Lanquin Caves and Shemuc Champey

Trip Start Sep 01, 2005
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Trip End Dec 04, 2006


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Flag of Guatemala  ,
Sunday, October 2, 2005

The next morning we ventured to the town centre got a feed and jumped onto the ute for a 20 minute ride on worse roads still, towards Shemuc Champey. Pumped and ready to go we overtook a group of tourists at the turnstiles who had hitched a ride on our ute and made our way up the path to the Mirador (Lookout). Gruelling and tough it was and an hour or so later we had reached the top to what is an amazing site. Cascading waterfalls, pristine pools all set in a valley of lush greenery...it was amazing. Afterwards we needed to cool off and go for a swim as our shirts were literally soaking from the sweat, so we made our way back down and swam up and down the pools. In the pools there is a tour that you can do in a rubber wheel in which you float down the river that goes through the caves and out the otherside through a waterfall. But unfortunately it had rained to heavily the night the before so it was far to dangerous. Jose our crazy guide grew up nearby and is abit of a nutter, he wanted us to climb a tree and jump off with him into the lake instead.......luckily I was never any good at climbing trees Another one of the river
Another one of the river
 . This was seriously a 11 metre drop, pretty impressive.

In the afternoon we went to visit the Lanquin Grutas (caves) which was full of bats and had all these limestone formations signifying monkeys, elephants, et al. There was even a sacrificial site which he said had been used ages ago for offerings to the gods. The caves were dimly lit with lights and is full of bats. It when for ages and took us 2hours to get in and back. We had only stopped as it was the end of the road for the lights, but it justs keeps on going and going and you would need some fancy gear to keep on trucking through. We had returned home to have a siesta before returning to the caves at 6pm to see a swarm of bats fly out. 6.05 ....... 6.10......... 6.15 ..... nothing ...... 6.20 still nada...... 6.25 I tink I saw a wittle bat....... 6.30 Too late. Seems like they headed off earlier.

The night was sobering having dinner in the hotel with Mike (canadian) to the sound of romantic/tranquil songs in a big mess hall with atmospheric lighting, it was very romantic! We decided to kill the mood by downing a few beers and playing some cards, in which we had managed to pass the night away quite easily without having to proposition each other.
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