semuc champey ¿death trap?

so I am back in the land of free internets. I am in flores guatemala right now and I am proud to say that I survived the semuc champey tour... that was almost not true of everyone... more on that later. So semuc champey is a natural rock formation out of limestone that entails several pools of turqoise clear mountain water ontop of a natural bridge made of the rock formation that is above a raging river... quite a crazy phenomenon. The tour was maybe my favorite tour ever... and I conquored a few of my fears involving heights and ladders. the tour started with getting on a rope and wood swing that swumg you 6 or 7 meters above the water, and then you jump off of it. I did this after a bit of debating and i think i liked it? then after that we started caving. This is by far my favorite type of hiking. This meant that for 2 hours we swam slash hikled with candles throgh a cave... it was awesome! at one point there was an option to climb up another scary ladder on the rocks or climb up the waterfall with a rope with knots in it... i tried this after watching many others and almost made it but was too short to reach the last step and after dangling for a bit climed back down and used the ladder. Then we got to another spot where we could jump off into water.. of course we could not see how dèp the water was or how high the jump was but i did that too! all in all the cave was great. After the cave we floated down the river on tubes and then we were given the option of jumping off a bridge... i once again said no to this.... im not sure that, even if i was suicidal, i would ever jump off a bridge volentarily. after that I bought some home made mayan chocolate with cardamon from a girl on the street... and it was fantastic. then we went to semuc champey... i swam in the amazing pools and went close to the edge of the bridge where you can see the river rush underneath it while a very nervous employee watched megan and i. then I swam some more and then our guide aske who wanted to ´do´the waterfall... not quite knowing what this would entail and not wanting to pass it up if it were at all a possibility i went alon... just to see. turns out you cant see the jump unless you climb down a flimsy rope lader looped around a limestone rock... I managed to somehow do this. This meant i got to stand above the river and below th bridge... pretty awesome. I declined the first jump after hearing that is was scarier than the bridge... but when compared to going back up the later i decided i would do the second jump that was not high up but involeved swiming out of the curent or plumeting to your death. The first guy went and our guide told us the current was too strong and we would all have to go back up. All of us followed his instructions except for one girl and one guy .. our guide asked if they were good swimers and then let them go. The girl made it and all of us watched as the second guy missed his opertunity to get out 5 times while his girlfriend cried and sweared in israli... she had said that she shouldnt do it because she wants babys and they just got maried. He made it finally. all of us were a bit freaked and we left. Near death aside... it was a great day.

the next day we went to the bat cave... and found not batman but a sparkly bat cave that looked like fragle rock. I also learned that batshit is sticky and dark brown and helps with traction when hiking in drippy caves. Also flocks of bats are really cool to watch. Also i wish people had not over exagerated the slipery nature of this hike ... i regreted not bringing my real camera.

we are now in flores after a crazy shuttle involving seeing a valentines parade, being searched for fruit and riding with some smelly germans. Upon reaching our hostel and learning I have free internet i checked my email only to fing berny my novio on gmail and i tried my hand at gchating in spanish... very tricky. then after that megan and i went to the cheapest place in lonley planet... only to find that it was fancy... and with bad service... but it was fun to have a fancy romantic evening with my girlfriend... and we saw the israli couple.. they are still alive and together...