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.
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| Raul 'The Burden' Mayen |
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| Adam 'I dunno' Wickes |
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| 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.
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| 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).
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| The wait |
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| 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.
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| 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…
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| Little boy with a top |
As
Nick said on this first day: “There is gonna be quite a few firsts”.
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