Smoke & Champagne

What is up!!??

I am coming at you from San Jose, Costa Rica - quick stop over before another quick circuit through Costa Rica and then on into Panama (haha not really I'm sitting on my couch in Boca Raton, but I was in Costa Rica when I wrote this). Figured it would be a good time to hammer out a new post! Wow, this one has been backlogged for a while but now that I've finished up editing it is easily my coolest and most engaging video yet. So let's do this!

It was around the third or fourth day of my trip, way back in May, sitting around the dinner table in Antigua when my new awesome friends proposed the idea of heading up to Semuc Champey. "Semu what??", I thought. I had no idea what they were talking about. But as they started to describe a place where you toured caves, rafted down a river, and swam in natural emerald green pools, I was 100% on board. So that Friday, the first weekend of my trip, we hopped on a shuttle and began our 10 hour journey to this mysterious place in the jungles of northern Guatemala. It was a fun ride with five or six other people, including the four of us, from around the world. Not being able to remember the name of the place for the life of me, the Norwegian dude in the backseat, obviously having had the same issue, calmly said to me "just think of smoke and champagne", as he mimed the two activities. Brilliant! And from then on Semuc Champey became known as Smoke & Champagne - a much cooler, and classier name.

We motored through the pouring rain for what seemed like eternity, passing through tiny villages, rolling hills, and finally remote jungles. We finally arrived around midnight to our tiny little jungle hostel, which conveniently turns all power off at 10pm. Sweet. Tired and in the dark, we had nothing better to do than pass out. As I laid in bed, I had a very vague idea of what to expect of the following day. Based on the rugged remoteness of where we were, I knew that this was going to be a legit adventure, and not some cheesy tour. That said, I never could have imagined what an incredible day we were about to have. Possibly the single most adventurous day of my life. As we sat around the table that night toasting beers, we all agreed that it was a full-on 10 out of 10. All of our expectations were completely shattered. But don't take my word for it, check out the video below and come along for the ride!!

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSWP8pYCUuc

 

Wow...I've watched this video at least a dozen times now and it still never ceases to amaze me. What an incredible place, easily the hidden gem of Guatemala. This was no joke either - in fact it was downright dangerous at times, especially traversing through those dark slippery caves. We each took a few spills along the way and there was one really scary moment when Olivia took a nasty tumble down the slippery rocks and into the water below. Fortunately it looked way worse that it actually was and she came out of it with a few minor cuts. Battle wounds. At certain points we were twisting and contorting our bodies through small crevices into the pitch black below. It was really pretty nuts! The whole time I'm thinking there's no way in hell they'd let us do anything remotely close to this in the states without signing a fat stack of liability waivers. Needless to say, we were all quite relieved to finally see the light at the end of the tunnel.

 

Next up was the river rafting portion where we got to leisurely float down the river for a bit. A very welcome change of pace after the slow tense trek through the caves. However, not before passing by the most insanely massive rope swing I have ever seen. Seriously, this thing was legend.

Finally we hiked our way up to the emerald pools. And as you can see from the videos, this was no walk in the park. Steep, slippery, and pretty darn strenuous. But man was the payoff amazing. Beautiful picture perfect emerald green pools that were just an absolute pleasure to swim around in. Unfortunately, as I mentioned in the video the GoPro battery died right before we made it to the pools, but I think that the pictures we were able to capture do in fact do it justice. Such a sweet spot!

 

On our way back to the lodge, we passed back over the massive yellow bridge, which earlier in the day our guide informed us that he would be jumping off. I wasn't sure if he was kidding at the time but sure enough as we made our way across the bridge he ripped off his shirt and jeans and started climbing the ledge. At that moment I was gripped by fear and excitement, knowing that there was no way I was going to cross that bridge without also taking the plunge. So while the girls rolled footage, Brett and I followed our guide to the edge. Now let me just say, I LOVE jumping off things, always have, but this was HUGE, and looking over the edge I was legit scared. But there was no backing down. So after a several moments of hesitation, Cathy began the official countdown and I stepped out over the edge. WOW. It was nuts. And the impact of my arms smacking against the water hurt like hell, but it was so worth it. We busted out a few smaller jumps from below before making our way back to the lodge for dinner, feeling very very accomplished. Since the GoPro battery died earlier, I actually wanted to go back and do it again, but as I was about to head back to the bridge it started pouring rain, and honestly, as bad as I wanted that footage, I was a little relieved ;)

 

As the rain stopped and we started making our way down to the lodge for dinner, this took a bit of a bizarre turn. We noticed a stump outside of our room absolutely erupting with what seemed to be winged ants. I mean these things were absolutely spewing out into the air by the thousands. At the time I remember thinking wow this is cool, and took some video of it, not thinking much else of it. But as we sat down for a beer before dinner to recount our epic day, the onslaught began. For hours we swatted and did our best to evade the swarm but it was relentless, and we were severely outnumbered. Our only hope was to barricade ourselves in the room. But the swarm followed, and soon we were completely under siege. While this all may sound quite comical, and it was, at the time it was slowing going from annoying to maddening. And then it happened. Olivia snapped. Armed with her water bottle, she went on a murderous rampage. We mounted a spirited counter attack but were just too outnumbered to really be successful. In the end, we just had to wait it out, for the swarm to subside, which it did after a few hours.

 

What a day.

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