Fri 25 Jul 2008
Nana nana nana nana nana nana nana nana, Batman!
Nana nana nana nana nana nana nana nana, Batman!
Posted by trousers under Guatemala 2008
Day 312
Semuc Champey, Guatemala
I was at “the most beautiful place in Guatemala” but it didn’t quite seem like that. After my exhausting trip there I slept for 14 hours and decided I would go to the waterfalls of Semuc Champey in the afternoon. The weather conspired against me on that front as a black cloud rolled in and rained on us until late evening. The food in Las Marias wasn’t exactly inspiring, but then I had just come from a great vegetarian hostel. I was getting close to the magic 1,000 words learned but I guessed I wouldn’t get to Xela in time for the start of a Monday class.
Next day was lovely and after another disappointing breakfast I made up my mind to see the sights and push on over to Coban, the nearest big town, as soon as I was done. It was fun hiking through the jungle and swimming in the limestone pools. Very pretty, but not quite the totally awe-inspiring place I had been led to expect. Great view from the platform overhead though.
After I was bored with nearly getting lost in the muddy paths and slipping on the rocks and falling into a pool in front of all the other tourists :p I set off for Coban around 2pm. I didn’t get very far. I ended up giving a lift to a couple from Alberta, Canada to the nearby caves of Lanquin. It was another 9km of pain, even worse than the trip down. I ended up with brakes that were literally smoking and had to throw muddy puddle water over them.
In return for their lift, Joe and Jen invited me to explore the caves with them and it gave me another chance to get my post-swim feet filthy again in the sticky cave mud. The caves were pretty good but slightly spoiled by the huge signs they stuck all over the best parts and the unsightly cables strung all over the place. It was much more fun being scared with Vanessa in the Blue Hole cave in Belize. At least I managed to get a few decent photos this time. 3200 ISO and 2.8 aperture rocks.
After 20 minutes of squelching around we stuck around for another 2 hours waiting for the bats to leave on their nightly insect hunt. When they finally started coming out there were thousands of the little fellas flashing past our heads. Since I didn’t even know I would be coming I didn’t have my off camera flash charged but I did manage to get a few good shots. Bear in mind I took five hundred photos and 99% were complete rubbish.
