After a long night of partying, I somehow managed to wake up early and feeling refreshed. I had some breakfast and walked around the grounds of the hostel. I missed most of it last night because I arrived late, but the area is absolutely beautiful.
At 9, a group of 20 of us head out for Semuc Champey. In case I haven’t explained it yet: Semuc Champey is a natural limestone bridge over the Lanquin river, with pools of clear mountain stream water. Our transport was the back of a pickup truck with some handles. As a point of emphasis, I’ll repeat that:
20 people standing in the back of a pickup for 40 minutes of driving over unpaved mountain roads.
It was actually pretty fun and a great way to meet the other people (by constantly bumping into them). The scenery from the road was incredible and probably wouldn’t have been as appreciated from behind a window.
Out first stop was a quick dip in the water by jumping off a swing into the middle of a rushing river. Actually, it was a great way to wake up, even though I lost my trusty bandana.
Afterwards, we ducked into a cave nearby. Our guide gave us candles to light the way. The cave we entered is a series of tunnels that stretches 11km into the mountains, and is part of the massive Lanquin cave system. We walked though water knee high, then waist high, then shoulder high before I wondered how much more useful the candles would be. The cave was incredible though. We swam through (somehow managing to keep the candles above water) some fairly swift rapids and underneath a rushing underground waterfall. There were jumps into pools and natural slides and some very amazing limestone formations. Really, an outstanding tour.
When we came back out of the cave, we grabbed some inner tubes and lazily floated down the river a bit, towards the entrance to Semuc Champey. After a quick lunch, we started our hike to the lookout point, high in the mountains. The hike was exhausting, but ultimately worth it. The view from way above was breathtaking. No pictures that I took really captured the scope.
After a slightly easier hike back down, we were able to swim and walk around the pools. Very refreshing after such an exhausting day. We were also able to get a great view of the river rushing under the bridge.
It was just an absolutely amazing day.