Week 8 Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador

Tuesday. 6:00am. Today we travelled on another Collective to Rio Dulce (7 hours). The driver dropped us off at the main port area and we were collected by Gary from the Kangaroo hostel (free).  We had not made a reservation so we were pleased to find out that there was a cabin available for 220Q per night.

Photos to be added - camera not working

The hostel was the nicest hostel we have stayed in so far and to top it off, there was a jacuzzi!!!!  Gary (Aussie who built and owned the hostel for 7 years) was great and was really knowledgeable about central America. He gave us great tips and convinced us to go to Copan in Honduras on our way to El Salvador.  The hostel had free kayaks for the guests so we grabbed one and headed out to  El Castillo De San Felipe for a little wonder before it got too dark.  We made sure we got back in time for a beer in the jacuzzi!

Photos to be added - camera not working

Wednesday. It was Roland's turn to look after me. I was sick all day from a 24 hour tummy bug. Not fun! I didn't do anything all day except lie in the bed and drink lots of water.

Thursday. Another tip from Gary. We headed out at 8:30am to catch a Collective (15Q each) to Finca El Paraiso. We were joined by Gunter from Switzerland. Entry fee was 10Q. This place was great! A hot waterfall which flowed into a cold river. It was lovely to relax here. I even jumped from the top of the waterfall ... didn't really like it!  Won't be doing it again!  Too scary! After we were guided to the source of the hot water, we covered ourselves in mud and sat in the hot spring, before heading back to the waterfall.

Photos to be added - camera not working

Afterwards we caught another Collective to El Boqueron where we travelled down the river to see the canyon. Beautiful! Gunter described it as a scene out of Avitar and we agreed.

Photos to be added - camera not working

While waiting for a Collective to take us back to Rio Dulce, a guy called Louis stopped in his pick up truck to offer us a lift! Super!! Free ride and air conditioned! He was such a nice guy who informed us that the nickname of Guatemala is Eternal Spring due to the greenness of the country throughout the year.

Another act of kindness happened when we arrived in Rio Dulce.  Randomly a lorry (32 tonnes) carrying the the local beer Galo, stopped to talk to Gunter to ask where he was from. Discovering that he was from Switzerland and us from the UK he got out of the lorry (parked on the side of the busy road) went into the shop and brought us all a beer to say thank you for visiting the country!!!! We were all quite surprised by this and thanked the man before he drove off in his massive lorry!

Friday. 8:30am. We thanked Gary for a super stay at his Hostel and caught the bus to Honduras. The bus company, Litegua,  charged us 75Q each (we paid once on the bus, not at the ticket office) for a 7 hour bus ride to El Florido, a small town on the Guatemalan border. The border crossing was easy. Paid 10Q exit fee and  65L entry fee into Honduras. We walked about 20 meters to the waiting Collective to take us to Copan Ruinas (20L and 25 minutes).

Copan Ruinas is really small to navigate, so finding our hostel for the evening was no problem - not as nice as the last one, very small room and smelled like a cave. We quickly dumped our bags and headed out to Twisted Tanya's for happy hour cocktails (100L for 2 drinks) followed by some street food (70L).

Saturday. We really didn't like this hostel so we got up early to check out and checked in to Via Via, much nicer and slightly cheaper. The breakfasts at this place were massive and really tasty (75L) -it filled me  up until dinner!

Our hostel - the nice one!

Armed with a map we walked to the famous ruins (entry 300L). Only took us around 20 minutes to get there and about 1 hour to visit everything. The ruins were a lot smaller than the others we have seen but they had amazing rock carvings and other decorative features. I was more fascinated by the resident Macaws flying about in the trees!

View of  main plaza 

After the ruins we visited Macaw Mountain (200L). We loved it here. A great place to get up close to some amazing birds and as the name suggests, plenty off Macaws to play with. Roland was amused by some parrots that copied everything I said, even my laugh!  We spent 1 hour here and then headed back to town for a coffee.

We were really missing wine. After walking around the same area for about 20 minutes we finally found a place which sold wine AND cheese, Cafe San Rafael! We ordered a couple of glasses and shared a plate of delicious cheese (410L) for our dinner for the evening. It was lovely! 

The wine was delicious!

Amazing!!

Sunday. Today Roland had a go at horse riding! And he enjoyed it! Even managed a few good long trots! 3 hours of riding (300L) took us out of the town and into the surrounding country side (and walking like John Wayne after!). We really got to see a different way of life. The trip was worth every penny! I did have a little giggle when I found out that Roland was riding a horse called Princessa ... hehehe

The afternoon was spent relaxing and preparing ourselves for the early morning start. 

Princessa not looking too happy

My horse was quite small, but it certainly 'shifted'!

Monday 3:30am. For $36 the collective pucked us up from our Hostel and drove us to El Tunco, El Salvador.  Surprisigly we had to go back to Guatemala to re-enter El Salvador. We had to pay $1 exit fee and then 20Q to enter Guatemala. At the Guatemala and El Salvador border I was greeted with the cutest kitten and when the driver asked if I wanted to take it, I was almost tempted to say yes.

