Trans-Americas Journey » Hike

Best of the Trans-Americas Journey 2011 – Best Adventures & Activities

Karen Catchpole, photos by Eric Mohl — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 15:02:43 +0000

Welcome to Part 1 in our “Best Of 2011″ series of posts. Part 1 is all about the top Adventures & Attractions of the year (from falconing in El Salvador to diving in Honduras). Part 2 covers the Best Food & Beverages of 2011 and Part 3 covers the Best Hotels of the year.

Yes, end of year round-ups can be lame. On the other hand, they can also be a valuable chance for us to look back on the year that was and remember just how damn lucky we are.

Done right, an end of year round-up can also be a quick and easy way for you to get a dose of the best tips, tricks and truths that made our Trans-Americas Journey so special in 2011. Maybe, just maybe, you’ll hit the road yourself in 2012 (or 2013, no pressure).

First, a few relevant stats:

In 2011 the Trans-Americas Journey…

…thoroughly explored four, albeit very small, countries (Belize, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador)

…drove 8,055 miles (we said they were small countries)

…spent $2,300 on fuel (yes, that’s in US dollars)

…had one flat tire (after driving over a nail in Copan, Honduras)

…bounced over about a billion topes/tumulos (vicious Latin American speed bumps) and through twice that many pot holes

We did manage to spend some time outside of our truck doing and seeing exciting things. In no particular order, here are some of the adventures and activities that made all that time on the road even better. Enjoy!

Best Adventures & Activities of 2011

Best adventure surprise: There are only a handful of falconers in all of Central America and only one who’s certified to guide guests. That would be Roy Beers, owner of Cadejo Adventures. We walked through the hills above San Salvador with Roy and his Harris Hawk Chucky (named after the horror movie character). We strolled through coffee plantations and forested hillsides as Chucky followed along from tree to tree, landing on our gloved hands when we called and half-heartedly hunting (he wasn’t very hungry). Somehow the forest looks and feels different with a hiking buddy who can fly and the experience made hiking without a bird of prey in tow seem downright boring.

Best natural swimming pool: Guide books and travelers rave about the descending pools of water called Sumac Champay in Guatemala. We are happy to report that these pools, totally created by Mother Nature, lived up to the hype and were worth the serious side trip to get there. Crystal clear water (except in the rainy season), a perfect warm temperature, dramatic surrounding cliffs, not crowded (though avoid weekends) and we even got free pedicures thanks to gazillions of tiny fish intent on removing every last scrap of dead skin as we soaked.

Best adventure we did for the first time: We love to SCUBA dive and we’ve done it hundreds of times all around the world. However, we’d never been on a liveaboard dive boat until we boarded the Aggressor III in Belize in 2011. Specially built and equipped to accommodate just 18 divers with plush cabins and a huge dive deck. Even better? The swanky SCUBA services including hot showers and warm towels post dive, freshly made snacks all day long (hey, diving is hard work) and great dive masters. Bonus:The 3-D dive site maps drawn by the staff on-board the Aggressor III were colorful, informative and playful (sometimes they even featured plastic sea creatures stuck on the white board for effect). Best of all, the maps were clear. Even directionally-challenged Karen could quickly understand the layout of the site and navigate around during our awesome underwater adventures.

Best National Park name: Parque Nacional El Impossible in El Salvador.

Best guide: We don’t usually hire guides. However, when we wanted to get an authentic glimpse of the FMLN perspective on the decades of war between the El Salvadorean army and FMLN guerrilla fighters which started with genocide in the ’30s and really flared up in the ’70s and ’80s we went straight to Bar El Necio in Suchitoto and asked for the bartender. Luis Carrera is a treasure (and not just because rum cocktails and ice-cold beer are just $1.50 at this revolutionary-themed bar). Luis has since quit his job as a bartender to focus full time on guiding. He will take you to nearby villages that were obliterated during the war and introduce you to elderly people and translate when they recount their often horrifying first hand experiences during the country’s darkest moments. He’ll even take you home to meet his mom, an infectiously bubbly woman who survived a massacre, fled into the jungle and quite literally gave birth to Luis on the trail while she was on the run. Contact Luis at sapitotours@gmail (dot) com.

Best voluntourism opportunity: Love and Hope Children’s Home in the hills above San Salvador lives up to its name providing a truly homey home for children whose own families are unift or unwilling to care for them. Rachel Sanson, a native of Ohio, has been in El Salvador since 2001 and she helped start the home in 2004. She’s still there and she can use all the help she can get. Volunteers are accepted for short or long-term stays (room and board included). We visited the home and a friend of ours still raves about his experiences during a brief volunteer stint. We were impressed with Rachel and with the home’s policy of putting all volunteers through a background check before allowing them through the doors to help heal and teach her needy kids.

Best zip line: In the hills above Metepan in El Salvador, just shy of the Montecristo National Park, lies Hostal Villa Limon. In addition to a handful of lovely, multi-bedroom cabins with kitchens Villa Limon has one hell of a zip line. Eight different sections criss-cross the slopes up to 300′ (91 meters) above the jungle and coffee plantations below. One particularly steep stretch is 1/4 mile (.40 km) long. It’s almost enough to distract you from the awesome views of volcanoes in the distance.

Best private waterfall: For $120 you can reserve your own private waterfall, swimming hole and rustic picnic pavilion in the vast protected area around Hidden Valley Inn in Belize. They’ll even bring you a four-course champagne lunch and string a handmade Do Not Disturb sign across the trail to ensure complete privacy.

Best hot springs: Just outside Ahuachapan in El Salvador lies Termales Santa Teresa, a paradise for anyone who likes to soak in water super-heated and full of healing minerals. Huge, deep pools ($10 pp for a full day of access) already exist in the shade of a well tended garden surrounded by a vast coffee plantation. A few large villas are also available for rent right around the pools and a new hotel and reasonably priced dorms are being constructed right now. Our thanks to Claudia and Roberto from the lovely La Casa de Mamapan hotel in Ahuachapan for taking us to this hidden gem!

Best borrachos: The pro partiers in the town of Todos Santos in Guatemala know how to drink and these borrachos (Spanish for drunks) don’t let a little inebriation get in the way of a good time either. A popular regional pass time is drunken horse racing which is every bit as baffling (and dangerous) as it sounds…

Best tour operator: Miguel Huezo of Suchitoto Tours in El Salvador. He knows the most unique places, the most enjoyable activities, the most innovative guides and tour operators and he devoted a tremendous amount of time, effort and passion to make sure that we got acquainted with all of them. And he’ll do the same for you: suchitoto.tours@gmail (dot) com

Best adventure honeymoon suite: Eric and I well past the honeymoon stage but if we weren’t we might consider spending part of our honeymoon inside a cave owned by Ian Anderson’s Caves Branch in Belize. First, you hike for an hour into the jungle then you rapel nearly 300′ (91 meters) down a cliff face called the Black Hole Drop (we did this as part of our awesome cave adventures with Ian Anderson’s Caves Branch). After the rapel, a short walk leads you to the mouth of a cave where a real bed has been set up and strewn with flowers, candles have been lit and champagne has been chilled. Your guides cook you a romantic dinner, then wander off to leave you two alone. In the morning, they cook breakfast and guide you back out.

Best jungle hike: We were hot. Our feet were sore. Our minds were blown. Hiking through the jungle to reach El Mirador in northern Guatemala isn’t easy, but the remains of one of the biggest and hardest to reach Mayan cities is worth it–as is adding a day onto your adventure so you can hike back out via Nakbe and La Florida archaeological sites (where we finally saw a jaguar, sort of). Our thanks to Manuel of Tikal Connection for providing us with the gear and guides needed to have this amazing experience.

Best religious festival: Turns out, there are very good reasons why the Semana Santa (Holy Week) celebrations in Antigua, Guatemala are world famous. In 2011 we were lucky to spend the entire week leading up to Easter in Antigua (huge thanks to Gene and Judy for letting us stay in their gorgeous home). We watched elaborate religious floats paraded through the streets. We saw artistic but temporary albombras (carpets) created on the streets and even got to help make one thanks to Evelyn of Hotel San Jorge.

Best National Park entrance: The swing bridge that gets you into Parque Nacional Pico Bonito in Honduras.

Best (easy) bird sighting: Quetzals are known for three things: the technicolor plumage and extravagantly long tails of the males, their shy nature and their love of a narrow swath of remote cloud forest. In other words, they are exciting to see but usually very difficult to see. During their mating season (roughty March to June) all you have to do is manage to wake up at dawn and stumble from your basic room at Ranchito del Quetzal Hotel on the edge of the Biotopo del Quetzal in the Alta Verapaz of Guatemala and head down to the hotel’s humble comedor. There, you will find a hot cup of coffee and quetzals waiting for you. You almost don’t even have to leave your seat to watch the extraordinary birds dip and dive from tree to tree, tails streaming and feathers glinting.

