Advertisement
Published: September 1st 2008
Edit Blog Post
23rd Agosto- Flores
Up at 3am, zombies piling into a van to go to the sunrise tour of the Mayan ruins at Tikkal. Eerie amazing walk to the sunrise point;walking only by the moonlight we were surrounded by the noise of screaming howler monkeys who were swinging around in the trees above us. When we had panted and wheezed our way up to the tallest of the Mayan pyramids we sat in silence as the sky turned from pink to orange to blue. OUr tour was taken by a very enthusiastic guide who seemed to be having a very lucky day, everywhere we stopped he seemed to magic animals out of nothing including a tarantula, a huge cricket that he put on Roya, a toad, spider monkeys and to top it off he found a Mayan tooth! Dubious at first about the extreme luck we seemed to be having, his goosebumps and muttering about this not happening since 1995 seemed pretty convincing. We rested our aching legs for the rest of the day at the hostel, only moving to watch the sunset over the lake. Really amazing sunrise and sunset today.
24th Agosto- Lanquin
7 hour bus journey.
eurgh. had heard about an amazing hostel in Lanquin that was nearly always booked out by the afternoon. Arriving there in the evening we armed ourselves with ´tengo una hammocka´(we are in fact now fluent) and managed to persuade them that it was safe to tie up another 3 hammocks to a creaking roof that already had 4 hammocks tied to it and 2 people sleeping on the floor. Success! When we had a look around we realised we had arrived in Swizerland, the hostel was nestled in alpine looking mountains with horses grazing by the river at the foot of the hill. We went down for dinner to find out it was a buffet of veggie Sunday Roast, so delicious and an amazing communal atmosphere. Played cards all evening, watched some shooting stars then tried to all get in the hammackas without the roof breaking.
25th Agosto- Lanquin
Lazy lazy morning, the only activity of the morning was a definate mistake. The nice barman suggested its really great to walk up the river,jump in and float down, cooling, refreshing, beautiful, the lot. Tash and I wandered off, yelped our way into the water as it felt sub-zero
and was more painful than refreshing only to get dragged by the extremely fast current and smashed on many sharp rocks as it hadnt rained in a few days. Crawled out of the river feeling pretty bruised, battered and cold only to be told that theres an open sewer one mile up. Wonderful.
In the afternoon we went to see some caves. Marco, our 16 year old Guatemalan guide amusingly flirted with tash all the way, threatening to wipe bat poo on her face and pointing out the similarities with her and rocks that looked like monkeys. The caves were coated in bat poo so the floor was very slippery. Soon we were damp from the drops falling from the roof which we learnt to Marco´s amusement was wee and poo. Marco showed us where Catholics make monthly chicken sacrifices up in a dark corner of the cave. Then he showed us the biggest spider ever. It was called a false scorpion/ whip spider. He put it on my face which was a very unpleasant experience, scratchy legs hooking in everywhere and pincers.
We returned to the mouth of the cave for dusk. As it got darker more and more
bats started flying out the the cave and soon there were hundred of bats dodging and diving out of our way. Apparently there are 60000 bats in the cave, all of which fly out at this time. Really incredible to watch. I have now decided that I love bats as I learnt that the bats in Lanquin all fly out to eat mosquitos so I had no bites for 3 days, amazing!
We arrived back to find a boy called Sam in a hammock. All warmed to him quickly as he seemed to be a clone of my friend Rob. Another amazing dinner, some cards and then a night of some pretty special dancing. We encoraged 20 drunk americans to join us in interpretative dancing (waving limbs around in any kind of rhythm) and soon there was a huge group of travellers all copying one persons strange dance moves, very fun and it embarrassingly created a line of amused, sober spectators.
26th Agosto - Lanquin
Roya, Tash, Sam and I got up early, ushered onto the back of a pick-up truck to go to Semuc Champey. Arrived at a cave, had our flip flops tied onto our feet
and then we walked/ climbed/ swam through pitch black caves for an hour or so with our candles as the only light. There were tricky bits where you had to climb through small gaps or up and down a slippery rope ladder, at one point we got dragged through a waterfall by our guide. When we got to the end point, the guide pointed at a high rock and told me to jump off it. I forced him to do it first to check he didnt die, then scrambled up and jump down into a pitch black gap about 4meters by 4 meters, very fun when I realised I was still alive.
We then walked to a river and were given car tyre inner tubes, put our bums in them and peacefully floated down. Huge green mountains and waterfalls in the distance, we are all feeling very very relaxed.
Then we walked onto a bridge over the river and the guide smiled and jumped off, falling 60 meters until he hit the water. For some odd reason Tash and I decided this was a good idea. Genuinely terrified we convinced each other to jump, too scared to scream while we
free falled for several seconds, I hit the river bed and then surfaced completely hysterical with laughter from the adrenaline.
Next we walked to the final part of our trip, Semuc Champey. We were told we had 3 hours to do what we wanted, our options being, climbing to a good view for a hour or swimming in a peaceful freshwater pool for some strange reason we started up the mountain. Steep steep climb but the view was definately worth it, we had some food while dangling our feet over the drop and then hurried down, keen to be in the water. We splashed around in the clear blue water for a while, with no one else in sight it really was idyllic.
We re-grouped in the lowest pool to find the guide planning another life threatening activity. He was tying a flimsy rope ladder arounda rock and feeding it over a sheer drop through a waterfall. Fumbling around for the rungs while the water smashed the contacts out of my eyes i reached the bottom, basically shoving my bum in the guides face as he held the rope ladder taught. We found ourselves under a rock with the waterfall going over our heads and a river running below us. Here the guides explained that Semuc Champey is actually an old river bed but the river redirected itself a long time ago leaving it as it is now.
Exhausted we arrived back at our beautiful hostel, played cards while very stoned hippies played the guitar and then had an early night. Longest day ever.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.064s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0264s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Alison
non-member comment
"I hit the river bed"
Assume Harriet wrote this - can i just ask... there is no mention of Tasha 'hitting the riverbed' or indeed after this point. She did actually make it back for the game of cards after your death defying stunts???