The route south continued. I left Tikal the next day to Flores taking the same chicken bus as the day before. The ride to Santa Elena was a pleasure. The guy in charge of selling tickets gave me good advice for the further route. I had initially planned to go to Lanquin which is the entry point to the sites of Semuc Champey. It turned out the road conditions in Guatemala are equal to those in Laos and to cover the distance of aa few hundred Kilometers takes disproportionally more time. So I only travelled to the town of Coban from Santa Elena using a local shuttle bus.
This shuttle bus turned out to be the real chicken bus experience. It could have been the dramatic rainfall which added to this rigor experience but I guess it would have been wearing even without. The bus originally layed out for 10 passengers was filled to the last place and even than more passengers managed to squeeze in. At the peak of the trip the bus held 23 people and for the duration of the 6 hour ride the air condition did not work for a single second. Not speaking of breaks at all. Enduring these hardships left me dizzy and confused on the bus terminal of Coban. Relief was supplied by a family run small hotel in Coban which supplied shelter and food after this horrible ride.
The next morning came and forgotten was the Tour de Force of the day before. A short walk to the bus stop for a bus to Semuc Champey. A modern Hyundai passenger van with enough space and only few other passengers made this 2 hour ride a pleasure despite the numerous serpentines and potholes on the way into the hills.
Semuc Champey or more precisely Lanquin the town next to the place is split in 2 different regions. The fancy hostels for the cosmopolite traveller and a downtown area for the regular guatemalan people. It was kind of sad to see that the tourism in this place hasn’t changed much for the local economy. I stayed at a place promising to employ local people instead of foreign people but I think this still doesn’t make up for the face that I’m a spoilt western brat only coming to see a beautiful place and head out the day after.
The majority of people would travel to this place for 2 nights. One day of trekking, swimming and exploring caves before the game repeats with different players over and over. It would be interesting to fast forward into the future and see how this place is going to develop. Beautiful for sure but I think the area would have more to offer. On the other hand it was easy to see the long way Guatemala has to go in becoming a truly developed destination.
