more questions.

O Canada, Steph's home and native land....

I can't believe it's been a week since I left. And then when I look back at everything we have already done, I can't believe it has only been a week. Time is getting back to playing its usual tricks on me.

It seems as though we have been on the move pretty much since I arrived at the Seattle airport on Monday afternoon. Since then, we have driven from Seattle up to Chilliwack (3 hours), from Chilliwack over to Banff in Alberta (9 hours), back to Chilliwack (8.5 hours) and then down to Vancouver (1.5 hours). We also spent a good chunk of Saturday on ferries to Victoria and Salt Spring, one of the smaller Gulf Islands, which totaled just over 4 hours.

But all of that time in transit was well worth it. Up in Banff we saw Lake Louise, surrounded by mountains and fed by glaciers, it's an amazingly blue-green-turquoise color. We did a short hike up to a lookout point and really got to take in all of its beauty. Unfortunately, it began to snow. At first it was just flurries but after we had gone in to get some hot tea it was coming down pretty hard and the tops of the mountains were no longer visible, so we headed back into the town of Banff. We went on a hike searching for some Hoodoos but there were no markings on the trail and after trying a few different options with no luck, it began to get pretty chilly out so we went back to the hostel.

                                                    The Banff Hoodoos, which evaded us.

The hostel we were staying in was advertising that the pub downstairs was having a Full Moon Party. Since Steph and I are kind of pros at these, we figured we had to make an appearance. Of course it was nothing like Koh Phangan, though they did have body paint, but we still had a nice time meeting people there.

I had forgotten that one of the best parts about staying in hostels is how easy it becomes to meet other travelers. This time was a little different because most of the people we met were actually in Banff  for a job fair that one of the ski resorts was holding. So while they weren't exactly other travelers, they were still interesting to chat with. Most of them were from Australia and New Zealand and one Kiwi in particular was drilling Steph about Canada, specifically its wildlife. It was hard to take his questions seriously, and a large part of that conversation was actually Stephanie teaching him the Canadian national anthem and her learning the New Zealand one, which is apparently partially in another language. (I just did a quick Google search to ensure that this was not fiction.)

On another note, after spending so much time with Steph in Thailand and talking to her since she has come back home, I arrived here already feeling like I knew most of the people in her life. It's been nice to actually get to meet some of them while at the same time seeing parts of Chilliwack and for the most part, I was surprised that most of them were exactly as I thought they would be.

***Have not yet uploaded photos. Will add those later rather than supplementing with ones stolen from the internets.***