Tomorrow, we, possibly being of unsound mind and/or body, will venture forth into the jungle of northern Peten, Guatemala, in search of El Mirador, the first and largest city-state of the Maya and one of the largest centers in all of Mesoamerica. Among the vast ruins lies the highest pyramid in the Americas, and possibly the entire world. This journey, since we chose to accept it, will involve 5 days of slogging through mud that is apparently up to knee-deep-- between the blisters from the rubber boots we will have to wear and the inevitable bug and insect bites we will have to endure, let's just say that it's a good thing that it'll be pant and shoe season when we return to the States. But fear not, dear readers, as we will be accompanied by 3 Germans, one of whom we saw in something today that resembled a Boy Scout uniform. Oh, and a guide or two. We will also be taking our malaria pills, hammock (with proper netting, we can only hope), and trusty camoflauged flashlight, not to mention our reporter's notebook and digital camera.
Afterwards, we shall return to Flores, an island in Lake Peten Itza where the Tayasal Maya held out against the conquistadoring Spaniards all the way until 1697. Then it will be onto Tikal, which, while not as old or as large as El Mirador, has a slightly better team of groundskeepers. After this Mayan oddysey, we plan to head straight to the beaches of Belize for some R&R, and S&S&S&S (sun & surf & snorkeling & sailing-- we will have hopefully left the "M" in the jungle) down the coast of Belize, where the showers are hot and you can flush the toilet paper down the toilet. That´s what sold us on it, anyway.
Over and occasionally down, but not out...
(Editor's note-- for security reasons, we could only publish this missive AFTER our correspondent had emerged from the jungle)
