Semuc Champey

Daniel

After a hammock's sleep beside the river in Lanquín, we went to Semuc Champey. The market on the way. Thirteen-cent mangos. Hay que, por fa. The pools are mountain runoff collected in a canyon, one after another, clear enough to be unreal. Under them a cave river rages into a dark hole. We swam the calm and then met the same water where it comes out as a waterfall. Bouldering, hiking, a little free-floating in the rapids. Into the cave as far as the current allowed. A rope swing ended at a No Trespassing sign and one very angry Guatemalan. We convinced him that an unauthorized swing is not a police matter. The lookout, at the end of a steep hike, shows the whole thing. We caught the last cars back to El Retiro.

The next day Logan and Ray set the line and taught whoever wanted a lesson. I was presumed competent. I am not. Then we hitchbiked back up the mountain in a wooden trailer held together by rusted cable. Ray tried to keep the wall from leaving. I waved at children until I was too busy being sick to wave. Dangerously gross, and grossly awesome. Back at La Casa de la Luna I declined dinner.

Mike, Belizean, five-star, two hundred sauces, cooked for the hostel. Fried jacks, pork, garlic potatoes. Rolando, a Guatemalan freestyler and graffiti artist, drew the first Balance Odyssey logo in a few minutes. Two days of that and it was Hotel California. Alex was waiting at the Guatemala City airport. All aboard. We gained an odyssean.