Mayan Adventure: Tilapita and Semuc Champey

Tilapita pacific coast

           Happy belated Easter! I hope everybody had an Easter full of family, egg hunting, and sugar highs.   As you can imagine our Easter this year has been a bit different.  The week before Easter Sunday, Semana Santa, most schools, families, and organizations take a week or half-week vacation, which is pretty much the Guatemalan spring break.  This left Sarah and I with the opportunity to head out to some of the destinations of Guatemala that we had left on our checklist.  Although there were no hidden eggs and chocolate gorging we had the opportunity to explore and that was enough for us.  We started our travels the weekend before Samana Santa officially started.  Sarah was eager for some beach time so we decided to head out to the Pacific coast.  After surveying some Guatemalans on the closest and prettiest beach, we headed westbound towards a town called Tilapita.  Tilapita is a small beach community with one hotel located just south of the Mexican boarder.  To get to Tilapita you have to get to the neighbor town of Tilapa and take a lancha (skinny boat) on the inlet to Tilapita.  It took us four hours and two busses to get to Tilapa.  We arrived after sundown Friday so we had to settle for a cheap motel since the lancha drivers were about half way into a twelve pack of beer by that time.   Sarah and I didn’t mind because we got a chance to mix with the locals gathered at a corner tienda with a movie being played outside.  The tienda was serving beer, quesadillas, snacks, and most importantly milkshakes.  I’m going to rant a little bit about these milkshakes because the guy made whatever you wanted with whatever fruits he had on hand and for only 7 Quetzales (which is lest than a dollar!).   Served in a bag to go (or if you were drunk) or in a nice fishbowl glass.  He even topped your smoothie off with what was left over in the blender.  To this day we frequently crave his milkshakes.  Anyway, I am done ranting about milkshakes. 

Our hotel on the sea

Lancha ride to Tilapita

            We woke up Saturday morning and took a lancha along the inlet to Tilapita.  Everyone knew where we were going because there was only one hotel there and, not surprisingly, everyone seemed to know each other.  We knew we were in the right place for relaxation when we showed up and there were no paved roads and travel was done only on the sand by motorcycles or four wheelers.  Once settled into our room, we spent the rest of the day on the beach.  The beach was unlike anything we have ever seen.  First of all, the sand was black.  Second, the waves were huge and the undertow was dangerous.  We talked to a little girl that warned us that swimming was dangerous, and just the day before a person drowned in the riptide.  We settled for sweating it out in the sun and hot sand and taking shallow dips.  That evening we saw arguably one of the most beautiful sunsets either of us has ever seen.  We shared a bottle of wine and enjoyed the sundown and relished in the beauty that was away from all the tourism and people gathered in the cities for the week of celebration.

Black sand

            











            The next day we enjoyed the beach until it got too hot and then took off back to Xela to get ready for our week of travel to the rest of Guatemala.  We wanted to go to Semuc Champey next but in our classic way we had no plans of travel or hotel reservations on what seemed like the biggest week of the year for Guatemalans.   As soon as we got back in Xela late that afternoon we started calling and making reservations on a payphone in the street.  Mom would have been proud.  We surprisingly had no problems setting up hostel reservations and all we had left to worry about was our travel.

            Monday morning we took a chicken bus to Antigua, the Mecca of tourism and travel in Guatemala, to try and find a shuttle to Semuc Champey.  We ended up finding a shuttle and after enjoying lunch in Antigua we were headed off to the Jungle.  As with all things in Central American travel you should expect the unexpected.  An oil truck had turned over on the mountain highway heading north, which left us in our shuttle waiting for two hours as the Guatemalan police figured out what to do.  Eventually we passed on but extremely delayed with another four hours left to go in our drive.  We finally arrived to the town of Lanquin around eleven thirty at night where the driver stopped at the Zephyer lodge hostel to drop off the other couple in our shuttle.  It was only then did he tell us that he was not going to take Sarah and I to our hostel.  Granted I didn’t doubt him since our hostel reservation was another thirty minutes down the unpaved jungle road in the rain.  Zephyer lodge hostel had only two beds left and we had no problems taking them. 

Guatemalan rigged caving sandals

River view outside the caves

            The tour we signed up for included a cave exploration by candlelight and also a tour of the Limestone pools of Semuc Champey.  The next morning we jumped in the back of pick up truck with about ten other people from the hostel to head out to the national park.  As soon as we showed up we were laced up with some fancy Guatemalan style caving sandals and equipped with a candle.  So the tour was advertised as a cave exploration with the knowledge of the fact that in one small part of the tour you had to swim with the candle above your head.  But, since it had rained the whole night before, we soon found out that our experience was going to be a swimming cave tour, in that order.  During the tour we swam in deep water pools along stalagmites and stalactites, climbed up and down a waterfall, jumped off the cave wall into a deep pool, and dropped through a mysterious small hole into a pool, all the meanwhile holding a candle above our heads.  I have to admit everyone was a bit sketched out at first, but once you went in over your head, you were in for the adventure. 

Rope swing 

Trying Cocoa

Baby pineapple 

Birds eye view

            We made it out of the cave and headed to the rope swing and bridge for a little fun in the river before we hiked to the limestone pools.  The water was a nice aqua blue color and was begging to be jumped into.  We did a couple swings into the river and jumped off the bridge which kept the adrenaline pumping from the caves.  We had to hike up to the park about twenty minutes and when we got there our guide bought a cocoa pod and broke it open for us to suck on the raw seeds and taste the flavor.  There were kids selling chocolates, which were delicious and natural since the cocoa plants were growing everywhere.  We ate some lunch and then hiked up to the mirador (overlook) of the pools to get the birds eye view.  It was amazing how beautiful this place was with its limestone green and blue pools almost glowing out of the jungle valley floor.  We hiked down and got an hour to explore the pools.  I got to cliff jump into the pool and then Sarah and I went from pool to pool jumping off rocks and sliding down limestone slides.  Sufficiently cold and explored out, we made our way out of the park snapping photos as we went. 

Where the river runs underground

One of the pools

Waterfall on the way out

Shower with a view

            We piled back into the pickup truck to head back to the hostel for a well-needed shower and well-deserved beer before dinner.  The hostel was a great atmosphere with a chicken BBQ dinner and great company kept us happy until sleep crept up and took over.  We had a shuttle to catch the next morning to head east over to Rio Dulce.  The road to Rio Dulce is an off road trail for five and a half hours that is impassible when it rains, so we knew that we had another day of endless possibilities ahead of us.