El Mirador, el grande jungel trip..

(I´m sorry this is a week later than it should be, so many good stories, but we have been sick, so things take a bit longer..)
Anyways,
we left Flores early on Saturday 7th in the morning, after breakfast at 0600 at the travelagency, which was also a restaurant and a hotel, amazing! After eating, and waiting for the tour agency guy to fix it all and fill our car with water and tents and all, we left, 3 hours on a bumpy road, and then we were in Carmelita, where it all was going to start. We met our guide, Alex, and waited for a looong time while they packed our luggage and a lot of food and tents and all on 3 horses, and then the horses left, and we waited some more, don´t know why, and then finally, we left to, Kristoffer, Ragnhild and me and a crazy german guy called Peter and Alex the guide. I think we had walked maybe 5 minutes when the guide lighted his first spliff, and the rest of the trip he walked in a cloud of smoke and giggles.. Hehe, grrrreat guide!
We walked and walked(not in a nice slow speed, either, pretty hard core jungle walk-almost-jog speed) but stopped a lot to watch parrots, tucans, monkeys and other jungleanimals and birds, and it was quite amazing! After a looooong time, we had lunch, then we walked for a loooooooooooong time again, and when I thought we were going to die, we were there! I think we spent almost 6 hours on the walk, and the day before we had met a swedish girl who just came back from the same trip, and she said the walk was so easy, they only used 3 hours, and we were exhausted and used 6!!! (Hm...) (She also told us we had to bring warm clothes, because it was freezing at night(no it wasn´t, no need for the big woollen sweater..),that the food was horrible(no it wasn´t, although maybe a bit original..)(the walks were easy(NO!)(well, basically, when we met her, we were so happy because she told us a lot, and then we prepared ourselves after what she said, and then it turns out everything she said, we felt the opposite!!)
After 6 hours of walk, we had sore legs, and Ragnhild had already gotten the biggest blisters(gnagsaar) on her heels, and this was just the first day. I was happy enough, with my 100kroners shoes from a H&M like shop in Australia which are absolutely not meant for walking any distance.. The sole on my shoes are maybe 0,5 cm thick..Hehehe! Isn´t it ironic? But we got to rest and Alex made us a great meal with chickensoup, and he gave us coffee and we had a campfire, and the mood was good, they gave us thick mattresses and blankets in the tents and it was a toilet to sit on at the camp, what more can you ask for? Day number one, good good:)
Sunday, we woke up early, after sleeping through all the junglesounds (sometimes the howlermonkeys woke us up(broel-ape, de skriker saa syyyykt, som loever liksom, men ikke helt..))and we had breakfast, then we packed the horses and cleanedthe camp and left, at 10:30. After 5 minutes we found an orange - tree, and had 15 minutes break, after that we found a camp where some men live for a month or two, they work and gather palm leaves in the jungle, and we looked at their camp for some time, then we walked five minutes more, and crazy Peter found an ant on a tree with a fungus growing out of it´s head, and he had seen a documentary about that on TV, and apparently it is really rare and seldom, and I think we spent 45 minutes there, then we tried to walk some more, and then we met the horse guy(he called himself Chuck Norris, hehe, great guy!) and one of the horses had made all the luggage fall off, so we had lunch and repacked the horses and spent more than 1 hour there, after just 2 hours of actual walking.. Can´t say the speed was great this day, but our guide was to busy making a straw hat inside his cloud of smoke, and we didn´t know how far it was. "One hour" he said, then after 30 minutes, he said, "2 hours more", then after one hour, he said "40 minutes", then we stopped believe in him, and just walked all we could, it was getting late, and we were so tired, and Ragnhild could hardly walk because of her blisters... When it started getting dark, I started getting scared, and we had no idea how far we had left, and the mood was not very good, to be honest, we were not happy with the guide, and not happy with ourselves that chose this entirely on our own, and no one forced us to choose a 5 day jungletrek trip, did they? NO. Our bad, hehe! I think we walked 1 hour in the dark, with only one flashlight, and it was not funny at all. When I looked at my watch when we finally arrived at El Mirador, we had spent more than 10 hours in the jungle!! AND THEN I SAT ON A SCORPION!!!!!!! AUAUAUAUAUAUAUAUAU!!!!
That is the most painful sting ever, and I was so scared! I just sat down on the bench next to the fire when we got there and immideatly it stinged my bum, and I screamed and cried and leaped up yelling and the guide and another guy said "scorpio" and I almost died of fear, and they started searching for it with flashlights and all, to see what kind of scorpion it was, and I had to drop my pants in public for everyone to search for the bite, and they got very anxious.. After 10 minutes it wasn´t so painful anymore, and I could still feel my bum and my legs and I was still standing, so they were happy, it was a brown or black scorpion, not a blue and green one, then we would have had a problem. Later I got kind of a panickattack, but that is normal, they said, so then everything was fine, we ate and I went to bed and I woke up the next day, still alive, halleluja;) Day 2, not so good.. (it was even the worlds women day, or what we call it..Hm..)
