Our two nights in Flores flew by, and next think we know, we’re on yet another cross-country adventure, this time through the highlands of Guatemala to reach the very remote, teeny tiny village of Lanquin deep in the Guatemalan jungle, on our way to the stunning limestone pools of Semuc Champey.

We booked our shuttle at the tour agency within Los Amigos at a pretty good price and were told our shuttle from Flores to Lanquin would leave Flores at 8am, and take approximately 8 hours, with a couple of toilet/food stops along the way. Oh, how I wish it had taken only 8 hours!

We spent about 11 hours in our shuttle van, stopping at a gas station in the morning where we bought some fresh fruit then continued on our journey. Shortly after our fruit purchase we seemed to come to a dead-end where our road ended at a river. We soon realised that a pretty ramshackle barge was actually ferrying cars back and forth over the river!

Feeling slightly nervous (but come on, these guys do this every day!), we all watched with interest as we drove onto the barge and then were propelled across to the other side – only in Guatemala!

Barge crossing

The nature of Guatemalan roads (single lane, very old and full of potholes, generally shoddy roads with very few overtaking lanes) means traffic and road conditions are pretty unpredictable and you never really know how long it will take to get somewhere, until you have arrived at your destination!

Our trusty (?!) shuttle

To prove this point, at one stage, a tree had fallen across our path and we patiently waited while the locals got out their machetes and hand hacked the tree into moveable branch sizes, before we proceeded. This little escapade added about 30 minutes to our journey but was actually worth it to see them hooking the power lines with rope and dismantling the the by hand!

Tree on the road

The scenery of Guatemala is truly breathtaking – the population is quite dispersed and we passed many, many small villages along the way. Most of them are set on the side of the main roads and only consist of a few small huts, a couple of tiendas (shops), a couple of food stands and usually with everyone sitting out the front on chairs or milk cartons, watching the world pass by, and trying to entice passers by to buy from their shops. It was actually quite sad to see the immense poverty a lot (most) of these families live in, but they ALWAYS have a smile on their faces..

A small roadside tienda

A Guatemalan School

The women mostly wear their traditional clothes of a long flowing skirt, a singlet top with a crocheted ‘batwing’ style top overlaying the singlet. The colours are vibrant and full of colour, but the way they’re all wearing something so similar, was quite enchanting.

Local dress

The majority of the landscape we passed was rolling mountains, dotted with these small villages, or single homes, and everything was SO GREEN! The height of the trees in the jungles and the density of the vegetation showed that a lot of these lands had not been walked by humans in recent decades. It was beautiful, but hauntingly beautiful for some reason.

Scenery from our shuttle – Beautiful Guatemala

At a lookout during the trip (lookout = ‘mirador’)

Every hour or so, we would pass a traditional Guatemalan cemetery that serviced the surrounding local villages. We learnt that most of Central America build graves as crypts above ground in concrete structures so as to prevent the bodies and gravesides being disturbed and swept away during the rainy season. The colours and detail on the crypts looked beautiful although we haven’t got close enough to have a good look, and I doubt we will as it wouldn’t feel very respectful.

Cemetery

The road to Lanquin took us up and down winding roads – slowly, slowly in our old mini-van that could only handle going about 10kmh up the steep roads on one side of the mountain range, and then racing down the other side. Our driver seemed to relish the transition from foot hard on the accelerator, to foot hard on the brake – it leant towards an interesting, breath-holding kind of journey, and when we finally saw the gravel turn off on the main road, with a sign “Lanquin, 11km”, we all breathed a sigh of relief. 11kms! Phew, we should be there in 10 minutes or so.

We should have known better.

The unpaved, gravel track (it could hardly be described as a road!) was barely wide enough for one car, and we all immediately understood why only vans (aka shuttles) make the journey to Lanquin – bigger buses would just not make the bends in the road! Steep, winding and with incredible, breathtaking vistas of nothing but jungle, we were all gobsmacked as we stared out the windows.

And you guessed it – the 11 kms took us over 45 minutes in the end!

Road to Lanquin (the drop off on the sides was SCARY!)

We ended in Lanquin, a tiny little village smack bang in what felt like the most remote place we had been yet, and the serenity of our jungle drive was shattered by the shouts and clambering of the locals as our van was immediately surrounded.

What on earth was going on?! My first thoughts were that we were being held up, or maybe the protests we had heard about at Semuc Champey had reached Lanquin… nope, turns out these hagglers surround each and every shuttle that arrives in Lanquin, hawking their hostel or trying to find guests who already had reservations for their hostel.