Best (worth the effort) bird sighting: The quetzals we saw during our morning at Ranchito Quetzal came so easily that we almost felt like they didn’t count. So we made the rough journey to a remote privately run nature preserve called the Chelemha Cloud Forest Reserve. In addition to a stylish, sustainably handcrafted guesthouse and gourmet, organic, locally grown food you will find quetzals here, but you’re going to have to hike for it. We walked for three hours high into the protected cloud forest where our guide finally pointed out a known nest site inside the hollow stump of a dead tree. After sitting silently nearby, camera at the ready, the male emerged from the nest and obligingly posed on a branch for a while.

Best dive site: During a few days of diving with Utopia Dive Resort on the island of Utila in Honduras we visited a dive site called The Pinnacles. In the course of a 55 minute dive in warm, crystal clear water we saw dramatic coral and rock pinnacle formations, the most enormous green moray we’ve ever seen (easily 6′ long) plus spotted morays, golden morays and a turtle feeding serenely on a coral head with a bevy of colorful angel fish scavenging around it.

Best camp site: We spent our very last nights in Guatemala camped on the shores of Lake Ipala, a lake in the crater of the Ipala volcano. The road up was wicked, it rained like hell and some dude stole our cooler, camp stove and camp chairs (which were all recovered with the help of our friend George Boburg of Guatemala’s awesome Proatur tourist assistance organization). Still, what we really remember was the scenery and serenity of this spot.

Best bird watching platform: Belize Lodge & Excursions has a lot going for it including three of the most unique lodgings in Belize and an equally unique approach to conservation. Jungle Camp, a lodge so deep in protected jungle that it’s only accessible by boat, offers one more superlative to add to the list: epic bird watching platform hung around the girth of a sacred ceiba tree 100′ off the ground.

Best National Park infrastructure: Parque Nacional Cerro Azul in Honduras was developed in partnership with a Canandian NGO. This helps explain the extraordinary infrastructure which makes it such a pleasure to explore this park. In addition to a variety of very comfortable rooms, the park has a covered camping area with running water, flush toilets, cold showers and electricity. The park’s nine miles (15km) of trails through the jungle and past waterfalls are all well marked and well maintained. And the restaurant even has WiFi service. Well worth a night or two.

Best church: We’ve seen hundreds of churches during our Trans-Americas Journey but the most memorable and unusual one so far is the irreverent, controversial, absolutely compelling Iglesia El Rosario (free, closed 12-2). The church, located in downtown San Salvador, was created in 1971 by artist and architect Ruben Martinez who tweaked everything you normally associate with a Catholic church in Latin America. The exterior looks like a particularly ugly crumbling airplane hangar. The cross looks like a rudimentary ship mast. Inside there are no pillars or columns. Stained glass windows have been created by randomly imbeding hunks of colored glass into the curved, bare concrete walls and ceiling. The stark, simple altar is on the same level as the pews. To the right of the altar is an area that houses the remains of brother Nicolas Vicente, and Manuel Aguilar (heroes of El Salvadorean independence) and representations of the stations of the cross. So often melodramatic and predictable, the stations of the cross in the Iglesia El Rosario are depicted in thoroughly modern, enticingly abstract sculptures created by Martinez in carved stone, wrought iron and re-bar. If you see just one thing in the capital of El Salvador it should be this ground-breaking church.

Take the Long Way Home: Trekking to El Mirador – Guatemala

Karen Catchpole, photos by Eric Mohl — Thu, 22 Dec 2011 13:32:34 +0000

So far so good. Despite what we’d heard, the two day trek to the El Mirador arcaheological site in Guatemala hadn’t been as hard or as hot as we’d feared and our “rest day” at the site itself was pure pleasure (except for the part about getting peed on by spider monkeys).

However, things were about to change.

Because we hate to back track

We’ve always hated back tracking so we opted to add a day on to or El Mirador jungle trek (making it a six day adventure, not the usual five days) which let us return to Carmelita by making a loop rather than retracing our steps back over the same ground we covered during the walk in.

This sacbe (a raised paved road built by the Mayans) connects El Mirador to Nakbe. This ancient highway was used by the Mayans then and is used by visitors like us now.

After our rest day spent exploring the El Mirador site we packed up camp and headed to another archaeological site called Nakbe. The trail from El Mirador to Nakbe was the most untouched feeling stretch of jungle on the trek so far and we often felt like jaguars must be nearby though we never actually saw one.

We did see a spectacular bird. At first we thought it was a juvenile harpy eagle (a massive and rare bird of prey that we’ve been dying to see in the wild) but it turned out to be a juvenile ornate hawk eagle, which was still a thrilling sighting for us.

We thought this was a juvenile harpy eagle but it turned out to be a juvenile ornate hawk eagle, which is also cool.

Karen and our guide, Alex, arrive at "Nakbe City Center." Who knew archaeologists have a sense of humor?

A mere three hours after leaving El Mirador we reached Nakbe archaeological site where we set up camp in a cleared area that was once a massive Mayan plaza.

Discovered in 1930, Nakbe is believed to have been a large city (though mere glimpses of it are currently excavated) and important in the region because of its deposits of limestone which were needed to make the pure white plaster the Mayans were so fond of putting on everything from temple facades to bedroom floors.

Modern stairs up the side of an ancient pyramid at the Nakbe archaeological site in the El Mirador Basin in Guatemala.

The view from the top of a pyramid in the Nakbe archaeological site in the El Mirador Basin in Guatemala. That bump on the horizon is the massive La Danta pyramid at El Mirador.

We were warned

Getting from El Mirador to Nakbe had been the easiest and shortest day of walking on the entire trek so far. However, our guide Alex was careful to make it clear to us that the following day would require at least eight hours of walking to reach our next camp at La Florida. Even if we left before dawn we’d still be walking through the heat of the day.

Alex wasn’t kidding.

We were up at 3:45 am and had eaten breakfast and packed up camp by 5:00 am, well before day break. We all hit the trail with our headlamps on, determined to cover as much ground as possible before the temperature started to rise.

By 9:00 am it was 80 degrees (27 C) on the trail. By 11:30 am it was 95 degrees (35 C) and the trail had become both hillier and less shady than the terrain on previous days. Even Alex started looking tired and Wiltur, our mule wrangler (or arriero), started singing “No voy a trabajar” (I’m not going to work) in a jovial way. We think he was only half-kidding. We amended it to “No voy a caminar” (I’m not going to walk) and it became the battle cry of the day, something we uttered to ourselves simply to keep going.

By 1:00 the termperature reached 99 degrees (37 C) and we stopped looking at the thermometer. Then the ticks arrived. About the size of a pinhead, the little suckers swarmed out of nowhere and were soon crawling all over us (they were especially fond of Eric’s hairy legs). While giving up was obviously not an option, let’s just say that all of us were ready for the trail to end.

Nine hours after we left Nakbe (eight hours of walking and about an hour of accumulated rest stops) we finally reached La Florida.The mules barely had enough energy left for their afternoon roll in the dust.

A hand made sign on the trail in the El Mirador Basin in Guatemala. Note the use of Mayan glyphs.

Finally, a jaguar!

Just another day at the office for El Jaguar, carekater of the La Florida archaeological site and costumed marathon runner.

Our spirits picked up as we were greeted by El Jaguar, the one-of-a-kind caretaker of the La Florida archaeological site. Also know as Miguel, El Jaguar is famous as a marathon runner who runs his races wearing jaguar print shorts and shirts–even his shoes somehow had jaguar prints on them. He greeted us wearing a jaguar mask and spotted short shorts.

Oh, and Miguel trains for marathons by running along the jungle trails we’d just been walking on, only he can do the stretch that just took us nine hours in just three hours. Incredible. He proudly shows us a flip book of photos of him from various marathons, always in his jaguar duds.

Not only is El Jaguar the most interesting caretaker in the El Mirador region, he also operates the nicest camping area. First of all, it’s spotless (even the pit toilet is clean).He’s

Karen and our guide, Alex, in front of the massive ceiba tree at La Florida archaeological site in the El Mirador Basin in Guatemala.

landscaped the area using ornamental jungle plants. There’s even a lime tree. Everything is raked clean and there’s a thatch roof that shades a large area where we set up our hammocks and tents.

El Jaguar has also constructed a small shelter where he deposits bits and pieces he’s found while patroling the La Florida site. Some of them rival what we’ve seen in museums, including an intact, intricate painted bowl with eyes and a nose sculpted into it.

Best of all, there’s a pond nearby which meant it was possible for all of us to take a refreshing outdoor bucket shower and wash the dust and sweat of the day away.

