Majestic Cloud Forests of Coban

Our biggest highlight of the trip was seeing a Quetzal bird -- and not a fleeting glance either! The Museo El Principe Maya in Coban is one of the best small museums I've visted. Spending a day in the Lanquin area seeing the caves and Semuc Champey was awe-inspiring. Visiting the local fincas where they raise blueberries, coffee, and orchids! Driving to Rabinal for their January Festival to see the traditional Mayan dancing and their highly regarded ceramics.

Quick Tips:

Coban is centrally located so that you can see everything in both Baja and Alta Vera Paz from this city. There are many beautiful places to stop and enjoy the majestic beauty of this bio-diverse area. Don't rush!

Best Way To Get Around:

We had our own transportation on this trip, which I highly recommend for this area. The local tour agencies have vans tours, but they just don't allow enough time to enjoy the place you are visiting.

Rooms with double beds (not foam pads) and private bath for 100q a night per person. Great hot water showers, beautiful garden court yard, close walk to restaurants and local sites.

Bob is a fabulous host and a incredible cook. Homemade spaghetti (yes - the pasta was homemade!) and the best salad I've EVER had. Avocado, tomatoes, fresh organic everything. Two very nice bungalows with hotwater, kitchenette, double bed, and views! Price includes all meals. A really great place to spend a couple of relaxing, pampered days.

Parking is about 400m from his place, so you do have to walk in with your luggage, but it is well worth it.

Best way to get a hold of Bob and get good directions to his bed and breakfast is via e-mail - go to his site here.

I would never normally write about a McDonald's. And I wasn't really happy to see one in Coban just because I travel to experience the culture and people of where I am. However, we were on the road to get to Candalaria Caves and back to El Remate, Peten, and wanted a quick meal. It tastes just like McDonald's everywhere EXCEPT the coffee was really, really good! Go figure - we were in the coffee capitol of Guatemala.

Absolutely the best dinner meal and coffee on our entire fiveday trip. The BEST coffee in the region. Beautiful location, great service, fabulous food, and all for 21q (including dessert) for two people!

The Quetzal bird is one of the most elusive birds in nature to see. My husband and I have been traveling to Guatemala for six years and wanted to see a Quetzal. Our friends who live in Guatemala had never seen a Quetzal either, even though they had visited the Biotopo Quetzal.

Upon the recommendation of another friend who lives in Coban, we left early in the morning and drove to Hospedaje Ranchito del Quetzal for breakfast. This small hotel and comedor is about 1k from the entrance to the Biotopo Quetzal. It took us maybe an hour to drive from Coban to this location. A beautiful drive, even in the chipi-chipi weather for which this region is known.

We drove into the hotel, parked our car, four people stepped out and looked up into the aquacatillo tree and saw a Resplendid Quetzal starring at us! He then flew down a couple of limbs on his tree where we were able to get a picture! Four people stood in complete awe at the site of this beautiful bird gracing us with his spirit. After a few more minutes he flew off out of site.

We then asked for a tour of the rooms, which are budget class, instant electric hot water, private bath, foam pad beds, musty smelling in the rooms (all the rain). However, the garden area is beautiful!

This small hotel has a restuarant and we ate an excellent typical breakfast of eggs, beans, tortillas, coffee con leche - total cost for four people including tip was 80q.

While we were waiting for a breakfast to be cooked, we continued to enjoy the beautiful surrounds and another visit from the Resplendid Quetzal! In total time we spent at Ranchito del Quetzal the Quetzal bird blessed us four times in visiting with us.

We got a picture - most likely you have have to enlarge it to see the Quetzal - look to the top middle of the picture where the Quetzal is sitting on a branch.

Our friends with whom my husband and I were traveling, had originally visited the Alta Vera Paz region in the early 1990s. In those days, they were looking for new areas to take tourists. That particular trip was an incredible adventure because they did it in a two-wheel-drive car that had numerous mechanical problems and had to be pushed up every hill/mountain from the Flores, Guatemala to Coban, and back.

