Day 8: Semuc Champey
Coban was rainy and miserable but we were not planning to stay there very long any way. We enquired about getting to Semuc Champey at the hotel and they brought us a tourism student who was clearly trying to rip us off. So we said, no thanks we will find our own way there. Called up Las Marias hotel to get a reservation and once that was all set we started the journey straight to the hotel. On the way there we met a sweet finnish girl called Paive who kept us entertained on the way there.
Got to the hotel and it was rainy and miserable as well. I was expecting that from Coban, but not from Semuc Champey... Not a good start... Fortunately the rain stopped for long enough to encourage us to venture to the pools and I am glad we did, it was beautiful. Semuc Champey is a series of turquoise pools which feed into each other over a natural limestone bridge which crosses the cahabon river. The description does it no justice... you will see the photos when I get around to posting them up. Seeing that made up for all the horrible travelling we had had to do to get there.
Back to the hotel then for a long game of cards with Paive and a "delicious" meal of chicken "chaomein" Had a long argument with the hoteliers then about the best way to get to El Estor. We wanted to go to El Estor via Lanquin and then Cahabon from where we would get a pickup to El Estor. They were saying that no way would we be able to get a pick up and that it was much quicker to go via Coban, even though the route on the map was much longer. After much toing and froing we decided to trust them, since we assumed being locals they would know better than us... Early night then since we had to get up at 430 for the shuttle to Coban.