El Mirador Jungle Trek

Maya Biosphere Reserve, Petén · Guatemala

Challenging6 daysNorth America~£400 est.

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Overview

Somewhere north of the last road in Guatemala's Petén, five days' walk into the Maya Biosphere Reserve, a forested hill resolves into La Danta — by volume one of the largest pyramids ever built, its summit poking through the canopy of a city that fell twelve centuries before the Spanish arrived. The trek to El Mirador starts in the village of Carmelita, whose community cooperative runs the trips: local guides, mules or horses carrying water and food, hammocks or tents slung at old chiclero camps where spider monkeys crash through the branches overhead. The walking itself is flat but honest — 40km of jungle track each way, thick with mud early in the season and airless by mid-morning — and that is the variable: go in the December–April dry season, start each day at dawn, and let the mules do the carrying. The reward is a Manhattan-sized ruined city — and sunset from La Danta's platform with howler monkeys roaring below — almost entirely to yourselves. Stage from Flores (flights from Guatemala City), two bumpy hours from Carmelita. Book the cooperative directly or through Flores agencies. Five to six days, roughly £350–420 including guide, mules, food and camps.