It was the first time they had been back to Coban since that time. On their first visit to the Caves on Lanquin, they camped in the camping area that has now been formalized by the river. However, on that particular evening, they did have a peaceful night's rest, as the then military government made a sweep of the area in advance of a visit by the then military dictator/president. On that night so many years ago, they listened to the sounds of machine gun fire from inside the caves and prayed and hid from the military. Now, over 10 years later, they were returning with us to these sites . . . in a time of peace and better roads.

The road from Coban to Lanquin is mostly a one-lane dirt road with pull-outs. The road is currently in the process of being improved to a paved two-lane road. The government is up for election and road improvements are a way for them to lobby for the votes of the local Achi Maya. It took us 3 hours to get to Lanquin Caves from Coban with stops for construction. It took a total of 4 hours to get to Semuc Champey (including our stop for breakfast) on the way in. It only took us 2.5 hours from Semuc Champey back to Coban (no construction stops on the road).

Lanquin Caves are large, with a beautiful river running into its mouth. The caves are slippery--I would recommend wearing water socks if you plan on going any further than the main room. It is lighted inside.

Our next stop was Semuc Champey. Coban is at an elevation of about 4,500 feet--to get to Semuc Champey, you drive through the mountains and down, and down, and down, and down, and down some more. The mountains are like looking at sleeping dragons and where the road construction was exposing the rock--it looked like the toes of a dragon. Along the sides of the road and up the steep sides of the mountains were field after field of maize, coffee, and cardamon.

Semuc Champey is the place where our friend's car could not get back up the hill those long 11-12 years ago and they were stranded there for 4 days before a truck offered to tow them up and out to the village of Lanquin. On this trip we had their newer 4-wheel-drive Mitsubishi truck and had no problems, as much of the road is now paved. If you don't have your own vehicle, hitching a ride works. We loaded the back of the truck with four backpackers on our way out back to Lanquin.

This natural wonder is where the Rio Cahabon runs into a cave underground, but creates a tremendous amount of back pressure to create a beautiful turquoise series of pools above. If you're looking for a romantic place to have a picnic and swim in fabulous water, this is it.

Remember to wear either rafting sandals or water socks! To get to the pools, you must cross a lot of slippery rock - rafting sandals or water socks will give you gripping power!

Actually, I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

The city of Coban in nestled in the cloud forests of Alta Vera Paz. It is a region known for its coffee plantations and beautiful orchids. Much of the lush beauty of this place is due to its rainfall. Being from Portland, Oregon, we are used to rainfall, here in Oregon we have eight months of rain a year, so traveling to Coban was no problem for us web-footed Oregonians. Where there is coffee, you can do anything. Although we did learn a new word for rain (a novelty for people who can describe rain in about a 100 different ways) - Chipi-Chipi is what the locals call the light rain, drizzle, driving mist that isn't wet enough or cold enough to make you stay inside.

Coban has a large market area that bustles with activity and lots of incense and candle merchants.

We took time to go to the Museo El Principe Maya. The small museum is extremely well presented, labeled, and maintained. The artifacts are mostly from the local region and especially from Cancuen, a site that is currently being worked by Arthur Demerest. This museum features a beautiful collection of Mayan portrait figurines and carved jade figures. The cost of entry is 10q (about $1.25US). It is located at 6a Avenida 4-26, Zona 3 in Coban. The staff is extremely knowledgeable and it is well worth the cost of a guided tour of the museum.

After our museum trip we walked to the church of El Calvario. This church is located at the top of a hill with fabulous views looking over Coban. The church is known for its series of Mayan shrines as you go up the steps to the church. Each of the shrines is decorated differently. All have the many different colored candles. Some have flowers, copal, feathers, and other items meant as offerings.

Vivero Verapaz is an orchid nursery located in Coban. We were treated to a personal tour by the owner through her propagation area and many of the greenhouses filled with orchids.

My husband is a landscape architect, myself and our friends are all avid gardeners, and we love orchids. There are so many different species and specimens in this collection that it boggles one's mind. The Monja Blanca is the native orchid of the region.

The farm is on the old road to Guatemala city going out by leaving the plaza at Diagonal 4. The easiest way to get there is to take any taxi.

This is a very inexpensive tour and well worth the time. See the pictures - they say more than I can.