A batty tale

After having a relaxing few days with concerns no greater than what we were cooking for every meal, we were thrown back into travel in the deep end.

To get to our next stop, Lanquin, we made the overambitious decision to travel the whole way in one day. For starters, this meant waking at 0410 – something we’re definitely not accustomed to after months without bootcamp (though that only involved 520 wake ups…) and months without an alarm, to make the first bus. Our drowsy eyes were soon wide awake as dogs growled and threatened us as we navigated the steep unlit road down back down to town to the bus stop.

Finally on a bus, we got our reward for getting up that early - the sunrise as we cruised along the high mountain road back to civilisation, and this time we could see Santa Mountain in the distance, poking out up above the clouds.

An early morning wakeup was not the end of it - there was more pain in store. The 12 hour trip from Todos Santos to Lanquin entailed 6 buses changes: Todos Santos, Buenos Aires, Aguapula, Sacopulus, Uspantan, Coban. I didn’t even want to know how many we were in for in the beginning, but we soon had a countdown going. As the day grew on, I was ever increasingly thankful for how easy it is to travel in Central America. You get off one bus and as quickly shooed onto another; however, we had now traded our chicken buses for minivans. You’d think that travelling by minivan would make the whole experience a lot more comfortable and enjoyable. When the back of the van is exploding with bodies crammed in at every angle – at least 20 – your mind turns to the ‘luxury’ you once had on the chicken bus in comparison. At one stage, limbs of passengers were dangling out windows and doors; the bus driver struggling to close the door behind them like a badly packed boot that refuses to close. To the drivers disappointment, we refused to add yet more bodies to the back of the van. He then insisted that we get in the front seat that was already occupied with two men - ‘Um, where exactly?’ When our attempts to fit even half a leg extra in the front seat failed, seeing gringo dollar signs, the front seat occupants were kicked out and made to ride with the wind in their hair – gripping on to the back of the bus for dear life – while the driver, clearly forgetting his external passengers, travelled well over 100km/h. We felt guilty, but hey.

By late afternoon our last minivan pulled up at the gates of ‘El Retiro’ – a hostel a few minutes out the other side of Lanquin with cabana rooms (we scored ourselves a loft room, which required a lot of ladder navigating but was well worth it) set amongst a garden of ginormous red flowers on a river bank. With a little restaurant on site run by local Guatemalan ladies serving up concoctions of scrambled eggs, fruit and cornflakes for breakfast and beefs skewers, chicken, spaghetti and various kinds of rice and vegetables for dinner for Q35 (about AUD 4), we never had to leave; though we did venture into town once in a while for a change of scene (aka a hunt for icecream that failed dismally) and to go chicken spotting – they have a weird practice here of dyeing the chicks fluro pink, electric blue and lime green. No idea why, but if you keep your eyes peeled around town you can spot brigades of wandering chicks, each a different colour from the last.

From Lanquin there is a plethora of activities to keep you entertained. Much to Claire’s disdain, first up for us was an adventure of a batty kind. Literally. At 5pm we left the hostel and drove standing in the back of a ute with bat enthusiasts  Georgia and Richard, to the Lanquin Caves, home to a squillion sleeping bats. In the fading light, we were led some 500m through a network of caves, slipping and sliding on rocks drenched in nasty bat stuff, to look at stalagmites, statictites, other ‘natural’ rock formations – an eagle, a turtle, the Virgin Mary, a King – and giant legged spiders until we reached an enormous cavern, the ceiling blanketed with thousands of sleeping bats that would soon wake and make their journey out into the night sky.

  

We scurried back to the caves entrance via a different path – this one much more difficult – so that we could watch them flock out in their masses. The trick to the path though - after carefully navigating our way back through bat poo without incident, we had to scale a 2 metre wall through a hole in the rocks no wider than shoulder width. Luckily for us, our guide was well used to getting people to the top – though he explained step by step how to make it up, after climbing up himself, he simply leant down, grabbed hold of our wrists and yonked us up with ease.

Back at the opening, sitting slightly to the side afraid we might get a bat in the head otherwise, we sat and waited. By 6.30pm trickles of bats started to appear. We all went camera crazy thinking that this was it, our guide laughing at our ignorance. Not ten minutes later, we got what we came for – thousands and thousands of bats stampeded right past us and out of the opening in a flow that lasted a good twenty minutes. We sat gobsmacked at the cloud of black wings that emerged every time a flash went off. It was amazing.

The following day we chose an adventure with a lot less slipping in animal faeces in the dark involved – Semuc Champey – a network of cyan coloured pools and waterfalls that cascade through the valley about 40 minutes outside Lanquin. 

