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Published: July 31st 2008
Arriving in lanquin
Oliver, our driver, unloading bags from the roofTo be honest, as nice as Antigua is, there's so much else to do around Guatemala that you can't spend every weekend here. It's location in the country makes it relativly easy to travel around and as there are so many tour companies situated here, you might as well take advantage of them, though ask around a few places first to check prices.
One thursday, myself and Dave from the project decided that we could get onto a tour to the Alta Verapaz region of Guatemala, home of Semuc Champey with turquoise lagoons, and Lanquin with it's natural caves filled with vampire bats!
We found a tour group (Chisubin Travel Agency Operator) around the Parque Central of Antigua that would provide us with transport, 2 nights accomodation in Lanquin and activities for $70 - For what you get, believe me it's worth it! We were picked up outside the main office on Friday at 2pm, where we boarded, along with 16 other people, a shuttle bus. We'd had a slightly heavy night the night before and were still feeling a tad delicate, so we managed to get the front seats, next to the driver. on shuttle busses, the best seat
is in fact the front passanger on the right and the one in the middle, that I had, REALLY is not! It's a folding seat that was blatantly put in at the last minute to get more people on board, and I swear I was sitting on a metal plate for the trip - quite short really, only lasted 8 hours, although to be fair, we did stop for a break about halfway, and then got some dinner around 9ish which provided a bit of respite. Also, the seats on the first row in the back offer a fair bit of leg room, and the seats aren't too bad either.
The trip itself wasn't all that bad. Whilst Dave slept with his head hanging out of the window, I spoke to our driver, Oliver, for most of the trip. Never really about much, just a bit of idle chat but it passed the time. Our stop at a petrol station was a nice relief and I had quite possibly one of the most interesting yet bizarre conversations in my life. Whilst we were waiting for the rest of our group to get back on the bus, Dave was approached by
a chap who started talking to him. As Dave doesn't speak much Spanish, he called me over to translate. For the life of me though, I could barely tell waht the guy was saying - he had such a strong Guatemalan accent, and maybe a lisp too, that his friend had to come over and translate from Guat to Spanish, then I translated Spanish to English. It was so weird; we spoke about absolutly nothing for about 20 minutes or so, but the two guys seemed to really like the fact that we were English (Football and chelsea was brought up a number of times) plus the fact that Dave was wearing a Barcelona FC shirt. Anyway, they decided to make us "Honourary Hommies" in their gang, and it was only at that point that I realised the guy with a lisp had a gun tucked into his belt! As if! Anyone, all was grand, and they offered us a couple of beers when we had to leave. We thanked them but decided to decline - we still had a further 2 hours to Cobán, where we'd head NW to Lanquin, a further 3 hours. Time passed quickly though, especially
when Oliver brought out his ultimate mix CD. A lot of people have the sam estyle of mix CD - it plays a few bits of a song such as chorus or wicked guitar riff, before changing to a new song. I was loving it, and even more so when Oliver pulled out an 80's mix! We had the entire bus singing "Eye of the Tiger" - awesome! Things did change slightly when the Britney Spears mega mix came on though - oh well!
We arrived at a jungle lodge on the Outskirts of Lanquin around 10.30pm and were given the keys to our rooms. Really nice soft beds and a rather redundant window - at the top of the outside wall was a section of Mosquito netting that we needed due to the heat and also let plenty of light in around dawn. The amount of noise was incredible too - all night long you can hear crickets, rustling in the trees and all sorts. Grand!
We awoke next morning for an early start, with our guide, José, showing us around his home town of lanquin. Note: there are no cash poitns in lanquin and most shops won't
Travelling to Semuc Champey
How many people can you fit in a truck? This many accept notes in high denominations, so it's imperative that you get some 100's changed into smaller amounts - the nearest ATM is in Cobán, off the Parque Central.
We stopped for breakfast in a local Comedor before jumping into the back of a pick-up to head to Semuc Champey - the truck was so small, we could only stand in it and made our work ones seem luxurious! After a bumpy and slow ride (it took us an hour to cover 11kms) accompanied by some local kids, we arrived at Semuc Champey.
Semuc Champey
We paid Q50 to enter the park - although Dave and I actually walked through for free; we decided we'd better go back and pay though as I'd rather not spend the night in a Guatemalan prison! For our money we could hike up a step and slippery path to a lookout point - the mirador - to look out over the pools. By this time, it was really heating up and we were knackered from climbing up and all we wanted to do was jump into the water. After a climb, and a couple of slips and trips, down the mountain path, we arrived
at the pools and saw the thundering Rio lanquin, that formed these limestone pools, drop underground where it travels for some 300m before emerging back out into the open. We walked now, down to the pools, stripped down to swimming suits and jumped in! ARGHHH!!!! So cold! But fresh at the same time. After the climb, it was exactly what we needed.
