Coban to Semuc Champey or “The Accident”

Leaving Coban was a pretty now-normal affair:  get up a little too late, feed and pee/poo Ted, wrangle Nina into some real clothes, deal with a meltdown before a hotel breakfast, pack the car whilst YouTube Kids entertains the young one, hit the road before noon, navigate out of the city trying not to run anyone over (or get hit by large trucks and buses), stop for gas, backtrack 5 min because we forgot to stop at an ATM (we were told that there are no banks in Lanquín), then finally get on the open road.

After that it was a typical Guatemalan drive. Potholes initiated the standard process of zig-zagging along the road, dodging oncoming traffic. We stopped for a semi-cold coke, and continued on a beautiful drive, occasionally following a van/taxi as a pace car for avoiding bumps, and often wishing we could stop for pictures in places that weren’t really safe places to stop.

When we hit the dirt road, it was surprisingly well-graded and smooth. So much so that we missed the lightly marked hairpin turnoff and kept along our merry way passing the construction workers stares, who were building this amazingly smooth new road. We also missed the “redirecting” message from our Waze app which had then decided we needed to make our U-turn at the next town 20 minutes down the road and gave us a false sense of security that we were following the designated route.

It was another stretch of nice road, and an interesting drive down through a tiny village (more stares) before our “doh!” moment, and we were on our way back up the mountain.  Finding our turnoff far more easy from the other direction, and we entered a much a more rugged, although well traveled, road towards Lanquín.  Generally we let the buses and other local pickups pass us so we can take our time, once we even got a smile and thumbs up by another friendly gringo who passed us in a 4Runner.

I was feeling pressed to keep the pace up to make up for our navigational mishap.  Despite recent rain, the road had been fairly dry and easy going so we hadn’t decided it was time yet to push the “all time 4×4” button.  Relying on the computer and the confidence from smooth dirt and lots of commuter traffic, I found myself driving a truck that was going forward but also going sideways a little bit.  The slope of the road was all wrong, and it was just extra bad luck that there was a decent-sized boulder hiding in the weeds just as the passenger side wheels slipped off the road for a little taste of off-piste.

We bucked like it was a rodeo. A bump-BANG-thump, and a few nasty words later, we’d stopped to the noise of some scrapping on our wheel.  Call it good luck or bad, the rock had knocked us back onto the road just ahead of some huge stacks of logs.  I had (only?) smashed our side runner and some of the body. The back of the runner was touching our tire. It seemed we still had air and suspension, no obvious liquids pouring out of the bottom of the truck, and both passenger side doors still functioned. The next question was: how to get mobile again?

These are the non-glamorous times on an adventure, that really test your spirit.  My confidence was low.  Jen thought I’d drifted off the road because I wasn’t paying attention, and was furious at me.  Then we managed to swallow hard and get into team mode.  Jen got Nina the iPad, stat!  Jen inspected damage while I got into some mud shoes and moved bags out from the bed to on top of the car, in order to dig out the tools.

My initial goal was to remove the side runner, but after unscrewing the first bolt and finding half of the rest smashed in the accident, I thought I had a long job with a hacksaw in front of me.  Jen had tried to bounce on the side rail initially to no avail, but with one bolt gone and a second try with our combined 300lbs, a few minutes later we had created an inch of clearance!  It’s good thing our rear suspension moves up/down and out, not forward.

We hit the road again with a renewed sense of humility and caution, Jen driving as my nerves were shot.  Jen later shared with me that in a wave of optimism, she had thought that in the big picture it was all for the best. The rest of the traverse found us in spots where there was little or no room for error and it was good that we were extra cautious.  From Lanquín up to our hostel at Semuc Champey was a steep, narrow, rutty, muddy climb with steep drop-offs.  It culminated in driving across a metal bridge with unmaintained wooden cross sections.

While it was, at best, a little awkward to have small children hitching rides and hanging on the side of our truck as we drove up the last section of canyon, they turned out to have great tips about crossing the bridge (only on the right side regardless of the unfastened planks) as the what-would-seem-more-safe center path actually had giant wheel sized holes that would leave a vehicle stuck several meters over a rushing river.

Needless to say it was quite a rush. I had hopped out to scout the route, and after almost getting run over by Jen (she wasn’t spending one second more than necessary on that bridge) we were on solid ground climbing up the road to park in front of Greengo’s Hostel with daylight to spare.