Semuc Champey

Semuc Champey Natural Monument was declared in 1999 in the municipality of Lanquín, in Alta Verapaz, Guatemala, and protects barely 3 km². It is one of the smallest protected areas in the country and one of the most visited.

Its singularity is geological and rather rare. The Cahabón, a powerful, turbulent river, sinks underground for some three hundred metres through a natural conduit, and a bridge of limestone rock has formed above it. On top of that bridge runs a completely separate watercourse, fed by springs and seepage, which has laid down travertine forming a staircase of shallow turquoise pools linked to one another by small falls. The name, in Q'eqchi', means where the river hides under the earth.

The contrast between the violence of the Cahabón entering and leaving the bridge and the calm of the pools above is what defines the place. The setting is subtropical cloud forest, with quetzals, toucans and howler monkeys, and nearby opens the Kan'ba cave system. Tourist numbers, heavily concentrated in a minimal space, are the main conservation problem, with impacts on water quality and on the travertine formations.