paradise

I didn't know it, but Lanquin was what I was looking for this entire trip. Totally relaxed atmosphere, amazing food, great weather, and the most beautiful nature. The drive there on Friday morning was lovely, with nearly an hour being only on a bumpy dirt road - views of lots of plantations and green rolling hills. The town itself is small and a little dirty, but I followed the advice of the Lonely Planet book and headed towards a hostel just outside of town called El Retiro.

The locals know El Retiro as ´Gringoville´, and really, since I've been there, I haven't even gone into town. It's certainly not an authentic Guatemalan experience, but I feel like I've done my fair share of local markets and speaking Spanish to go ahead and hang out with a bunch of Europeans sharing traveling stories. The place is all little cabanas with palapa roofs (even the dorm rooms, which have two sets of bunkbeds inside). The Rio Cahabon runs right next to the place, and there's a big resturant bar that everyone hangs out at. At 7pm every night, they do a family style buffet dinner, which is filled with amazing food and is such a great way to meet other people. WIth all of the hammocks and the hot sun around, I've been finding it hard to leave. In fact, I came into Coban to use the ATM today, but instead of traveling down to Antigua like I originally planned, I'm just heading back to Lanquin for a few more days. I might even stay until Thursday, the day before I fly out.

One of the great things about the area is all of the nature activities that are available. I'm skipping a lot like the bat caves (because being surrounded by a million bats sounds more like torture than anything else) and the river rafting (because I don't want to try it for the first time in a place where safety isn't really first), but I did spend my first day intertubing down the Rio Cahabon (and got out right at my hotel) and spent all of yesterday exploring the area of Semuc Champey.

Semuc Champey was probably my favorite part of this trip. I opted for the tour, considering that it was only 20Q more to have someone who knew where and how to go everywhere. We started off by 'warming up' on a rope swing into the river, a large and somewhat scary jump. Besides getting us pumped for adventure and for the cold water (so much colder than Lago Atitlan), it was a nice way to bond with the entire group, laughing as people were hitting the water in odd positions.

After the rope swing, we went into the caves of Semuc Champey...apparentely they run for 11km underground, and we only explored 500m (1km total as we went back the way we came), but we were still in the caves for a good hour and a half. The caves have water flowing through them, so while we were able to wade for most of it, many times we found ourselves swimming across, holding our candle above the surface with one hand. There were some extremely difficult parts of the trip, like walking underneath a powerful waterfall, and climbing up a small ladder along a cave wall, but despite the amount of caves I've seen in California, I'd never experienced anything like this.

To relax after the intensity of the cave, we went intertubing down the river some more - this part of the river was much more mellow than near the hotel, and it was nice to just look at the beautiful jungle we were floating by. After was a break for lunch (the hostel makes these 'boxed lunches' where you order a sandwich that they wrap in a banana leaf and give you a package of cookies and a banana - all for 20Q), our guide decided to help us digest by letting us jump off a 30m tall bridge. At first I wasn't going to do it (even saying out loud that I didn't have to prove anything to anyone) but the few people that went before me looked like they were having so much fun that I felt silly for not trying it, especially since I was right there. It was certainly terrifying, but the best feeling to hit the water, haha.

On our way up to the pools of Semuc Champey, we stopped at a local womans house where our guide let us taste the raw seeds of cacao (where chocolate comes from) and watch the Mamacita grinding the chocolate paste. The taste of the paste was much different than what one would think of chocolate, but the flavor was still nice and it was certainly interesting to see the process.

Finally we were at the pools of Semuc Champey. The way it works is that there is a huge area of limestone on top of which water from the mountain runoff has formed bright blue pools. The Rio Cahabon has forced its way underneath the limestone, flowing powerfully underground. Where the water disapears underneath the pools was an extremely scary sight - if hell had water instead of fire, that's what it would look like...so powerful and mean. Our guide warned us not to get too close, for the first time that day saying 'If you fall in there, there is absolutely no chance of survival'. A good way to turn my knees to jelly, let me tell you.

The group split up so everyone could view the area in their own way, and I went with a few people up to this high look out point, where you get the best view of all of the pools. Thankfully, because I met so many great people (namely an Australian guy named Sam and two Irish people named John and Laura), I will hopefully be getting some copies of the pictures from there. After the long hike up and down, we were ready to dive into the pools - perfect temperature, perfect color...absolutely perfect.

The last adventure of the day was that our guide put a rope ladder down at the end of the pools where we could climb down and see where the water exited underground. It was another one of those frightening ideas that I just couldn't resist doing...so I climbed up and down that damn ladder, with water gushing over my head. It was certainly worth it for the thrill and to see the end of the cave, but I was certainly adventured out by the end of it.

For the rest of my time in Lanquin and El Retiro, I think I'm just going to lay in a hammock and read. With only a few days of vacation left, I have no desire to really run around - I just want to relax before I come back to the world of having to find a place to live and a job.

It would be really easy to stay - especially since El Retiro is looking for people to work there - but I'm really looking forward to coming back to the states.