Coban: surviving the jesus mobile and also surviving the depths of the Lanquin caves

Our last evening at Lago De Atitlan we consulted other people at the hostel as well as the travel agencies about getting to Coban the next day. Apparently it would take 10 hours and a coast of about $40 to reach our destination, annoyed with the cost we decided to face the chicken buses and that we did. Our third bus to Guatemala city turned out to be the bus from Harry Potter, that flew down the winding mountain roads, passing other modes of transportation on blind corners and literally tipping on it’s side as we sped around death happy corners. The breaking ability this bus had is when I realized we were in fact on the Guatemalan version of the Harry Potter bus. Lauri and I literally clung to each other and dared not to look up. Lauri told me that it’s more dangerous on buses that have Jesus paraphernalia all over them because the bus drivers think that they will be protected, well, I freaking hope so. Even though Dangling Jesus’s were looking after us from the bus window, we talked about the life we would miss on earth and talked about plan of action if we walked away from the inevitable bus crash we would be finding ourselves victims of.

When we actually made it to Guatemala City, we knew that today was our day. The cab took us to a bus agency that only charged us Q55 that would take 4 hours to get to Coban, for a total transit cost of $10, winning! In Coban we found the Dutch boys yet again! We caught up on traveling adventures then passed out.

The next day Lauri and I attempted to go to Semuc Chamgney but realized it would cost to much and not work with our time crunch. So we found some caves to go explore. The Guatemalan at the entrance gave us some candles, yes, candles and said it should take us 30 minutes to go through. The caves were awesome, and the fact we were exploring a cave by candle light made it even more awesome. Only about 15 minutes in Lauri and I found ourselves sliding down a rock then to attempt to scale a cliff that had a rushing river below. We had a meeting and decided this is probably not the right way. It took about us about 10 minutes to find the correct path and thennnnn we got lost again. And then again and then about 7 more times. Being smart spelunkers we saved my candle and prepared for the worst. However after almost two hours we found our way out with only about an inch of candle left! We laughed, a lot, about the fact we keep cheating potential bad situations. After a swim in the neon green cave river we went looking for a ride back to Coban. We found a tourism group that let us go back with them, but not without a few raised eyebrows. Wet from our swimming session and carrying our muddy sandals didn't fit in with their clean clothes and comfortable foot wear. I find most comfort in being uncomfortable.