Back to Carmelita

It’s a very short day from La Florida back to “civilization” in Carmelita so we all agreed to sleep in. Nevertheless, we were all up by 3:00 am anyway After breakfast we toured the tiny La Florida site. One highlight is an enormous ceiba tree (sacred to the Mayans as a link between our world and the underworld and the national tree of Guatemala).

A unique walk-through structure at the La Florida archaeological site in the El Mirador Basin in Guatemala.

Inside the unique walk-through structure at the La Florida archaeological site in the El Mirador Basin in Guatemala.

The other highlight of the La Florida site is a temple that has been somewhat reconstructed and opened up so that you can walk through it, observing the layers of construction as you go. We’ve never been inside a Mayan building like that and it was eye opening.

By 8:00 am we were packed up and on the trail for the last leg of our journey.Two hours later we reached Carmelita where it did not seem two early for a few round of (mostly) cold beer and some well-earned pats on the back.

We’d completed a trek that was challenging at times and we admit to feeling just a bit proud when Alex told us we were fast–and that was after we’d already tipped him!

Outside the unique walk-through structure at the La Florida archaeological site in the El Mirador Basin in Guatemala.

The jungle in the El Mirador basin was full of toucans, inclluding these two above the trail as we walked from La Florida back to Carmelita.

TIPS

Before you sign on the dotted line ask your tour operator these key questions:

1. Do you have insurance and an emergency evacuation plan if something goes wrong?

2. What, exactly, will I be eating?

We asked both of those questions and were more than satisfied with the answers from Manuel Villamar of Tikal Connection tour company. In addition to full insurance and plenty of food, Manuel generously supplied his expertise (based on decades in the tourism business in Guatemala) and everything else we needed to get out to El Mirador.

You will be told that you must wear good, solid hiking boots. However, our boots, which we normally love, were too stiff for the trail conditions which often had deep ruts and holes baked solid into the concrete-like earth resulting in severely fatigued, almost bruised feet. We ended up wearing our Crocs with our hiking socks for a good portion of the hike and the roomy, flexible rubber proved much more comfortable and more than durable/supportive enough since we were only carrying light day packs (the mules carry the rest).

You will probably also be told that there is nowhere to shower, but that’s not true. At El Mirador a basic shower building has been set up (10Q or about US$1.25 for a five gallon bucket of water) and at La Florida it’s possible to take an outdoor bucket shower for free using water from a pond near the camping area. Both felt like heaven so bring your PacTowel and some eco-friendly soap.

The last thing you want during your El Mirador hike is rain which turns the trail into knee-deep goop. The rainy season in the region is roughly June through November. We had perfectly dry weather when we were there in March and it’s exhausting just to think about doing the hike through deep mud. But that’s exactly what the archaeologists do when they return to the site every summer.

The walk into and out of El Mirador is almost entirely flat and much of the trail is shaded under deep jungle cover, though that does little to cool things off.

Glad We Had

Our hammocks. There are precious few places to sit down comfortably at the camping areas into and out of El Mirador and you can believe us when we tell you that after hours of walking through the jungle you will want a comfy place to relax. Our hammocks were the perfect places to collapse plus they broke the ice with our guides. Alex, of course, had his own hammock with him and our mule wrangler Wiltur taught us a clever, quick and easy way to string up a hammock.

Our Crocs. These were the perfect comfy camp shoes and we even wore them on the trail after our stiff hiking boots started to hurt too much over the unforgiving terrain.

Some cash: Needed to pay for the showers we totally enjoyed at the El Mirador site and the celebratory beer at Paty’s little store in Carmelita at the end of your adventure.

Our ExOfficio BugsAway pants and shirts: Though mosquitoes and other biting bugs were not nearly as bad as we’d feared our repellent-infused clothing kept the little buggers away.

If you have your own sleeping pad bring it. The camping gear supplied by tour companies that offer El Mirador hikes is generally fine but certain items, like sleeping pads, are in short supply. You might end up sleeping on a pile of old blankets like we did, prompting Eric to retire to his hammock at night.

A Site for Sore Feet: Trekking to El Mirador – Guatemala

Karen Catchpole, photos by Eric Mohl — Mon, 19 Dec 2011 17:41:15 +0000

A “rest day” at El Mirador doesn’t include much rest. That’s because almost everything about what remains of the Mayan city now called El Mirador in the Peten region of Guatemala is spectacular–from the jungle trek in (and the resulting spectacularly sore feet) to the cultural, artistic and architectural importance of the area that’s been called the cradle of Mayan civilization.

No guards, no entrance fee, no parking lot. This is the humble welcome sign for El Mirador in Guatemala--one of the most important (and most remote) Mayan archaeological sites in the world.

El Mirador by the numbers (prepare to be amazed)

With up to a million inhabitants at its zenith between 300 BC and 100 AD, El Mirador and its surrounding neighborhoods would have been the largest city in the world at the time. To accommodate so many people, the city sprawled for over a nearly 2,500 square mile patch of heart-shaped jungle that’s referred to as the El Mirador Basin. The city center covered 14 square miles. That’s three times larger than downtown Los Angeles.

An artist's conceptual drawing of what the center of El Mirador might have looked like between 300 BC and 150 AD (Illustration by T.W. Rutledge ©National Geographic).

Even the name is dramatic: The Look Out. One reason for the name is La Danta pyramid, which some calculate as the largest pyramid, by volume, in the world. The pyramid itself may only be 230 feet high but its massive multi-tiered foundations contain something like 99 million cubic feet of rock and fill. La Danta’s massive first tier is 980 feet wide, 2,000 feet long and covers 45 acres. It’s even more massive than the Great Pyramid of Giza and makes for a great look out point.

The view from atop the massive La Danta pyramid at El Mirador looking across the seemingly-endless jungle. That bump to the right in the distance is the El Tigre pyramid at the other end of "downtown" El Mirador.

There are actually three temples on top of the massive La Danta pyramid at El Mirador archaeological site in Guatemala.

Scientists at work

El Mirador was abandoned nearly 2,000 years ago. No one really knows why. The site slept and the jungle crept until 1926 when archaeologists found it. These days it’s impossible to separate El Mirador from archaeologist Dr. Richard Hansen, who has been studying the site since 1979, sometimes funding research himself. When he’s not at the site (usually May through September), Dr. Hansen is busy as the director of the Mirador Basin Project.

This nearly perfect stucco frieze was discovered at El Mirador in 2009 and is the earliest known depiction of the Maya creation myth, the Popol Vuh.

Most of this huge city remains unexcavated and there are signs of scientists at work all over the El Mirador site. Plastic tarps protect fresh finds. Rough sheds are packed with tools and supplies. But the jungle still owns most of El Mirador and to the untrained eye the site can seem like just another patch of jungle, save for La Danta and El Tigre pyramids which rise above the jungle canopy in a way that even a layman can see is the work of man. Actually, many thousands of men. It’s estimated that it took 15 million man days of work to build La Danta.

Much of El Mirador remains unexcavated like this pyramid in the Leon (Lion) Group.

It takes most visitors two days to walk to El Mirador from the village of Carmelita, unless you take a helicopter in like Mel Gibson did a few days before we arrived. The actor came at the invitation of the Guatemalan government, which pissed off some Mayans who still resent Gibson’s portrayal of Mayans as blood-thirsty savages in his movie Apocalypto (which Dr. Hansen consulted on and which is said to be loosely based on the fall of El Mirador).

Fragments of Mayan life at El Mirador, like this pottery shard, are all over the site.

No such controversy tainted our visit to El Mirador.where we quietly set up camp in an area set aside for visitors. Though the next 24 hours were considered a “rest day”, we didn’t get much resting done with all that Mayan-ness right next to us.

Exploring El Mirador

A 1.5 mile (2.5km) trail joins the El Tigre and La Danta pyramids, which hunker and squat at the west and east ends of the city center respectively. We walked this trail many times. El Mirador is essentially never closed and it was an unforgettable experience to walk through the site to La Danta near dusk, watch sunset over the jungle from on top of its massive bulk, then walk back to our tent through the site in the dark. Under those circumstances we could almost see Mayans all around us. Certainly we could feel them.

Sunset from the top of the massive La Danta Pyramid at El Mirador. The jungle covered "mound" on the right is the slightly smaller, yet still huge, El Tigre pyramid.

A jaguar mask, part of giant carved panels on the Jaguar Paws Temple at El Mirador archaeological site.

But there’s more to El Mirador than its two giant pyramids. Perhaps predictably, the Garras de Jaguar (Jaguar Paws) Temple at El Mirador features a large panel carving of jaguars. What’s not predictable is the amount of color still left on the panel. And new treasures are being found every year at El Mirador.

This detail of the Jaguar Paws Temple mask shows what remains of the original pigment.

