Jungle Outskirts
Coban, that we visited two days ago, is a nice city at the middle of a rural area, full of plantations, corn fields, and green vegetation. The small villages of Lanquin and Semuc-Champey, to which we dedicated yesterday, are some 56 k¨m from Coban, which makes them at the very outskirts of the jungle itself.
56 K¨m, you might guess, is 40 minutes drive. It may be so in western standards, but not in rural Guatemala: the ride from Coban to Semuc Champey took us over two breathtaking hours, in which the road curled and curved over hillsides and mountainslopes, passed through the cultivated fields that transformed into a forest and later a jungle.
We shared a transit van with local teenagers, who were very enthusiastic about going to Semuc Champey; they were accordingly noisy. The shuttle, of course, was a bit overcrouded, and one of the local girls vomited in the middle of the harsh way. We were also close to that embaressing situations, but managed to hold ourselves.
We arrived at Semuc Champey, and went directly to the guards at the entrance to the site. We gave them our big bags, and asked them to keep them until we return. They gladly agreed. Then we switched to our swimming suits and entered the site.
Semuc Champey is a series of natural pools, formed by a river. The river first enters an underground natural tunnel at an immense flow; it leaves the tunnel from the other side when its water are cristal clear, and forms a series of beautiful pools in which you can bath. After the pools the river cascades its way out of the site.
Instead of going directly to the pools, we followed the rangers advice, and climbed our way to the viewpoint, high in the mountaintop. This was a very steep and hard climb, that took us over an hour, in which we stralled through the jungle, on a very muddy trail that was also full of stairs and sometimes extremely steep. Throughout the hike we only saw the jungle trees, which were impressive - like jungle trees are, and quite a few insects.
When we arrived at the top, though, this is what we saw:
You may click on the image to get a better view of the colour of the water at the pools far below us. We just watched it (and rested) for a few minutes, and then made our way, carefully and slowly, all the way down. Of course we were sweating like crazy by the time we arrived at the pools (remember, the entire hike was inside a rainforest), so - after looking at the tunnel to which the river enters, and standing on the natural bridge that it forms - we just entered one of them and swimmed a little.
By the time we were out it was afternoon, namely - raintime. Indeed the rain arrived, not a minute after we caught a bus to the nearby village of Lanquin. Lanquin is by far the most rural place we have visited in Guatemala. Small girls were carrying bowls full of dough to the central bakery(?), the place is full of dogs, chicken, and children, and not much else in it. We wanted to see a cave with bats that is in the village´s entrance, but we gave it up because of the rain and because we were tired after the tough climb from the morning. The hotel, anyway, provided us with more adventures.
Our room, nice and basic, proved to be full of mosquitoes. As the evening fell, they all gathered near the lightbulb at the ceiling, and I decided it is time to take care of the situation. The local `pillow was my aid - for several minutes, I just stood on the bed and smashed the mosquitoes with my pillow, against the ceilling. Finally, the inevitable happened: the pillow smashed - in addition to the nasty creatures - the delicate glassy light bulb. Bummer. We collected those of the tiny pieces we could see, and tryed to clean the bed cloths as much as we could. At least, we only got a few bites during the night. The night was rather short, as early in the morning we caught the 6 hours shuttle to Flores, where we now are.
Our Guatemalian adventure is close to an end. We booked a tour to Tikal ruins for tommorow (actually, tonight: it begins at 03:30, to get there in time for sunrise), and a flight to Cancun for the following day. Now we are going to pick the laundry, and get some sleep for the night.
