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Update from Flores, GuatemalaGreetings everyone, Here’s a quick update before I head back into the jungles. Hope you are all fabulous and happy!!! Travelled from Coban to Lanquin, where I stayed in a thatched hut village on a pristine river. Explored some caves, hiked through the mountains, floated the river and took a day trip to Semuc Champey, a nearby phenomenon that defies description, but I’ll try. It’s about a half-mile of rock pools, in the middle of the mountains, close to nothing, being fed by what seemed to be thousands of spring-fed creeks and tiny tributaries flowing down through the forests of the mountainside through a tangled maze of exposed root systems. The pools cascade, one after the other, down through the valley, and are great for swimming, and have fascinating micro-ecosystems. The incredible thing is that the pools form a bridge, under which rushes a powerful river. You can hike to the top where the river forcefully dives into the dark passage beneath the formation, and you can walk to the bottom where it exits once again to continue on as a normal river, and if you’re really lucky, you can fall in and have your backpack and shoes and socks soaked for the three hour, 600 degree temperature, up-and-down mountain hike back to camp, and if all the planets are properly aligned, you can also twist the hell out of your ankle 20 minutes into the hike! From Lanquin, took a breathtaking and exhausting trip by pickup to Sayaxche, in the Peten region. My face and beard (if you want to call it that!) were covered in dust and grease and insects when I finally arrived! Sayaxche is a jungle river crossing, with a ferry for vehicles. Paid a kid here to take me hours up river to El Ceibal, a Mayan city of 10,000, overgroan by the jungle, with only a few structures unearthed, and many stellae (huge rock tablets with carvings and pictures). Jungle was spectacular. Trees huge, rodents huge, howl of the howler monkeys huge (these little monkeys roar like the T-Rex for Jurassic Park), tree frogs tiny. The first time I heard the roar of a howler monkey, the hair on my neck stood straight out. From Sayaxche, I tried to take a cargo boat down river into Mexico. Long story short, that didn’t work and I ended up stranded quite literally in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of Guatemalans and a chicken bus with a melted axle casing…at night. Ended up having breakfast the next morning in the backwater border town of Bethel, at the home of one of the town elders, where I began putting together a tour, which, hopefully, I’ll get to make in about two weeks…for free! (see below) Skipping ahead, after much adventure, I finally made it to Palenque where I spent several wonderful days exploring the ruins and jungle by day and rocking in a hammock to the sounds of the jungle by night. Returned to Guatemala via a more northern route, and let me just say that that trip was a raw, crazy, awesome test of patience and endurance! So now I’m in Flores, an island town in the middle of a huge lake in the middle of the jungles of Peten. Just met with a man this morning who will be traveling with me into the jungle. Tomorrow we buy provisions, and the next day he and I and a horse will set into the northern jungles of Peten for 10 days to trek through jungles and remote Mayan villages to 9 of the best and most difficult to reach Mayan sites in all of Central America. At the extremely remote El Mirador is the tallest temple in the Mayan world, and the guide tells me that we will be sleeping on top (penthouse only, thank you very much)! Long story short, it took me two weeks to put this deal together, and I’m effectively making a trek that would normally cost a small fortune, for the price of the horse, some food, and some money for the guide’s family while he’s gone. This is by far the most excited I have been since the journey began!!! Well, I think that covers the highlights. Check out the incredible job Brian is doing on the website: www.punchdragon.com With much love, Eric |