Coban

Pools of Simuc Champay

We made our way from Poptun to Coban.  A decent sized town with plenty of day trips available.  We stayed in a cheap hotel with a stinky, cold room that was so damp the paint was seeping off of the walls.  Hey, it was cheap!  The circus happened to be in town so we ended up going to the circus on our second night there.  It was only$2.50 each!  Not bad for some small town circus entertainment.  They had some decent acts.  Juggling, tigers, trained mini ponies, and........ the giant cage of death!  It's a big metal ball that two people ride motorcycles in.  We also did a day trip to some beautiful pools called Simuc Champay.  We decided not to go there with a tour so it turned into quite the adventure.  Simuc is about 8 miles past the last little town on that particular road.  When we got off of the bus, we were immediately bombarded with people trying to sell us hotel rooms and rides to Simuc.  One guy wanted to charge us 200Quetzals for a ride there and back.  We took our chances and started walking, hoping a taxi would eventually come along.  Sure enough, a taxi came along.  Taxi ... meaning a truck with a cattle rack on the back.  You just climb in the back and stand there until your at your stop.  Pay the driver when you get out.  It was only 25Q taking the taxi.  Once at Simuc, it was a short hike to the pools and falls.  We also did a 20 minute hike up the side of the hill to get a great view of the pools from above.  The hike up the hill was actually pretty gnarly.  Straight up.  I definitely got my cardio in for the day!  After hiking back down to the pools, we were ready for some swimming.  We hung out at the pools for about a half hour.  It was starting to get dark so we decided it was time to leave as we didn't want to miss the last "taxi" back to town.

         We weren’t sure if we had missed the last taxi back to Lanquin or not. So we started walking just in case.  Nine Kilometers.  That’s a little over five and a half miles.  We knew there was a little hostel we could stay at three Km down the road just in case.  We made it all the way to the hostel and were in the process of asking them when the last taxi came by when…..THE LAST TAXI CAME BY!  Whew!  We hopped in the back of the truck and were very thankful for the rain filled ride back to town.  The next leg of our adventure was hitching a ride back to Coban.  Turns out we had missed the last bus back to Coban so our options were to get a hotel for the night, or hitch a ride.  We sat at the very end of town and waited with another local waiting for cars passing by that were headed to Coban.  After an hour, we were able to get a ride in the back of a small Nissan pickup with some guys that had just sold some pigs in the area.  It was a cold three hour ride back to Coban but, again, we were thankful for the ride.  AND, it only rained the last half hour of the ride.  I’ve got to hand it to Nicole.  She’s a trooper.  It was her Idea to try and catch a ride.  I would’ve been fine getting a hotel for the night.  I think that anyone else would’ve been grumbling the entire cold and windy ride back to Coban but not her.  She never complained once.  Not about the cold and not about the conditions.  I was very impressed with her on that ride.  After arriving back in Coban, we immediately went to the Guatemalan version of Pizza Hut and ordered some comfort food.  Then it was back to our paint leaking down the walls hotel for some much needed cuddling and rest.  We stayed in town one more day and checked out the town a little more then headed to Guatemala City.