Following a 10 hour bus ride yesterday, I finally end up in Semuc Champey.

This place is meant to be stunning and a firm favourite with my friends of Guatemala.

Am hoping tomorrow I see what all the fuss is about.

Wake up and don’t bother rushing for another tour thinking I’ll just make my own way there from Lanquin.

Leisurely breakfast where myself and 2 others share some interesting stories on our travels and share some tips for future journeys.

The weather has picked up and it’s a glorious day…time to head to Semuc.

Out in the town I pick up a colectivo and jump in the back of a pick up truck for 2 quid (20Q) to make the 9k journey. Tours vary between 130 to 200Q (more expensive includes the caves).

On arrival there, I meet 3 people I got to know on the coach journey yesterday and spend this enjoyable day with them.

We pay our 50Q and head straight for the mirador, thinking that once we’ve hit the top, we’ll have more than earned our dip in these lush blue pools.

The walk up isn’t that strenuous but a lot of rain made it muddy and quite slippery in places. The view from the top was more than worth the effort and finally all the pictures on the internet made sense….even more stunning in reality

We take a different route back down and are told there’s no steps….maybe bad English but thank hod there is as coming down was worse.

Back at the bottom, it’s time to take a dip. Hard to navigate over the rocks in bare feet and harder once in with all the algae but so nice once in

I wanted to go further in to the top of one of the falls but the number of fish that came towards me when I put my feet in scared me off big time! Instead I stayed at the top end where there were only tiny fish – just being in the water with them was enough.

Starving, we left these beautiful pools in search of food.

See some monkeys on the way out which was cool – I think they were the fab howler monkeys but as they weren’t making their famous sound I’m not sure…

The food wasn’t up to much up at Semuc so we headed back to Lanquin in another colectivo

to a restaurant called Shalum that yesterday’s bus driver told us about. Wasn’t a lot to look at but was cheap and full of locals which is always a good sign.

Back to the hotel and freshen up then treat myself to a beer by the pool whilst nattering to a few people both guests and locals.