Antigua, Lanquin, Semuc Champey and back again

Hi all,

We've had an incredible last week. We're pretty confused, because the calendar says it's been something like six days since we last wrote here, and surely that is wrong. It must have been longer. We got to Antigua (and realized the curvy road thing is something we just have to get used to around here) and hung out in a sweet bar called cafe no se, an "illegal" mezcal bar advertising a confused staff, uncomfortable seats, and 2.5 dogs. The next day we traveled 8 hours northeast to a town called Lanquin. We planned to leave early morning but were delayed to midday, and then our drivers got lost in Antigua, and then it was six hours to Coban, where everyone else in the shuttle was stopping and where we informed our slightly crestfallen driver that we actually wanted to go another hour and a half along a dark, rainy, unpaved road to Lanquin. He was really nice about it. We arrived to our hostel, El Retiro, a little after 10, hungry and ready for bed.

Which made waking up in our cabin on a little bluff overlooking a river in the jungle the next morning that much better. We hung out in hammocks most of the next day and enjoyed the hostel's massive communal buffet style dinner.

The next morning we set off for a tour of Semuc Champey. The tour started by going into the Santa Maria cave nearby. A river runs through the cave, so we entered in our bathing suits and tennis shoes, with a candle for light. We waded, swam, climbed and crawled through the cave. At some parts the water was maybe ten feet deep so we all had to swim through holding our candles above water for light. Other times matrices of ladders led us up narrow passages next to subterranean waterfalls. Towards the end of the tour we held back from the others to get away from the light of the other candles, and the darkness was absolute. Over the course of an hour we made it about 300 meters in, but according to our guide the cave is 11 km deep.

After that we moved on to the river, Cahabon. There was a sweet rope swing and we tubed down the river for a piece. Next, we hiked up (with some seriously wet tennis shoes) to the mirador overlooking Semuc Champey itself. Semuc is a natural limestone bridge that the Cahabon river runs underneath. The bridge has spring pools running up into it, creating warm turqoise water not unlike Agua Azul, in Mexico. The half hour hike was steep and seriously slippery from recent rain, but the view once we arrived was breathtaking. Our pictures still aren't loading, but we pulled this picture of the view from the mirador from the google.

After descending, we went swimming. You can swim across one pool, walk or slide to the next one, swim across that, the whole length of the natural bridge. Our guide took us to both ends, to see the river rushing underneath the top, and the spring water fall down to the river at the bottom. At the bottom the drop from Semuc Champey to the river is about 40 feet, and it's jumpable. I (Andy) did it twice - it was fantastic, although you had to be sure to swim to the side of the river right away so as not to be caught up in the rapids (high due to recent rainfall).

So that was one of the best days either of us have ever had.

Then back to Antigua, where this morning we got up early to climb an active volcano, Pacaya. We had an interesting group - a German couple, a Swiss couple, and four good 'ol boys from Kentucky in Guatemala for a long weekend of fishing. The hike up was two hours of pretty intense climb. At the beginning there was a thick fog, which was beautiful in its own way but afforded no view. By midmorning, though, just as we were getting to the volcanic rock, the mist cleared away revealing the countryside below and smoke above from the cone of the mountain. The last piece of climbing was up large chunks of volcanic rock, made only one or two months ago, sharp and brittle and sometimes clearly in the shape of a lava flow. At times it was so hot you could feel it through your shoes (which was convenient, actually, because our shoes had not yet dried from the cave). At the top we got right up next to a live lava flow. Literally within feet, I stuck my walking stick into it. The most surprising thing about it was the noise, you could hear it crackling as it slowly flowed down the mountain. The whole scene was impressive and otherwordly.
Now we are getting ready for our flight tomorrow morning for Peru. Cassie says she is going to go back through this and loot more pictures from the internet, to give a better idea of where we've been.

Love to all,

C & A