Lazy days at Lanquin

I allowed myself the luxury of travelling by shuttle for the trip to Lanquin, expecting a simple half-day minibus ride over the mountains to the North. But it never happens like this - an overturned lorry on a highland pass, blocking the entire precipitous road, put a halt to our proceedings for nearly three hours in the sticky, sweating heat. The thing I found most frustrating was my own irritation at being hindered in my travels; I could not shake the feeling of annoyance that I had been hindered on a journey I had paid good money for, that it was a situation out of my control. I realised as time went on it was perhaps an irritation of shame and guilt that my minor inconvenience was overriding worry for the driver and that noone was hurt, because there was nothing I could do about that either. Eventually it was resolved, and three lanes of vans, horns blazing, continued on their journeys.

Any feeling of disquiet in me was dispelled as we descended in the darkening clouds to lush valleys, the minibus steeply crunching over gravel roads to the sleepy, somnolent town of Lanquin. Here I somehow managed to meet Josh, a friend from Xela, after a short hunt in the quiet village. Tired, hot and ready for bed at 8pm, we found the only can of cold beer in the whole place and settled down under flimsy mosquito nets for an exhausted, travel-weary sleep.

Early to bed, early to rise - woken by off-key singing through a crackling microphone from the church opposite our hotel at 6am, we set off for the travellers´ultimate destination in Guatemala - Semuc Champey - a set of limestone pools sat astride a cavernous cave cut into the soft rock by the tumultous river below. The excitement of standing precariously in the back of a pick up for the short 11km journey wore off within about 1km, as the bone-crunching jerks of the vehicle twisted and turned into ever-denser forest at impossibly steep angles, us ending up at odd angles to countebalance the tilting truck.

But was the pain of the trip worthwhile? Judge for yourself by the photos - ascending slippery, mossy walkways in dense tropical vegetation, with insects screeching out their calls around us, we caught enticing glimpses of glassy turquoise pools, promising a refreshing coolness to the clammy climate. The pools themselves are a wonderment of nature, with the river tumbling and crashing its way over and under the limestone, leaving perfectly and incongrously calm pools on the cave´s surface.

You can jump, and swim, climband cave with candles, and do as I do and sit on the edge of one of the tranquil pools, admiring the view and clearing your senses with the water rushing below you.

Those senses were filled again in the evening, with graceful fluttering and mystical wonderment, as we sat perfectly still in a bat cave at dusk. A deathly silence descended upon all of us there, the only ripple of sound waves the rapid but delicate beating of the bats´wings and the odd squeak as they fluidly navigated around our frozen bodies. It was beautiful to behold, their movement en masse and ability not to disturb another living thing, all with total blindness. A lone blind man walking along the path has some of that grace, I think, but a blindfolded group of people become a wretched mass of bodies bumping into each other.

The next day was spent at the beatiful El Retiro lodge, on the edge of Lanquin, soaking up sunrays on the deck like cats on a hot tin roof, the river splashing its way rapidly past our feet, cooling off by squelching through the mud upstream and hurling ourselves into the icy, turbulent water, hoping we could grab hold of the rope provided to haul yourself back to the safety of the bank. A day of ultimate rest, intermingled with babbling fear matching that of the brook as the floated downstream!



A young girl came to try to take advantage of our Western riches, and sell us sadly melting chocolate sweetly scented with cardamon (70% of the worlds´ cardomon is produced here in Guatemala). I didn´t want the sickly bar, but she told us that she was one of eight children, whose father had died when she was 5 years old and so she had worked ever since and not gone to school in order to help support her many siblings. She asked us if we liked nailvarnish, and what music we listened to, and told us our blonde hair was beautiful. I realised she was just like any other 13 year old girl, interested in fashion and makeup and boys; but her grown-up frown did not reflect this. We bought the chocolate.

We ended our wonderful few days here in some style with a candlelit ´English´ buffet at the lodge (nutroast, chicken, salads, roast potatoes, brocolli and cauliflower - not too far off I suppose!). I was asked too many times what it is to be English tonight - and all I could think was retiring, stoical and snobby as seems to be the presumption! But I am less of a loner than I kid myself, and will travel to the next place with Rachel, Donald and Josh too early tomorrow morning.