The tail end of Guatemala. 20 April - 25 April

After what felt like an eternity in the shuttle bus all the way from San Marcos in a day (it looks like nothing on the map, but I can assure you the Guatemalan roads are nothing like either of us have ever experienced...). After calling up a few places to stay whilst waiting for our connecting shuttle in Antigua, we found what sounded perfect, the hostel was called Utopia. It certainly lived up to its namesake. 14 hours later, we arrived in a small town of Lanquin. Although we did stop in the driver´s village to meet his 1 year old and 3 year old sons and his wife as we drove through, which was a real highlight. Thanks Antonio! We had heard horror stories about peoples trips on the road to Lanquin, and after 12 hours we thought they were full of it, and then it made sense. It´s a small town in the middle of the jungle, miles from nowhere. Once we arrived there, we were greeted by young Pablo, or Jose (can´t quite remember) and were sent on a flat deck ute with two bars to hold on to, for another 45 mins through the jungle to Utopia. I couldn´t help think of the Mainland cheese ad - ´good things take time´. The road was horrible, but the trip was incredible! The whole way was navigating through Central American Jungle, this time by night. Howler monkeys were in full song, the stars were seriously shiny in the sky, and the moths and mosquitos looked like they had been given performance enhancing steroids. It was a serious highlight actually - the moonlight illuminated the jungle and it looked great.

Utopia Hostel

Utopia was amazing. We were received with dinner waiting for us and a private room with our resident weta (porbably wasn´t really a weta but looked similar) and we comad. After the best part of a day of recovery we were ready to explore the beautiful natural springs of Semuc Champey. The hostel owner said it was only 3km so of course we walked (don´t laugh). After 4 weeks living in the Guatemalan highlands and having rather cool evenings, we were definitely not accustomed to the temperatures of the tropical rainforest. We set off on our adventure and it wasn´t until the end of the driveway that we were drenched in sweat... a mere 20m. We had a great walk: nearly got attacked by gobbling turkeys (only I freaked out, bloody birds), bought a bottle of water from a naked three year old boy, didn´t see a snake or a turtle (one was much more likely to see than the other apparently), and the three year old naked boy then offered us some fresh coca (which was delicious!). When we arrived at Semuc champey, we had only 1.5 hours left until close, and the guy behind the counter offered us half price because he felt sorry for us. We (I mainly) looked as if we had jumped into a pool, without having jumped into a pool, as it was near on 40 degrees and we had just walked what ended up being 5km. The pools were gorgeous! Naturally formed limestone pools, fed by a natural spring underneath. The brown river diverted just before (went into an underground cave that we explored the following day) and came out just after. Great work Mother Nature! They were so good, that we went back to the hostel that night and signed up for the tour the following day. Homemade chocolate from the local children kept us alive on the return home, and we were fed with the most amazing food (huge portions) when  we got back.

Shirt off, made the 20m mark from the hostel

The walk to Samuc Champey

The local kids offering us Fresh coco and amazed to look at this picture on our digital camera!

One of the many freshwater limestone swimmimg holes 

The tour. By this stage of the trip we had spent 2 weeks in Antigua and 10 days at the lake. We had decided to get a move on. In true Jenny and Julien travelling fashion, that didn´t quite work out of course and one night turned into 3 in what was really Utopia. The second day we decided we had to do the tour which involved Semuc Champey once again, a cave tour by candle light and a tubing session down the river back to the hostel. It all sounded pretty tame really, which we were happy about. One of the ladies on the tour the day before had done it all and said it was brilliant and easy (she was over 60 and said in particular that the tubing was easy and relaxing...). So we did the tour and most of it was fantastic!We had a slightly scared Jenny before we started the caving. After a few tears, as caving is probably near the bottom of the list of easy claustrophic situations that she would be happy with, we persevered and explored this awesome cave. We had to swim through huge passages of the cave with a candle in one hand and the other avoiding rocks whilst swimming, absailing and climb boulders and slide down waterfalls. It was really exciting and great fun. Fortunately there were no real obstacles or problems apart from trying desperately to relight your candle after it got wet. Then there was aforementioned Semuc, which was as beautiful and clean as the day before with a few more sweaty hours of walking around the national park before we cooled off again in the pools.

