El Mirador: Day 2

The night was noisy, as every night during the rainy season, and even more noisy when an alarm clock goes off in the middle of it (like… 3 am…). No need to precise it’s our lovely guide who fucked up. So, we woke up like flowers (grumpy ones) as Raul went shopping (yes, you can shop at 6 am in this part of the world). He came back full of courage in bottle mixed with a soft: the trek is going to be fun for sure now.

I wish I was kidding

Expecting the worst of Raul, we started the trek on a slow pace in the muddy and humid jungle. The guide was behind (?!?), on his mule, answering ‘STRAIGHT’ to any question.

“Is it right or left?”

“Straight!”

“Up or down?”

“Straight!”

"How do you prefer men?"
"Straight!"

Straight!

Nick forgot quickly the concept of dryness after a short hour, followed by the two other British. Damien and I, happy with our super waterproof shoes, learned quickly how ironic those gears are as they stayed full of water as soon as the path is too flooded. For a normal hike, they are perfect, to ‘swim’: not so much. Meanwhile, Raul was laying on his donkey, having a hard time to articulate his thoughts as much as his gibberish. Two times at least, he felt down from drunkenness, miraculously without hurting himself.

Tarentula

Our new best friend: the sticky web of the Banana-Spider

Supposedly a pawnprint of a tyrannosaur

After a good 10 hours of slow pace hiking, we finally arrived in Tintal, our first stop and unexcavated temple of the old Maya’s empire.

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El Mirador: Day 1

After Mexico and Belize (where you will have the privilege to see some pictures here and here), we arrived in Guatemala on a cloudy Sunday. Totally broke BEFORE the border, it was already an adventure to get to Flores, little island on a lac. And as soon as we were there, we got hooked up by a tourist agent for a trek in the Jungle to go to the mythic El Mirador for the following day. We agreed totally unprepared and lacking both money and food at the moment.

Meeting at 5 am, we woke up 30 min late and the only memory I got is myself, on the street, bare foot and only wearing a short, calling the goddess of luck to not loose the 1350 Quetzalles we gave the day before. Well to be honest, I was also wearing my lucky charm as the bus appears. Our guide, Raoul, an old and crippled Guatemalan, pick up another three dudes (Bristish) to complete the group he is supposed to lead 5 days in the jungle: Adam, Nick and Piers.

Raul 'The Burden' Mayen

Adam 'I dunno' Wickes

Piers 'Captain' Davies

We quit, little by little, any civilized world. The houses are as rare as the teeth in the mouth of our guide. The road gets dirtier and more and more flooded. So much flooded indeed that we get stuck at the exact middle of our road to our first stop: Carmelita. The bus is stuck, and we need everybody to release it from the mud/water. 

The sweat

The little sweat didn't do much for our moral but the 4 hours of waiting for some miracle to happen got on the nerves of some. Bargaining with almost every vehicles passing by (which were few as we were in ‘nobody gives a shit’ land) and calling the tourist office did not help so much (it work just as much as complaining). 

The wait

Very long wait

Finally, a pick-up from Carmelita helped us out and we finally got to this remote village where the beer is hot and where you can find a stick signaling THE spot to get a mobile signal.

Carmelita

It was too late to keep on with the plan, so we had to sleep there. Raoul got on his mind to get wasted (just that) and disappeared for 3 hours. It allowed us to know a bit the locals who were very talkative about our guide… our alcoholic guide…

Little boy with a top

As Nick said on this first day: “There is gonna be quite a few firsts”.

Chiapas: San Cristobal de las casas

Let's try not have 1 month of delay between the blog and the real life!

So, we were in Puerto Escondido of the state of Oaxaca and we took the night bus to San Cristobal de las casas. We tasted a bit of the very stereotype of the French tourist: being a total c*nt. We've got to work double rate to compensate those guys!

So we arrived the morning to this small city and the contrast was stunning: most people wear traditional clothes. Just like time got stopped here.

Superb City

It's amazing how little these people seems impacted by the mass of tourist that goes there everyday. Anyhow, visiting this city was very nice, Mexicans were very helpful and nice to us. We also had the chance to be hosted by Jesus for one night and played a Basketball game where we showed them how we do things in France :)

To add a bit to this crazy day (yes, we arrived early, had time to visit and to beat the crap out of three Mexicans in one day!), we had a karaoke night with Swedish girls.

We are living in a very weird world, I tell you!

Puerto Escondido

After the calm of Oaxaca City, we headed to the beach of the states to taste a bit of the famous party over there. For once (in a long time), we settled in a back-packer “near” to the beach and we felt relieved not being hang on the decision of anybody to go now and then. This freedom didn’t last long though as, for our first night in Puerto Escondido, we decided to spend our money in a fancy restaurant. You know, after eating constantly in the street for some time, you start being confident about your body and you let your guard down. Well, this fancy restaurant revealed to be tough on us: we were stuck in the bed for 24 hours the day after. We would still enjoy our evening (thanks to Carla, Lyda and Tequilla!). Frankly, at first, we thought of a very bad hangover but then, as the situation didn’t evolve, we had to face the reality: we got food poisoning.

Then, the days were better and as all touristic cities near to the beach, we didn’t really get to Mexicans. We had some british, Australians, Danish and so on. Tourists were everywhere but we had the chance to spend on day in a remote aera where we’ve seen one of the best sunsets on the beach.

Damien, Lyda, Carla and François

I’m not gonna talk about our failed attempt to get on a boat to fish and watch some animals in the sea because it was “kinda dark out there, you know?” BUT I will certainly talk about the three girls who made our stay a bit special. Firstly, Carla (the Spanish marvelous wonder that make disappear beers faster that the time to say it) and Lyda (The Cypriote whose point of view on things in general make you wonder about your own). We had such a blast with them and I can’t wait to see them again. Finally, the last girl, from the staff of the hostel, always lying in her couch poking people on Facebook (you can picture her body here), shouting to pass messages at the other side of the complex, and, at times, really awful with the clients (us!).

With all the nice people we've met troughout this travel, it's sometime hard to realize can be rude but as the manager of the hostel ask us to leave a review on his backpacker, well, we did... Jajaja

Next stop, the marvelous city of San Cristobal de Las Casas

François