Between Cuevas De Candelaria, where we spent our last night, and Semuc Champey, it is only 101 km/ 63 miles, but gravel mountain road is bumpy and extremely slow. It took us 4.5 hours to reach Lanquin and another hour to Semuc. Turtle's pace was caused not only by the road in bad condition, but also by the altitude difference. From 240 m/ 787 ft above sea level, we climbed 1150 m/ 3772 ft and back to 360m/ 1181 ft.

At one point, the car music stopped. OPC rebooted. It was a shock like a lightning strike. Man, what's going on. I immediately knew it was a serious electrical problem, possibly a short circuit. In the long run, this can even cause a fire. I stopped in the village, opened the hood, and quickly searched for the cause. Regardless of the electrical problem, I noticed that every component I touched was very hot. I am not talking about the engine, which has to be hot, but I am talking about the car batteries, cables, connections etc. When driving slowly the engine compartment becomes excessively hot. There is no proper cooling there. I decided to address this issue in the future.

Eventually I thought I found a problem. Damaged inline fuse holder, that could possibly make a short circuit with an auxiliary battery. I disconnected it and we were back on the road. Unfortunately, this was not the only problem. We noticed that the halogen lights are not working well. In the morning, I started to search for the reason. I found two things, the wire connector was touching the bumper, causing an obvious short circuit, but the fuse did not blown, it just melts. I had to disconnect halogen lights. I was hoping there would be no more issues. We paid the price for a long journey on a very rough road. There was no doubt improvements were needed to prevent such problems from happening again.

Finally, we were able to go and see Semuc Champey, a unique natural wonder. Turquoise natural limestone pools that lie above the Cahabón River. Yes, the fast current of the river hidden is under stepped pools and connecting them small waterfalls. It is also worth taking a short walk to "El Mirador". The view from the lookout is one of a kind.

After visiting Semuc, we had an hour's drive to Lanquin, the largest city in the region. Adam, Polish backpacker whom we met for the third time in the last few days, recommended Retiro Hostel to us. We had met Adam twice before in Belize, and today we ran into each other by accident again. The hostel had an Italian dinner tonight. After lots of pasta and wine with Adam, we retired on the top floor of our Balios.

The following day we drove more gravel bumpy roads in the mountains. Our destination was Rio Dulce on Lake Izabal. The dirt road ended in El Estor. We noticed dozens of car wash places in this village. It was a sign that the asphalt road began for good. Therefore, we decided to wash our Jeep from mountain dirt.