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From the photos, it looks like a peaceful geological spot, where you can take a few photos and maybe have a leisurely swim in one of those amazingly blue naturally-formed pools.  Certainly, from the photos, it doesn’t look challenging.

But you don’t just go to the natural limestone bridge.  At least, I imagine you can, but more popular is to do a full day of caving, swimming, tubing, jumping off rocks, hiking up hills and then, only then, swimming in the clear blue pools.  It’s almost your reward for having survived the day.

As mentioned before, this part of the world laughs in the face of health and safety.  This is definitely a relief in some ways, but this was definitely the most dangerous thing I’ve ever deliberately done in my life, and I found myself wishing for a helmet once or twice.

Our first stop was the caves at Semuc Champey.  We stopped briefly on the way to go on a massive rope swing into a fast-flowing river, but that was practically nothing to what we were about to do.  The caves are filled with water – rivers, streams, waterfalls, pools, you name it.  And, obviously, they’re pretty dark.  Our guide started handing out candles.

“Do you not have headlamps?” I said incredulously.

“No.  Only candles,” he smiled, and went on to inform us that we would be swimming certain parts of the cave.  With our lit candles.

In we went, into the flame-lit blackness, ducking to avoid the sharp rocks and stalagmites, with absolutely no helmets, in bikinis and swim-shorts only with our flip-flops tied to our feet with string.

Within a few metres we were in above our shoulders.  I actually had a torch (which, thank heaven, proved to be waterproof), but the sight of twenty or so heads sticking out of the water in the shadowy darkness with candles held high above their heads was hilarious.

We trudged, waded and swam through varying depths, trying not to scrape arms and legs on hidden rocks, and then we came to a gushing waterfall up ahead.  I couldn’t help but notice that there was ladder, partially obscured by the flow, beside it, and a rope right through it.  Like excitable little puppies, the gap-year boys on the tour handed over their candles, eagerly grabbed the rope and started to haul themselves up the wall, against the flow of the water.  I couldn’t watch.  The only advice you were likely to get at this point would have been, “If you fall, you’re dead.  So don’t fall.”

I went up the ladder (and believe me, that was hard enough), torch in hand, along with everyone else who didn’t have a death wish.  There were quite a few ladders throughout the cave, all tied with rope to the walls, and not looking incredibly stable.

Shortly after we came to a small pool, with high, narrow walls of rock surrounding it.  I didn’t see where we could be going from there, but my question was answered when the first guy in the queue was guided up the rock – the wet, slippery wall of rock in flip-flops tied to his feet (I feel it needs repeating) – and then jumped off it straight into the pool.  It was one of those moments where it looked a lot like he might slam into the wall, but he came up grinning.  Being quite close to the front of the queue, I was completely peer-pressured into that jump – and it was indeed amazing.

After that, we headed back out the way we came – with a brief short-cut.  The water was gushing down a tiny hole in the wall, and the guide cheerfully beckoned us down towards it.  I leaned in doubtfully and saw what looked like a tiny tunnel filled with white water.

“I am NOT going down there!” I exclaimed.

“What’s down there?” someone further back in the queue asked.

“It’s a hole of craziness and death!”

“Craziness and death?”

“It really is!  And I don’t need craziness and death in my life!”

“It’s okay.  You can go up the ladder,” the guide said, pointing to the other route.

So, instead, I went up and down ladders, followed by most people who had apparently been concerned at my assessment of the short-cut.  But this is how small the tunnel was: when an overweight but not obese guy declared that he wanted to go down there, the guide looked at him doubtfully and said, “Okay, I’ll give you a push.”

After we emerged from the cave, we went to an outside pool, which led to some very hectic rapids, the steep, tall hill by the side of which you could climb up and leap off.  It was really high, and there was a rope strung across the water that you could grab onto to stop yourself being pulled by the current into the rapids to certain death.  A contingency plan, such as what would happen if you missed the rope, wasn’t mentioned.

And from there we grabbed rubber tubes and pushed ourselves into the rapids at the end of the rocks, and zoomed down the river into more placid waters, where we floated.  And it was only after this point that we headed up to Semuc Champey bridge itself.  But the fun was not over.

There is a viewpoint.  Up a mountain.  Everyone knows you have to go to a viewpoint – you wouldn’t have that amazing photo at the beginning otherwise.  But it was almost vertical in points, swimming with mud, and we grabbed onto tree roots and rocks and anything we could find to stop ourselves sliding all the way back down the bottom.  We got filthy.  But it was definitely worth the view, and worth the feeling of getting straight into those beautiful pools when we had carefully picked our way down to the bottom.

Sound like a nice peaceful day to you?  No surprise: it wasn’t.  But nonetheless it was the most amazing day I’ve had so far, and I’d recommend it to anyone with a love of adventure.