Another El Mirador mystery (there's a pyramid in there somewhere).

It’s good luck when a monkey pees on you, right?

Monkey pee, monkey do.

When we weren’t exploring the site (mornings and evenings were cooler) we were at our camp site just steps from the entrance to El Mirador hanging out in our hammocks (see Glad We Had, below) and drinking delicious, spicy, invigorating tea our guide Alex made from the leaves of the Ramon tree.

Karen also turned 45 at El Mirador, and a troop of spider monkeys celebrated by peeing on her as she tried to take a nap. No respect.

Into a secret tunnel (don’t tell anyone)

After our full day at El Mirador it was time to break camp and continue our jungle trek. Now that we’d reached the site we had to make the return trip back to Carmelita and we’d opted to add on a day and return via a loop that includes Nakbe and La Florida archaeological sites instead of just back tracking out the same way we came in.But first we were in for a treat.

Part of a tunnel archaeologists are using to study staircases and carvings recently discovered under the Jaguar Paws Temple.

Behind an innocuous looking locked wooden door under the Jaguar Paws Temple lies a hidden world. Once inside the door our flashlights revealed a network of tunnels which we followed, gawking at long-abandoned staircases and elaborate carvings with a remarkable amount of color left on them. Despite the fact that teams of archaeologists have been swarming over the Jaguar Paws Temple for years this areas was only discovered four years ago.

The experts believe the carvings in this hidden area were on a smaller temple that was ultimately covered over and swallowed whole when it was expanded to create the Jaguar Paws Temple. What they have more trouble explaining is why some of the carvings face south when most known Mayan carvings face north.

Part of old mask covered with color which was recently found buried within the Jaguar Paws Temple at El Mirador archaeological site.

This was, by far, the most Indiana Jones experience we’ve had at a Mayan site (and we’ve visit nearly 60 of them). We honestly expected that big boulder to come rolling down after us at any minute. The feeling was heightened by the fact that we weren’t supposed to be in there. The area behind the wooden door is technically off limits to everyone but archaeologists. If you’re discreet about it you can sometime persuade one of the site’s caretakers to escort you in for a tip. It made a great 45th birthday present, that’s for sure!

Pending protection

Whether motivated by eco-ethics or the lure of tourism dollars (between 1,000 and 3,000 people visit El Mirador each year) the Guatemalan government has afforded some protections to El Mirador as part of the El Mirador-Río Azul National Park which is located inside the 8,000 square mile Maya Biosphere Reserve.

The region has also been nominated for UNESCO status and protections. On the other hand, Guatemalan government officials have also been talking seriously about putting in a tram or other form of mass transit through the jungle to the site…

Toucans

In December, the Guatemalan government was presented with a plan for the future management of El Mirador drafted by the non-profit group Global Heritage Fund in collaboration with Dr. Hansen and others. The plan aims to control activity at El Mirador over the next 15 years in ways that allow for sustainable science and sustainable tourism.

TIPS

Before you sign on the dotted line ask your tour operator these key questions:

Do you have insurance and an emergency evacuation plan if something goes wrong?
What, exactly, will I be eating?

You will be told that you must wear good, solid hiking boots. However, our boots, which we normally love, were too stiff for the trail conditions which often had deep ruts and holes baked solid into the concrete-like earth resulting in severely fatigued, almost bruised feet. We ended up wearing our Crocs with our hiking socks for a good portion of the hike and the roomy, flexible rubber proved much more comfortable and more than durable and supportive enough since we were only carrying light day packs (the mules carry the rest).

The last thing you want during your El Mirador hike is rain which turns the trail into knee-deep goop. The rainy season in the region is roughly June through November. We had perfectly dry weather when we were there in March and it’s exhausting just to thinkabout doing the hike through deep mud. But that’s exactly what the archaeologists do when they return to the site every summer.

The walk into and out of El Mirador is almost entirely flat and much of the trail is shaded under deep jungle cover, though that does little to cool things off.

Glad We Had

Our Crocs. These were the perfect comfy camp shoes and we even wore them on the trail after our stiff hiking boots started to hurt too much over the unforgiving terrain.

Some cash: Needed to pay for the showers we totally enjoyed at the El Mirador site and the celebratory beer at Paty’s little store in Carmelita at the end of your adventure.

Our ExOfficio BugsAway pants and shirts: Though mosquitoes and other biting bugs were not nearly as bad as we’d feared our repellent-infused clothing kept the little buggers away.

Getting Organized and Getting In: Trekking to El Mirador – Guatemala

Karen Catchpole, photos by Eric Mohl — Tue, 13 Dec 2011 14:49:56 +0000

Of the nearly 60 archaeological sites that we’ve visited during the Trans-Americas Journey none is as cloaked in mystery or as hard to trek in to as El Mirador in the jungles of the Peten region in northern Guatemala.

We’ll get into the intriguing details of El Mirador in our next post (for now, suffice to say, El Mirador was a massive city which is older than Tikal, is home to the largest known Mayan pyramid, by volume, and is still reluctantly giving up game-changing secrets).

Like our visit to El Mirador itself, it’s best to start with the basics since getting to the site requires a five to seven day adventure of trekking, camping and sweating and you’re gonna need some back up.

Getting outfitted

A jungle trek can seem daunting. One that takes five to seven days (including one rest day) and covers roughly 40 miles (64km) depending on your route is even more daunting. Because there is no clear, fresh water along the trekking route you have to bring your own H2O and since it’s not possible for most people to carry enough water to last through this much sweaty hiking this means you’ll need a pack animal. Which, in turn, means you’ll need a mule handler. You’ll also need a guide and all of your camping gear and food. In other words, you’ll need help.

One of three mules that carried our camping gear, food and all water during our jungle trek to El Mirador archaeological site in Guatemala.

You have three options for getting outfitted for your El Mirador trek.

1. Sign on with a full-service tour company to hook you up with transport to and from the trailhead, a guide/cook, food, pack animals and their handler and camping gear. You can find full-service tour companies offering El Mirador trips online or in Flores.

Manuel Villamar of Tikal Connection was kind enough to provide what we needed to get to El Mirador, which was exciting for us because it meant we were actually going to get to El Mirador and because Manuel has been involved in tourism in the Peten region for more than 20 years and has a strong focus on sustainable tourism which involves local communities instead of excluding them. Manuel was also a wealth of knowledge not just about El Mirador but also about the Mayans and eco issues and Guatemala in general.

2. Another option is to sign on with a mid-service tour company who can also supply transport to and from the trail head, a guide/cook, food, pack animals and their handler and camping gear,but at a lower price point and lower quality level. There are many mid-service tour companies offering trips to El Mirador in Flores. A friend went to El Mirador with one of them on a five day trip for less than $200 last year.

3. An even cheaper option is to head to the town of Carmelita (about 2 hours by van from Flores), at the trail head to El Mirador, and talk to Patricia Pinelo (aka Paty) about arranging all of your needs on your own. Paty is the heart of the local guide/mule handler clearing house in Carmelita. Nothing heads out to El Mirador without her knowledge. Even if you sign on with a tour company before heading to Carmelita, your mules, mule handler and guide will come through Paty.

There’s no guarantee, but if you head out there on your own you may be able to negotiate your mules/handler and guide directly through her. Paty has the only phone in Carmelita and the number is +502 7783 3856 (yes, eight numbers is correct). But bring your own food from Santa Elena. There’s not much in Carmelita except scraps left over from previous trekking groups’ supplies. Paty says about 1,000 non-archaeologists hike into El Mirador every year, which seemed surprisingly high to us but if anyone knows, she does.

No man or beast gets to El Mirador without going through Paty who heads up the local guide/mule man cooperative in the village of Carmelita at the trail head to El Mirador.

On the trail to El Mirador

When we arrived in the dusty village of Carmeltia our guide was nowhere to be seen. Two hours later, after breakfast and the unloading and re-packing of our supplies, Alex Francisco Machuca arrived guiding another group out of the jungle. As members of the group collapsed on the ground in sunburned, sweaty heaps Alex, an easy-smiling man in his 20s, turned on his well-worn heel and headed straight back into the jungle with us. Incredible.

We hit the trail to El Mirador with our guide, Alex, in the lead. He'd just returned from the jungle with another group when we arrived and he turned right around to guide us in.

Soon our four man crew (us, Alex and Wiltur the mule man) were on the trail. Within seconds, the jungle closed in and Carmelita disappeared behind us. The terrain was profoundly flat but the trail conditions made walking hard. During the rainy season passing mules and humans churn the earth into deep mud. As it dries out, ruts and ankle-twisting indentations from hooves and feet get baked solid into the ground which becomes like cement.

It was necessary for both mules and humans to concentrate on putting their feet in the path of least resistance. This sometimes required bushwhacking off trail to avoid the most chewed up bits.

