El Mirador

For 3 days I waited in Flores Guatemala to begin the Jungle trek. It is a hike I was told about several times over the last 3 months and was looking forward to immensely. I had heard it is the hardest hike in Guatemala and you walk through knee deep mud. At first I was disappointed when I heard the trail would be dry for us, but after seeing the large seas of dry mud, and guessing optimistically at their depth, I am very happy that we went in the dry season, although it proved to not be completely dry!

I met up through the tour company with 4 other people and we were off. The trip started with a ride to the town of Carmelita, where we met up with our guides and horses...all our gear went on the backs of 4 horses and a mule, we just had to carry water and cameras! Most of the trek was over dry mud and it was apparent that it would be atleast knee deep in the rain, but now was dry and solid, just somewhat bumpy, a minuture version of the moon with cow foot meteors having impacted the surface the last time it was wet.
The hike was super hot, but there were patches of shade. Our two guides were Carmelito who stayed with us, and Angel, the g is pronounced like an h, who was with the horses, usually ahead so camp was set up by the time we arrived. The first day we hiked 5 hours to some ruins called Tintal, and camp was set up for us. We went to climb one of the pyramids there and it was the most breathtaking experience of the whole trip. We followed a trail to the foot of a mountain, but there were stairs going up... It was steep enough that there was a rope with the stairs making one into a self propelled elevator.... As it was pretty steep you couldn't see what you were coming to until you were there.... A 360 view of the entire jungle!! I had no idea it would be such a view as the pyramid/temple was covered in trees, but hoo boy! And the sounds, and sights, you could see another pyramid in the distance... pictured below, and there were monkeys swinging in nearby trees! Here is also a pic of the sky in the other direction...


This is what a meal looked like, our guides treating us like royalty....although I became permanenetly known as el vegetariano, our chefs catored to me extremely well, and we even had some fried plantaines on a few occasions! Their specialty was trotillas though and with more dedication and willpower than the worlds greatest mailman they delivered hot tortillas 'weather' drizle, rain or jungle downpour! The next day was our seven hour hike and we made it to El Mirador and scurried up a pyramid known as El Tigre... El Mirador was the first large city on this side of the world, it is the location of the first highways, which can still be seen from space and the worlds largest pyramid! It is surrounded and mostly covered by beautiful trees of all kinds, which are crawling with life...from hanging plants like orchids to swinging monkeys and butterflies, to Jaguars, ants, tics and tics again! The causeways, one of which we walked on for 7 hours from Tintan to the main sight are 20 meters wide, 4-8 meters off the ground and covered in trees, but while your walking on them a lot of the time you can see the slope down to ground level if you look for it! The city itself was the first center of the Mayan world (most probably) and was bursting at the seams with about 80000 people around 300 BC. Many of the temples are aligned with the stars and phases of the year.
Here's a view form another pyramid, and what getting there looked like. It was hard to capture these buildings in a photo as it looks like a pile in the jungle, only when you climb it does it look like a building of sorts....


Here's a local...The paths between all the ruins were all clear and wide, much nicer than any path we had seen on our entire journey ( on the road to Carmelita we crossed a bridge with a sign saying 'caution dangerous bridge' and it was!)...this is because for 3 months (starting 2 weeks after we left) 300 archaeologists and support staff would be there.... they had a decent camp set up too. A not so big coincidence occurred when on our last day the head archaeologist arrived with a bunch of people form the world heritage fund as well as some other investors...he was giving the big wigs the grand tour and we got to tag along! One girl in our group had an incling that this might happen and timed her trip to coincide...this is also the reason we were there for a week, most trips are only 5 days, 4 in and out and 1 at the site, it was great to have 3 there and just have all the time in the world to explore.... So we got a tour from a man who has been working there for 30 years, and learned alot about how much effort (not only physical and mental but also in raising funds) is required for a project of this magnitude...the place is barely uncovered, but in 10 years it will be a major tourist attraction, what is stopping it now is that you either need to fly in by helicopter or do a 2 day very hot hike....



This is the group of folks who came, before we were all caught in a torrential downpour! We saw it coming from on top of the largest pyramid in the world...and it came in fast, we were done and on our way back when it hit and it was juicy! (someone in this group got peed on by a monkey...can you guess who??)

Here is a close up of the picture next to the people, it has been re plastered to keep it intact, but this layer can be peeled of easily to expose the original when an adequate solution (that is a pun in this case) will be discovered to preserve it better.

This is looking down from the top of a pyramid, where it stops is another level then it goes down again 2 more times...
Showering in the jungle was quite a trip... You would walk down to the beehive by the lake and then do a boogie dance with the bucket. First job was to get the bucket away from the bees/wasps in order to fill it up in the pond. Step 2 was walking on the sketchy dock thing and filling the big bucket with water, then of course making it back to land safely. The problem with land was the wasp bee things...they stung and would not leave you alone...and the water is brown! So you would dip a smaller pail into your bucket but as you poured it on your head you would have to run aways from the wasps, wasting water faster than a cattle farmer! On both ocasions that I washed there I was chased naked my a bunch of swarming stinging insects.... But the water was cool and refreshing!
Here is our last supper in the jungle... no one was killed and reborn a few days later, but the whole trip was taking a huge step back in history. The moment really clicked for me when we slept on one of the pyramids.... spending lots of time up there, getting a view that only a few privileged mayans ever got was nuts. Of course in their time the Mayan chiefs would have seen something entirely different, instead of jungle it would have been several square kms of planned out city! I am sure that if you were a good kid and did all your homework and had a good piercing through your unmentionables you would be allowed to climb the pyramid, but thats just romantic dreaming....probably very few folks got to go up there in the times it was active, and they were all the rulers.... Today its anybodies temple...if you are willing to risk the tics and rain!


Followinf the last dinner and some sleep there was the last sunrise ontop of a pyramid...We were back at Tintal on the way home and a few of us got to see this great sunrise!On the way in and out there were many things looking like this...any ideas what it could be??


Does Indiana Jones or Lara Croft make a good hint??
Its from Treasure Hunters and tomb raiders! They just dug into the side of ruins looking for treasure! No one knows what may or may not have been found!
Here is our other guide Angel with out trusty steeds...
So that was El Mirador.... Although I half-assed tried to get in a bit of the description I can't even begin to convey the wonder with spoken words let alone written ones where no emphasis or hand gestures are really perceived. To be able to lie on the floor of the jungle in an ancient city and watch a family of monkeys or climb the equivalent of the empire state building 2000 years from now when New York may be covered in trees and look out over the sights and sounds of nature returned, is something that is not only gulped up by eyes ears nose mouth and skin but digesting all this information firsthand gives you goose bumps on the inside. Yummy insightful and inspiring gooselike prickles and tickles....

(if you have been perceptive enough you may have realized that I have finally found a Tom Robbins' book to jiggle my brain with....)