Semuc Champey
Interesting facts
- Outsiders only learned of the pools in the mid-1950s, after officials from Lanquín went into the valley to help a local man injured while fishing there.
- After vanishing into El Sumidero, the Cahabón runs underground for roughly 300 metres before bursting back into daylight at a spot called El Resurgidero.
- The pools keep growing: calcium-rich spring water gives off carbon dioxide and leaves calcium carbonate on mosses, algae and bacteria along their rims.
- Most of the pools are shallow, between about one and three metres deep, and their colour shifts through the year with weather and sunlight.
- The Q'eqchi' name is usually broken down into the roots xmuq, 'to hide', cham, 'deep', and pek, 'stone'.
- A hamlet called Champey already appeared in Guatemala's census of 1892, long before the pools were known beyond the valley.
- More than 100 bird species, 34 mammals and over 120 kinds of trees have been recorded in the forest around the monument.
- The valley gets rain on roughly 180 to 200 days a year, adding up to some 2,000 to 3,000 millimetres annually.
Why it is worth it
Semuc Champey is a staircase of water hung over a vanishing river. In the forested limestone hills of Alta Verapaz, the Cahabón - a broad, brown, fast-moving river - plunges into a sinkhole known as El Sumidero and disappears underground for about 300 metres. Over its head lies a natural bridge of travertine, roughly 300 metres long, and on top of that bridge spring water from the hillsides has built a chain of stepped pools, each spilling into the next. The name comes from Q'eqchi' Maya and means, fittingly, "where the river hides under the earth".
What makes the place unforgettable is the contrast. On one side of the bridge the river roars into darkness; on the other, a few metres away, the terraced pools are completely still and coloured turquoise, jade and emerald depending on depth and light, their mineral-rich water depositing fresh calcium carbonate along the rims that hold them. Swimmers move from pool to pool down the natural steps. Downstream, the Cahabón re-emerges from beneath the bridge and the two waters meet again. The setting is a deep, steep-sided valley of jungle at an elevation of only about 380 metres, humid and green throughout the year.
The best way to understand the layout is from above. A steep trail of roughly 45 minutes climbs through the forest to El Mirador, a viewing platform from which the pools appear as a string of bright green beads laid along the valley floor, the brown river visible at either end. Semuc Champey was declared a natural monument in 2005 and covers some 17 square kilometres; it is managed by Guatemala's national protected-areas council, CONAP, together with the municipality of Lanquín.
The village of Lanquín, about 10 km away, is the base for almost every visit, and the area's other great sight - the river caves of Lanquín - makes a natural pairing with the pools.
Getting there
The nearest town of size is Panzós, about 37 km away by straight line, but in practice visitors come through Cobán, the departmental capital, and Lanquín. Minibuses run from Cobán to Lanquín in about two hours, and from Lanquín pickups and shuttles cover the last 10 km to the park entrance. The nearest international airport is La Aurora International Airport (GUA) in Guatemala City, about 120 km away in a straight line but a long day's drive by road.
On these lists
From the encyclopaedia
Semuc Champey is a natural enclave in the department of Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, it consists of a natural 300-metre karst landbridge formed by travertine limestone deposits, beneath which the main flow of the Cahabón River plunges into a subterranean cave system via a natural sinkhole. Located near the Q'eqchi' Maya town of Lanquín, the top of this limestone formation features a stepped series of natural, turquoise-green pools fed by mountain spring runoff, creating a unique freshwater ecosystem within the subtropical rainforest of the Petén-Verapaz region.
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