Day 3, El Mirador.
There we were, 60 km into the jungle, 2 days of hard walking, and we were so excited to see the ruins and all!!! And it was amazing, it really was, it is just that most of it is covered with a meter or 2 of earth.. And trees and jungle and all, hehe, so we walked on the paths and the guide showed us this hill and that hill and yes, that is a pyramide underneath under there, and another one under that hill and so on, and we thought, well is this it? But the El Dante, the biggest pyramide in El Mirador(which is the biggest Mayan ruins ever found) is partly dug out, at least the top part, so we got to climb to the top, and watch nothing but jungle in all directions and it was so unbelievebly beautiful and special I have no words. That was truly great. We could se as far as Mexico(we could have walked there, only 7 km more..)and the best part, we could see the other Maya ruins in the area! Far far away in several directions, there were big bumps in the otherwise very flat green carpet of jungle, and that was other Mayan ruins, pyramides, Tikal, Nakbe, Tintal, and others, it was truly amazing. And with so many birds, and monkeys and, no, it was worth it! We saw more places at El Mirador that was more dug out, we saw the aquaducts they made, some parts of pottery and ceramics they have found and more temples, we saw a lot. And it is so old, they started building it 200 - 300 years B.C, and then left it 150 A.D and then they came back and bulit more on top of everything at some point after that as well. And you might call me weird, but there is a strange energy going on in the jungle there, it really was special. We had a lunch break and then the best thing ever, a "shower" at least some water to throw over ourselves and some soap, and a good rest, then we climbed El Tigre to watch the sunset over the jungle.. Amazing..
After the sunset we had dinner, then we paid one of the guards that works at El Mirador to let us into a tunnel under El Jaguar, one of the buildings and tempels, and we went under the tempels into to tunnel and saw old old old statues and paintings and walls that they are digging out at the moment, and it was really special. I even put my hand in a handprint of a Maya Indian in the wall, special! I also got so scared, because it was just me and Ragnhild and Alex, and we had to crawl at one point to get further into the tunnel, and they went first and I was left there and a giant underworld SPIDER came running and I reacted like a real girl and screamed and closed my eyes, haha, and then it stopped and after some time it hid in the walls, so I hurried along, puh! Ask me to draw it for you, it was giant, and looked so weird and ugly, puh, was worried there..
Day 3, very good!
Day 4, we tried really hard to start early, and we kind of managed. The thing was, we had no more bread, so there was no lunch break during the long walk through the jungle, so we didn´t spend that long, we walked in total for 6 hours that day, and had 30 minutes break. And Ragnhild and I had some help from the horse, so it wasn´t so bad. Well, it was bad, I could hardly walk when we arrived in the afternoon, but Ragnhild was worse, her heels were dead. So we relaxed and complained a bit, then we had lunch and then Chuck Norris showed us the Tintal pyramides (same camp as day 1, but then we didn´t have time to see anything.)and we watched the sunset, and then had dinner, and then we went up there again to see the moon, it was fullmoon, so we didn´t see that many stars, but it was beautiful.
No mattresses in the tent the last night. Day 4, pain in feet and legs, otherwise fine.
Day 5, last day, ultimo dia..
This was the day we started the earliest and walked the quickest, no lunch and only 10 minutes break, and after 4 hours we were at Alex´s house in Carmelita again!! I have never had so much pain in my legs before, although I had no blisters, it was so painful just beacuse we had walked so long distances.. 120 km in total and 4 days of walking. Then all the walkin we did when we were at El Mirador is not counted..
We went straight to the local shop and bought a well deserved can of coke or beer, and sat and waited for our driver. Slept in the car for 2 hours, and then it was all over, we were back in Flores, ready for the best shower ever.
Will I ever do it again?
Not with those shoes, although they didn´t give me blisters, maybe it is not possible to do without a bit of pain, or a lot of pain.. Maybe, if I can hire a horse just for me. But that is painful too, after several hours. I´m not sure. The thing is, it was so special up there, really, and I would love to see it in 50 years, when more of it is dug out.. Hm.. I´ll have to think about it.
If you should do it? Definitely! It´s worth it, but be ready for a lot, A LOT OF PAIN!
BUT WE MADE IT, YEAH!!!!
Very pleased with ourselves:)
-g