Semuc, Tikal & ARCAS

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The bus journey from Antigua to Flores seemed to take forever, which quantified was between 8 and 9 hours. The driver sped most of the way and intermittently blasted dance music as if to keep us awake but the lack of leg room and head rests were doing a good job of that already. During the lunch break he told us briskly that we only had 20 minutes so we all powered through the food and were dutifully waiting by the bus in 20 minutes where we waited a further 40 for him to turn up. He spent this time pacing the car park on his mobile phone. At least we had ice-cream to keep us cool.



Upon arrival in Lanquin we were a tad worried about the lack of hotel name on our voucher and whether this meant no-one would take us in and we’d be stranded. Thankfully, our names were on some-one’s clip board and we were whisked, standing on the back of a truck to El Portal, a hostel by a river in Semuc Champey itself, a further 45 mins down the road. This brought the total to 2 hours of driving on unpaved winding roads, the last 15 minutes of it in the dark. It was worth it when we arrived, the hostel was set in a gorgeous garden right on the banks of the river. The restaurant was open deck style looking over the river and served decent food. We had power supposedly from 6-10pm although we ended up brushing our teeth in the dark outside at 9.30pm one night.



The next day was our much anticipated trip to visit Semuc Champey, touted as one of the must-see’s in Guatemala. It consists of many brightly coloured blue and turquoise pools under which a river rages in a cave. Most trips involve climbing approximately one million steps to view the pools from on high before descending into them to cool off, splash around and sunbathe. Apparently our tour guide, Toto, thought little of this plan so we peered into the void of the river entering the cave, being mindful of course not to ‘finish our lives’ in his words. We then swam, slid and jumped through the pools quick smart before reaching the main event - a wet, 45 degree-angled rocky ledge to leap off into a pool 12 metres below. If that was not enough, it was necessary to jump to the left to avoid the rocks below and hopefully avoid the swirling logs while you’re at it.



Ade vaulted off early on and not trusting the depth, used his rear to pad his landing. That left a large black and blue area for over a week after. Ash chickened out with about 4 others and opted for abseiling down using a piece of string tied to a small rock to hold both her and the guide’s weight. Of those that jumped, a few people touched the bottom on their landing. One girl was so worried about keeping left she tilted her whole body and hit the water on the left side of her face, rupturing her ear drum (her guess). We heard after of another guy who thought he broke his ribs the day before on landing. And as if that wasn’t enough of an adrenaline rush for one day, we then climbed a rock across the face of a waterfall into a crowded cave with 20 other people just to get a look at certain death if we fell, then we reversed the whole escapade, all with no safety gear and one tiny, skinny guide.



At one point Ash was not doing so well and the guide made the mistake of asking her why she came down in the first place. In no uncertain terms she set him straight. Ade threw in a few comments of his own and once we arrived back safe and sound Ash’s wine pouring were of a superior nature for the rest of the night (the guide also being the bar tender). We skipped the hour and a half candlelit claustrophobic caving experience after lunch and opted for beers while watching the river hanging out with other people who thought better of it. By the sounds of it after, we made the right decision. That night we all retold our experiences much like survivors of a traumatic event and the wine and beer flowed. It felt good to be alive. (P.S. Not everyone had the same view - half loved it, while half thought it was recklessly dangerous and wouldn’t have done given an option)



Another long bus journey awaited us the next morning. This one was 10 hours on a crowded bus with a driver who hadn’t been on the route before and kept hitting speed bumps hidden by shadows of trees across the road at full speed. The wheels locked at one point and we skidded but he regained control and we slowed right down for the rest of the way. We arrived in Flores in the dark after an 8am departure time and checked into a cheap but waterfront hotel. Here we chilled for a few days eating cheap ‘economical meals’ and drinking 6 for $4 beer buckets with some other fellow Semuc buddies. Flores is a tiny island town in Lake Peten Itza connected to the mainland by a causeway. There’s a hill in the middle and all roads lead to water with one going around the sea wall which takes 15 minutes to walk. One morning we were treated to an exciting race, “run with your dog”! The whole island was closed to traffic and hundreds of athletes, including two children running one dog and one woman carrying her pooch, took to the streets to compete. The mojitos on the sunset side of the island are blended and taste fantastic and we’d be lying if we said we didn’t sneak into the Burger King across the bridge at least once.



Flores is popular because it’s an hour from Tikal, one of the greatest and largest Mayan cities of the classical period. It was in its heyday from 200-900AD and is thought to have controlled a large part of the Mayan world as one stage although it was abandoned by the end of the 10^th century. For some strange reason a lot of the tours from Flores leave at 4.30am to get you to the site for 6am when the gates open. This is not for sunrise views as one might imagine (this is what you do at Angkor Wat), but to avoid crowds. As there were no crowds, even when we left 6 hours later, you can imagine how irritating this was. Our guide, Caesar, was more interested in telling us about himself and his political views than anything about Tikal but luckily we got to ditch him at the Grand Plaza. Before that we meandered through jungle paths spotting crumbling stone building, even climbing most of the 64m Temple IV using the wooden staircase now attached to it. The view from the top of the other temples poking through the rainforest was pretty spectacular and not many other tourists shared the top with us. The site is massive and not all of it is excavated but it still takes hours to explore. The Grand Plaza has two main temples facing each other surrounded by many other buildings which you can climb and meander around. We climbed up the 38m Temple II again on a wooden staircase attached to the structure for a view across the whole complex which was well worth it.



