ODO: 321,045
We pack up and head ten minutes down the road to Semuc Champey. This place is wild. The vendors in the parking lot are very aggressive trying to sell us water and guide services. It’s a little overwhelming. Once we pay our entrance fee and get down the path things quiet down. The path is a straight shot, horizontally, into the jungle following a river. Our first not vertical hike! And it is beautiful. There are pools on top of cascading blue pools. The water is clear and cool, and surprisingly deep in places. The pools are full of tiny fish that nibble on you if you don’t move around enough. It’s very odd. After a solid swim in the middle pool, we headed further up the trail to see what is up there and we are not disappointed. The pools are made from the river carving out the limestone in the river bed, and at the top is a reverse waterfall. The river dips underground for a hundred feet before resurfacing in the upper pools. It’s here we get learn that this area is private property, and you are not allowed to fly drones over the area. Oooops. After more swimming in the lower pools it’s time to start our long drive to Flores, the staging town for Tikal. It’s a seven hour haul, so more night driving ahead of us. As the night is wearing on, we come across a river ferry! The ferry is actually part of the highway. KoKo has never seen one of these before, and in no time we are loaded, across the river, and back on our way. It’s very late when we pull into Flores, so we are very excited to find out hotel and settle in for the night.
We try to line up hotel days with days full of meetings or computer work. And this day is no exception. Our big mid day adventure happens when we return from lunch to find a three inch cockroach clinging to the side of our bed. KoKo quickly finds a housekeeper who handles the giant bug like a pro. The sky treats us to a beautiful sunset over the lake as we wrap up our day. Yup, we got the lakeview room, it was worth it. We also have a view of the island, where we find what we hope will be a good dessert place. The outer road around the small island is flooded, which is a problem because that’s where this dessert place is. After some wandering, and asking for directions we end up with carrot cake and a brownie. Winning.
Today is the day KoKo has been waiting for since we made our first speed run to Guatemala City: TIKAL! It is hot out. It rains a little on the drive, but doesn’t stick around. The heat is aggravating our electrical gremlin. Once we get parked, sun screened, and bug sprayed it’s adventure time! The trail starts out pleasantly flat, but being Guatemala, it doesn’t last. Up a small hill and around a corner we get our first glimpse of the ruins. Not the main ruins, those are still a ways into the jungle. The first set is complex Q, a partial pyramid with several tall alter stones standing at its base, as well as some very intricately carved alter stones in their own separate houses. Our next location is a confusing one, complex R. This is one of the many unexcavated areas inside the park, and we don’t realize we are walking past pyramids until we notice that these three “hills” are not naturally shaped or spaced.
Then its up, up, up and up the hill to the North Acropolis. We decide to come around it from the back, so we don’t ruin the reveal of the Grand Plaza. This is a fantastic idea because it accidentally leads us up onto a closed portion of the Acropolis with a view of the Grand Plaza from above. After enjoying it from above it was time to enjoy the Grand Plaza from ground level. The scale of the buildings is hard to describe. They are very tall, and very small at their bases for how tall they are. Serious engineering happened here.
Next it’s across the grass and up the stairs to the Central Acropolis. This building is a maze. There are rooms you can go in, and even a tunnel passageway through part of it. From the back side of this complex we can see Tower V in the distance, poking through the tree tops. No, towering above the tree tops is more accurate. Our adventure is hot, and very sweaty, but these ruins are so, so incredible. We developed a theory while we were exploring: Guatemala isn’t steep hills, its un-excavated pyramids. We challenge anyone to come here and leave with a different theory.
Time to start the four hour drive back to Rio Dulce. It’s gonna be another late one. The decision is made to camp just past Rio Dulce, and this is where the trouble starts. We find our planned spot, but something is on fire. The camper doesn’t seal like a house, and no one wants to try and sleep in the smoke. Back on the road. Our next planned spot is a bust. Back on the road again. Finally we find a small hotel and ask if we can camp in their parking lot. Thankfully they say yes, and we are set up and asleep in less than twenty minutes.
It’s up and right on to the road in the morning. Time is starting to get tight. We know our parts have made it to Guatemala, but that’s it so far. No estimated arrival date….Maybe USPS can offer us some help? Turns out not at all. They know less than their tracking system, but we are not surprised by this. Continue driving. Up, up, and some more up takes us to the Pino Dulce Eco park, a private outdoor recreation area complete with petting zoo animals. Being at 7600ft means a nice chilly night and good sleep. Both of which we need. We get lots of rest here. During the day, the park fills up with families, but is somehow surprisingly peaceful. At night bats, at least that’s our best guess, fly into our antenna several times. A first for us.
And just like that, we’re back in Guatemala City. The timing is great because KoKo ate something that is turning her inside out. Staying indoors is in our best interests tonight. The real reason we are here is hoping to find out information about our parts. Parts we’ve been trying to get since early-mid August. We are too late to check the post office today, so relaxing it is! A large storm rolls in late evening and knocks the power out, but lucky us! Our hotel has a generator and we have power back pretty quickly. The building across the street stays dark for quite a while. One day turns into two, as we rest and get some work done. Our hotel makes some delicious soup and brownies which we enjoy more than once.
Tensions are high today. The first part of the day is meetings on top of meetings. The second part of the day, we plan to try and find some answers on our parts. The tracking shows they are in customs, and we do not want a repeat of Belize. Meetings end up running longer than planned, so we only have time for one of our two possible stops. We pick the DHL store our parts are to be delivered to. Bad choice. The person working in the store does not want to help us. At all. With the help of Google Translate we ask many questions, all of which he answers with some version of “Call DHL customer service, we do not receive packages here”. But we didn’t ship DHL. Call DHL customer service. Will he reject our package if a delivery is attempted? Call DHL customer service. Is there anyone else we can talk to for help? Call DHL customer service. After a very frustrating ten minutes we leave to regroup, and try not to let this ruin the rest of our evening.
