Lanquin: Natural pools and BoB’s Mojitos

Travelling is great . . . and as we want to do it as long as possible, we are always searching for jobs. In the village of Lanquin we found the very comfortabel hostel ‘El Retiro’. They were looking for bar tenders and we thought ‘let’s mix some drinks!’ :).

The hostel is located on a great spot, just right at the river. It offers dorms and private rooms, some of them built in the traditional way with wooden walls and palm tree leaves on the roof. Every night BoB, Liane & Lars worked from 5 pm till 10 pm and tried to make all the guests happy 🙂 It was great fun to learn how to make some really good drinks. Almost every night the hostel offered a very delicicous buffet with a lot of salads, yummy chicken and local dishes.

In the beginning the new drinks and the local food were a bit confusing but with the help of our lovely collegues it was no problem. Our boss was from the United States but all other collegues were locals which made our stay even more special. We learned that their families still live in a very traditional way and that they still speak their original mother tongue Qu´eqchi´. This language is totally different to Spanish and it was fun to try to say some of these words:

one – jun
two – cuib’
three – oxib’
eight – wajxaqib’  (easy 😉
thank you – B’antiox
good bye – julaj chic
I’m hungry – tin tz’okaaq’

On the 15th of September Guatemala celebrated its Independence Day . .  the 192nd already! We were curious about what will happen. As soon as we woke up in the morning we went into the village of Lanquin and realized that we arrived just in time. Pupils from different schools formed a colourful parade. The sound of the drumms echoed through the whole village and it was a pleasure to see the proud faces of the young Guatemalans.

Just one day after we have arrived in Lanquin we went on a tour to the natural highlight of Semuc Champey. The group met at the reception and together we went to our transportation: our first adventure 🙂 Of course it wasn’t a boring bus, no! We all climbed on the loading space of a pick up and a trip above a shaky gravel road started.

The pick up brought us to the next highlight: a candle tour through caves. How great was that!? Imagine a totally dark cave, filled with water, and the only light is the light of the candles. Our great guide Hector prepared our faces with some war paints before he guided us above rocks and through neck high waters. We even climbed up a waterfall. Lars was brave enough to jump off the rocks within the caves. BoB and Liane were impressed 🙂

After we have left the caves we started a hiking trip up to the lookout of Semuc Champey. It was sooo hot but from the top we had an impressing view of the natural pools. Here BoB could practice taking pictures of Liane and Lars 🙂 From here we all three went down to the pools and spend a great time… swimming, relaxing and Lars jumping from the rocks again. It’s his new hobby 😉 We enjoyed a fantastic day and were very exhausted when we finally reached the hostel.

During our stay we also met a very cute dog. He is black and brown colored with a bit of white and from the beginning on he followed us wherever we went to. As he had no real home to stay he searched for some shelter in the hostel. And as you can imagine he was not the cleanest dog. That’s why we gave him the lovely name ‘Stinky’. 🙂 We liked him very much and even on the day when we left the hostel Stinky followed us into the village and waited until our bus arrived. We miss you ‘Stinky’! Take care! 😡