Semuc Champey

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So this weekend Elizabeth, Catherine and I made our way to Semuc Champey, just past Coban. Although it was only supposed to take about 5 hours to get there it was more like 8.
We arrived on Saturday around lunchtime after waking up and finding the quetzal (national bird of Guatemala) in the morning. It is very hard to spot as it is very rare so we were lucky to see it.
Once we had arrived in Lanquin it was off to Semuc which was another 2 hours drive along very bumpy gravel roads. After an hours hike up to the look out point we could see the rock pools and the view was spectacular, so beautiful and what amazing bright colours!! We needed about half hour up here to catch our breaths and then it was a leisurely descent back down where we had a refreshing dip in the pools, they were great with lots of little fishes swimming around.
The next morning we went to look around the Lanquin Caves. These were huge but I have to admit after about half hour I turned back, I wanted to be in the daylight again.
The return journey to Antigua was a gruelling 9 hours and 2 of that was spent in a traffic jam going nowhere!!
Semuc Champey was a beautiful place and it would have been nice to have been able to spend more time there.

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