Semuc Champey

After our time in the markets of getting more hassled than a kebab shop owner at 4 in the morning, we headed for a bit of the laaaaiiiiid back tranquility and peace that was on offer at Semuc Champey. It is a national park kind of thing, and so the only places to stay are either the town of Lanquin (a half hour ute ride from the pools) or the solo Hostel Las Marias (a place just 10 minutes walk from the pools).

These pools are ridiculously clear, no other fancy words are required. Visibility is simply from one end of each little pool to the other. You can see that they are a series of pools that cascade into each other, through the middle of a gauge between a couple of mountains. There´s not much life in the pools, only a few little fish that if you sit still long enough, and haven´t washed your feet adequately enough (like Ebs) the fish will swim over and give you a free pedicure.

We were lucky witht the weather, for although this area has apparently a wet season, and really bloody wet season, we managed to get to solid days of sun, not that the sun was necessary for the activities of the second day.

Just near the swimming pools are a series of big (and as we later realised not so big) limestone caves with massive stallictite and stallicmite formations. We entered the caves at about nine in the morning, only to see daylight again 3 hours later. We were accompanied by a guide, and by a local family of four fairly plump guatemlans (a teenage girl, a 55 year old bloke, and two women also in their fifties) - none of whome could swim.

We entered the caves to immediately be met by chest deep water, luckly our guide told us to keep our candles (yes candles, not waterproof torches) as to not extinguish our only means of seeing the way out. Ebs´then made the comment ¨I hope there aren´t bats in here I don´t think I could handle that¨, to which Richo replied ¨me too¨ having just seen a bat fly past Ebs´head.

We then made our way at a meandering pace, as each time we had to cross a body of water, the four plumper people on our tour who were unable to swim, had to don their rubber tube they had been supplied with, get tied to one another with a long rope, wait for the guide, Ebs and Richo to swim to the next point where people could stand, and then wait for the guide to pulll them through the darkness. It was bloody funny to see this little aquatic guatemalan train come toward us each time, all holding their candles.

Only got a little worried when one of the individuals in question got stuck in a small gap, through which we had to pass, and through which a heap of water was pouring. This poor lady was panicking a fair bit and so were we, and we didn´t know whether to try and hoist her back up or simply put our foot on her head and push. Luckily after about 5 seconds gravity kicked in.

Cracker of a time, but knew by the 2cm candle stubs that we had at the end that we had been in there more time than the average punter.