Sooooo Cute!!! I wanted to take to El Tunco with me.

We arrived in El Tunco about 10:00am and we were both happy to be back near the sea. It had almost been 5 weeks since we were last by a coast! We didn't have a place to stay but finding somewhere was really easy and we found a room at Casa Makoi for $20.

Path to hostel

El Tunco is a small surfers village. The Beach is covered in black sand and the waves are big. As soon as we checked ourselves into the hostel we headed straight to the beach to get some breakfast and then chilled out for the rest of the day. It was hot!

Path to beach

Surfers!

View of El Tunco

View of beach while having breakfast

We were completely knackered after our early start so we only managed to have something to eat at Take a Wok before crashing out on the bed for a much needed 10 hour sleep!

Week 7 Guatemala

Week 7 Guatemala - After El Mirador Trek

Saturday. After the trek, we really could not face travelling 8 hours on a Collective today, so decided to stay in Flores for 1 more night. This turned out to be a good idea as we had a massive bag of laundry to do and were completely knackered. I spent most of the day on the computer completing the blog and Roland was faffing about waiting for me to finish.

Our third visit to Flores and we finally found the area where there was street food. BBQ chicken and a drink cost 30Q and was delicious! On our way back to the hostel we saw fireworks going off.  Wondering what  was going on, we searched for the source - the central plaza had been transformed with a rather large flashing Christmas tree, food stalls, DJ booth and a stage for local bands to perform.

Sunday.6am. No rest for the wicked. Today we left Flores for good - 3 separate visits here was enough. The Collective picked us up and took 8 hours to get to Semuc Champey, our next stop. 2 hours of the journey was bumping around in a Toyota Hilux, driving no faster than 10 mph on a dirt track to our hostel El Portal. My bones were well and truly shaken once we arrived!

Our little cabin was lovely. It over looked the river on the edge of the mountain. And to top it off there was a hammock to lie in to enjoy the view. Bliss! Finally a little bit of luxury - I would have given it 10 points if it didn't only have electricity from 6pm to 10 pm and cold showers. You can't have it all on a travellers budget!

View from hammock

Monday. We signed ourselves up for the tour of Semuc Champey. A day promising fun and adventure! It certainly delivered! The morning was spent getting very sweaty climbing to the viewpoint of the limestone pools. Then climbing all the way back down to swim, dive and have some fun in the pools.

Unexpectedly I had a free 'fish pedicure'. While standing on a large rock I had about 10 little fish nibble my feet. It freaked me out to start with but I soon got used to it. Roland didn't like it and swiftly swam to another area.

After lunch was the highlight of the trip, exploring the nearby caves. Now, normally when you are about to explore caves you are given a flash light ... not in Guatemala, we were given a candle! A candle to explore caves which had water and flowing rivers inside it ..hmmmmm. It was interesting trying to keep that alight while swimming, climbing up ladders and squeezing though small holes. I have never done anything quite like it before. And when it came to the point where we had to squeeze though a small hole which had a waterfall gushing through it, I really began to fear for my life!!  I shut my eyes, held my breath and let go! Certainly no 'health and safety' exploring these caves!  However we all made it out alive with only a few minor scratches.

about to jump off in to a dark pool

The gang

Afterwards we grabbed a inner tube and drifted down the river for about 20 minutes admiring the view. Lovely!

All I need is a beer ...

Week 7 El Mirador 5 Day Jungle Trek

Week 7

El Mirador - a 5 day trek through the jungle to one of the largest Mayan cities, only 1,000 visitors per year see this site.

Monday,4:00am. An early start to catch our chicken bus to Carmelita (the last village situated on the edge of the jungle)!

So pleased to be up at 4am!!

It took 3 hours to get from Flores to Carmelita. Carmelita is a small village where all El Mirador treks begin. Here is where we met our guide, cook and mule packer.

Waiting for the chicken bus

This bus was heaving with people when we got on it!

Chicken Bus!

Before we started the trek we were fed a breakfast of scrambled eggs, beans and tortilla, and were introduced to the 3 American guys who would be joining us - Carlos, Edson and Leo. 

It had rained everyday for the past 5 days in Carmelita and this was evident by the amount of mud experienced early on in the trek.  We were very pleased to have wellies!  The American guys were not so fortunate, and only had trainers! Apparently their tour operator had told them that there would be no water/mud on the trek!!!

As we walked, we also realised that there were literally thousands of mosquitoes ... we each had about 30 swarming around us - thank god for the heavy duty repellent that was mostly doing the trick ... it didn't stop us from thinking we were being bitten - mosquitoes paranoia set in!!!

Small river crossing

After 5 hours of exhausting walking, we arrived at our lunch destination which was called La Florida (a small Mayan town).

We were already quite tired from trudging though the mud and the thought of another 4 hours didn't really fill us with joy! Carlos and Leo could not trek any longer as they were experiencing severe leg cramps. They were lucky that the cook was kind enough to give up her mule and that there was a spare mule for emergencies! 

