Tougher than Batman?
Trip Start
Aug 21, 2008
1
6
59
Trip End
Ongoing
Lanquin,
Guatemala
Saturday, September 13, 2008
After a few days relaxing in San Pedro I finally dragged myself away fom the place. Temporary travel buddy, Andrew, and I began the long but recommended scenic route to Lanquin via Hueue and Coban. The journey took a good 12 hours and after 6 of those, I was beginning to wish I´d taken the quicker route despite the jaw dropping scenery (more hills volcanos, mountains - Guatemala is full of ém!). We arrived in Coban after dark and found the nearest Hostel . As far as we could tell, Coban had nothing to offer us other than a place to rest so we ate some street food and had an early night.
6.30, The next morning we were on our way to Lanquin (3 hours journey) to stay at the well recommended El Retiro Backpacker Hangout. El Retiro is a cool little retreat which is definitely the best place to stay as a base for Lanquin and Semuc Champey. We decided to check out Lanquin as soon as we arrived which in itself was an interesting experience just because I was walking around with a black guy! The locals´ reactions to Andrew was rather worrying and unexpected in this day and age; ranging of looks of horror, surprise, laughter, shouting and general fingerpointing. It felt like I was in the presence of royalty or part of a freakshow!
Around 4.30 we headed of to the Lanquin Caves (no tour necessary); famous for the thousands of bats that fly into the sky at dusk. After 45 mins of walking through the caves, checking out the rock formations (Stalagmites and Stalagtites - the difference? - ´tites come down - boom boom), we were ushered to the exit of the cave to await the bat show. Literally, as soon as the cave lights were switched off bats started to appear, within 10 minutes they were hundreds circling us and I was amazed how close they came without hitting us. I accidently hit one of them whilst taking photos but fortunately they didn´t gang up on me and retaliate...Obviously, I was not scared of this swarm of bats encircling me and therefore assume that makes me braver than ´The Dark Knight´ himself :)
We returned to El Retiro, where I bumped into Jason, one of my fellow student colleagues in Xela who had been given the bunk below me...just goes to show how well trodden the Central American trail is...He persuaded me to sign up for the Semuc Champey tour the following day which turned out to be wourth every Q of the 160Q fee.
The day started with a torrid off-road transit to the area (we all were standing up in the backof a large pickup ´farm-hand style´) which incidentally passed a very tired looking Andrew who had chosen to hike the 9km in the searing heat instead - bad move...
After a quick dip in the river courtesey of a rope swing, we began out Adventure-Caving portion of the tour. I thought I might be all ´caved out´ after the day before , however this was a totally different experience. We were each handed a candle and descended into the darkness. The 90 minute adventure consisted of wading through shallow pools, swimmig through some deeper ones (candles in mouths), climbing up though waterfalls (Yes the candles went out) before finally diniving off a large rock into the water below. All in all, great fun which was topped off with a 20 minute tubing journey down the river to rest our weary bodies.
After lunch, we entered Semuc Champey itself, a set of naturally formed water pools for some more bathing and swimming. A quick 30 min hike up to the EL Mirador lookout point had me wondering whether the abundance of greenery proved that Global Warning was really just another urban myth (I think Hurricane Ike confirmed otherwise as I founds out later that parts of Guat City were still under water)...
The evening, I chose an alcohol free night which was rudely interrupted by the arrival of another traveller I had met in San Pedro and after a quick game of chess (I won - still undefeated, Dan), we sat talking to Oded, a really cool, friendly left-wing Israeli who had served in the Lebanese War in the artillery section. His perspective on the Israel ´issue´ and stories of friends and family dying put everything into context...I also got the lowdown on Nicaragua (he´d spent time there) and now also have a place to stay in Juerusalem if I am ever in the neighbourhood.
Slightly lubricated, I retired to my hammock for the night with the intention of getting some good sleep before my journey to Flores for the Tikal Sunrise Tour..
