Sunday we awoke to take a shuttle from Antigua to Semuc Champey.  Only about 316 km (about 196 miles), but a long and beautiful 8 hour ride to the town of Lanquin, with a brief stop at the mall in Coban for lunch.  In Lanquin,  as we arrived locals swarmed our shuttle hoping to book up a room.  Our reservation was at El Portal, located on the banks of the Rio Cahabon, about 11 km from the town of Lanquin and right at the entrance to the National Park of Semuc Champey.  After two hours and several additional shuttle arrivals, we crammed into the back of a standing room only pick up truck and made our way through the treacherous roads to Semuc Champey.  While an amazing and exciting ride, my shins felt each bump  against the makeshift seat with every turn!  On arriving at the hostel we were upgraded to a private bathroom due to a booking issue.    We made friends with a couple from Belgium and a solo traveler from England and shared stories of their travels through Central America. We even had a rummy world cup game where everyone around the table was from a different country!

The next morning we started our full day tour, which began with a hike to the top of the pools to a beautiful overlook, El Mirador.  We also were able to see the river running under the pools and coming out 300 meters downstream.  We climbed down and our guide, Cheyo, took us through a fun trip jumping, sliding, swimming, playing under rocks, and diving through all the beautiful pools.  The afternoon part of the tour included a tour of the caves, which lasted about 1.5 hours.  The only light we had was the guide’s headlight and a candle in our hands (if it didn’t get wet).  Sometimes we were swimming while trying to keep our candle above our heads and others we were climbing up waterfalls, jumping off rocks, or sliding through holes.  After the cave tour, we grabbed some inner tubes and began tubing down the river.  To keep us occupied, there was a young entrepreneur that threw beverages to us encouraging us to “pay later” and eventually jumped in the river with his inner tube and his cooler to make sure we did not go thirsty.  The tour ended with a ~30 foot jump off the bridge in great disrepair into the river.  Unfortunately, we had no waterproof camera so we could not take photos of the caves and tubing…next time?  Back at the hostel, we were able to enjoy some delicious chocolate made by the local children that were selling it for about $0.50 for two pieces.

A good night’s sleep was needed as we had a ride the next day that turned out to be more than we anticipated!