Then came tubing. You hear about it in Laos as the thing everyone does. What you forget are the risks and the broken limbs. After what our 60 year old friend in the hostel, who had done the tubing the day before, had said though, we were confident and ready for a leisurely ride home in our eco friendly inner tube. Wrong. Over night there had been rain and the river was higher. We didn´t know this until afterwards (good night´s sleep you see). The first part of the river was amazingly calm and we really felt we were in paradise, cruising down the river admiring the jungle and relaxing after a full on day. Then the rapids started. Rapids are big. Much bigger than we first thought. The first few were ok, then the guide was yelling at us and saying we had to stay in a line and not go there because of a huge rock and not go 2 metres to the left because of its twin-brother-huge-rock. We started to get scared and then the Brazilian girl disappeared over the rapid. Then Jenny disappeared over the rapid to be found (after I emerged) on a nearby island without her tube. Then I went over backwards over the rapid, spent what felt like a lifetime underwater and smacked my leg into one of the many sharp rocks. I came up slightly panicked trying desperately to join Jenny on the island. Can´t swim fast, so that failed and ended up further down stream scrambling onto my tube. It was quite a commotion and no-one was happy about being in these bloody tubes going down what seemed a bloody dangerous river! Once we were all back together and getting ready to go down the river again, I noticed I was bleeding a fair amount from my leg and didn´t at all want to continue. Jenny was unscathed but scared as much as I was. Anyway, the only way out was down so that´s what we had to do. We all joined together to make a long tube raft which proved much safer than single tubes, although control was limited to the two extremities of the raft. The guide at one end and me at the other. I was not confident nor happy at this. I was in quite a lot of pain and found it hard to keep paddling. At any rate Jenny was on form and kept me in the game. She is extremely determined and made sure that we kept going and that I was safe. I tried once to break away from the chain but she held me in and coaxed me through the largest rapid as I went in first. In the end we arrived back at the hostel and we were all glad to be out of the tubes. It was painful but it was one hell of an experience. I´m glad we did it, but would not do it again! I think if we hadn´t fallen out at the very beginning it would have been really exciting and fun, but unfortunately not that day. After reading this, we are completely safe and having an awesome time! These are the stories that we want to share as they are interesting. People get sick of hearing, "and this place was so beautiful, and that place was so beautiful, and I didn´t get sick once" - all of which is untrue if any of you have travelled before!!! It´s the interesting or painful stories people want to hear, let´s be honest.

The high river that we tubed down!

Made it out of the cave! Woop!

Outside our hostel

After a 1 hour walk uphill to look down on the pools, finally we were in them!

Samuc Champey!

The waterfall going underneath the pools

Heads and bodies pictures, just how Jen drew people on her primary school teatowel

Land was very welcome after that experience and as I waited for painkillers to work, we dressed the wound and cleaned it as best we could. It was ok but sore and then Guatemalan infection set in... What would be a simple healing process back home is not in this part of the world. It got to the point where I finally went to a doctor and admitted it was worse that I had said, and I needed strong antibiotics and an xray. Anyway, before that part of the story we had to get from Semuc to Rio Dulce. We sadly said goodbye to our new found family in the jungle to head off to the jungle further east and the river - one step closer to the next country! We got a boat from Rio Dulce direct to the next beautiful hostel called the Roundhouse. Run by a vocal and opinionated Londoner (who was awesome and very entertaining) and his Dutch girlfriend situated in one of the most idyllic positions on the river surrounded by tropical rainforest, it was another slice of paradise really, albeit isolated.

Cruising the Rio Dulce

(A side story from this place - they had the most amazing selection of English language books. After so long waiting for a decent book they had thousands. In my invalidity, I read. One book I started reading was called ´Shantaram´ and I was hooked. I had heard about it from friends back home and it is amazing. They refused to change it for the book I had so our new Central American quest was to find this book, which we finally did one month later in Granada, Nicaragua - brilliant day that was!)

Fresh air on the boat cruise on the Rio Dulce!

We got a personal river cruise to get there and loved every minute of it! I was sensible and avoided the water, but it was beautifully warm and I think about half the time we spent there, Jen was in the water. Aligators weren´t hungry obviously (none there though so that was good). Great food, beautiful room and a resident scorpion meant we spent a night there. It really was one of the most beautiful hostels we have stayed in on this trip and didn´t want to leave, but my leg had decided not to work very well the next morning, so it was time to get it sorted and that meant we had to move on. I asked the owner about a doctor (we were in the middle of nowhere remember) and he turns round and says "don´t worry mate, there´s an NGO just around the corner with international quality doctors who all speak English". Of course there was. By that morning I couldn´t really walk and needed to get it checked out. We went and saw these incredible doctors and it was a serious infection with a possible fracture. 30 cents NZ currency later we were off to the next town for xrays. Fortunately, after a very bumpy boat ride later, there was no fracture. It was just an infection. I never realised that infections got so bad!!! Within a couple of days though, the antibiotics had given me back my leg and I was scuba diving down to 30m underwater in the Carribean in Honduras. That accident was such a whirlwind adventure and worked out so well in the end. Now, Jenny continually calls me accident prone and I get a stern warning before anything dangerous.

Swimming in the Rio Dulce from the hostel

Watching the sun go down over a rum

Onto the second rum. Still watching the sun go down!

Horrendously choppy boat ride to the Xray hospital

Yay! I havent broken my leg!

All in all though, that was the end of our time in Guatemala. Our final night was spent in Puerto Barrios, a dismal port town with incredibly good local seafood and cuisine, before we ventured to our fourth country of this trip - Honduras. Guatemala was a real highlight of this trip. We couldn´t have wished for nicer people, better culture and a better experince at all. At first we only planned to spend a week or so there. That turned into 5 weeks and that is testament to the beautiful country and people that gave us no reason to leave in a hurry. Lonely planet was right on one thing, and that was "don´t be surprised if you end up saying, it´s ok, I´ll do that next time!" So much to see, so much to do, and so many great places to stop and never want to leave!