On the road to guatemala...and start of El Mirador trek

After a few big margarita infused jungle nights at El Panchan, Sarah and i were off to Flores Guatemala, our first border crossing experience! Which turned out to be pretty anticlimatic, after our boat ride from mexico, we arrived at the immigration station, filled out our forms and ended up up giving the immigration officers a lift to Flores in our bus.

Which began the next part of our trip planning the trek to El Mirador, the largest site of pre-classic maya!

Oh the trek, 120kms all up to get there and back, plus the walking around at the el mirador site, left us with some very sore feet! The first day we had to travel by bus from flores to a little town on the edge of the mayan biosphere called carmelita.  With all twelve of us trekkers in the bus, plus our guide and driver and all our gear/water, we seemed to have overloaded the bus, having three flat tyres on our way to carmelita. 

When we finally made it, it was a few hours later then when should have been there to start the trek, and our guides were worried that we would be walking the dark.  Which ended up happening to me and three other guys, we had separated from the front group and had to make our way through the last hour of the trek in darkness with no guide to the first campsite El Tintal! I was fairly scared but luckily these guys didnt seem to mind and had it under control so all worked out fine, and we eventually got to El tintal and were ready for some much needed dinner and a seat by the fire :)

whahahhaka -> palenque

After a few days staying in Oaxaca and San Cristobal de las casas, Sarah and i left the desert-y towns and made our way to Palenque. Wow what a difference in the 5 hours it took to get to palenque, we left freezing high altitude to arrive into sweltering humidity amidst the jungle :) it was a great and welcome change although my backpack is alot heavier, as i have no need to wear all  my big jackets and boots.


We stayed in El Panchan, on the road just outside of the main palenque town on the way to the ruins, a cool little old world hippy place, we met some great travellers, lots of people from a "community" (really sounded like a cult, but they insisted it wasnt) and some that remind you of the extreme effects that 30 years of heavy drugs can have on your mind, especially crazy shaman of the forest dude.

The ruins themself, were a great change from the ones we had seen previously in stark desert environments, these were hidden among the trees in the jungle and felt like had stepped into the hidden worlds of indiana jones!