One of the greatest aspects of travelling with few plans is making spontaneous decisions. A few months ago, before leaving the UK, I watched an episode of Ben Fogle: New lives in the Wild, which was filmed in Guatemala. After a bit of internet research, I found the location: Semuc Champey, one of the most popular tourist destinations in Guatemala.
Fast forward a couple of months to Huehuetenango, trying to decide on where to go next, I stumbled across a link to Ch'i Bocól on a forum. After linking the program and the hostel together, we immediately changed our plans to fit in this destination.
Our last blog post left us in Nebaj, about to head off to Lanquin, the town closest to Semuc Champey and Ch'i Bocól. We left Nebaj on the 5am bus with reggaeton music blaring and arrived in Coban at around lunchtime. After another 2 hour microbus journey, we arrived in the small town of Lanquin. Having just spent the last few weeks in highlands, Lanquin was sweltering hot so we quickly found a café for a cold drink and wifi to find out the instructions on how to get to our hostel. A driver picked us up and we drove the 30 minutes down the track towards Semuc to Tienda Juanita. From Tienda Juanita, we followed some local lads for 30 minutes down a muddy footpath through plantations and forest to Ch'i Bocól.
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| Ch'i Bocól at sunrise |
Ch'i Bocól is made up of a large shelter with a kitchen and several cabins. There are options to stay in a hammock, tent, dormitory or cabin. Compared to our last dirty, damp and smelly hotel in Nebaj, our tent was luxurious.
We spent the next 4 days or so relaxing in hammocks, swimming in the natural pools in the nearby river and eating fantastic food. Mikhael, the chef, cooks the most amazing meals ranging from carrot soufflé and vegetable lasagne, to watermelon steak that somehow tastes like tuna! Meals are eaten as a family around a large table, contributing to the welcoming and sociable atmosphere.
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| Tree frog |
We also managed to do our first spot of herping (looking for reptiles and amphibians). The site is full of brown basilisks, also known as Jesus lizards, which lounge on trees and run across water if startled. On the first night we also spotted a tree frog and our first snake of the trip, a coffee snake (Ninia sebae) crossing the path near our tent.
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| Ninia sebae |
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| Nice weather for ducks |
On the second day, we decided to visit Semuc Champey. Semuc is a natural waterpark where a raging river flows under a shallow set of natural pools. This is one of the most popular attractions on the “Gringo Trail” through Central America, although the one day either way that it takes to travel there may put some people off. We went on a day which was wet and cloudy so there were less people.
Semuc is about a 45 minute walk from the hostel along the muddy path (which was now about a foot of mud in places due to rain) and along the road. After paying the very reasonable Q50 (£5) entrance fee, we headed up to the mirador to view the waterfalls from above. Surprisingly, Semuc Champey looks exactly how it does on the brochures; blue, crystal clear pools. Greg was particularly excited by this as he had not researched the site beforehand (typically) and was even more impressed when we encountered a family of howler monkeys.
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| Semuc Champey from the mirador |
We descended to the falls and spent the next few hours jumping into the pools, having our feet nibbled by fish and exploring submerged caves. After leaving the park we were supposed to meet some locals to tube back to our hostel. However, they didn’t turn up and we had to walk back through the mud. Fortunately, the next day we walked back to Semuc and tubed back through the rapids, making up for the disappointment of the previous day.
We enjoyed our stay at Ch'i Bocól so much that we decided to stay another night (specially to sample the watermelon steak). The family atmosphere, beautiful location and great people made Ch'i Bocól a hard place to leave. Furthermore, the food is exceptional. All freshly prepared by Mikhael with family recipes, twists on old favourites and new inventions. Anyone looking to visit Semuc we would urge to check this place out.
We made the decision to visit Copán Ruinas on the border of Honduras to be closer to our planned Workaway in El Salvador. We left Lanquin and stopped overnight in Coban, finding a great coffee shop and a Catholic procession. We then set off for Copán after finding the right bus and travelled via El Rancho, Chiquimula and the El Florido border. After a swift and easy border crossing, we luckily caught the last bus from the border to Copán Ruinas and checked into our hostel Iguana Azul.
Iguana Azul is the best rated hostel in Copán, and we quickly discovered why: the only hot showers in the whole of Central America!
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| Agouti at Copán |
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Mayan ball court in Copán
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The next day we visited the Mayan ruins of Copán and spent the morning climbing pyramids and inspecting hieroglyphics and sculptures. Although the $15 entrance fee is a bit steep, the fee also covers the neighbouring Las Sepulturas ruins which we explored the next day. These ruins were deserted, and we were able to enjoy them alone except for the accompanying Sceloporus and Anolis lizards, Turquoise-browed motmots and agoutis.
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| Sceloporus variabilis |
With friends from the hostel, we visited a fort on the hill and ate baleada loca in a restaurant (giant tortillas filled with meat, salad, avocado, sauces and platanos), before setting off once again on our next adventure to El Salvador.
Feliz viaje!
Bryony & Greg
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