Guatemala : Illegal Crossing: Part I

Our very extended trip through Guatemala started with a bit of a snag. The inside of the drum on the right rear wheel gave up 5 hours from am ATM in any direction leaving us dead in our tracks. Fortunately we were less than 10 miles from a large pueblo and a mechanic and part were easily located and the problem fixed. So, with a full tank and an empty wallet we headed towards Comitan - the nearest ATM.

The next morning we crossed through to Guatemala via the very tiny and very uncontrolled boarder of Gracias A Dios and accidentally entered Guatemala illegally. We picked up a kind man not far from the border and made our way towards civilization. Not intending to we ended up in Huehuetenago high in the mountain highlands. Over the next couple of days we made our way to Coban over the worst roads we've seen so far. From there we visited two natural wonders Laguna Lachua and Semuc Champey. Lachua is a beautiful perfectly round very large laguna in the middle of a very protected and isolated national park. So isolated in fact that we had to hike in 4km with all of our food and water for 3 days. The park is so protected that we had to leave musical instruments with the reception on the main road. The care taker was a wonderful old man named Carlos who was very kind and had a bright energy to him. The director of the park was a man my age named Luis. We spent all night talking to him and his friend Adrian and made some good friends. We returned to Coban and had the wonderful fortune of reconnecting with our friend Morton from Denmark - who we had met in Chiapas Mexico. We set out the next day on a whirlwind one day expedition to Semuc Champey. We woke up early hit the bus station and were on the road by 9. We got to the main city got off our bus and boarded a small truck with a rails around the side that the tourists call chicken buses. We drove very slowly up a mountain and it dropped us right in front of the park. We paid our entrance fee and walked the path to the most beautiful set of water falls and wading pools I've ever seen. We played in the water for a few hours then made our way back along the path and across the bridge from the park. We found a lovely attraction named Las Marias Caverns and decided to check it out. for 65 Quetzales we were given a candle and lead through a large cave all the while swimming with one hand and holding the candle in the other. We made our way over water falls and through little cracks in the rock and found ourselves at the very back of the cave. And impromptu mud bath ensued from which our guide got quite a laugh. But wait the story gets better. Freshly exfoliated and returned to the light we made our way back down the road on foot as our ride was not there as promised. We walked to a small hotel that was in fact owned by the man who owned the caves and we got a history lesson on how he came to own the caves and that by great fortune only a week after he bought it a group of German spelunkers showed up and asked him where they could find caves. We all took a shot of tequila and then caught a right home with his workers who had been unloading the truck. Despite there kindness and fairness with the price we missed the last bus back to Coban. So, we had dinner had some beers and waited. But wait long we did not. We stopped the first large empty truck that came by heading our direction and negotiated a price of 10 q per person. In our eagerness we were loaded up and on the way before we realized we were in the back of a cattle truck and the floor and walls were covered in cow crap. But our spirits could not be dampened. We made a game out of it danced, shouted and had a blast the whole way home.