Today: Semuc Champey – a beautiful excursion. First we go tubing down the river for some fifteen minutes, then there is the opportunity to jump off the steel bridge. I don’t do it and catch myself off guard explaining why I couldn’t have jumped. It’s only because I wear glasses so it has nothing to do with fear. I’m not afraid of heights – well, I AM and I don’t get a kick out of my fear. For me, fear is too serious a business to play around with.
We climb the mirador and enoy the magnificent view of Semuc Champey. We see the seven cascading terraces some hundred meter below, tiny people are bathing in the turquoise basins. Semuc Champey means “a river going underground” in the local language. The river flows (or rather: bursts violently) underneath the 300-meter limestone platform (G, I hear you) with seven natural swimming pools on top of it. Our guide proudly announces the “octava maravillosa del mundo”. Only in July the pools disappear because the heavy rainfall makes the river take back the limestone plateau.
We walk down and take a swim in the pools. It’s like paradise and everything. We climb down a rope to enter a cave too. That’s really nice. We see some bats and the river burst out of its tunnel as violently as it got in upstream. How fascinating is nature.