Half way around the world on a whim and a prayer....

---

This story starts in America in the summer of 2008. Yes I had decided to do summer camp. I had had mixed reviews from various friends. Some said it would be the best summer I'd ever have. Others said they'd rather never travel again rather than go back to camp, a strong statement if ever there was one. But I've always liked to make my own mind up so I gave it a crack. Feel free to read the full story in another blog entry. This story is about what happened after wards......

I met a girl. Yes it's true. The top excuse for causing a momentary laps in common sense (But this moment lasted a good three months)
After camp we headed to New York for a couple of days, but then came the time I had to leave. She was destined to go to central America and travel with her friends. I was destined to head back to the UK and work.

But I couldn't leave things like they were, so shortly after I had returned home, I bought a ticket to Guatemala to go see the previously mentioned female. A week later after dispatching an Australian friend staying with me to Ireland telling him he would have a great time in Dublin while I was away, I found myself trying to get to sleep on the cold hard floor of the second level of JFK airport in New York waiting for the connection 8 hours later to Miami and then to Guatemala. It was the cheapest flight there.....

After being bugged by a hundred taxi drivers after leaving Guatemala airport.....which with one runway and a largely deserted terminal hardly qualifies as an airport.....I made it to the hostel she was waiting for me in. Her friends had left for Semuc Champey several hours earlier. It was good to see her again, and quite honestly it meant I was visiting Guatemala all because of her. It was a country that wouldn't have made my A list for countries to go see otherwise. But I find you see and do the best things when you are out of your comfort zone and in places you may not otherwise go visit.

Guatemala city is a sprawling mass of rich and poor. You get the best picture of it from the air as you fly in. As the tourism grows, fancy hotels and mainstream stores are creeping in. There are shopping malls, cinemas, tall all glass hotels, TGI Friday and then you cross the street and make sure you do not make eye contact with the gang bangers who loiter on street corners with a 9mm stuffed gangster style down the back of their jeans. But in a country with seemingly little law, where the security is the responsibility of the individual to pay one of the many unemployed to stand outside their electronic gates with a shot gun. They do get a dark blue uniform which distinguishes them from everyone else who carries a gun. But in a developing country, which it is, it can only be expected. It is the same story around the world.

We headed up to Semuc Champey in a very unloved bus. A tip for anyone going to places like Guatemala: Always go first class. They may not be first class as we know it, but they are far more comfortable than the other alternative. They are fine for 12 hour journeys and still cheap. Not as cheap as a chicken bus, but you stand less chance of dying on the trip!

Nobody speaks English in the remote areas like Semuc Champey, but that is half the fun. With my handful of Spanish words and their handful of English words and my world renowned hand gestures and good pointing and grunting skills, you can get by. It takes a little longer to explain you want a room for the night but you get there in the end. Fortunately the girl I had gone to see had taken a Spanish course before I had got there.........BINGO!

With my hand gesturing and her speaking Spanish we made our way in the back of a pick up truck through the mountains on dirt roads in the dying light to one of the two hostels that are near Semuc Champey. To say these hostels were remote would be an outstanding understatement.

We met up with her friends and some other friends they had met up with. The wonders of traveling and meeting people.......and we settled down with something to eat. One thing I forgot to mention was I am English, she was Israeli, as were all her friends. And my Hebrew not being what it could be, another language problem arose. It was interesting understanding what i could, she was translating into English, I was correcting her English so sentences made sense while hr friends carried out Jewish rituals before eating......well you get the picture.

The hostel was idyllic. It wasn't until the morning that we could fully appreciate it, but by candlelight we entered our room. Basic but it has got to be one of the most romantic places you could imagine. All wood rooms, no electricity, comfortable bed, the sounds of the rain forest and the river below us drifting through the net windows.

Be sure to order your chicken sandwich from the local people who run the hostel before you head off for the day. For one it is the only place for quite literally miles around that you can get food and secondly they're great sandwiches. Go for the chicken!

You have two paths to take to get to Semuc Champey, the only reason for going to this remote place. One follows the river upstream to it, which we came back on, but I would suggest turning a sharp left and ascending some death defying stairs that would definitely not pass building regulations in Europe. But when you reach the top the view is worth it. Views stretching up and down the gorge and down to the wonder that is Semuc Champey.

You descend a different path, safer than the climb up and sweating profusely and exhausted you get to take a refreshing dip in the cool waters of the natural swimming pools of Semuc Champey. The opposite side to which you arrive you can climb the rocks and jump off if you are that way inclined, as I am.

The second thing to do in that remote part of the world is to book yourself onto a tour of the underground river system and caves. You are handed a candle and some string. The string to tie your shoes to your ankles so the fast flowing water doesn't sweep them away and the candle to see.........yes it gets dark in there. Those caves were used in the American survivor series as a challenge they had to do. So bare in mind they are not for the faint heated.

You are led into the pitch dark in freezing cold fast flowing underground rivers into a cave system. I live for things like that, but others do not. Half way in when you can't reach the rocks under the icy water and you are trying to swim, holding your one solitary candle above the water to keep it alight, some people began to cry and became truly fearful. You climb a ladder up a small water fall and into a cave before turning around and going back. It is adventure as one of the highest levels. If you are in that neck of the woods do it. You will look back on it and think how stupid it was and think what could have gone wrong and if you had sipped help was literally 2 hours away, but you will think you took on that challenge and won!

From this point on the trip went downhill. The journey from this idyllic little spot to the dump that is Rio Dulce. A hole of a place. The trip there by chicken bus, collectivos that dumped us in towns, even to this day I have no idea where they were, and swearing and spitting drivers, put me in a bad mood for a start. And that night myself and the then girlfriend had 'The talk'. I won't bore you with details but her being from Israel, me being English, me running my own company in the UK, her going to go to uni in Israel, it could have never worked. We parted well and I decided to get out of dodge and head north to Flores.

Flores is nice. A quaint place with plenty of reasonable restaurants and shops. I headed to Tikal from there and wandered around the ruins. They are my third set of central American ruins and by far the best ones. Lots to see there, lots of different ways to go and explore and very impressive. But don't bother making the 20 minute trek through sweltering heat and swarms of biting insects to get to Templo 6. It is nothing like the others, just a pile of rubble covered in trees.

The next day, after lots of broken Spanish on my part, broken English on their side and finger pointing and hand gesturing and I was on my way back to Guatemala city and home.

In conclusion: I doubt if I would have ever ventured to Guatemala if it hadn't been for her, but I am glad I went. It wasn't the greatest trip, but with the low lights there were some good high lights. Semuc Champey and the hostel there were awesome. The chicken buses not. Rio Dulce is a dump to behold with no redeeming features. Flores and Tikal a must see.

If you are going.........enjoy and top tip of the country..........Travel first class!!

---

Photos

Semuc Champey
The view from the top of the climb

Semuc Champey
A host of mini waterfalls, natural swimming pools and jump off points for the daring amongst you.

The digs
Basic but such a great place to chill out and sleep

Jaguar Temple, Tikal
The camera on self timer propped against a thousand year old temple. A good result I feel!

Flores
The sun setting on my final day.....