SUNDAY 7TH FEBRUARY: JOURNEY FROM LAKE ATITLAN TO SEMUC CHAMPEY WATERFALLS
We had a nice last day on the lake, ending with dinner at Isla Verde restaurant and hotel just along the lake edge from us between Santa Cruz where we lived and the village of Jabailito. Due to the 20 foot rise in the lake level, the lovely concrete walkway between the villages on the shore is now well under water and through the clear water you can see the concrete rooftops - it must be an weird place to dive. Isla Verde is run by Ollie from Doncaster - they get everywhere, them Yorkshire lads!
Now that the lake has risen they have constructed a rickety walkway of wooden poles and planks for you to walk on - and we tackled this in the dark with head torches on- about half a mile of a mixture of planks interspersed with bits through beachfront vegetation of cane, bamboo and palms - it was quite an adventure! The meal was quite nice but prices compared with our Iguana Perdida prices at about £15 per head including a mojitos for a 3 course meal - the same at iguana was about £8 per head. We arrived back safely to a full hotel having a barbecue - the Menenite religious sect - very happy happy but inward looking - some children amongst who had obviously been trained never to make eye contact with outsiders - so a little girl of about 8 sat in the lounge next to us and just faced the corner for an hour staring at the light! Strange! Anyway we went to bed early as we had an early start with 5am alarm followed by 5.am launch from Santa Cruz to Panajachel to catch our Shuttle to do the trip of 379 km.
We were all packed the night before and quickly down on the jetty in the dark with our heard torches on- a silhouette loomed out of the darkness and it was our driver exactly on time. The sky was clear as a bell and the blackest of black with more stars than I have ever seen as we set off in our private launch - alone on the lake. We set off in pitch dark so as not to wake the hotel guests and once out, the headlights came on and we sped over the fairly still water for about 20 mins. Our driver helped us with our heavy luggage to the shuttle bus stop where we stood for half an hour alone in the dark. Gradually Panajachel began to wake up and the little house opposite us spat out an old chap with his sweeping brush - the chicken bus head man who informed us they had just started a chicken bus service over the high plateau route to where we were going rather than having to do our shuttle bus route via Antigua and Guatemala City - Oh we'll never mind as we had already paid our hefty 40 dollars each from the hotel. (We had paid by TAB phone app that they use here where you type your name, email and take a selfie for them- cost us all in around £130 each all in for 4 days including all our food and drink and the shuttle trip out today.)
Anyway, back to the story ... About half an hour late our shuttle bus turned up - a car similar to our Sharan and we drove in comfort - only the 3 of us from Panajachel up the snakes road to the top of the caldera which is lake Atitlan and then over the amazing hills and ravines with the odd volcano to Antigua. Seemed strange to be back there again and seeing the volcano of Fuego just showing its top through the mist. We were dropped here by the shuttle on a street corner outside COBAN Travel office - closed and waited about an hour for anything to happen - other travellers also collected - mostly Israeli girls. We dare not leave to go to loo etc in case we missed the next stage but took it in turns to try to find a loo or something to eat and drink early Sunday morning. All we could find was a piece of stale banana bread each. We were tired after our 4 hour journey and when the bus arrived it was a medium sized bus - bigger than a mini bus but they crammed 24 of us in a bus that was not really big enough to take more than 10. They even had little fold out seats in the gangway so you were hemmed in and the seats were set at a raked angle so you gad to prize yourself under the seat in front and had no leg room and little lap room to hold your hand luggage - the rucksacks all got thrown on the roof and covered with a waterproof sheet. The Israeli girls were not happy to share their bus with 4 oldies (we three and another Guatemalan lady teacher going up to teach English for a week at our hotel). They reluctantly took their bags off the seats next to them to let us sit down but John and Moira were left perching on gangway fold down seats for the remaining 300 km!