Karen on the trail to the El Mirador arcaheological site in Guatemala.

El Tintal archaeological site

Most people think that El Mirador is the only archaeological site in the area, but the region is peppered with sites. After about four hours of walking we reached El Tintal, a Pre-Classic, heavily looted archaeological site which has only really been scientifically explored since 2004. Still largely unexcavated, El Tintal features a sophisticated irrigation system.

We wandered through El Tintal (named for the tinted water in a nearby pond) and found a site that’s really just a collection of jungle-covered mounds inhabited by spider monkeys and littered with pottery fragments. We scrambled to the top of one of the pyramids, hoping for a glimpse of the famous, massive pyramids of El Mirador but everything just looked like endless jungle with one conspicuous bump that was way too close to be El Mirador.

We were hoping for a glimpse of the massive La Danta pyramid at El Mirador, but all we could see from the top of a pyramid mound at the El Tintal archaeological site was another unexcavated pyramid nearby.

Meanwhile, Alex had set up a basic camp in an area slightly away from where the caretakers of El Tintal live and Wiltur had unpacked our three mules which rolled around in the dust–an afternoon ritual that marked the official end of each day of walking.

Our guide Alex (left) and mule man Wiltur unpack the mules and set up a basic camp at the El Tintal archaeological site during our first night in the jungle on our way to El Mirador.

The Mayan suburbs

The next morning we were up early and managed to have breakfast, pack up camp and get on the trail by 6:30 in order to take advantage of the cooler morning hours. We were also revved up with excitement since the day’s walking would take us to El Mirador itself.

An unexcevated Mayan mound along the trail to the El Mirador archaeological site in Guatemala. A looters' trench can be clearly seen down the front of the mount.

This section of trail was not nearly as chewed up and pot-holed as the previous day’s trail which made it easier to take our eyes off our feet long enough to appreciate the virgin jungle, toucans, spider monkeys and intriguing humps of unexcavated mounds of Mayan ruins all around us.

After about six and a half hours of walking we reached La Muerte, a sort of suburb of El Mirador. We stopped there to have some lunch and appreciate the small buildings before walking a bit further where we finally reached the camping area on the doorstep of the El Mirador site.

We felt a little bit dead by the time we reached the La Muerta group at the end of a long second day of jungle hiking. La Muerta is sort of a suburb of El Mirador.

TIPS

Before you sign on the dotted line ask your tour operator these key questions:

1. Do you have insurance and an emergency evacuation plan if something goes wrong?

2. What, exactly, will I be eating?

You will probably also be told that there is nowhere to shower, but that’s not true. At El Mirador a basic shower building has been set up (10Q or about US$1.25 for a 5 gallon bucket of water) and at La Florida it’s possible to take an outdoor bucket shower for free using water from a pond near the camping area. Both felt like heaven so bring your PacTowel and some eco-friendly soap.

The walk into and out of El Mirador is almost entirely flat and much of the trail is shaded under deep jungle cover, though that does little to cool things off.

Wiltur arrives with lunch as we all take a break on the trail to the El Mirador archaeological site in Guatemala.

Glad We Had

Our hammocks. There are precious few places to sit down comfortably at the camping areas into and out of El Mirador and you can believe us when we tell you that after hours of walking through the jungle you will want a comfy place to relax. Our hammocks were the perfect places to collapse plus they broke the ice with our guides. Alex, of course, had his own hammock with him and Wiltur taught us a clever quick and easy way to string up a hammock.

Our Crocs. These were the perfect comfy camp shoes and we even wore them on the trail after our stiff hiking boots started to hurt too much over the unforgiving terrain.

Some cash: Needed to pay for the showers we totally enjoyed at the El Mirador site and the celebratory beer at Paty’s little store in Carmelita at the end of our adventure.

Our ExOfficio BugsAway pants and shirts: Though mosquitoes and other biting bugs were not nearly as bad as we’d feared our repellent-infused clothing kept the little buggers away.

Volcano Trekking – Santiaguito Volcano, Xela, Guatemala

Karen Catchpole, photos by Eric Mohl — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 14:15:33 +0000

Instead of sitting around Quetzaltenango (aka Xela) with frozen toes we decided to head to a much warmer location–like up one of the active volcanoes that surround the town.

There are a lot of guides and tour companies in Xela, but we signed up for an overnight trek to watch steam, ash, firey hot rocks and molten lava spew out of Santiaguito volcano with a volunteer-driven/not-for-profit company called Quetzal Trekkers. They have offices in Guatemala and Nicaragua and their profits are used to support local programs for children.

Quetzal Trekkers is a pleasantly hippie sort of a place that still manages to get professional when it counts. Our guides, Charlotte and Beth, were young and fun but they had the whole two day trip (350Q or US$44 per person) totally buttoned up–from gear (Quetzal Trekkers has a closet full of camping and hiking gear if you need to borrow) to food (which was tasty and plentiful and mostly pre-made in their kitchen).

Karen taking a break during the very steep hike up to a view point near the active Santiaguito volcano.

The hike itself was insanely steep for the first two hours as we snaked our way up through fields, then forest. After that the vegetation thinned out and the trail undulated its way more gradually uphill until we reached an open, slightly sloping hillside. After chasing the cows away, we set up camp for the night.

Santiaguito volcano at sunset.

From our campsite we had a wide-open view of the Santa Maria volcano which erupted, Mount St. Helens style, in 1902. This was one of the most powerful volcanic eruptions of 20th Century and the force completely exploded the flanks of the volcano. In 1922 a side vent developed and became the Santiaguito volcano.

Santiaguito volcano sends up a plume of steam as we watch from our campsite nearby.

Santiaguito is still a very active volcano. It sputters, puffs and belches almost on cue every hour or so. We all got a bit mesmerized watching smoke slowly rise from vents, hot rocks crash down its flanks and gooey rivers of lava ooze out here and there.

Molten lava inside a fissure in the side of Santiaguito volcano.

At sunset the sky momentarily turned the same color as the magma.The volcano looked even more dramatic at night when its various random hot spots–like tears in the mountainside–became more visible in the dark. Eric slept outside because he didn’t want to miss any of the dramatic displays. A steady stream of ash looked like snow in the air and sounded like rain when it landed on our tent. By morning everything (including Eric) was covered in gray powder.

Karen enjoys breakfast with a view from our campsite near Santiaguito volcano in Guatemala.

Click on the panoramic image taken from our campsite to enlarge it. Santa Maria volcano is to the right and Santiaguito looms near the left hand side. Our merry band of trekkers can be see in the extreme right of the image.

The next morning, after sunrise and breakfast with a view, we packed up camp and headed back down the mountain. Before returning to Xela, we stopped at a restaurant and hot spring called El Tunel for lunch and a dip in the water which, sadly, was merely tepid.

Longing for a real soak, we wanted to visit Fuentes Georginas until we found out that a mud slide had ripped through this series of hot springs pools and cabins, closing the awesome-sounding facility (not the first time that’s happened). By the time you read this Fuente Georginas should be open again. Let us know how it is!

Tip: if you’ve got any camping or hiking gear that you don’t need anymore, donate it to Quetzal Trekkers who will gladly add it to their gear room for other travelers to use and enjoy.

Santiaguito volcano sends up a plume of steam as we watch from our campsite nearby.

Check out our video, below, to see and hear the volcano at work.

Bucolic Basecamps – Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve, Belize

Karen & Eric - Trans-Americas Journey — Thu, 04 Aug 2011 23:08:14 +0000

The Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve in the Cayo District of Central Belize, not far from San Ignacio, includes more than 100,000 acres of protected land in the Maya Mountains. It’s home to cougars, tapirs, toucans, jaguars, fantastic rivers and waterfalls and two notable nature resorts to use as bucolic basecamps while you explore.

This honeymoon bungalow at Blancaneaux Lodge in Belize has one of the best private plunge pools we've ever seen.

Food, forest and Francis Ford Coppola

Like to eat authentic Italian food? Fancy the idea of hanging out where director (and resort owner) Francis Ford Coppola comes to relax and get creative? That’s why Blancaneaux Lodge was created, bringing the lap of luxury to the heart of this wilderness. Built on 70 acres the resort has a Balinese style spa building, a horseshoe-shaped warm pool (plus a conventional pool) and 20 accommodations including Coppola’s villa which has internet access and a chair on a rocky perch where the Academy Award winning director is said to do his best thinking. Given the view over a dramatic drop in Privassion Creek, it’s not surprising that this is his inspiration point.

Inspiration point: Academy Award winning director Francis Ford Coppola is said to do some of his best thinking in this chair overlooking Privassion Creek in front of his villa at Blancaneaux Lodge in Belize.

