The Water Caves at Semuc Champey: Firelight Madness

Swimming through a pitch-black cave in Guatemala, with the only light being from candlelight (that I had to hold in my mouth!) to an underground cliff-jumping spot is the most unhinged memory I have from traveling through Guatemala. If you’re thinking about taking a caves add-on tour when visiting Semuc Champey, my advice is to just do it.

How We Booked Our Tour

We scheduled our Semuc Champey & Grutas tour through the hostel we were staying at, Zephyr Lodge, it’s the most famous in the area (for a good reason). The hostel sits fairytale-like on top of a mountain with sweeping views of the Guatemalan countryside.

Our all-day Semuc Champey + Water cave cost 175 Q ($23) and we also had the option to add a bagged lunch for 30 Q, ($4) or get BBQ at the park for 50 Q ($6.50). The tour started at 9:00 AM and we were taken to our “shuttle” (which is, like the night before, standing up in the back of a pickup truck) for the 40-minute drive to Semuc Champey park.

Starting the Day

Around 10 AM we arrived at the entrance to the caves – there’s a little kiosk where for 30 Q ($4) you can rent water shoes. I would strongly recommend you bring your own though since you need water shoes for the caves. I actually don’t think you can enter without shoes for safety reasons, but the rental shoes they offered were downright goofy.

A guy behind the kiosk renting shoes ducked behind the counter and just started throwing shoe after shoe over his shoulder onto a pile on the floor below, none of them matched, and about half of them weren’t broken. People were huddling looking for a matching pair of shoes and the guy was just chucking more and more of them out from behind the counter. I have no idea how this method is more energy/time saving than just bringing out the bin, but getting pummeled by flying crocs was just one of many unhinged moments awaiting us at the caves that morning.

Entering the Caves

I didn’t really know what to expect from the caves, in everything I read about Semuc Champey they were mentioned a bit as an afterthought. I have no idea how anyone could consider this tour anything besides the main attraction. Over the next two hours, we would be covered in mud, climbing ladders, scaling underground waterfalls, all while keeping a lit candle overhead. INSANE.

The first thing that happened was our guide, who spoke English well but didn’t announce what he was going to do, grabbed a stalactite hanging from the ceiling and used (whatever substance was on the stalactite) to draw little symbols on the person ahead of me. We were all getting war-painted!

I think the idea of this is to emulate an “ancient Mayan ritual”, but our guide also said the caves we were currently exploring were only excavated 25 years ago, so I’m not sure how authentic of a ritual it could have been. Our guide also gave himself a smiley face as his warpaint, so I think it’s safe to say the warpaint was just for fun.

Renaissance painting or sketchy cave tour?

Next, everyone was given a lit candle. It would be a lot easier to give everyone a flashlight in 2022 for cave exploring, but Like the “warpaint” I think the candle is supposed to add an ancient mythic ambiance to the whole thing. I never read a source saying the Ancient Mayans wandered around candle-lit caves covered in mud and smiley faces, but anything is possible 🤷‍♀️.

We were still in the dry area of the caves, covered in mud and ready to start exploring when the cave floor immediately gave way to a deep pool. I was first, and the water went over my head so I was a little hesitant about how to keep the candle lit but the guide said if it went out (and it did, over and over again throughout the 2 hours in the cave) we could just relight it.

Wild Swimming in the Cave Water

We swam on for a while in a single file line of flickering candles through the pitch-black cave, and then things started getting interesting. Our guides started climbing up a hastily-looking rigged metal ladder which led to a chamber with an even deeper pool of water. The cave is mapped out like a long corridor, my guide said that he’s been 12 Kilometers deep into the system before (!!!!) but that only the locals can do that sort of thing. For safety reasons, tourists are only taken a few hundred meters into the cave system on formal tours.

I don’t know why I love caves so much. Maybe it was because I grew up reading The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, or maybe it’s a distinct memory of hearing the word “spelunking” for the first time and thinking that sounded really fun – but I just love caves!

I wish I was able to get the next two parts on photo, but due to the dark lighting in the cave not a lot of my pictures came out. After walking and swimming for about 15-20 minutes we came upon an underground waterfall (yes, really, it was amazing) that had a ladder going up through the waterfall we had to climb.

After scrambling up the ladder and swimming another 20 meters deep into the cave system we reached the end of the line – here the pool suddenly reached 10 meters depth in one specific spot, and you could climb up onto the rocks for a 10 ft cliff-jump if you wanted to. Keep in mind, this is all in almost pitch-darkness because we only had candlelight to work with. The only people who jumped out of our group were two guys (and me, of course – I’ll never pass up a cliff jump), but unfortunately, I don’t have any photos of how amazing this was because it was too dark to take a picture.

Natural Waterslide

After we jumped we had to turn back and there was a little surprise natural waterslide you could slide down for a few feet – honestly, this tour was shockingly fun. Just when I thought we were out of fun little things to do there would be a waterfall out of nowhere, or a waterslide, It might have been the most fun I’ve ever had!

I thought the way back was going to be just more of the same but I guess somewhere along the line we took a turn, and we all had to queue up to be single-file pushed through a teeny tiny hole in the cave system. So, if you’re claustrophobic, this might not be the tour for you. The guide kinda bear-hugged us from behind and pushed us through a tiny hole that gave way to a 3-foot drop into a deep pool. Of course, everyone’s candles were going out non-stop during this, and the guides would BITE off the wet wick of an extinguished candle to relight it.

In the end, our guide grabbed everyone’s candles and laid them out in a little heart-shaped shrine, and then instructed everyone to leave the candles lit. It was a little culty and goofy and just one of the many unhinged moments from the cave tour.

FITNESS

It wasn’t difficult, but because of a few parts like the ladder climb being a bit technical (and there are no ropes or harnesses), I wouldn’t recommend this tour to anyone who isn’t confident in their mobility.

WHAT TO BRING

WATER SHOES: Seriously! I read that there were water-shoes rentals available at Semuc Champey but they were all old and broken, with almost no matching pairs, and they were only available for the cave portion – meaning I was falling and slipping all over the place when we were in the Semuc Champey pools. There were some kids selling water shoes by the entrance, but there’s no guarantee they would have whatever your size is. I would recommend hiking sandals like Tevas or Chacos because they’re both water-shoes and also suitable for the half-hour hike to the Mirador (viewpoint) at Semuc Champey.
Waterproof Camera + Light: While my iPhone is “technically” waterproof I wouldn’t risk it in the caves because you’re fully submerged a lot of the time. I brought my GoPro to take photos and while that worked, I was kicking myself that I didn’t bring my GoPro light to go with it – most of my photos came out dark and unusable because it’s really very dark in the caves, with only candlelight.
Your Own Padlock: There are only group lockers at Semuc Champey Wet Caves, meaning your whole group will put their things in one large locker. There are a few reports of things going missing from these lockers, so I locked up my own bag with a travel lock before putting it into the shared locker since it had my camera in it.
Bathing Suit
Sunscreen
Bug Spray
Cash

WHAT NOT TO BRING

A Headlamp: The candles are half the fun! One guy in the next group after us brought a proper headlamp and it killed the mood.
Heavy clothes: It was kinda cold in Antigua and at Lake Atitlan but it was hot and muggy in Lanquín. I wore a linen shirt over my bikini and was still feeling the heat.
A Packed Lunch: The BBQ lunch being sold at the caves was great! There were also ladies hawking beer, coconuts with straws for drinking, and fresh fruit on the hike to the Semuc Champey pools.