Discovering El Mirador
I found out about the hike to El Mirador a week or so after I got back from Colombia (The Lost City trek while I was Googling other hikes to do. From the day I got back from Colombia, I wanted to plan another one and when I stumbled on El Mirador I knew it was the one!
I was excited that this one went to see Mayan ruins since the past year I had been lucky enough to see quite a few different ruins. I found these ruins even more fascinating because they were harder to get to. It was either trekking or a helicopter. As much as I love flying I knew trekking would be more of an adventure! I won’t say that I wasn’t a bit worried about snakes on this hike; since it is not as well-known I knew the paths would not be as worn. I expected this to be similar to The Lost City in terms of camps and accommodation but I was wrong. This trek was what I thought The Lost City would be!
Getting to Flores
Let me start where I left off; Hector and I had just arrived at the Belize City Municipal Airport and from there we grabbed a taxi to the Belize City bus station. I have made the journey to Guatemala once before (to see Tikal) so I vaguely knew what I was doing. From the bus station we hopped on a bus to San Ignacio. The bus was PACKED!! I think it took a little over an hour to get to San Ignacio and from there we found a taxi to take us to the border.
Crossing the border was pretty quick. Make sure you have Belize or US cash because the fee to leave Belize by land or sea is $40 Belize or $20 US. Both currencies are dollars but the Belize dollar is always (in my experience) 2:1 to the American dollar. We also changed our money to Quetzals (the Guatemalan currency) right before exiting Belize. Once you exit Belize you then join another line to enter Guatemala. That took a bit longer but still wasn’t too bad. While in that line we found a taxi driver (you can take a bus) to take us to Flores. Just make sure you know roughly what things should cost so you can haggle and not get ripped off.
I think the cab ride to Flores is a little under 3 hours. Our taxi driver asked if we minded if a family member rode with us because they had another family member in a hospital in the area. We didn’t mind but I do think he just wanted to take his wife on a date in Flores! The taxi driver also told us he was a guide for El Mirador. I saw later on Instagram (I follow the #elmiradortrek) that he was! We stopped a little over half way through in a small village and got pupusas from a little stall on the roadside. We each got two with pork, cabbage and salsa. They were so tasty! (I love pupusas).
Finalizing the Tour
We arrived in Flores around 3pm. We booked the tour through Lokal travel but there is actually only one company (Cooperativa Carmelita) that arranges the tours and all other agencies book through them. I had received an email from Cooperativa Carmelita that we should stop by their office the day before the tour to make the final payment. We had only paid a 20% deposit. Turns out their office was on the same street as our hotel. We checked in and dropped our stuff before walking down to the office. When we got to the office it was closed, causing a bit of a panic but we decided to come back later.
Eventually we found them open. We went to pay the rest of the payment but their card machine would not work. They made no effort to get it working but just said we would have to pay cash or try and pay online (which would cost and extra $100). I was pissed. We said we would just cancel!
Paying for the Tour
Walking over there we had been stopped by another company that said they did the tour (we did not know at the time just one company did it) and so we headed back to that company. That company said they could arrange it but we would have to pay cash. However, he did say he would take us to an ATM. I was still annoyed since we would be stuck with ATM fees but knew I wanted to do the tour. The gentleman’s wife drive us to an ATM (one way further away – we later found out there was a closer one) and we got the payment all set up.
They told us to meet back at the office at 5 a.m. the next morning to start the hike. I was a little annoyed at the hassle to get everything set up; mainly because we didn’t have any extra days and we had to start the hike the next day. Also, since we didn’t pay through Cooperaive Carmelita I was told I would lose our deposit! We did actually end up getting that back and because we haggled with the 2nd tour operator and the current exchange rate the price was a little lower (even with ATM fees) than we had expected. The tour costs $250 a person and I think we ended up paying about $240.
Setting off
The next morning we got to the office (2nd tour operator) at around 4:50 a.m., before the sun had started to rise and waited. We found a sign on the door saying they would be back soon. We thought that was odd but sat and waited as the sun came up. The street was deserted. When it got to after 5 a.m. we thought the whole thing had been a scam but just then a truck drove past. It was the guy who we tried to pay for the tour that day before and the machine didn’t work. He saw us and told us we had to meet over by the lake. Also, that all tours went through his company!
We made our way down to the van by the water, slightly peeved at this second company now since they never showed up or told us the correct place to meet, however, we were just happy to be on the way!
Check back for day 1! The trek to the 1st camp: El Tinal.
There will be way more pictures in the next post. I was a bit stressed getting everything set up and didn’t take many.
Lots of love,
Buffy xx
