We left for Coban Friday morning around 8am. We took a bus from Mazatenango to Guatemala City, then a taxi to another terminal where we boarded the bus that would take us to Coban. Right around 8pm, we arrived and were picked up by Silver’s great-uncle’s son. We stayed with him and his family in Coban, and couldn’t’ve asked for nicer hosts. They have a very cute and modern home, complete with two dogs—a sweet old one and a three-month-old puppy. They kept us fed and watered, but also provided the local knowledge of the random bus system.
On Saturday, we headed out in the morning on a(nother) bus, this time headed two-ish hours away to the little town of Lanquín, which acts as the base camp for the many adventures people travel to this rich region to seek out. When we got to Lanquín, I couldn’t bear another 45 minutes sitting on a bus after an entire 12 hours of travel the day before, so we climbed into the back of a pickup truck with a few others and rode up to the gates of Semuc Champey.
There’s a municipal guard to pass and some guys with guns, of course, but after the security checkpoints and a fifteen-minute hike, the roar of rushing water began to fill our ears. When I first finally caught a peek of that breathtaking turquoise blue, I couldn’t resist whipping out my camera.
We rushed down the trail and found ourselves gazing into natural perfection.
Semuc Champey is a natural wonder; perfect pools are staggered along roughly 1,000 feet of limestone, which gives the water its brilliant Caribbean blue hue. This expanse is in fact a land bridge over the Cahabón, a surging river flowing down from its mountain spring, which gently feeds the pools but mostly disappears down underneath the limestone bridge...
^ The Cahabón
...only to emerge at the end of the limestone bridge, cascading down and continuing its path. The water from the pools cascades forty feet down with it, rejoining the rest of the river.
I spent Saturday afternoon swimming around in this isolated tropical forest paradise, and left completely certain that I had to return.
On Sunday we left Coban early again and headed back up to Lanquín, but this time in search of Kan’Ba. We hiked along the banks of the rushing Cahabón and crossed over a log-bridge at the foot of a waterfall...
...and then found the small structure that marked the entrance to Kan’Ba. Our guide instructed us to strip down to our bathing suits, and handed us taper-style candles. We hiked barefoot up a steep trail alongside the waterfall we’d passed earlier. When we reached the top, we followed the river that was feeding the waterfall—into the mouth of a cave.
Our guide strapped a nervous Silver into a life jacket, lit our candles, and led us into Kan’Ba. I swam behind our guide with one hand holding up my candle, all too aware that a slip of my hand would leave me in horrifying cave-darkness. We swam and hiked through the twists and turns of Kan’Ba, admiring (and sometimes crashing into) its stalagmite and stalactite formations by the light of three small candles. Then, the current of the icy water picked up. Our guide showed us where a rope had been tied to the cave wall, and we half-climbed half-swam deeper into the cave. He turned on his headlamp and told us to be careful. We turned a corner into another cavern and were hit with the full force of a waterfall. The rush of mist instantly put out our candles, and the churning water swept up our feet. I was clinging to the rope for dear life as our guide grabbed my hand and helped me out of the water and onto a ledge along the wall of the cavern. I pulled Silver up, and we followed our guide to a metal ladder strapped to the wall of the cave directly next to the cascade. I climbed up last, all too aware that slipping meant falling into the thunderous darkness below and certain death.
We continued on, arriving at another cavern where our guide explained that he was going to leave us for ten minutes. He gave me the option of climbing up and diving into the essentially bottomless water here, but I declined. He began to free-climb up the wall of this cavern, and we watched as his headlamp and flashing camera continued higher and higher, eventually disappearing. Silver remained perched on a ledge, clinging to the cave wall, while I treaded water and willed myself not to consider what could potentially (but certainly did not) live in the icy depths below me. We shared a look and an incredulous laugh over how unbelievably intense our adventure into Kan’Ba had turned out to be.
Ten or so minutes later our guide returned and led us along a less terrifying but more climbing-oriented path that eventually brought us to the mouth of the cave where we’d begun. We blew out our candles and watched the subterranean river we’d just traversed cascade into the Cahabón below.
Then it registered that it was raining.
It was only around 2pm, but the rain was coming down pretty hard. Back out on the road, we watched as a pickup truck struggled up a steep incline. The roads around Lanquín are some combination of dirt, gravel and rocks, and wind through the mountainous terrain’s steep slopes, which are unfortunately in combination with sheer drop-offs that make the slip of a tire fairly treacherous. I was instantly sure that I didn’t want to drive back to Lanquín—much less Coban—until the roads were dry.
Kan’Ba is situated just a little ways before Semuc Champey on the same road, and we’d seen the sign for a hostel just before the entrance to the latter. We hiked up to the hostel and for less than $5 per person were provided with beds in a “dormitory.” We walked in the pouring rain—which didn’t bother us, as we were still damp from Kan’Ba—across the sprawling and lush grounds to one of the multi-room cabins. We were then led up some steep stairs to the roof. Basically, they built the cabins and put very sharply peeked tin roofs over them. Then, they realized that this left them with a pretty large space between the ceiling of the cabin and the roof, so they threw a handful of beds up there and called it a “dormitory.”
For Q35, I wasn’t complaining. I was so physically exhausted that nothing really registered as much as the commanding view.
Silver developed a true appreciation for hostels over conversation at the large dining table with a middle-aged couple from Catalonia, a young French couple from Guyana, and an Austrian family. The beds were remarkably hard, and we hadn’t brought toothbrushes or contact cases or anything because we hadn’t planned to stay, but the company made it worthwhile.
Not to mention that we were the first guests Monday morning at Semuc Champey when we walked up to its gates at 8am.
We hiked the fifteen minutes over to those crystalline pools, and were the only souls there. Silver decided to go back to the entrance to pick up some bottled water and use the bathroom, but I stayed, relishing the absolute perfection.
For about half an hour I swam in the pools of Semuc Champey completely alone, feeling both awestruck by the immense beauty and serenity of the place and incredibly humbled by my own privilege. Without a doubt, that was one of the two most Zen moments of my life.
^That's me in the waterfall!
We stayed there until 2pm, and I scarcely got out of the water, besides to climb from one pool to another. Who can walk away from swimming in waterfalls, really? I tried to teach Silver to swim, and by the time we left he’d made huge progress. I was proud. The pools are full of little fishes that nibble on you if you stay still, and it tickles, but at some point in the afternoon they discovered the peeling sunburn on my back, and they all began to hunt me and eat my peeling skin. When the bigger ones caught on, I was ready to go.
You see the little fishies?
We headed back to Silver’s relative’s house Monday night. On Tuesday, they brought us to a restaurant where we could sample the local specialty, kaq ik. It’s a soup—surprise!—with turkey and herbs, served with special spicy chiles on the side. It lived up to the hype. We’d intended to leave Coban that night to stay in a town an hour south, but Silver ended up with a fever after lunch, so we headed back to the house where he slept all afternoon and I watched movies in Spanish. Fortunately, a) the female head of the household is a nurse and b) you can just buy amoxicillin here. Part of me wants to stock up on it before I leave.
In any case, we left Wednesday and spent 12 hours getting back to La Maquina, where Silver’s abuelita has added two little parrots and a pair of fighting cocks to her flock.
It was an absolutely fantastic 6-day “weekend” trip.
In other news, I have a heart-shaped mosquito bite.
