Semuc Champey is a beautiful spot to go swimming and hiking. We had seen all of the pictures and decided to go on a tour. It was another early morning with our shuttle arriving at 6:30AM to pick us up. We stopped off for some breakfast and then joined all the tour groups for the 2 hour drive. It was a typical winding, steep cliff, crazy driving Guatemalan road. However with no Gravol, a lot of folks in the shuttle were feeling a bit icky. We had a pit stop at a little hostel where the girls and Jason found a swing to play on for a while.
We arrived at Semuc Champey and all got right into our swimsuits. We had to hike about 20 minutes to the top of the falls and then we got to go for a swim. We had 4 hours there and it was so much fun. Jade was jumping off the cliffs with all the guys while everyone cheered her on. All that rope climbing has definitely paid off! Lena climbed up, and then decided to jump down a little closer to the water. The little fish kept on swimming under everyone and popping up to surprise them. I had the boy, so we sat in the shallow water and watched the crazy jumping folks.
We all walked/swam through the different levels of the pools and then Jason went with the rest of the group down a rope ladder into a cave way under the falls. They were gone for almost an hour while the kids and I stayed in the pools on top of the caves. When Jason and the rest emerged from the caves, some of them jumped off of a huge cliff. Apparently the rope was so freaky that Jason chose to jump off the cliff and walk back instead of climbing it again. Oh, not only did he jump off, but he did this big not so graceful swan dive into what I assume was the river below because all we saw was the flailing arms and legs. Lena couldn’t look and we all wondered if we would ever see him again.
After that we all hiked for 1 ½ hours to the look-out to see the falls and pools from above. It was quite the hike but well worth it once we got to the top. Jason and I took turns with Reed in the pack. That little boy grabbed every single thing that came near him. I had to walk behind to remove all of the jungle bits he kept trying to eat!
On the way back, we stopped off at a huge cave and arrived just in time to see all of the bats flying out at dusk. The cave was covered in bat poop and so were we. Fun fun fun, slippery bat poop through a steep cave and flying bats in the dark. Don’t even get me started on the toilet!! We really need to get a better flashlight.