Then the bus started up and immediately we realised it was grossly underpowered and the driver was fiddling with the engine to get it to move - it barely got us up the cobbled street of Antigua and we literally crawled up and down the ravines to Guatemala City frequently stopping to rev the engine with the Israeli girls shouting abuse at the driver and us telling him we would be getting off in Guatemala City. We had all paid varying amounts to COBAN Travel ranging between about £13 and our hefty £30 from Panajachel - so everybody was unhappy and feeling ripped off. Our poor driver was a poor jolly young chap who tried to keep his spirits up and drove as best he could whilst on his mobile. Two of the older Israeli girls of about 25 sat at the front and heckled the driver very well and kept us all informed about developments - One girl snatched his phone and persuaded him to ring his boss and told him how unhappy we were and that he was to get us a better bus. Eventually we had to stop by the side of the road because there was no pulling power left and we were a danger to oncoming traffic. Another small minibus caught us up and they transferred so luggage onto it and 10 girls - we were scared to see our luggage left so we opted to stay on the older lighter bus and we now edged slowly down the ravines with the video showing us the movie Apocalypto by Mel Gibson which was very apt since it is about Mayan tribes and brutal blood letting on the ruins! Followed by Tom Hanks and Castaway - both fairly apocalyptic movies! Every time we stopped to give the engine a jiggle, the Israeli girls jumped out to have a fag. John as usual got chatting and found out they were travelling the world from Jewish hostel to hostel having finished their military service at home and some of them had travelled up through Brazil and Central America including Colombia, Nicaragua and Honduras. Every now and again we stopped to swap more people onto the other bus and to put more luggage over but our bus got worse and worse until about 2 hours out of COBAN we stopped at a restaurant to wait for another minibus and had some food - served by some very nice lads- hamburgers and coffee. We were near Purulha in the middle of the cloud forests in the mist and rain - cold- when we set off at around 4pm. It was an interesting place with mixed cloud forest dotted with lovely wild flowers in the mist - apparently around there it rains 13 months a year - and we are thinking - why the hell are we leaving paradise Atitlan to come up here?
We changed onto the new minibus which was better and insisted they gave us our luggage off the old bus which continued to limp behind us with the remaining luggage and no passengers - we then began the journey off to the east from COBAN towards Semuc Champey - it was much more sparsely populated on the road and very soon darkness fell and we just travelled up and down in the blackness - passing the odd few houses - often kids wandering alone along the road in the dark or a gang of lads outside a house in hoodies. The journey went on and on and John watched us crawl along on his phone map. At about 7pm we got to the turnoff having seen a head on accident being cleared up between 2 cars - horrific!
We turned onto an unmade road which we knew was the last stage down to Semuc Champey and that it was 13km long- made of red earth and rocks which shone out in the dark through the trees - this journey good over an hour and the whole time was down a continual very steep incline occasionally stopping to turn a hairpin - the move caused all our ears to pop and our water bottles to get sucked in with pressure change - it must have been spectacular in daytime but it was strange in the blackness - no lights - no creatures eyes to be seen - at last around 8 we reached the few buildings of Lanquin village where our hotel was and were offloaded and put on a large truck to get us to our hotel. It is a palm thatched ranging hotel - mostly open with dorms and few private rooms - we were supposed to be in 3 dorms as they were full but Moira managed to get a room with bath on the hillside next to the amazing swimming pool and we got a double bed in the loft of the dorm with a breathtaking view over the canopy. We woke up with the dawn chorus at 6 and now I can smell fresh bread so it is time to leave you and head down to the open barn below to order breakfast before our truck trip at 9 to the famous Semuc Champey pools. The hotel is very laid back and works like Iguana - the bar maid is from Manchester and there is a cosmopolitan mix of young uns mostly watching American football on to and then dancing loudly until 1 am. It soon quiet ended then. Anyway that was the day from hell - I am hopeful as I type this looking over the forest canopy of the river valley below that today will be a better day - it is not as cold as COBAN though they say here the temperature has dropped to around 15 here from the 40C of last week. It may be too cold to swim in the pools - we will have to cover up to avoid the mosquitos - already quite bitten on ankles and arms from the past couple of days - take second malaria dose this morning.
Went to Moira's plush room for shower this morning to find she had had one hell of a night with some loud animals as she thought in her shower but probably playing on the metal roof - she thought monkeys but I think we are not in monkey country yet - more likely sparrows!
We caught a cattle truck this morning to Semuc Champey valley and pools - a 20 minute ride in Guatemala time which was more like 45 mins hanging on for dear life on a switchback ride far more scary than any fairground ride!
Amazing pools in a valley with underground river going under the pools - bananas maize and cardamoms growing in the fertile valley - our hotel - Zephyr Lodge built by a Dutchman about 5 years ago - great place - very laid back in the day when all the kids are out swimming, caving and trying to kill themselves in a myriad of ways!
This was the dawn view from our double bed dorm this morning at Lanquin Village near Semuc Champey
This is our open communal area - bar and dining room on top of a promontory just outside a village called Lanquin which has a little church next to our hotel built in around 1520 just after the arrival of the conquistadores- we got a lift back with a chap from the local village whose family is the biggest in the village - went to USA to work for 5 years - came back and built his house and a 4 by 4 to get tourists about - trained primary teacher but can earn more ferrying tourists.
This is our swimming pool and the rustic style cabanas in the background
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