From Flores we caught a little boat across the lake to ARCAS, an animal rescue and release centre we heard about from a friend who volunteered there earlier in the year. We signed up for one week of hard labour arriving on a Monday morning and leaving the following Monday morning. On our orientation tour we saw the quarantine area (our main place of work), the volunteer house (actually the back up one as the roof was being replaced on the main one) surrounded by macaw, spider monkey and caiman cages, the pre-rehab and rehab cages, the jaguar in a big enclosure up in the jungle (amazing graceful animal) and the dining area where we suffered many a bland meal (think frijoles, plantains, tortillas 2-3 times a day with mushy, boiled veggies and eggs). After the orientation we were straight to work, assigned to another volunteer for training in certain cages.



Each day consisted of 3 shifts in the cages starting at 6.30 am and 1 shift of chores in between. Ade was up in the jungle with the macaws, green parrots and the affectionately nicknamed ‘chickens’. These were big black birds similar to a turkey but larger and more evil. Ash had 2 green parrot cages, a howler monkey cage, 2 hawks in separate cages and a heron. All the cages had similar chores, 3 shifts a day which consisted of; take empty food bowls and water bowls, sweep all food and poo, wash down cages with hose, sweep excess water out, cut up fruit and veg following meal plans on the wall in kitchen (separate quarantine kitchen, don’t worry), put out food and water, sometimes hang berries in the fence for birds, sometimes add medicine to food for monkeys. The heron needed to be hand fed as he was losing weight, they think because he’s a night heron and not used to eating during the day. One volunteer had to hold him using a towel and the other catch small fish in a bucket and feed him as well as force feed him mini dog biscuits which he hated. As the week went on Ash became an expert at feeding Harold, as he was known, and he fattened up nicely.



For the last few days we got to work the same 3 cages together, the howlers and two macaw cages. Working with the monkeys was fun, when they weren’t pooing on us they were trying to steal the broom or food out of our hands. The macaws were just as interactive but far less amusing. Their poo is runny so doesn’t bounce, their beaks hurt when they try to snatch food and their perches are at low and frequent levels around the cages so you can’t get out of their way. They loved Ash’s hair and never missed an opportunity to bite Ade’s fingers when he reached in for the invalid birds’ food bowls.



On day 3 there was a draw of names, the winners getting to go along on an animal release. Ash and 3 other girls got chosen! The animals being released were foxes and coatimundi (members of the raccoon family) which had been brought in by the government agency CONAP and needed no rehabilitation before releasing back into the wild. With some animals they are too used to humans so need retraining and others are injured and need treatment, then rehabilitation. We loaded the animals in cages into the boat across to Flores then into a waiting truck. 2 girls rode out back with the animals and 2 inside with a member of ARCAS and from CONAP. The trip into the jungle took an hour and a half with the last part of it deep in mud needing the winch attached to truck to get us out of some sticky situations. The poor girls were covered in mud from the spinning wheels in the back. The actual releases were quick, the animals wasted no time getting from the cage into the jungle, sometimes so fast we only saw a flash of tail. Some other highlights of the day out were a day off the slave labour, lunch in a restaurant (no-one touched the frijoles!) with coke not powdered juice and a brief visit to the Mayan ruins of Yax Ha.



On Thursday’s a boat takes volunteers into Flores for a few hours. We all went for a meal after a few free hours, making sure to get left over’s as meal replacements for the last few days. Some people went shopping so they could supplement the provided food. There was a street festival on the night we were in but unfortunately we had to leave. Lots of performers, food and goods stalls lined the narrow streets. Plenty of fireworks peppered the sky.



One day we watched a swarm of army ants invade the library taking down a scorpion in its path. Luckily we never saw the poisonous snakes we were warned about walking up to our house in the dark. We got used to the 5.45am starts pretty quickly and were fast asleep by 8 or 9pm most nights. We even got used to the horrific smell coming off the resident stray dog aptly named stinky who hobbled around with only one eye and like to hang out by our feet as we ate. A few nights towards the end of the week when all the volunteers were getting faster at their days and therefore weren’t so tired at night we played Pictionary and Charades. This was particularly challenging as only 4 out of 10 were native English speakers, plenty of opportunities for things to get lost in translation. On a few occasions we went swimming in the lake after chores and watched the sun set.



When our time came to a finish we were glad to leave. The long hard hours took their toll combined with bad food. However, we really enjoyed our time here and appreciated the opportunity to work so hands on with so many different types of animals. Some volunteers had been on similar projects before and said this was the best although perhaps maybe more work than they had expected. The project is underfunded and understaffed and literally depends on volunteer labour and money to keep the animals cleaned and fed. It felt good to be making a difference, even if only for a week.



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