Getting there was not without some excitement. The previous day, I’d been bitten on the wrist by an unknown offender. What ever it was, I’m allergic to it. As the night wore on, a rash trailing my vain made its way up my arm, and by the next morning my right arm and hand had swelled to Michelin man proportions. With antihistamines making no difference, I held up our tour group of about 15 people who stood patiently in the back of the ute as I was taken into the local hospital to get a quick jab in the bum in the emergency room. I must admit when the doctor said injection I freaked a little - racing through my head was images of recycled needles – but, out came a brand new needle and after a bit of a sting, and a simple ‘sign here’ I was back in back the ute. Total cost = Q25 (or AUD 3.50) for the medication at the pharmacy across the road; not a penny for the hospital. This brings my bite count for this trip to two bee stings resulting in two swollen hands (so fat my fingers were unbendable) and one unknown bug bite resulting in third world country hospital adventure.

Michelin Bec deflating after hospital trip

After my quick hospital detour, we continued on our not so merry way the hour or so to Semuc Champey – the problem was, with four times the number of people standing in the tray than the day before, it was an elbow flight to get any personal space. Desperate to escape loose elbows that kept jabbing me in the sides I tried hanging off the back of the ute. However, not trusting my arm strength, nor my swollen hands ability to hang on as we bounced along the road, I was quickly back on the other side of the guard rails.

Not liking being crammed in the back

We were dropped off just before a big red bridge and led along a trail to the base of an icy looking waterfall. Stripping off to our swimmers and leaving all our belongings, including cameras, behind we clambered up a rocky path to the entrance of a cave at the top of the waterfall. One by one, as we stepped into the icy water, water flowing around us and cascading down the mossy rocks, we were handed a candle. In one long line, candles lit, we headed toward the darkness at the back of the cave – from the darkness a network of tunnels soon emerged, supposedly so big that the end has never been found. It was an eerie sight – you can’t see anything but little glowing beacons that look like they are floating in mid air as you glide through the water.

Soon, the water got too deep and we were forced to kick off from the bottom to make our way through a long narrow passageway, one hand still above our heads with our candles(some managed much better than others; some drowned their candles and almost themselves). We made our way gradually deeper into the maze of caves, climbing up and down steep rock faces with the help of rickety ladders until we came upon a waterfall shooting down through the rocks above. In small groups, we navigated our way through a tiny opening around to the back of the waterfall, then with water stinging our backs, we walked underneath the waterfall to the other side where a rapid flowed, strengthened by the force of the falls. One by one, we jumped in and were whisked back through a small opening in the rocks to the side we’d started.

A scary thought - apparently, they don’t have to use the ladders all the time to climb the rock faces; the water level in the caves changes dramatically from day to day, so that one day where it was ankle deep, the next day you will be struggling to position your nose in the small gap between the water and the roof to get a breath of air. This freaked me out. I looked seriously at the guide and questioned whether he would be able to save us all if conditions turned. It didn’t seem to bother many others, though some of them did have greater concerns such as swimming in general. They floundered around like they were drowning for the most part. You forget how much as an Australian you take for granted knowing how to swim.

Anyhoo, after making our way out of the caves, we headed further along the bank to have a go at the swing that flung you out Tarzan style into the middle of the quickly flowing river. After hitting the water from a good 2 metre drop (higher if your Claire and hang on too long) and recovering your lost swimmers that had flung off on impact, you had to kick like a mad woman to get back to shore before the very quick current took you too far down the river (either that or fake drowning so you could be rescued by the Australian lifeguard also on our tour). At this point, our guide seriously questioned the Japanese tourist’s ability to swim (it had been him floundering in the caves), but reassured by the fact that we had a lifeguard standing guard he let him jump. He survived. Just.

The Tarzan swing

Next thing, big inflatable tyres wrapped around our waists, we headed a bit further upstream for a brief bit of tubing. Off to a very slow start because of every man and his dog grabbing hold of my tube for some unknown reason, we eventually gained speed and took off and blobbed (well, that doesn’t imply speed, but hey…) down the river. Some, as a result of too much speed and too little steering found themselves slammed up and stuck against a clump of trees that had made the middle of the river its home.

On to the last bit of the day, and probably the bit that I was looking forward to seeing most – the cyan coloured pools of Semuc Champey that appear magically amongst a river of murky brown water. After grabbing a quick meal of fried chicken, refried beans and fried tortillas (they love their fried here), we made the incredibly steep 30 minute climb up a network of stair cases that clung to the rock face to the mirador where we got a birds eye view of what we were about to go swimming in. If I hadn’t seen the impressive photos previous tour goers had of the pools from above, like others, I would have turned back because of the heat – I just wanted to swim! - but the view once you get to the top is so worth it:

We spent the next two hours exploring the pools and floating in blue bliss.