Stage 6.5: La Caoba to Lanquin

Leaving the Middle of Nowhere, Guatemala

I woke up at 4:30 this morning to get my stuff together and take the bus at 5. I had traveled by bus like this in Madagascar and they are usually notoriously late - like on the order of 8 hours for a commercial bus line. But as I found out, things run pretty strictly on time here. I was standing outside looking for the bus for a while, with no bus in sight. Then, at 4:56 the bus driver walks up, opens a grave where I was standing, and pulls the bus out. His co-pilot deftly lifted my bike onto the roof, strapped it down and we took off at exactly 5:00, with me as the only passenger. We had about 35-40 miles to go on the same road on which I had been stuck the day before. The total trip to Fray de Bartolome de las Casas took 2.5 hours. It was dark as we drove out and people kept emerging in front of the bus headlights, hailing the bus and getting on. At some point the bus was full, but they kept taking on more passengers, squeezing them into the aisle and then leaving the side door open, so two or three people were standing on the runner, mostly outside of the bus.

Morning view from the bus. Passing a churrasco stand.

I had received more information that the roads up to Lanquin, where I was going, were the same as I had just ridden on, although the road out of the city was paved. I decided to trust this advice and took another bus out of the town which would drop me off on a paved section of road outside a village called Campur, in the mountains. This was definitely the right choice, the road was incredibly steep, rocky and it was raining to boot, this would not have been possible to ride, either. The bus dropped me off and I continued in the rain. Getting to Lanquin was sketchy as well. The downhill section was paved with concrete, but very steep, and wet. As I rode down I kept thinking that if it was still raining when I left, I would have to find another way out, my bike would not ride on such a slick surface, I was having enough trouble braking while going downhill as it was.

Heading down a slippery downhill into the rain and fog.

Quick mazapan snack at the bottom of the hill with cream and chili.

I decided to stay at a hostel/hotel and unwind for a bit. I went into town for dinner at a Guatemalan place. Despite the touristy attraction that is Semuc Champey, the town itself didn’t appear to be particularly built around tourism. I went back to my room and quickly fell asleep.

The river view from my room. The water was a bit muddy because of the rain.