Inside one of 20 bungalows and villas at Blancaneaux Lodge in Belize.

Other don’t-miss details? The fan from Apocalypse Now that twirls above the lobby bar and each room has a shellphone–an intercom inside a huge conch shell that functions as your lifeline to the front desk (there are no telephones) at all of the resorts Coppola owns (he also owns Turtle Inn and La Lancha).

The shellphone--a signature feature of all three of Francis Ford Coppola's resorts.

The gorgeous horseshoe-shaped warm pool at Blancaneaux Lodge in Belize.

Then there’s the food. Mom’s recipes and produce from the resort’s organic garden team up to create delicious traditional Italian dishes. Even if you haven’t been on the road in Latin America for years where Italian food generally sucks, the food at Blancaneaux will be a delight.

Karen enjoying a pizza pig out at Francis Ford Coppola's Blancaneaux Lodge in Belize.

For us, the pizzas were a culinary lifesaver. Tip: ask them to put some organic arugula on top. Of course, there’s also a full compliment of Coppola wines–we were actually surprised at how many different varietals and blends Coppola is making these days…

Blancaneaux’s second restaurant is a cozy bare-bones reservations-necessary affair which serves traditional Guatemalan food. Honestly, we were all about the Italian when we were there.

For more, read our full profile of Blancaneaux Lodge for iTraveliShop.

You can hike or horseback ride to Big Rock Falls near Blancaneaux Lodge in Belize.

Though the urge to just relax (and eat) was strong, we managed to tear ourselves away from Blancaneaux long enough to hike the trail from the resort to the lovely Big Rock Waterfall on Privassion Creek then go horseback riding to the same spot the following day (even if you don’t ride go check out the 5 star stable at Blancaneaux). We also visited nearby Rio on Pools, a gently sloping section in the river that allows small swimable pools to form.

Rio On Pools in the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Rreserve in Belize.

Waterfalls and Walking

Like to hike? Fancy the idea of your own private waterfall with a catered gourmet lunch? Hidden Valley Inn, also in the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve, offers 90 miles of trails lovingly and meticulously maintained by a dedicated team of eight people who patrol and repair them.

Butterfly Falls on the private grounds of Hidden Valley Inn in the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve in Belize.

There are even hand-hewn walking sticks at the beginning and end point of many of the trails which traverse the inn’s 7,200 acres of private land in the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Reserve taking you through picture perfect jungle, along babbling brooks and past a dozen different waterfalls on the property.

Karen hiking the Cascade Trail at Hidden Valley Inn in Belize.

The Cascade Trail is the newest and most spectacular trail on the property–you can tell that it was designed by an Austrian watch maker. We spent hours walking many of the resort’s trails (armed with a two way radio, a safety device all hikers get).

A roadside hawk, one of hundreds of species of birds that live in or migrate through the Mountain Pine Ridge Forest Preserve in Belize.

King vultures hanging out at the top of their massive namesake waterfall. We apologize for the uncharacteristically poor quality but the shot had to be taken from a quarter mile away.

As we hiked we kept our eyes out for some of the hundreds of species of birds which live or migrate through the area and we saw many of them, including the massive and rare king vulture. What we didn’t see were any other hikers. There’s wasn’t another soul on the trails.

Eric cooling off in Secret Pools, one of two waterfalls at Hidden Valley Inn that you can rent for the day.

Want to really ensure privacy? You can rent your own private waterfall for the day. Cubs Den waterfall has a thatched palapa next to a gurgling creek with small rapids and a small shallow pool for swimming and wading. Or book our favorite, Secret Pools (pictured above) with a platform on the edge of the natural pool beneath the falls complete with table and chairs and a hammock. There’s even a rope barrier that reads “Do Not Disturb” that goes up across the trail so other hikers don’t stumble into your bliss.

Hidden Valley will even deliver a four course champagne lunch (including their awesome homemade bread) to your chosen waterfall.

King Vulture Falls is 800 feet high and plunges well beyond the upper section which is visible from this viewpoint.

There are 12 stand-alone cabins at Hidden Valley Inn including two deluxe suites which feature large screened-in porches, hammocks built for two and bathrooms with claw foot tubs and orchid-studded outdoor showers–in case you haven’t had enough waterfalls. And after all that hiking we also took advantage of yoga classes taught on three in-jungle platforms.

A Mexican jumping viper we encountered on a trail at Hidden Valley Inn in Belize.

Thousand Foot Falls, near Hidden Valley Inn in Belize, is actually 1,600 feet tall but you can only see the upper section from the viewpoint.

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Mexico’s Million Monarch Migration – Valle de Bravo, Mexico

Karen & Eric - Trans-Americas Journey — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 18:30:26 +0000

As another season of epic annual monarch butterfly migration comes to an end here in Mexico, we started thinking about our accidental encounters with the fluttery masses last year.

And we do mean accidental.

One of the more exciting road signs in Mexico.

We were driving along hwy 134 from Mexico City toward Valle de Bravo just minding our own damn business. Our first hint that something was in the air came when Mexican police cars suddenly veered into traffic and slowed all cars to a crawl. As a growing convoy of frustrated drivers crept around a corner the reason for the hold-up came into view: swarms of monarchs flying down the road in a slow-mo river of gold and black. These “butterfly cops” (as we dubbed them) were there to ensure that moving vehicles didn’t hit too many butterflies—or each other—in the winged confusion.

This monarch, and millions of others just like it, fly thousands of miles from the US and Canada to Mexico every year.

Most drivers kept going but we pulled over into the first turnout we saw along the highway. Soon we were hiking up a steep, dusty trail into the forest behind a handful of Mexican visitors in pursuit of what we could only hope was the home roost of the monarchs we’d just seen along the road.

Something in the air in Mexico.What looks like gently falling confetti is actually swarms of flitting butterflies.

Every year, between November and March, hundreds of millions of monarchs somehow navigate their way to the exact same areas of Central Mexico —some flying 5,000 miles or more from where they were born in Canada and the northern US. Scientists say they’re drawn to Mexico’s fir trees, but can’t provide a more complete explanation than that. Once the butterflies arrive, they rest and eat then mate like crazy before attempting the return flight home. Most never make it.

It’s one of the most puzzling, fragile and mind-boggling migrations on the planet and it gives those lucky enough to visit Mexico’s dozen or so protected monarch migration grounds the unique opportunity to see millions of butterflies in one place. There are so many of the orange and black beauties that the air is alive with the sound of their wings. Tree branches bend to the ground under their collective weight. They even begin to give off a not-so-beautiful smell, not to mention their aforementioned ability to stop traffic.

Thousands of butterflies rest in their beloved fir trees, cumulatively weighing enough to bend the branches down as if they were covered in snow.

Some of Mexico’s better known butterfly havens, like El Rosario, are becoming less of a haven as the hiking boots (and the horse hooves of those who take for the “easy” way up) of thousands of visitors churn up the hiking trails into dust bowls and encourage hillside erosion and fir tree loss. That many humans also create noise and movement that stresses the colony.

But thanks to the Mexican police force we’d stumbled upon the Piedra Herrada site roughly 15 miles outside Valle de Bravo. This newly opened viewing area is one of a handful of migration locations in Central Mexico which attract one third of the world’s monarch population every year.

The hike was steep (prompting some potty-mouthed grumbling from a woman dressed for brunch, not for hiking) and the weather was hot. Some visitors opted to ride up on one of the handful of petite horses-for-hire, a proposition that looked even more uncomfortable than walking.

At the end of a 1,100 foot climb into the mountains there were still no butterflies in sight but we plodded on winding our way up through the thick forest and the thin air above 7,000 feet.

An hour later we were met by two uniformed local men, trained as official monarch monitors. They collected 23 pesos per person and admitted only a dozen or so people at a time into a roped off hillside viewing area roughly 50 feet from the pulsating colony. We were all under strict orders to move slowly and talk quietly and we remained under the watchful eye of these monitors for as long as we remained within the roped off area. It’s one of the few times we’ve felt grateful for being supervised as the monitors shhh’d and admonished with responsibility, care and obvious respect for the butterflies.

At the Piedra Herrada site, thousands of butterflies rest on the fir trees that they love, weighing down the branches like snow. Those dark clumps are all butterflies.

Yep, all those dark patches are monarch butterflies.

Encouraged by the good conditions and manageable crowd size at Piedra Herrada we committed to finding an area even more pristine and private. And we succeeded.

The next monarch meeting place we visited was an area called Cerro Pellon outside a town called El Capulin which is about 25 miles from Valle de Bravo. The trail here was less steep and a bit shorter than the route up to the first sanctuary and our obligatory local guide allowed us to stand within 20 feet of the butterflies.

Karen on the trail to see the monarchs at Cerro Pellon.

