Semuc Champey - A Limestone Paradise ...

The road from Flores to the small town of Lanquin was one of the worst we have ever been on! The vans (stacked full of travelers, with luggage piled high on their roofs) travel in a convoy down steep rocky roads that are barely wide-enough in some areas, with chicken-buses coming around blind corners at any minute.They travel together for good reason, as there were two flat tyers on our 8hort journey south.

Lanquin is a small village in the middle of a spectacular valley. All the women wear beautifully embroidered traditional clothing, while the men wear jeans and tees.  To our surprise there were small games-arcades everywhere!

Foosball anyone?

10km from Lanquin is a unique geological formation called Semuc Champey. In this little paradise, the limestone rock has caused a river to split in two, with part of the river running underground through caves, and part of the river trickling idly over the surface.

We swam for hours inside a small cave which emerged from the mountains perpendicular to the river, each of us holding a candle ... climbing up internal waterfalls into utter darkness with just a rope and some trust ... jumping off internal cliffs into deeper pools inside the cave network ... swimming past huge stalactites and stalagmites ... and frequently helping someone to relight their drenched candle after they swam clumsily along ...

One of the BEST experiences we have had so far!!!

The surface-river at Semuc Champey, forms terraced lagoons to swim lazily in...

Where the river flows underground.

Our guide also took us down through the terraced pools to where the underground river re-emerges at a waterfall which reunites the two. Here we climbed down the face of the waterfall by a dubious, slippery ladder, in order to reach the terrace which separates the underground and overground rivers.  From this vantage point inside a cave above the place where the underground river emerges you truely understand the force of the water flowing past violently over the edge of the cliff.

Our guide had a great time getting us to slide down small, bumpy, naturally made, moss-covered rock slides from one pool to the next!