We spent maybe 2 hours or so swimming around, before José called us over and we set off towards a waterfall, to do some Rappelling. Rappelling is where you hang a rope ladder over the edge of a waterfall and climb down it. Our waterfall was to be fair, only about 12ft but it was still an awesome experiance to climb dow whilst white water thunders around your head and you can't see a thing. Once at the base, we passed through the waterfall into a cave behind, where you can see the river re-emrge out from under the ground. The thundering noise was immense, and it was also amplified by the cave that we just sat there taking it in. Afterwards, we had to climb back up the waterfall - which is even more fun - and
I chose to go first! The first bit, finding your footings and trying to climb up whilst you're buffeted by the water, is tricky, bu once you clear the first bit, it's a lot better and easier!
After this, we went back to the pools and swam around for a bit, though we also found an over hanging rock ledge that was about 8-10 meters above the pools that we climbed up to and jumped off! It's such a brilliant feeling to jump and see the water rush up to meet you before you hit it and plunge underneath, though the water was so deep even I couldn't touch the bottom. There was also an over hanging tree a further meter and a bit that José climbed up to and just hung from a branch over the pools for a minute or so, before dropping in. One of our group, Daniel, a Medical student from the states, seemed to be psyching himself up mentally to have a go at it as well and just before we were about to leave, he climbed up to the tree. The problem is though, that the tree is quite a steep ascent over the
The Road to Semuc Champey
one of the lads from the village who decided to come along for the day -we were travelling so slow, they could jump off the back and still catch us up lagoon, with branches covering it, and in the end, he jumped from the same point that the rest of us had done - fair do's to him for trying it though.
After this, we hiked back to the entrance, pausing to take a photo of a pretty big and hairy spider that was hiding underneath a wooden rail. Once there, we decided to head back to lanquin to get lunch, and then we went to the caves of Lanquin.
Lanquin
Once there, we had the choice of doing that first or to go Tubing on the river - we opted for the latter as it was about 5.30 and it was starting to cool down. We picked up the dodgiest rubber rings you'd ever see in you life (half of mine was actually made up of patches) and set off to the river. We gingerly launched ourselves into the water - and it was freezing! - and pootled down the river. The water was so cold, that a mist fast forming on top against the warm air, and we slowly meandered down the river. The pace soon picked up though, as we hit choppy water - I would't really
call them rapids - and we found ourselves dodging fallen trees and branches! All we were using to stear were our hands, which was quite tiring, but well worth it! To get out, we were thrown a rope from the river bank and had to pull ourselves in! From here, we piled back into the truck and set off for the caves.
The caves themselves are enormous with many strange rock formations. On certain mayan festivals, around the 5th of December, the local village come to the caves to perform ceremonies. When we arived there, around 6.30 the caves were actually closed to the public, but José had managed to arrange that the actually owner of the park himself, would come out and give us a guided tour. Also, at this ttime, there air was, and there is no other word for this, thick with bats, heading out to feed. The owner told us that they were actually vampire bats, and one of the lads that had come with us from Lanquin, had taken off his t-shirt and was catching them with it. You could stand up and wave your arms in the air, feeling the air rush past
as the bats fly past, yet they won't hit you - their radar is so good. we got a fair number of pictures of them as well as the rocks, before we headed back to the lodge for dinner. Now, Dave and I had a problem: Mainly that his card had stopped working about 20 mins before we left Antigua and I had had only a couple of hundred Quetzals on me, and we were down to Q20. Still we managed to get a portion of chips, a bottle of water and two slices of sweet bread (obviously you must have a dessert!) for Q20 exactly! Come on! it was actually a pretty good sized meal too!
Adter dinnerr, we had an early night; partly because we were knackered, but mainly because we were to be leaving to go back to Antigua at 6am.
That night, our usually cacophony of crickets and animals was competing with some drum and bass from a house party further down the road! Ah, the soothing sounds of the jungle!
We set off early the next morning, but stopped in Cobán so I could get some money out. Then we went to a side
Hiking up to the Mirador of Semuc Champey
It's steeper than it looks, and it looks pretty steep of the road comedor, a basic resteraunt, where we had pancakes (so good!) with butter and maple syrup. Then after wards we went off to a local reserve to go looking for guatemala's national bird and one of it's national symbols, the Quetzal. In all honesty, we didn't see the bird, but José planted a Q1 coin in a bush ( apparantly Oliver had told him to do it) that we took some pictures off as a joke! We did see a really fat squirrel though, but to be honest, I just liked walking through the jungle in the morning. Our journey back was more or less uneventful, though we did stop off to get a photo of clouds rolling through a mountain range, "
Las Montañas de los Muertes", the Mountains of the dead - so called because the smaller mountains resemble gravestiones.
After that, it was back to Antigua, though in all honesty, that was one of the best weekends of my life and I would recommend it to anyone!
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