Candlelight Cave Swimming

Just when you think you can´t possibly see anything cooler than a flowing volcano, you swim through a cave with only a candle to light your way. Yes, Guatemala holds the key to some of the most interesting and beautiful places I think I will ever experience.

Friday night, our group of 9 boarded a private shuttle at midnight and attempted to sleep on the 7 hour drive North to Semuc Champey. This natural haven is located near the city of Coban, and the road to get there was not exactly a comforting experience. It was not physically comfortable, nor was it easy on the nerves. The last hour was on a dirt road with plenty of pot holes and large patches of intense mud, but it was also not wide enough to fit two cars which made oncoming traffic more than exciting. Especially when we got in a tangle with a giant pickup truck with no breaks and an ambulance. But we made it.

Before leaving Antigua, we had paid $60 without knowing fully what we were going to see or do once we got to Semuc Champey. I will say that I am now much more comfortable in putting blind faith in sketchy tourist traps. So after arriving at 7 a.m. at a hotel pre-picked out for us, we dropped our backpacks and headed out immediately. We piled into the bed of a pick-up truck with a rack on the back to hang on to as we stood in the bed. During the 30 minute drive towards Semuc Champey, our tour guide asked us if we would like some natural Guatemalan bug repellant that came from the pods of a rare, native plant. Before we could really reply, we all had faces the color of a blood orange crayola crayon. I´m not sure if it was the smell of the plant or the fact that we all looked grutesque, but either way I came out of the falls with very few bites.

The truck pulled over at a rickety bridge and we all got out. We walked down a small trail followed by 4 kids trying to sell us homemade chocolate mixed with cardamom (both cocoa and cardamom trees cover the landscape). We were then instructed to leave everything behind but our bathing suit and sneakers (an atractive look I must say). Our tour guide handed us each a candle and told us to follow him into a dark cave filled with water.

The first few steps into the cave were incredibly strange and I´m not going to lie, I was wondering if we were all crazy. But as soon as we got out of the light of the cave´s opening and were walking through the cave only on trust and candlelight, it soon became the most surreal and awesome experienece I think I have had. The water level changed often and at times we were just wading knee deep and sometimes it was up to our shoulders. At times we would come to mini waterfalls pouring down from the level above and we had to climb crudely built metal ladders. About half way into the cave, we hit the deep water. With one hand holding our flames above water, we dogpaddled and frog-kicked our way through the cave. At the end, 45 minutes later, we arrived at the dead end and blew out our candles. I couldn´t see Steph´s hand waving an inch away from my eyes. It was pitch black and so dark that if were to stay in there for over 3 hours or so without light our eyes could have permanent damage.

And thank goodness our tour guide remembered his lighter or we would still be in there. The only way out was back.

After re-emerging into daylight, we then sat in innertubes and floated down the river by catching the currents. Which somehow I really wasn´t very good at and spent a great deal of time paddling out of the weeds on the edges of the riverbanks.

After we clothed ourselves, our tour guide told us we were now going to go to Semuc Champey. Semuc Champey? All this and we aren´t even there yet??

We walked for about 20 minutes to the entrance of the national park and then embarked on a difficult and steep hike up to lookout point of the waterfalls. Our 13 year old tour guide was not impressed with our American bodies and rolled his eyes when we stopped to catch our breath and drink water.

The view from the top was amazing and the water was bright teal. It looked so small from the top of the mirador (lookout point). Once we hiked down and got to the pools they still didn´t seem that large. But the water was so refreshing and cool and felt so clean for the amount of people that swam in it every day. Yet as our 13 year old amigo led us from pool to pool by jumping down the 8 feet mini cliffs into the next body of water, we realized how big this natural spring was.

We spent Sunday morning ziplining before heading back home to Antigua. Unfortunately these are the only photos I have from the whole weekend, since we were constantly wet on Saturday and the next day we were busy being suspended above the tree canopy line. But I suppose it´s true that sometimes you just have to experience something to really see it; somethings aren´t able to be viewed through a lens.