The great thing about traveling off-season is that you can pay for a dorm room and end up with a private. The bed was the most comfortable of the trip so far. The room stayed nice and cool. And the shower this morning had decent pressure and heat. Almost too good to believe.
I had just enough time for another great desayuno tipico before my scheduled 9AM departure for Semuc Champey. Things aren’t always as advertised, it seems. 9AM became 9:45. “Private bus with air conditioning” actually means “14 people from 4 different hotels around town packed into a van with the widows open.” To make matters worse, I ended up in the seat with the least legroom and the one with the leak directly above it. Guatemalan luxury travel.
The ride itself may have been substandard, but the views were far from. The entire ride (7 hours total) went through rough, mountainous terrain on mostly unpaved roads. There were a few farms along the way, with their “fields” going straight up the hillsides. Some of the crops seemed impossible to harvest. We drove deeper into the mountains as we headed south, and were treated to amazing vistas. Sheer rock cliffs going right down into dense forest and back up into mountains. The entire time, I just had a feeling that at any moment a T Rex would pop into view. Another passenger agreed, calling the whole journey “very Jurassic Park.”
We finally arrived in Lanquin, at the doorstep of Hostel El Retiro, one that had been repeatedly recommended to me. I immediately signed up for the tour to Semuc Champey, leaving at 9 the next morning.
Interesting side note: the town of Lanquin seems to cater directly to Israelis. Immediately upon entering the town, I saw signs in Hebrew, businesses with Hebrew words and when I got to the hostel, I heard some of the staff speaking Hebrew and about 75% of the guests were Israeli. Speaking with one of them, they claimed it’s all of Guatemala, not just Lanquin, but gave no additional information.