Existing Member?

Semuc Champey

My Travel Writing Scholarship 2011 entry - My Big Adventure

GUATEMALA | Sunday, 27 March 2011 | Views [342] | Scholarship Entry

We arrive at the cave in the early morning light and plunge into the darkness with ferocity. Bright eyes adjust to smoky candlelight, and nostrils to must and dirt and water. 
We are outside of Lanquin, a tiny tranquil and undulating village in achingly beautiful central Guatemala. We arrived here via a jarring jeep, but now, the cave is immediately calming, like the ocean. 


Through the cave we march with one hand free, the other holds tightly to a flickering candle. In an opaque plume, soft eerie light escapes to dance and sway on the solid rock walls, a creature of the dim that our free hands touch, instinctively, to feel the light and the damp and the grainy stacked earth. There is laughter and shouting. Good fortune engulfs the ancient cracks and tight spaces around us. Solid and impenetrable. My sandals rub as they are makeshift and tied to my feet with yellow rope.

We approach a dark and mystic pool. At first the water is shallow enough to walk in. Ghostly splashes are echoed, and the cold water sends up shivers and bumps. Now the water is deep. It should be awkward, swimming with only one hand, the other aloft and gripping, but we are gliding through a current that doesn’t exist here. Rough rocks scrape skin to the depths, breathing quickens and is purposely calmed. The desert yellow light is enchanting.

The cavern becomes a tunnel. A ledge appears and we must jump. It is an exit to freedom and truly a leap of faith. A torch shines into the pool of inky black. It must be at least 3 metres to the empty surface. I am utterly terrified – a fear of what lies beneath the velvety film below, but I must jump. I chant under my breath and I’m off, hitting the water hard. My breath buckles in the horrid coId. I am shocked and elated and scrambling over rocks. In the distance damaged sunlight trickles behind a curtain of dust, and our escape from the cave is swift.

Close by there are water pools that shimmer in the overcast light, a natural limestone crossing over the Rio Cahabon. 
Broken sunbeams puncture a rolling grey canopy and the colours below are lit in streams, glittering turquoise blue, water green, iridescent sienna and ochre and cascading white. The serpentine river ripples slowly, through the jungle floor, its valley edges a blur of bright green puffs billowing skyward. 
The water pulls and thirsts, begging me to dive in. It is wonderfully cool and cleansing - all silky skin and a million shiny tingling bubbles. Towards the surface the heady sapphire glow of water and light warms my face in immense contrast to the depths of the cave. I leave the water lightly to perch on a cold hard rock, surrounded by moss and ferns, insects, and the song of secret quetzals. I am nothing but nature, and worthy of the jungle around me.

Tags: #2011writing, travel writing scholarship 2011

About alexcherry


Follow Me

Where I've been

Highlights

My trip journals


See all my tags 


 

 

Travel Answers about Guatemala

Do you have a travel question? Ask other World Nomads.