The best part, however, was that we were there along with just five other people (three of which were guides). Plus, the trail was less steep.

Monarchs warming up in the sun at Cerro Pellon.

Thousands of monarchs but only five humans at Cerro Pellon in Mexico.

You'd never know that thousands of monarchs were camped out less than half a mile up this hillside at Cerro Pellon in Mexico.

Thousands of monarchs but only five humans at Cerro Pellon in Mexico.

It’s true that the future of Mexico’s monarchs is far from certain. Loss of habitat through persistent illegal logging, insufficient funding for the 124,000 acre Monarca Biosphere Reserve which straddles two states and encompasses most of the migration points and over-visitation threatens the butterflies.

To address some of those issues Mexican President Felipe Calderon pledged to add $4.6 million to the $36.4 million annual budget for the Biosphere Reserve (a UNESCO World Heritage Site) back in 2007. However, illegal logging (it’s a felony) and even clear cutting within protected monarch habitat is an ongoing problem as a quick Google Maps overview of some areas brings into stark relief.

Monarchs enjoying Mexico's sunshine

Our advice? Get yourself to Valle de Bravo, a charming Pueblo Magico (they don’t call it the Switzerland of Mexico for nothing) in time for next year’s migration. And note that later in the monarch season (late February and early March) warmer temperatures lure the butterflies lower down the hillsides shaving distance off your hike up to reach them.

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Celebrating the Virgin – Ajijic, Jalisco, Mexico

Karen & Eric - Trans-Americas Journey — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 17:48:53 +0000

Ajijic–on Lake Chapala, the largest lake in Mexico–is a typical mid-sized Mexican town in many ways. Every Wednesday a tianguis (farmers’ market) takes over one huge street and everyone comes out to buy avacados and fresh-squeezed orange juice and any of the hundreds of other wonderful and affordable goods for sale. The streets are cobbled. The town square is peaceful. The pace is languid. The sun is out pretty much every day of the year. Nobody obeys the traffic signs.

Despite a sizeable (and growing) population of gringos, Ajijic retains a healthy Mexican population and they retain a healthy regard for the Virgin of Guadalupe, especially during the festival held in her name every December 1-12 throughout Mexico. It’s a time for Mexicans to honor their own unique religious icon, also known as Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, which was tolerated by the Spanish conquistadors who figured turning a blind eye to a miracle-working Mexican version of the Virgin Mary was a small price to pay for converting an entire country to Catholicism.

It all began on December 12, 1531 when the image of what has come to be accepted as the Virgin of Guadalupe appeared on the cloak of Juan Diego, a peasant who, earlier in the day, had encountered an odd teenage girl who had requested that a church be built in her honor on the hill of Tepeyac. Mexico’s virgin was eventually invoked by revolutionaries and honored by Popes (there’s a shrine to her in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome) and today she is perhaps the most ubiquitous symbol in all of Mexico (left).

December 12 was decreed a feast day for the Virgin of Guadalupe in the early 1800s by Jose Maria Morelos, a priest and rabble-rousing leader of Mexico’s War of Independence against the Spanish. Today, in typical Mexican fashion, the Virgin of Guadalupe celebration has been expanded to encompass the first 12 days of December and her festival is marked with both the profound and the not so profound.

On the one hand you can buy a car freshener with the Virgin’s image on it and hang it from your rear view mirror (we did). On the other hand, millions of devoted pilgrims and followers swarm Mexican shrines and temples devoted to the Virgin every year during the annual festival commemorating her miraculous encounter with Juan Diego. Mexico’s Basilica of Guadalupe, Tepeyac hill near Mexico City, is the most visited Catholic pilgrimage destination in the world. In 2009 more than 6 million pilgrims traveled there over December 11 and 12–many of them walking for biking long distances.

Ajijic’s festivities don’t include millions of people, however, those who do take part make sure they have a good time.

The faithful pitched tents for the 24 hour mountain-top Virgin of Guadalupe fiesta above Ajijic. That's our orange Coleman tent in the lower left hand corner.

We were lucky enough to get invited to one of Ajijic’s celebrations of the Virgin which combined some of our favorite things: a good stiff hike, good friends (new and old) and the chance to take part in Mexican hospitality and ritual. But first we had to get there.

On December 6 At 6:00am we (along with our great friend Tom from Ajijic) met up with Renee at the local Oxo (think 7-11 but without the creepy parking lot lurkers). Renee is a Mexican resident of Ajijic, an avid hiker, a big-hearted guy and an artist and it was thanks to him that we were headed to the top of Mount Chupanya, 6.5 miles and 3,000 feet above us.

We began the steep steady climb in the dark and slowly wound our way up the desert scrub hillsides of the Sierra Madre for about three hours before we reached our destination, a saddle in the mountain with a small shrine to the Virgin that’s been hand-chipped out of a huge boulder.

This small Virgin of Guadalupe shrine has been carved out of a huge boulder on Mount Chupinaya above Ajijic.

The trail takes us past a few stations-of-the-cross markers, through someone’s small hand-worked corn field and in and out of many different types of vegetation ultimately passing a cluster of crosses, then the summit shortly thereafter. When we got there around 9:30 we were shocked to discover that we weren’t the first arrivals. Already hard at work was a group of Mexican men and it was a pleasure to watch (and try to help) as these guys, not necessarily even friends on any other day, worked seamlessly and resourcefully together to turn a narrow, lumpy bit of hill into a party pad.

It was amazing what they accomplished with a few tarps, a knife and some fallen logs. And as we watched them build a campfire, create makeshift benches, string up tarps, collect firewood and literally unearthing buried treasure, we thought MacGyver’s got nothing on these guys.

For month these men and others had been hiking up the mountain from Ajijic and neighboring communities with enormous bottles of purified water, huge soup pots and other cooking utensils, bottles of tequila and many other necessities that were the makings of a party which was expected to attract 200 people–not to mention an entire banda band (typically at least eight musicians) which would hike up with their instruments some time in the wee hours when they were done playing at parties down in town.

The early arrivals (including us) warmed up by a never-ending campfire between trips into the woods to dig up party necessities that had been cached in the ground over the previous months.

Two vital ingredients that couldn’t be cached in the ground ahead of time were fireworks and noise makers. Virtually no celebration in Mexico is complete without setting off copious quantities of bombas (extremely loud creations that look like giant bottle rockets) and fireworks or cuteras that come with names like vampiros. During the 12 day Guadalupe Festival even priests set the things off at their churches.

It wasn’t long before other men began arriving up on Chupinaya, huffing up the hill carrying huge baskets full of bombas and cuteras on their backs. All told, about 300 of the things were ultimately amassed at the top. Almost immediately one guy began lovingly sorting, piling and covering them. Then he began lighting them–usually four or five in a row from extremely close range.

By noon it was drizzling and Tom was sorry he hadn’t bothered schlepping his tent up the hill. All said, however, he kept miraculously dry under a crudely strung up bit of plastic even after the drizzle turned to a true rain. We’re just saying.In large part due to the rain, this year’s Chupinaya Virgin fiesta attracted far fewer than 200 people and the banda band arrived late and in reduced numbers. But by dawn they were set up gamely in front of the shrine where they belted out loud, rollicking, slightly-circus-like banda tunes on their drums and cymbals and tubas.

OK, the weather kept the Tuba-man at home, but someone walked up to the top of the mountain carrying a bass drum.

At some point in the soggy night the party crew had begun simmering an enormous pot of menudo (a slow-cooked soup made with tripe) and a equally impressive pot full of cafe olla (a Mexican spiced and simmered cowboy coffee). We’ve had menudo before and have we’ve made peace with the fact that we just don’t care for tripe (cow stomach) but we do like the broth so we breakfasted on a couple of bowls of rich broth (puzzling our fellow revelers by politely refusing the tripe), then we packed up our wet gear for the hike back down.

In the morning the rain stopped long enough to allow Karen to go on a successful orchid hunt.

As we began our descent the weather cleared and we were treated to this view of Lake Chapala and the village of Ajijic 3,000 feet below.

The sun finally came out when we were about half way down the mountain. Here Karen and Tom push on.

A few days later we found ourselves at another Virgin celebration, this one slightly more urban, in the viollage of San Antonio next to Ajijic. It was December 12, the culmination of the 12 day festival, and San Antonio–like virtually every other city, town and hamlet in the country–was marking the day with a big fireworks display at the entrance to the church. As if to enhance the experience, the power miraculously went out in San Antonio, plunging everything into darkness–the perfect backdrop for the huge castillo or intricately built tower of spinning wheels and fancy shapes which would be brought to life with one flick of a match.

The Virgin of Guadalupe Festival in San Antonio on Lake Chapala culminated, as so many Mexican festivals do, with a castillo (fireworks tower).