Greengos Hostel

Luckily we had booked ahead at a very well reviewed joint, called Greengos Hostel (a play on words – gringos, meaning any white travellers in Central or South America) and the Greengos dudes quickly helped us grab our backpacks. They herded us away from the crowd to jump into what looked like a combat vehicle and then we learnt it was another 11km to Greengos (which happened to be only a few hundred metres walk from Semuc Champey, our ultimate destination) and after the first 11kms, we had no grand designs on how long this 11kms would take!

Our chariot to Greengos

Our friendly host Golan (the owner of the Hostel) moved one of the vehicle’s loud sound speakers into the back with us, cracked some funky Guatemalan tunes and we headed off. By now, it was pretty much pitch black, and apart from the occasional hut, we could see nothing except the light of the moon over the jungle. We kept looking at eachother in amazement, wondering what lay ahead of us in this remote part of Guatemala.

Finally, at about 7:30pm, we reached the entry of Greengos, and three young guys materialised out of the surrounding darkness to help us carry our backpacks down the narrow path about 200 metres to reach the reception area. It was pretty dark so we could not see that much along the way – but then we rounded a corner and a giant treehouse captured our eyes – people were sitting on a raised wooden structure enjoying drinks and dinner – eeeeeeep, this looks awesome! But first things first. We needed to check in, dump our bags and then we could enjoy a cold cerveza!

We did check in, and immediately fell in love with the place and with the wonderful customer service the Israeli brothers Golan and Diddy showed their guests. We had purchased our onward shuttle tickets from our Flores shuttle driver, but turns out he had lied to us and charged us an overinflated price – Golan found out about it as we were chatting, and next thing, he is on the phone blasting the shuttle company and five minutes later, we have assurances that we will have a refund the next day and can book a direct shuttle through the hostel (instead of two, longer shuttles) at a much better value price. Fab customer service!

We had booked to stay in a private double room and were not really sure what to expect, but when one of the staff showed us to a bright blue tee-pee style hut on the bank of the small gurgling creek, we knew we had struck hostel gold!

Greengos has, as its name implies, an eco approach – our hut was entirely made from sustainable materials, including the wooden beams and floorboards, open windows (not a flyscreen in sight!), and like many places near Semuc Champey, they only run electricity from 8am-11am, and then from 4pm-11pm in order to conserve the valuable commodity. What a great mindset (although knowing no aircon exited AT ALL was slightly distressing considering the heat and humidity)!

I was concerned at first about the bugs and creepy crawlies that would have free range at entering our hut – but interestingly, we did not even see any bugs inside, and were assured that for whatever reason, mosquitos do not seem to be around the hostel, maybe they too appreciate the eco approach of Greengos and that is their thanks!

We met up with our Aussie friends Kath and Mick, and met some new friends, back up at the Greengos bar (we had coincidentally booked the same accommodation!), and got the low down on what tour to book to see the famous Semuc Champey pools.

(The answer if you’re interested, is, ‘no tour’! Golan and Diddy assured us it was a waste of money to pay for a tour – rather just walk to the pools from the hostel, pay the standard entry fee, enjoy the pools at your leisure then leave when you’re ready! There is that great Greengos customer service again, no trying to earn any commission on guests by on-selling official, overpriced tours here!)

We were pretty shattered after our long day on the road so after a few welcome beverages and finalising a plan to see the pools in the morning we hit the hay. But first, we enjoyed a delightfully cold shower in our cabin (the sun might have gone down, but the humidity is still pretty intense!) and were asleep in five minutes.

The next morning, we were like little kids waking up on Christmas Day – we were so excited to se what Greengos looked like in the light of day! It took all our self control to shower and get dressed before opening our front door and seeing what our home for the next three nights really looked like.

It was beautiful – a vibrant, colourful, activated space with table tennis courts, a beach volleyball setup, an open air bar and restaurant, tens of deck chairs spread over the lush green grass, hammocks hanging over the gurgling stream that ran along the bottom of the property and right in front of our cabin – aaaaah, we had found paradise!

Greengos in the morning sun

Our bright blue cabin (on the right), creekside patio included!

After a delicious breakfast of coffee and shakshuka (eggs with the most delicious tomato, garlic and onion mixture around them) and fresh ‘made on site’ pita bread with Kath and Mick, we were ready and raring to go.

The Greengos Restaurant

By 9:30am the four of us were enroute to Semuc Champey, walking back up the path we had driven the night before. It looked pretty different in the light of day, and the views of the surrounding countryside reiterated just how remote we were – mountains and valleys of lush jungle were all that we could see, with an even taller mountain range ringing us on all sides – spectacular.

