SPECIAL FEATURE: GUATEMALA
The helicopter offered a fresh
perspective on the Guatemalan rainforest — and the problems facing it. From the sky I saw columns of smoke rise from the jungle, a telltale sign of slash-and-burn farming. My heart sank at the large tracts of forest that were turning to ash. Soon, though, we were circling
the verdant pyramids of El Mirador, which, from a distance, could easily be mistaken for hills. I could see how Cortés and his men managed to miss them on their expedition. Greeting me at the helipad was
Manuel Cruz who led me through the jungle to a ramshackle camp, where weary hikers, mainly from Germany, lay knackered in their tents; they’d just completed the two-day trek to El Mirador. “I have a lot of pain in my legs
— so much pain,” groaned Felix, an engineering student from Hamburg. “And I have to walk another two days to get back.” I smiled sympathetically before telling him that I’d taken the chopper. He sighed.
The helicopter didn’t exempt me
from hiking, however, and I was soon trekking through the jungle again, this time to the largest Mayan pyramid: La Danta, which Manuel helped excavate. Joining us for the hike was a
Guatemalan TV crew, who were putting together a documentary on El Mirador, and Juan Rivera, a birdwatcher and environmentalist, who works for the Guatemalan tour operator, K’uk Tours. Juan’s company was seeing a sharp uptick in interest for hiking trips to El Mirador, which retains an undiscovered charm. We encountered just two other
tourists roaming the overgrown ruins, a sharp contrast to Tikal where they arrived by the busload. In fact we saw more howler monkeys than we did people; their diminutive size belying their deafening roar. Much sweat was produced climbing
La Danta. At the top I took shade beneath a tree, sitting down next to a lizard. “We’re on the roof of the Mayan world now,” said Juan, looking across the rainforest. “Nowhere else compares
QUICK FACTS
BEGINNING: The Mayans could trace their roots as far back as 2000BC, but it wasn’t until around 750BC that historians believe they started constructing cities.
MIDDLE: At its peak (250- 900AD), the civilisation was spread across much of modern-day Guatemala, Belize, southeast Mexico and the western portions of Honduras and El Salvador.
AND END: Overpopulation, environmental degradation and war are among the reasons cited for the Mayan collapse, but there’s no universally accepted theory to explain their demise.
Adventure September 2018 55
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