There was so much mud and water on the trek that instead of taken 6 hours to complete the first day, it took us 9 hours! This resulted in trekking 2 hours in the dark with only head lights to show us the way.  This was not a pleasant experience and was quite terrifying when wading through mud that reached your calves! I found it all too much and had a little cry while stuck in the mud and after loosing my balance and falling onto a tree covered in thorns.

By the time we had reached our camp we were all extremely tired (well those who walked) and were surprised to hear that there was a shower!

The shower - a bucket filled with rain water!

Once we were clean, we were fed a well earned dinner of chicken, rice and vegetables.

Having a go at making tortillas

My first tortilla!

In the tent

The loo!

Tuesday. 6am. Surprisingly we slept well, mainly thanks to wearing ear plugs! Not sure if we could have slept without them due to the Americans snoring all night!  Breakfast was eggs and beans (again) and we started trekking at 7am. 

Our guide - Adrian Centeno

It had rained during the night which meant the terrain was even wetter!  At one point we had to wade up to our knees in a massive puddle (not a lake as it looks like in the picture!) The wellies were useless at this point and we had wet feet for the rest of the trek! This  did not help my already painful blisters.

"Ahghghghg, it´s in my wellies"!

We were pleased to see that make-shift bridge had been erected to cross this river ...

This mule had died during the trek a few years ago!

We trekked for 5 hours before we had lunch, and we were starving! Roland scoffed down 4 sandwiches (I ate 3).  This kept us going for the next 4 hours. Due to the blisters and a very sore knee I rode the spare mule for 3 hours. Roland was a champ and walked the whole way with Edson.

We arrived at the El Mirador camp at about 6pm and were greeted by a flock of wild turkeys. We were all completely exhausted, wet  and muddy.  And when the food finally arrived - a massive plate of spaghetti - we all virtually inhaled it! We all went to bed really early.

Wednesday. Today we did not really trek that far at all and spent most of the morning waiting on the Americans to see if they could get a helicopter to fly us back to Flores - no one could face the return journey! But at $2,200, the fare was too expensive! Dreams were shattered!

At about 10:30am we walked about 1 hour to visit the main ruins of El Mirador (the point of our journey!). 

The archaeologists have been working on the site since 1978 (first discovered in 1926) and only a small amount of the ruins are visible.  A lot of the ruins are still buried beneath the jungle.  And many of the ruins we visited were still being dug out from the jungle by the archaeologists - it really felt like we were visiting something special.

Jaguar Paw Temple

On top of La Danta

View of surrounding jungle

Top pyramid of La Danta - 72m high - the tallest Mayan structure ever built

This mural portrays a scene from the Popol Vuh (Mayan Bible) - Click here for more info

After lunch, it unfortunately started to rain quite heavily and we could not go and see other temples. A bit of a shame considering it took us almost 20 hours to walk here! 

We were all really dreading the return journey. Leo and Carlos intended not to walk at all if possible and therefore managed to negotiate 2 extra mules at a cost of 700Q.  Luckily my blisters and knee were feeling a little better and it was a relief to know that there was a spare mule if I needed one.

It had rained so much that our tent had flooded. I just managed to transfer all out stuff to another tent, before they got wet - all set for bed so we thought ...  Just as were were about to go to sleep, I spotted it, a SCORPION!!! Oh My God! I shouted out to Carlos to get the guide over to help us kill it. Once the guide had found the scorpion and killed it, we felt safe enough to attempt to sleep. Just before, Roland decided to do one last sweep of the tent with his torch -  "Aghghghghghghg there is another one".  There was another scorpion resting on the roof of the tent, just above Roland's head! Again we shouted out to the guide to help us. It was hard to sleep afterwards!

Thursday and Friday. 5:00am. Due to the weather we had to get up extra early on both days to prevent walking in the dark.

The return journey was even more muddier and wetter than before but thankfully it took less time as we had the mules and we knew what to expect.  On Thursday we trekked for 7 hours and on Friday we trekked for 5.5 hours. I was lucky enough to ride the mule for a large portion of the return journey. Roland and Edson were the only people in the group who completed the trek on their feet!

Waiting to start the return journey

Cant wait to start!

Riding the horse though the knee high mud!

Rest time.

Preparing lunch

Mud, glorious mud!

Roland and Edson made it all the way by foot!

The gang with the guide and the cook

The journey was extremely tough but both the jungle and the ruins were amazing so overall well worth it ... (Roland and I only agreed this once it was all over and we were lying in a comfortable bed drinking beer!).

Contact Details to organise trip directly with Carmelita below. We discovered that if you arrange the trip directly with the team in Carmelita,the price you pay is as follows:

2 people - 3,000Q (total price for 2 people)

4 people - 4,500Q (total price for 4 people)

Roland and I paid 4,800Q (9,600Q for the entire group) when in a group of 4 via a travel agent in Flores. We could have saved quite a lot if we booked directly with Carmelita Cooperative!

www.tourismocoorperativacarmelita.com

email: expedicionmirador@yahoo.com

tel:(502) 3177 9387

     (502) 7861 2641

     (502) 7867 5048