In Flores, Guatemala, we stayed at the Hostel Los Amigos. The first night we arrived there we heard about the locally famed "El Mirador"! What is this you say...it is the best kept secret in Guatemala as far as ruins are concerned. Apparently deep deep in the jungle there are ruins everywhere waiting to be uncovered. Some of you may have heard of Tikal but this is something much bigger and more amazing. In 2000 B.C. this civilization they are calling El Mirador was a thriving society of a couple hundred thousand inhabitants. This is three thousand years before any other ancient civilization reached their climax. El Mirador also has the largest pyramid in volume in the world. To see this amazing city we would have trek through the Guatemalan jungle for 5 days. 2 days to get there, 1 day to explore all the ruins and 2 days for the return journey. How could we pass up such an awesome opportunity.




Day 1
We met early in the morning outside the hostel to load up in one of the Toyota shuttle vans. It didn't look like much but it was to take us three hours through the jungle to San Carmelita. During the three hours to San Carmelita, we drove on horrendous roads that would have stopped some of the U.S. off road pickups, but this little van kept putting along. With one flat tire and no other harm done, we arrived at San Carmelita in three hours where they loaded our gear onto mules along with 5 days worth of water equivalent to about 100 gallons. It was very humid here and hot. We did not want to risk dehydration with a group of about 10 people. Then, we were off into the jungle for a 5 hour hike. The terrain was relatively flat with some hills but the path was parched and torn up making every step a challenge as to where we should place our next foot step. We then arrived to a pleasant camp where we set up tents and had a dinner of potato soup with chicken and bread. Before going to bed, we explored some temples nearby which had been destroyed by grave robbers and climbed a pyramid for a great sunset. Sweaty and tired, the group retired to the tents which were a solid nylon fabric with no vent. With 100 percent humidity and the temperature around 80F, our clothes remained wet all night and the only thing allowing us to sleep was eventual exhaustion.







Day2
We hiked for 6 hours at a quickened pace as the whole group was excited to stop hiking and start exploring El Mirador. Along the way we continued to see temples robbed of all possessions and destroyed by the digging of grave robbers. Along the way we were told by our guide that the archeologist Richard Hanson who is in charge of the whole program may be here prepping for summer excavation. Little did we know that we would meet the archeologist in charge of the whole site.
That night on top of El Tigre (second tallest pyramid on the site) a film crew came up to the top. Behind them was a tall gringo who we started talking to. He explained that the Russian film crew was doing a special on Guatemala and El Mirador. He then went onto say that he was the director of the whole site archeological site, so that, of course, was the dead giveaway Richard Hanson was in front of us. He had been working on the site for the last thirty years. He's found multiple preclassical artifacts than anywhere and is still uncovering site after site of ancient hieroglyphics. That evening he gave us the opportunity to explore a temple that he recently excavated. This temple had one of the ancient Jaguar (Mayan deity) masks. He gave us a rundown of the structure on how it was built and that another structure was built over the top of it some years later confirming another group of people inhabited the area after the Mayans. We are probably some of the only tourists ever to be inside a mayan temple during an archeological phase…pretty cool! Richard Hanson was very nice and hospitable for giving us the opportunity to check out this temple.



Day 3
Day three was full of walking and climbing pyramids. Soaked with sweat and ambition to see more, we followed our fearless guide through the site of El Mirador. Be sure to check out the photos (if we can ever get a decent enough connection to load them up).
That night we decided to sleep outside, because drowning was an issue due to excessive sweating. The stars dazzled the sky and soon we fell asleep and once again woke up soaked in sweat.



Day 4/5
Rather then spend another day in the same pair of clothes soaked with sweat from the previous three days and nights the group decided to hike out of the jungle in one day. What normally takes two days to hike back to Carmelita was done in one. The 25 miles turned out to take 10 hours total walking time, which wasn’t bad for the group. By the end we were very thirsty and went to the nearest store for a cola drink and then some cervezas. Because we changed our schedule, we ended up sleeping in tents in a barn of the guide until we could catch a chicken bus the next morning. The next morning we caught the 5 o’clock chicken bus back to Flores and made our plans for Lanquin.