Day 174 - "Where are the gringos?"

Coban / Semuc Champey

We spent some time yesterday trying to arrange a tour/transportation from Coban to Semuc Champey but hadn't been successful, the agency that our hotel arranged for us cancelled our booking at 9pm, so we had decided to make the trip using local transportation.

We were told the bus left every 30 minutes for Lanquin so a taxi dropped us off at a bus terminal at 8.15am. We promptly bought our tickets and hopped on to what we thought was the 8.30am bus. 8:30 came and went and we just sat there, we didn't really get going until closer to 10am. The minibus was also in poor condition and the road was really bad, so we didn't get to Lanquin until after 12pm.

We were hassled by touts trying to get us into a truck to Semuc Champey, one guy launched into some spiel about how we'd need a private trip blah blah blah, we told him to just tell us what the real price was, I guess they have to try to con us out of as much money as they can but it gets tiring having to "haggle" when the information on the going rates is readily available on the internet, and it was also obvious we'd come via local transport and hadn't arrived in an air conditioned tour bus with a tri-lingual guide, a bunch of middle aged Europeans and a packed lunch!

Semuc Champey is only 9km from Lanquin but it took almost an hour, the road is very steep and incredibly rough, even with some sections of it being paving for short distances.

The natural pools at Semuc are beautiful and we visited a few of them, trying not to fall over on the slippery rocks getting in and out of the pools. We spent a nice afternoon swimming and walking around, along with quite a number of other people who had braved the trip, most of whom must have been staying in Semuc Champey or Lanquin.

It wasn't long before we had to contemplate the long haul back to Cobán. We managed to get a spot immediately in a large truck with about 20 others, Two people sat on the roof, K sat in "luxury" in the front next to the driver, while M stood in the back while the other 18 people there had seats -  so much for respecting your elders and giving up your seat! As soon as we arrived in Lanquin we were lucky enough to immediately jump on a bus for Cobán.

Looks inviting!

On the way back a strange man insisted on chatting to M in Spanish, even though we told him multiple times it was too loud and difficult for us to speak, then once we finally arrived in Cobán he insisted on being our "guide" to take us to our hotel, even though we showed him we had a map and knew exactly where we were going. In return for this he wanted M to buy him a beer for providing this unwanted service (by now we'd figured he was probably the town drunk), we managed to evade him by ducking into our hotel via a side door. When K went down to reception to get our key he was there as well, asking the guy at the the counter "where are the gringos", not even recognising K who was standing right next to him!

Was it worth the three trip one way, most of the time on shocking roads, for a day trip to Semuc Champey? In K's opinion the answer is "no", even though the place is very beautiful and unique, six hours of travel for a few hours of swimming isn't a good enough exchange - but if we hadn't done it we'd still be wondering what we'd missed!