The view from the road to Semuc from Greengos

And our views for the day were only going to get more and more spectacular. Semuc Champey is truly something that needs to be seen to be believed. Dave and I hiked to the mirador (lookout) at the top of the mountains that look down over Semuc Champey (the others had done it the day before and didn’t want to put themselves through the pain again – gulp!).

En route to the pools

Hiking to the mirador

The hike itself was full on – steep and full of rocks to climb over, barely any man-made steps – I had flash forwards that this is what the Inca Trail was going to be like…. But after about 20 minutes of hard core slogging uphill and sweating so much I felt like I had already taken a swim, we reached the lookout point, and stood there breathless (from both the hike, and the view below us, I might add!) just soaking it in.

The clichéd tourist photo opportunity overlooking Champey is the only place that you can see Semuc Champey in all of its aqua and limestone beauty. It is a series of cascading limestone pools, filled with crystal clear water from mountain springs, that flows from one pool to another, and it is truly drop dead amazing.

We did try to get a ‘canvas worthy’ photo of the two of us with the iconic view in the background, but between me somehow ending up with dirt precisely on half of my face (I have no idea how!) and both of us being sweaty bettys, it was not going to happen, so we reconciled ourselves to our ‘ugly selfies’ and then scrambled back down the track to jump the hell into these beautiful pools and cool down!

And the pools were everything we expected- the water was as clear as I have ever seen and in contrast to the Caribbean sea, it was actually lovely and cold! Just diving in bought my core body temperature back down to a reasonable temp!

We started in the highest pool, and then swam, slid and jumped our way from one pool to another, relishing in the refreshing water and feeling like kids as we took photos with Mick and Kath’s go-pro of us jumping into the water. The limestone was extremely slippery, both the ground of the pools as well as the ‘walls’ and ledges between pools, and half the fun was laughing at each other as we slipped and slid all over the place.

We found a slide (read: slippery, slimy smooth limestone) from one pool to another, and despite all feeling abit cautious (there was a big jagged rock right at the end of the slide before the water – the trick would be to try and angle to the right before the rock, and hit the water that way), we all took the adventurous slide down into the next pool.

It was hilarious – I went first (which is very unlike me!) and BAM, straight over the jagged rock I went, scraping up my butt cheek and the top of my leg as I went over! But it was such a thrill zooming down and then flying into the water, I couldn’t stop laughing!

My ‘Slide’

Next up was Kath (afterwards, the guys both admitted they not only couldn’t believe we went first, they both held real concerns about the safety of our ‘slide’, but once we had gone, they had to!), then Dave and then finally Mick.

We were all cracking up as each person went down, they looked so funny, and after seeing me go over the rock, a local offered to sit on the jagged rock and ‘hip and shoulder’ the others as they slid down so as to ‘shove’ the others onto the smooth rock to then enter the water – seeing him do this just added to the hilarity!

Dave’s Slide

The final thing about Semuc (which I didn’t love!) was that the pools were full of these teeny fish varying in size from 1cm to about 10cm, that would nibble on your feet, your back, your skin, if you stopped moving – what the?!

None of the guidebooks or forums I had read about Semuc mention this – but I just made sure I was constantly moving my legs, my arms, my body… yep, pretty much I kept every part of me moving in the water at all times and I escaped their jaws. Good workout too hahah.

Meanwhile, Dave had a bit of sunburn peel on his back, and the fish relished in munching on him – more than once, he yelped with surprise (maybe horror?!) – something I was very happy to avoid!

We spent a good few hours at Semuc Champey and only left as we suddenly all realised how starving we were and that we hadn’t bought anything along to eat… so we grudgingly threw our clothes on, and made our way back up the steep path to Greengos.

After a quick cold water shower we met back up at the bar on site, and then proceeded to spend the next 8 hours or so with an ever increasing bunch of Greengos guests enjoying lunch (the guys make the most amazing hommus!), dinner and more than a few cold beers, gin and tonics, and I think there were some cuba libres in there too!

The Menu

By the time it got to 11pm, we were all pretty jolly when it was lights out and time for bed – and poor Mick and Kath had to pack for their early 6:30am departure to Antigua the next day, while everyone else flopped into their beds exhausted. We’re hoping our paths cross with these two Aussie legends again – I am sure they will!

Dave and I then spent the next day pretty much repeating what we did on our first day – late breakfast, chilled morning, walked to the pools, hung there for a few hours, headed back, late lunch and chill, before dinner and an early night ahead of our early 6:30am departure to Panajachel on Lake Atitlan.

Arriving back at Greengos

We have been told this should be a 10 hour transit, but have heard of it taking up to 14 hours… so, we shall see!

*Some photo credits and the video credits to our good pals, Katherine and Mick!