Trek to El Mirador
So, why? Why spend about a week in the jungle? Well there are four ancient Maya cities that few folks ever visit. No roads lead there. Your choice is to walk, to ride an animal (mule of horse), or to fly via helicopter. I am no equestrian, and our experience in Namibia leads me to avoid the flying (because it avoids the journey). Hiking, that's a mode we're familiar with.
The cities are Maya Pre-Classic. Archaeologists called it Pre-Classic because they though it was just a lame warmup to the prime time Classic Maya (like Tikal or Copan). Turns out, the Pre-Classic cities were as large and advanced as the Classic. They've recently discovered this because the cities are hidden in the jungle where no one lives.
Because of the newness of these discoveries, information devilishly difficult to come by. I've got a Resources page with some of the stuff I found, for those of you looking.
We booked the trip with Henry Sanchez of Onca Travel, a travel agency in Flores. I had hoped that Henry would be leading the trip, but not. And the guide we did get did not speak English. Hilarity ensued, or not.
The hiking was about 70 miles, per my handy GPS. That's just straight trails form camp to camp. Random wandering and exploring added another 20 miles.
So what follows is a day-by-day narrative, mainly pulled from my notes. Enjoy.
Here's a map showing our trek to El Mirador and the other Maya cities we visited. The red markers are the day's destination and the blue line is the GPS track showing everywhere we went. You'll need to have JavaScript enabled for this to work, but otherwise it should work like Google Maps. Zoom in, change the underlying map, have fun with it.
