Coban, Semuc Champey, Caves and Bat Crap

This morning we got an early start from Coban, a lovely old city with a little colonial influence. It’s the center of coffee and cardamom production in the area. Best of all, it’s the base for much of Guatemala’s biotourism, offering the easiest access to Semuc Champey, Grutas de Lanquin and el Biotopo del Quetzal.

First, we took a long and bumpy ride out to Semuc Champey, a limestone bridge over the Rio Cahabon. On top of the limestone bridge there are all of these lovely little pools. In places, the water is almost eerily blue. Some of the pools are ankle deep, while others are deep enough for swimming and diving. Along the edges of the pools the forest rose up steeply. All sorts trees and vines hang over the water, creating an especially exotic feel. Since we got such an early start, we had the park almost all to ourselves for most of the morning.

We waded upstream, to where the river runs under the bridge. The river had an incredible amount of force and made an absolute din. There used to be a rope ladder down to the river, but I was actually glad it was gone, so I didn’t have to admit that I was scared to climb down. At the end of the bridge, the streams rejoin in a massive waterfall. The water turns back to its normal brown and continues on its way.

After Semuc Champey, we headed over to the nearby Grutas de Lanquin, a series of limestone caves over the Lanquin River. To make the caves more accessible the Guatemalan authorities built a catwalk and put up diesel powered lights for the first few thousand feet of the cave. Despite the construction, the caves were extremely slippery from the moisture and guano, and I fell down a few times. Yet, somehow being covered in mud and bat crap didn’t detract from the experience.

Caves are extremely important in the Maya cosmology. They created and enhanced many caves as sacred spaces. The Maya divide the world into three parts, the underworld, the earth, and the heavens. Caves are seen as a gateway the underworld, where ancestors dwell.

The caves had a cathedral feel for us as well. They roof was hundred of feet above us, with stone spires called stalactites hanging down. Ahead of us, massive towers called stalagmites rose up out of the ground. Every formation was unique, and looked like different animal or object. The cave forms, a karst landscape, are created when rain and groundwater charged with carbonic acid dissolve the limestone and when calcium carbonate deposits are created by slow drips. Despite the lighting, everything had an eerie glow about it. The sounds were also amazing: the muffled roar of the river below us, the echoes of our footsteps, and the occasional bat.

After exploring the caves a bit, I can totally understand why people are so into spelunking. If I weren’t afraid of bats, the dark and being lost, I would be really into it too.