: The fireworks finale of the Virgin of Guadalupe Festival in San Antonio on Lake Chapala included this castillo (fireworks tower) and a larger-than-life fireworks Virgin.

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Camping and Hiking at Basaseachi Falls – Copper Canyon, Chihuahua, Mexico (Part 7)

Karen & Eric - Trans-Americas Journey — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 18:20:58 +0000

Basaseachi Falls is not technically inside the official boundaries of the Copper Canyon Natural Park (Parque Natural Barranca del Cobre) but it’s close enough for us. Actually the 812 foot cascade–which is the second highest waterfall in Mexico and/or the highest year-round waterfall in Mexico (depending on who you ask) and the 28th highest in the world–is the center piece of its own park, the Basaseachi Falls National Park. And rightly so. This gorgeous unbroken ribbon of water that made us think of Yosemite Falls, the seventh highest waterfall in the world, more than once.

The CHEPE Copper Canyon train doesn’t go to Basaseachi Falls so we drove there taking highway 16 which was marked as a major highway and looked pretty straight in our Gia Roji Mexican road atlas but turned out to a narrow winding road full of 18 wheelers. At one point we watched in horror as the pickup truck in front of us nearly got wiped out by an oncoming big rig which has taken a corner way too wide.

Basaseachi Falls and the Candemeña Canyon from high above on the rim trail.

Around 5 pm we finally pulled off treacherous highway 16, reached the town of Basaseachi safe and sound and found our way out to the Basaseachi Falls National Park. Happily, the park gates hadn’t been closed yet. We’re not exactly sure there are any actual park gates, come to think of it, and we never passed a ticket booth or an entrance station either.

Anyway, with the light fading we hurried to find a spot in the park’s campground where we had our pick since we were the only ones there. The campground is rocky but each of the vaguely demarcated sites has a spot that’s smooth and flat enough for a tent. Some also have solid metal park benches bolted into place. We picked a particularly grassy site on a bluff above a river and spent a good part of the night wondering who okay’d the budget to install a half dozen huge fancy metal street lamps throughout the campground instead of improving the mostly-not-working bathrooms. And where do they get a budget anyway if there’s no entrance station or fee collection?

We're not sure what this trail sign is supposed to be warning us about (falling gorillas?) but whatever it is, it doesn't look good.

The next morning we hit the trail headed for the bottom of the waterfall and what we believed would be a stiff two hours or so down a couple thousand feet then back up again. We didn’t even bother with hiking boots or our Mountainsmith day packs–just one liter of water and our sneakers.

We reached the top of the falls in less than 10 minutes but you can’t actually see the falls from there since the cascade is directly under the viewpoint so we started down the trail into the canyon. Then we came to an unexpected fork in the trail.

Of course we took the fork and ended up hiking way back up to the opposite canyon rim until we were substantially higher than the top of the falls where we’d started. This delivered us to a group of three overlooks including San Lorenzo. They were spectacular vantage points on the full face of the waterfall but we’d unexpectedly added a couple of hours and a couple thousand feet of climbing and descending to what was supposed to be a moderate hike.

Weirdly, long sections of the trail on this side of the canyon have recently been widened and paved with large flat stones and concrete–most likely because you can just drive to this chain of overlooks and the tempting trails are meant to entice people to stroll from point to point.

Basaseachi Falls from the San Lorenzo viewpoint.

We, however, hiked on. After getting our fill of the hard-earned view we descended back down to the fork in the trail, then continued on our original route to the bottom of the waterfall. This trail was steep and exposed and hot but spectacular and heading back up proved to be a long hard slog (did we mention that we’d run out of water by this point?) made only vaguely easier by the promise of a sandwich once we got back to our campsite.

Karen cooling off in the refreshing spray at the bottom of Basaseachi Falls.

Basaseachi Falls (click image for full size panorama)

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Going Down – Copper Canyon, Chihuahua, Mexico (Part 4)

Karen & Eric - Trans-Americas Journey — Tue, 17 Nov 2009 20:49:51 +0000

Whenever you put the words “canyon” and “hike” together you know it’s going to be steep. That’s a given. It’s also a given that you never completely appreciate a canyon by simply peering over its rim.

With that in mind we added local guide Gustavo Lozano and local pony man Pepe to our motley crew and hit the trail bound for the Urique River at the bottom of the Urique Canyon, nearly 4,300 feet below us.

Unlike other canyon hikes that we’ve done–including twice into the Grand Canyon (once from the South Rim and once from the North Rim) and, more recently, to Havasu Falls–this time we had the luxury of a mule to drag our camping gear down and back up.

Initially we had reservations about this. Over almost two decades of hiking and trekking around the world we have always carried our own packs–partly out of pride, partly out of an uneasiness about forcing an animal to do our work for us and partly out of sheer cheapness. The mule wasn’t our idea but since it was there we added our packs to its load with an apologetic little nod and took off with just day packs on our backs.

Pepe from Cabañas Diaz and Dave Hensleigh of Authentic Copper Canyon (in the back) traveled on horses. We opted to use our legs but we did ultimately let the mule carry our camping supplies.

The first hour of the hike and two miles or so of trail took us up-and-down into the canyon past sparely populated Tarahumara/Raramuri villages surrounded by steep fields until we reached a saddle in the ridge with a huge mesa in the middle of the canyon visible to our left. This, we learned is a stop on a massive new gondola (teléferico) being built.

When it’s done next year it will be take people in 60 person gondola cars more than a mile from a station on the rim near Divisadero to the mesa top in the midst of the canyon. Besides 360 degree views of the colorful rock, lush vegetation and awesome depths in this section of canyon, there are also rumors of a restaurant on the mesa.

Even more incredibly, there appear to be plans to ultimately extend the gondola from the mesa all the way down to the river at the canyon floor taking people down and back up in smaller 10-person gondola cars. Time will tell.

For now, the only way down is on foot or horseback so we pressed on.

Look closely on top of the mesa in the upper right hand corner of this photo and you can see a tower being built for the new tourist gondola (teléferico) that will ultimately span a massive section of canyon.

Looking down into Urique Canyon with the mesa and gondola tower on the left and Dave Hensleigh of Authentic Copper Canyon and his trusty steed on the right. (click image for full size panorama)

Dave Hensleigh (upper left) of Authentic Copper Canyon never seems to get tired of the Copper Canyon even though he sees it almost every month with the groups he brings down from the US.

Any reservations we may have had about not carrying our own bags disappeared as soon as we left the saddle and continued descending past the mesa. That’s when trail conditions went from “steep canyon hike” to “treacherous rock-strewn vertical obstacle course.”

Honestly, this trail was one of the hardest we’ve ever done, not because it was any steeper or any longer than other canyon hikes. Actually, it was much shorter than the Grand Canyon. What wore us out was the quality of the trail. Much of the hike required total focus just to stay balanced and upright as we hiked down steep inclines that were covered with 4″ of sliding round rocks and gravel then strewn with ankle-twisting mini-boulders. At times it was like walking down a slide covered with ball bearings and volleyballs.

Did we mention the giant swarming wasps and often sheer and substantial drop-offs along the trail?

Suffice to say we were glad for our boots and poles and our point6 wool socks as we slowly picked our way down, down, down–ultimately losing almost a mile in elevation over the course of about five miles from rim to river.

Karen carefully picking and choosing her way down the steep and unstable trail to the Urique River in the bottom of the Urique Canyon.

About a third of the way into the canyon the trail veers off into this side valley which leads to the river. Even this deep into the canyon we still can't see the Urique River.

The canyon is so steep that the Urique River doesn’t come into view until we’re nearly at the bottom.

Our first view of the Urique River, 4,300 feet below where we started on the rim.

After a long, hard, hot hike we cooled off in the clear water of the Urique River at the bottom of the Urique Canyon.

A full moon rose over the canyon making it almost bright enough to read.

Our comfortable camp on a sand bar by the Urique River under a full moon that was so bright it actually made it hard to sleep.

After a great night of grilled chicken and a nice bonfire and no run-ins with scorpions we awoke knowing only half the job was done. We’d managed to walk into the canyon, now we had to manage to walk out. Despite our best intentions to get a bright and early start to avoid as much heat on the mostly-exposed trail, we still didn’t get packed up an on our way until after nine.

Walking up the trail proved easier than walking down since the risk of sliding was reduced so we were able to make fairly decent time, ultimately returning to the rim–hot and tired–in about five and a half hours. The mule, with our bags, made it in less than three.

What goes down must go up....local guide Gustavo Lozano leads the way back up and out of the Urique Canyon.

The view from the mesa where the gondola that's being built across this section of canyon will ultimately stop. A sliver of the Urique River is visible more than 3,000 feet below. (click image for full size panorama)

Hike into the Copper Canyon – Areponápuchi to Urique River

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