Travelling to Semuc Chempey

Today’s day was all about travelling! I woke up ready for the shuttle to arrive at 8am. Of course, it arrived at about 8:40am and we then went on to collect others from places around Antigua until about 9:30am.

We finally left Antigua and were on our way to Semuc Chempey. The time it took was over 8 hours – we arrived in Semuc Chempey at about 5:30pm. The shuttle itself was quite full with people who were going to be staying at different hostels. The initial trip was to a place called Lanquin – which is 25 minutes drive from Semuc Chempey. Some people stay in this town and travel to Semuc Chempey just for the tour. I was staying in Semuc Chempey itself – in a hostel called El Portal. The hostel was beautiful – and was on the river edge.

To get to the hostel from Lanquin, we had to go on an open back truck – standing as the truck went on the dirt roads. The truck finally had to cross a bridge which from the outside looked ok, but the boards on the bottom of the bridge moved as the truck went over them! It was an interesting experience.

The hostel itself was nice – the main downside being that there were no electricity points in the rooms – if you wanted to charge anything, you had to give it to the reception and they would charge it for you – when the electricity was on. They would switch off the electricity at about 11pm.

I met some lovely people straight away – some of who had been on the tour the previous day and some who were going to be joining me for the tour. We sat and talked for a while – as the lights went out, we headed to sleep – those who had done the tour the previous day had to be up and ready to leave by 7am; but the tour for me was to leave at 10am.