Water Babies
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| Semuc, Tikal and Finca Pix-click on photo for more pictures |
Sometimes it feels like we’re swimming our way through Central America. We have swam in ponds, lagoons, lakes, hot springs, caves, and rivers. We have yet to do ocean, swamp, and swimming pool; although two of the three will probably be done very soon.
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| Semuc Champey-click on photo for more pictures |
While waiting for some friends to come to Antigua, we took a three day “jaunt” up north to the area around Coban and a place called Semuc Champey. Semuc Champey is a series of naturally formed pools that are on top of a limestone “bridge” that goes over a river. The river goes underground below the pools and then emerges with the last pool. (Photo above shows the pools). On the bus, we met a young guy, Scott – nationality withheld 😉 who had just bicycled across Cuba. He joined us for a few days. We had a great time together. We even had what we thought was the perfect day.
It started with caving in the morning. The three of us were guided through a cave each using a candle to light our way, and swimming most of the way. At one point, our guide (who looked no older than 15), instructed us to wedge our bodies 1 by 1 into this little space with no visibility, hold our heads up straight, and then at the count of three let go while he held our candle. Once our compadre Scott did it, the big splash gave away the part that the guide failed to mention-we were blindly dropping into a pool of water below us. Good thing that we are trusting people…
After caving, we swung on another giant tree swing (woohoo!) and then floated on tire tubes in the river back to our lodging ,taking a quick detour for Jess and Scott to jump off a bridge into the river. We then spent the rest of the afternoon trying out each of the pools at Semuc to see which one was the best to swim in. We topped off the day with an amazing lasagna dinner at the hostel where we stayed.
From Semuc, we returned to Antigua and to meet up with friends that we had made in Xela – Karen (44) and her daughter, Katalina (6); and Katherine (48). Karen went to our Spanish school in Xela and her daughter went to a kid’s school nearby. Karen is originally from the states but has spent the last 10 years in Papua New Guinea. Katherine is on holiday from Australia and came down to Guatemala from Mexico. Together we took the bus from Antigua to Rio Dulce which is a river on the east coast of Guatemala. We stayed at a place called Finca Tatin which came highly recommended by word of mouth. The Finca is on the river Tatin which is a small river off of River Dulce which flows out to the ocean. The river is banked by jungle and has lots of widelife. There are manatees in the river but hard to spot because they’re shy buggers.
The Finca is a dangerous place for ambitious, energetic people-it makes you want to lie in a hammock, read, swim in the river, and maybe muster up enough energy to kayak. We went for 2 nights and 6 days later decided that we needed to escape the vortex. The finca turned out to almost be like a homestay for us. We hit it off with the kids of two families there – one that runs the finca, and another family that was docked there in their boat. Carlos (44), the Argentinian who runs the Finca has 3 children who stay there during the summer when they are not in school in the US. The daughter, Oria (12) is amazingly smart and creative and reads about a book a day. Martin (9) loves science and math, and Enzo (7) is a very generous seven year old. Their Mom (divorced from their dad), also Argentinian lives in the states and will teach Spanish at a university in Nebraska next year. The other family at the finca lives aboard a boat and have been on the Rio Dulce for about 9 years. The mom, Erika is from Uruguay, the Dad, Lobo from Hungary, and together they have a son, Juan (6). While we were there, we kayaked a few days, swam everyday, and lounged about like fat manatees. In the evenings, after eating amazing dinners together, we had very heated “Uno” games. Turns out that people under 4 feet tall are quite competitive. Juan and Enzo turned nearly everything into a competition. Even an enjoyable kayak ride to some hot springs turned into team Uruguay against team Argentina with Jess and Stacey as the primary sources of power in the two person kayaks. We should have scolded them for the profanity shooting out of their little mouths as they smack-talked across the two boats, but we were laughing too hard. (one reason we shouldn’t have kids). (for the record, Jess and Juan beat Stacey and Enzo) (for the record, Jess was very sore the next day)
Karen and Kat left after only a few days in order to catch a flight home. Katherine stayed on and left the same morning we did. She headed out to catch a flight back to Mexico to go home. We got lots of hugs on the dock from the kids and set off. We took a bus up north to visit the Mayan ruins of Tikal. We were planning on staying at a hotel in the park to watch sunset, but opted out after we noticed that the rooms smelled very musty (avoiding potential sinus issues). After spending the morning in the park, we caught an overnight bus to Guatemala City, arriving about 5:30 a.m. Then it was a shuttle to Antigua.
Now we’re getting ready to head to Honduras.
Tags: Finca Tatin, Guatemala, Rio Dulce, Semuc Champey, Tikal, Travel
staceye