we had a mule and a horse to carry our things, food , water etc., but only our feet to carry ourselves. there were 5 of us. our guide, who mike and i met on a bus to tikal , and two others. Rony, had been to el mirador once, to excavate, but never as una guia. this would be his first, which we discovered when we asked him about el mirador. after we asked him if he would take us, he said sure. and he did so, for less than a third of the price of any other organized tour. If booked from a tour agency in Flores, the price could be between $200-500 USD. We paid less than 500 quetzales each. the other two that made up our group, a canadian and his guide, we met on the bus to carmelita. they ended up being a savior , because we were drastically ill prepared, and thankfully they had ample extra food. carmelita is the town all who visit el mirador depart from. when i say town, i mean a little village three hours away from civilazation down a gravel road. it was essentially just a field, where pigs, horses, dogs and chickens roamed, a comedor and a tienda, and a health center that never was open. it took us two days to reach el mirador. the 7 hour walk to tintal, which took us 5 is considered a half way point. we spent the night there, and made it to el mirdador in about 6 hours the next day. after spending two nights and a full day exploring the ruins of el mirador, we decided to make the hike back to carmelita in one day. we woke up at 5am and started hiking through the jungle in the morning darkness. we made it to tintal by noon, had lunch, i.e. tuna and ramen, and hit the road again. the second half felt like forever, and we certainly did not have the energy to keep us moving at the same pace we made during the first half. the last 15 miles were arduous. my legs almost gave up on me. the crowd left me behind. they left mike behind shortly after. but we both made it, completing a 70 km hike in one day, i know i had never done. this is no walk in the park either, no sidewalks or grassy paths, but pure jungle. alot of the walk is through what would be swamp in the rainy season. instead its this clay like mud that almost eats your shoes at every step. spider monkeys jangle from the trees, and the canadian actually got shit on by one of them. lets consider it good luck.
el mirador is a vast complex of unexplored tombs and temples. the ancient mayan city was first abandoned in 300 AD, for mysterious reasons. only 5% of its structures have been discovered and excavated. even those remain buried beneath the jungle for the most part. that means that the huge pyramids that el mirador holds, appear to just be large mountains randomly pertruding out of the jungle floor. this could not be more of an illusion. underneath the flora and fauna are plazas, pyramids and giant acopolis´ of grandiosity. the largest and most extrordeinary is la danta. this is the biggest known still standing pyramid in the world, by volume that is. it can literally hold 17 soccer fields withiin it. it stands over 200 ft tall, and its base is a whopping 900 by 1800ft. o yea, did i mention we slept on this bad boy. we literally camped on top of this pyramid to sleep. the view; incredible, the sky; mega clear and the sounds; exclusively jungle like. because we were so high up, the bugs were kept at a minimal. the wind was pretty brutal as well, and almost blew our tent away at one point. we saw several shooting stars by the way, which i dont think i have ever seen one in my life. appearantly they happen quite often, although you rarely see them because the sky is so tainted by pollution. not the case when you are 60km into the jungle. Chris did a good job capturing the trip so let me add some details. The view from La Danta, the largest pyramid known and the place where we slept, was an incredible 360 degree panoramic view. Our Guide pointed out Tintal to us which was just a little spec in the distance, and we could see several other smaller pyramids still under the jungle. The bugs were not a problem, and in fact I've been bitten by more bugs staying in hotels than in the jungle. We had a great time while we were out there and the walk back was indeed arduous. We decided to make it back in one day because we wanted to catch the one and only bus out of carmelita which leaves at 5am. If we had not made it in one day then we would have had to camp an extra night. And the bus ride was a journey in and of itself, of a barrelling dirt road that would constantly throw you around. When we finally made it to Carmelita, the little images of beer and sodas and all things sweet became reality as we slumped ourselves into the tienda and bought all of our hearts desires. We also ran into the Germans which we had met in San Pedro {and I'm not sure if we had mentioned them before} but they are pretty awesome and they had said they were going to mirador at the same time, so we saw them coming out when we were going in. They came back later for a second trip to go hunting in the jungle and we drank some beers with them in carmelita. Chris got very cranky on the walk back which made it easier to pass him. We also never talked about Tikal I don't think. We camped at Tikal and snuck in with some insight for our soon-to-be guide Rony, and sneaking into Tikal is actually extremely easy. So easy that we sacked our plan to wake up very early to watch the sunrise from Temple IV and just strolled in at about 8am. But then we got busted this second time, so after some theatrics we went back to camp and decided we'd have to justpay for the ticket anyways, which is alot at 150 quetzales. Tikal was very impressive however, and Mirador may be like that in the future once they get all of the ruins our from under the jungle. But for now Mirador is a path tread lightly by tourists, still buried deep inside the jungle.
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