Semuc Champey / Lanquin

Chocolate fruit!!

I had the dinner buffet at El Retiro. Had trouble sleeping that night from cramps, but never threw up again. Felt pretty crappy all day the next day and was afraid to eat. Had only yogurt before walking into town to catch a ride out to Semuc Champey. It was harder getting transportation than we thought it would be. According to one guy because it was Wednesday, not a market day in town, regular transport wasn't running. He wanted to charge us 100 quetzales each, drive us the 10km out there, sleep for a bit and bring us back when we were done. That would have been over $25 total (7.6 quetzales = $1). If we wanted to be ripped off, we would have paid for the 165 quetzal tour. So we decided we'd walk. The road was steep and muddy and slippery and it was hot and I still wasn't feeling well. Luckily we only walked about 30 minutes before a truck picked us up. The truck had a cage like structure on the back and was already filled with locals. It only cost us Q10 and actually took a little while cause the road was so crappy, we were all standing and had to hang on tight to keep it that way. I was very greatful we weren't walking the whole way. It was really pretty scenery, a lot of corn, chocolate and coffee fields. We were dropped off about 50 ft from the entrance of Semuc Champey. Waiting at the entrance was a little old Mayan man that sold us had made chocolates! The chocolates were hand pressed into pancake size disks and were barely processed and flavored with local cardamom! I was so excited! The entrance fee for the park was Q50. We hiked to the lookout point for awesome views of the river and pools below. Since we weren't on one of the tours, we encountered no one on the trail and there appeared to be few people in the pools below. The hike was super steep and required climbing up several wooden ladders. On the way down Craig was behind me and slipped down one of the ladders. He fell several steps into me. Some how I managed to keep us from falling off. Don't know how I did it but I'm glad I did cause it was about 20 feet to the bottom. We spent about a half hour swimming when we got to the bottom. It was very beautiful. Each pool was lower than the one behind it creating a series of waterfalls, sorrounded by the lush green of the jungle. And the varying depths of the water created all shades of turquoise and green. There were little fish in the water that bite! I think they must eat dead skin, it didn't hurt but was certainly startling! :) On the walk out of the park we took a different trail back that went along side the river, and had a view point for seeing into the cave at the end of the limestone bridge. Don't remember that trail being there the last time. We were a little worried about getting a ride back, but there was a truck waiting just outside the park. Guess we were lied to in the morning about there being no transportation on Wednesday. Good thing we're not idiots. In total our trip to Semuc Champey cost us Q80, less than half the price of the tour, and it's so much more fun to figure it out on your own.

View from the lookout point up in the jungle

View into cave at the end of the pools

When we got back to out hotel, I still wasn't really hungry but figured I needed to eat and convinced the restaurant there to make me a peanut butter and banana sandwich. It was fantastic as expected, and I have been fine since.

Yesterday we took a direct shuttle back to Antigua. It was not a bad ride. Took less than 7 hours, including a few breaks. We are still in Antigua today and haven't done much. We've had pupusas twice, gotta get our fill of them as they are a Salvadoran food and we'll only find them for another 2 weeks or so. Pupusas are stuffed tortillas, the type of cheese is queso fresco type cheese and you can get all kinds of other things stuffed in them, I usually get beans. We managed to find peanut butter!!! And guava jelly (my favorite)! And completely whole grain bread all in the same store! We also got some pretty cheap sunscreen there that is made in Guatemala, and surprisingly free of poison ingredients! I also found 3 articles of clothing they are not spandex! A shirt and shorts made of linen material and a Mayan style wrap skirt.

We walked around the city and took pictures of the colonial buildings and walked to Cerro de la Cruz, which is a lookout point above the city. There are lots of flowers blooming right now, the prettiest are the purple Jacaranda trees and the bougainvillea. There are 3 volcanos that can been seen from the city unfortunaly they hid behind the clouds all day until sunset. I'm glad we got to see them though.

Tomorrow we start heading towards El Salvador. Should take two days. The plan is to do over 100km the first day as it should be mostly downhill from here. We will be doing the Ruta de Flores in El Salvador, not looking forward to the mountains that come along with that!