To Lanquin - Blogabond

The bus to Lanquin quickly filled up with locals, all animatedly discussing the forthcoming elections. As a nation they seem to have an incredible propensity for cheerfulness despite the ungodly hour of the busyness (business?) of the buses. Lanquin - when we finally made it down the the steep, bumpy, swervy, hardcore track - was hectic - small, dusty and, in the absence of any nice tourist-oriented signposts, totally counterintuitive, but a friendly man quickly came and offered us transport to his new hostal which looked gorgeous and proved to be just that. Three little two-storey wooden cabins nestle in flourishing gardens above the river, and 30 seconds from the entrance to Semuc Champey national park - the sole reason for our trek into this part of the country. There couldn't have been a better location. Semuc had been recommended to me by a friend and it exceeded expectations - a natural limestone bridge 30m long sits at the bottom of a beautiful deep wooded valley. Most of the river's impressive force flows beneath the limestone, but a little runs over the top, creating a stepped series of exquisite turquoise pools - ideal for floating on your back and admiring the butterflies floating in the dappled sunbeams and listening to the screeches of spider monkeys in the surrounding trees.

Just over the river from our hostel ("El Portal") were the Las Marias caves which one can tour by candlelight - and so it was, that I foudn myself swimming (rather lopsidedly) through a pitch black cave as I struggled to keep a lighted candle aloft with one hand and keep myself afloat with the other. As if that wasn't enough, the tour included climbing up a raging underground waterfall, scrambling over rocky outcrops with unseen potholes disappearing into nothingness (lit candle between teeth - thank god my hair was wet by this point) and, to top it all, our guide suddenly disappeared into the gloom to reappear (or at least his light reappeared) suspended impossibly several metres above our heads from where he plunged into the blackness and landed with a splash in an unseen pool. For some reason I decided it was a leap of faith worth making, so I followed in his steps and clambered up the wall of the cave to balance on a precipice - unable to stand up because I'm too close to the roof of the cave, heart thumping, sick with adrenaline - and somehow convinced myself to launch forward, aiming for a spot the guide was vaguely illuminating in the inky water. Terrifying, probably crazy, but the most fantastic 'two fingers' to health and safety regulations, and utterly exhilarating.

written by

Alex Kent on September 9, 2007 from Lanquin, Guatemala

from the travel blog: On the Varieties of Nature

Send a Compliment

comment on this...