Tikal is the main Mayan archaeological site in Guatemala, and is about an hour's drive from Flores. A lot of people choose to visit Tikal for sunrise, in the hope of getting spectacular views as the day dawns. We chose this option which meant getting up at the ridiculous hour of about 3am (maybe even 2:30am) to do the rounds of picking everyone from up their various hostels, driving the hour or so to the park, and then walking in the dark to the best vantage point. Temple IV is the tallest structure at Tikal, standing 70m tall, so we climbed the couple of hundred steps to reach the viewing point. Unfortunately for us the weather wasn't clear enough for a spectacular sunrise, but it was still a pretty amazing view looking out over a vast expanse of jungle and other structures rising out of the tree-tops. We even spotted some toucans!
Tikal is a pretty massive site, most of which is still undiscovered (like most ruins), so you can spend hours walking around. The cool thing about Tikal (although probably not so cool for conserving it) is that you can climb up a lot of the structures to get a better view of the layout. And even though we've now been to a lot of Mayan ruins, each one is slightly different. One thing we'd never seen before, and I don't mind if I never see again, was a tarantula. Our guide knew a spot where he regularly annoyed one into emerging from it's underground hole, and lucky for us, the hairy critter was obliging. He then proceeded to let it crawl all over him, and then of course people in the group wanted to partake and try and outdo each other. Not for me, thanks. So, although sunrise wasn't a great success it was still another impressive ruin.
However, Tikal wasn't the only Mayan ruin nearby. There's another one which is the Grandaddy of lost Mayan cities in the Guatemalan jungle - El Mirador (The Lookout). It is enormous - some say it's the largest Mayan city in existence - covering about 61 square kilometers, and it's a hidden treasure, still largely unexcavated and covered by vegetation in the virgin rainforest. There are no roads or rivers that lead there, so you have two choices: hike (a six day round trip journey), or, for the obscenely rich and lazy, hire a helicopter to fly you in. Obviously, we chose the former. In actual fact, we hadn't even planned on doing the hike until the Aussie Matt's said they were trying to get a group together. We said we'd join in if they could find enough other people and sort out the guide. And so that was how we found ourselves setting off a day or two later, completely oblivious of what lay ahead.
At about 4am six of us were ready and waiting for someone to meet us and get us to where the hike started. However, we were soon to become a group of seven as Dieter, a crazy little Guatemalan guy, made the extremely last minute decision to get up and join us. Who does that at 4am? What an insane legend. After a very long, dusty and uncomfortable chicken bus ride, we finally arrived at the little village of Carmelita which is the closest access point you can reach by vehicle. It was here we were introduced to our guide and two others (our cook and the guy who looked after the pack animals), and we set off into the wildnerness.
 |
| Carmelita - the starting point of our trek |
Luckily we weren't there in the rainy season, however it did mean we were walking over very hard and uneven ground where the mud had dried and cracked into ruts that were easy to stumble over/into. It was also disgustingly hot. Thankfully our guide had been doing this trek for years, because without him we would have been screwed. It's not the kind of trek you can do independently, no matter how good you think you are. You will get lost, and you will die.
There are three main complexes in El Mirador - El Tigre, La Danta and Los Monos. They are all constructed over several levels and each has a group of three temple pyramids on top. La Danta is actually one of the biggest pyramids in the world by volume. Over the five days of our hike we visited each of these complexes and they were all quite different. We got up at 4am to get to the top of some of them by sunrise, and saw the equally spectacular views atop some at sunset. Trudging through the humid jungle at ground level, it was an amazing feeling to emerge well above the tree-tops and have a perfectly unimpeded 360 degree view of the surrounding rainforest. We could even see the tops of the other pyramids rising above the trees in the distance. A stunning sight, although it made us realise just how far we had to walk!
Each day we would arrive at camp, where our hammocks and tent would be set up and our food cooked for us. One of the benefits of having a guide and crew to do all the hard work when we were all buggered from another long day of hiking. When we started out we were all mentally prepared for 6 days of hiking and the basic sleeping conditions. However, on the fifth day we got up at 4am and were eating breakfast when our guide broke the news to us - we had run out of food. Well how the fuck did that happen? It's not like we had a free for all at mealtimes - they cooked the food and served it up, and if there was any left they gave us more. Surely they'd done this enough times to know how much food was needed? We were told that they'd contacted someone back in Carmelita who would bring a mule with more food and meet us along the way to the next camp. However, when we arrived at said camp at lunchtime, there was no food waiting for us. Apparently we still had enough supplies to have sandwiches, but not exactly enough to fill us up after 8 hours of walking already. And to make matters worse we'd seen the cook sneakily eating while she was trailing behind us on one of the horses. No food, huh? So, in the end we were left with no choice but to push on to the finish, back to Carmelita. We were already pretty tired so the final 4 or 5 hours were a real struggle to say the least. Having to walk 11 hours (about 60kms) in one day was a fucking mission. Oh, and we did eventually cross paths with our food coming to meet us. Too bloody late, but nice try. When we got back we were told, through the Spanish speaking Dutch girl who'd sorted things out, that our guide and the others felt so bad about the fuck-up that they cooked us food and were even talking about giving us some money back. They also said we could stay the night in the village and head back to Flores in the morning. But we all just wanted to get back straight away so we could have a shower and eat some good food and sleep in a proper bed. So we ended up all piling in the back of a police ute and barrelling back to town in a fraction of the time it took on the chicken bus. A rather uncomfortable, but pretty exhilarating and hair-raising way to end the journey!
No comments:
Post a Comment