Swimming Hole Win

Semuc Champey is one of the Guatemala destinations you can't miss.  It's on the tourist chain and even though every backpacker worth their hostel history does it, you should too.  It's a limestone land bridge where the Cahabòn River violently plummets underground and emerges 300 meters later.  Above that cave rests a stunning set of pools formed like stairsteps of limestone deposits for your swimming pleasure.

We took the trip from our camp, a rather nice hostel called El Retiro.  The shuttle to the pools 9 km away was a truck with an open bed and it's not the first of these we've ridden so we knew it would be rough one, but I must admit to being nervous when I saw that the truck was aligned with the Decepticons. 

The ride was rough and long but when we got there, the pools were absolutely amazing (and no sign of Megatron).   We walked upstream of the pools and found the part where the river drops below ground.  Below this point, it's a quiet and serene environment and above it, it's a raging whitewater river. 

I took the picture to the right while standing on the land bridge, the river is dropping into a hole beneath my feet. 

There was a guide on hand in this section that took us around to see the river drop into the earth.  I suppose one too many tourists slipped and went for an all-too exciting and unexpected ride so they had to assign someone to stop them.    He told Beth that it was possible to kayak the section that drops underground but I don't see how. (I guess it's also possible that Beth's Spanish turned impossible into possible but I doubt that, she's killing the Spanish lately.)  I wouldn't want to drop into that cave on a kayak or anything else.

There is a similar land bridge in Florida where the Santa Fe River goes underground for a mile or two. It's a lot more tranquil than this one though.  The river just ends in a gentle whirlpool and emerges in a calm spring later.  During a huge flood one year, I canoed this land section with my buddy Michael.  We were some of only about 10 people to do it that year, and it was a hundred year flood.

Land bridges like this have been significant as actual bridges over rivers for native peoples.  The one in Florida was a Seminole Indian land crossing and cultural center.  This one has been pretty significant to the Mayans for a very long time (insert actual fact here future Chuck).  The Semuc Champey held a lot of spiritual significance which I would guess is on account of the mind-blowing beauty of the whole thing, but I haven't really done my homework for this post.   

We checked out the pools first but it was a little chilly in the jungle so instead of diving in, we worked up a heat by hiking pretty much straight up the canyon for an elevated view of the pools. Wow.   

Behind and to the left of Beth's head there you can see way down to the pools. I cropped myself out of that picture because I was hot and felt the need to get all caveman and go shirtless in the wet jungle.  I spare you the hairy chested result.  You're welcome, folks.  

The way the pools are structured is pretty interesting and if I had stopped to (try to) read any of the signs, I'd probably be able to tell you something cool about how the water deposits lime at the point where it starts to cascade over into the next pool and becomes more oxygenated.  That area builds up into these walls that contain the pools.  But since I didn't read the signs, you'll have to either google it or be satisfied with that big guess I worked up for ya.  

In this pic on the left, you can see these little walls that form and create the pools.

The pools were cool and clear.  I brought my mask and snorkel with me and could see many little fish under the falls.  They were curious and came to see if I was delicious but I wasn't.  Two women swam in the same pools who apparently were delicious because they said that the fish bit them and one even drew blood.  The cute little fish didn't look like piranha so I didn't believe them. I'm suspicious of hippy backpackers trying to make themselves out all delicious on account of their wholesome karma positive diet.

With the mask I could see that underwater, some of the falls were significantly undercut. Some could even be called caves that extended a few meters in.  I thought  that there might be some monsters in the caves because they were kinda dark but I didn't see any.  I did see some monstrous crabs that were very grumpy when I overturned their house/rocks.

We hiked out and looked for a local bus back to town.  It was Friday which is a bad day for buses so we waited around for a while and were interesting to some little kids who thought we were weird and worth watching even though we wouldn't buy their chocolate.  

While waiting for the bus, Beth struck up a conversation with a guy on the bridge waiting for the same bus.  I listened to some of it but only caught bits and pieces of their long talk about life, work and I think maybe something about shrimp and green neck ties (this part of the conversation was a little hazy for me).

I really need to work harder on my Spanish.