Dining in Carmelita

Hint: if you are in Flores probably the cheapest option to eat out is called Cafe El Zotz, right beside Cafe Yaxha (this latter has a great photo exhibition on Maya ruins but their prices are steep), with big and delicious main courses for Q25, soda included. Also, beer here costs Q5 per bottle if you buy three(!).

Another cheapie is down by the shore facing Santa Elena, below the Travel Agency San Juan, where open-grill chicken barbecue costs Q25, drinks extra. If you leave for Carmelita with the 1 pm bus from Santa Elena, right beside where the bus stands a local comedor will sell you a huge meal with beans, rice and chicken for Q15.

In Carmelita, two local comedores sell beans, tortillas, platanos and eggs for Q15. With a little advance notice, and for a few more Q, they'll can probably get you a excellent wild-crafted venison stew or some excellent blanco caught from an ancient Maya lake.

Travel from Flores (Santa Elena) to Carmelita

Local buses (camioneta) to Carmelita leave Santa Elena twice every day, at 5 am and 1 pm. From Carmelita, buses leave to Santa Elena at the same times, 5 am and 1 pm. This means that the 5 am bus from Santa Elena will arrive to Carmelita around 9 am, and the same bus will start back from Carmelita at 1 pm. Similarly, the 1 pm bus from Santa Elena will arrive to Carmelita at around 5 pm, stay there overnight and start back towards Santa Elena the next day at 5 am. The bus stop in Santa Elena is in the middle of the market, a bit difficult to find since tuk-tuks will drop you off outside the market, and at the market almost nobody knows about Carmelita buses, they will probably tell you to go to the main terminal.

To find it, walk from Flores towards Santa Elena over the bridge, then turn right at the second traffic light (there will actually be a big blue sign before the crossroads with "Carmelita" and "El Mirador" on them and a small INGUAT sticker making sure everyone knows who put up those signs), walk about 2 minutes and turn left on the second small street that leads into the market. That street will bend left and right and then open up into a busy square with microbuses and buses parked in the middle. The bus on the other side of the square goes to Carmelita. It probably won't have a sign saying so, but ask any of the other bus drivers (many buses leave from here to Sayaxché, Poptún, etc.) and they will tell you exactly. Don't get confused: many locals refer to Carmelita as "Carmela". Who knows which name was first...:)

Another way to catch the bus from Flores is to take a collectivo lancha (boat) from the north part of the island to San Andres (should be about 100Q per trip, if you look very gringo the locals might tell you there is no such thing as collectivo boats), walk up to the village and catch the Carmelita bus on the main square. With this you can miss the bustle of Santa Elena and get a scenic trip on the lake too. The bus makes it in about half an hour from Santa Elena to San Andres. The fare to Carmelita is 30Q per person, and you can keep your bags in the back of the bus, practical if it is raining, but watch out, passengers later are likely to pack boxes of fruit and animals on top of it.

The road goes around the lake from the left side, after San Andres it slowly becomes gravel, then dirt. Dos Aguadas, La Colorada, La Gloria are all stops on the way, Dos Aguadas is the place to get off if you are planning on hiking to El Zotz and Tikal. The bus will stop halfway for 10 minutes where drivers eat there little fried chicken legs at a street vendor. The road, especially after rains, is frequently too muddy for anything except serious 4x4 vehicles to pass. That means the bus might get stuck too... or it might just break down any time of the year. If the drivers can fix it then they carry on, if not they will wait for the next bus, next day or some solution to show up. Definitely not good if you are on a tight schedule, but then, taking a "shuttle" might not help either, agencies in Flores use private microbuses to take groups to Carmelita, and many times passengers have to get out and dig and push the van if they want to make it to Carmelita. All that for about 5x the price of the local bus.

Now, the other option is advertised as safe and fail proof, but in fact it is not. It involves paying a microbus driver 600Q for the roundtrip to Carmelita. Even if you are not going back with the same bus, you will have to pay that amount. And if you already paid the roundtrip, and the driver finds people wanting to leave Carmelita TO Santa Elena, he will also make them pay 600Q for the roundtrip. Or at the very least 300Q. I personally was there when the driver from Ecomaya wanted to charge 1500Q for some people who had to leave Carmelita in an emergency. Of course, everybody has the right to ask as much as they think fair, but still, be smart and do your math. If you book your trip with an agency in Flores for 200USD, the price includes private transport to and from Carmelita. From Carmelita you can also arrange emergency transport to Flores any time for 600Q.

Sleeping before and after El Mirador

This post won't be too long, since all accommodation options can be found on the internet. I

Consider staying at Youth Hostel Los Amigos, Flores. Hammock places Q25, 15-bed dorm Q35, private room Q45 per person. Main courses around Q60, travel agency in-house, computers and Wi-Fi. If you do a Google search, you will come across loads of opinions, experiences and traveler info on the hostel, good and bad. The good things mentioned are: great food, lots of English-speaking travelers, the jungle atmosphere, the location, helpful travel-agency, the free Wi-Fi and the great library. The negative opinions include: selling pirated movies and e-books, keeping endangered wild species (parrot) captive, dog shit smeared on walkways, unfriendly staff short-changing you on food and internet, dirty bathrooms, lots of noise, treating you like a potential cheater when you don't pay up front for everything, expensive prices, staff smoking dope.

If the only thing you are interested is the price, go to the Santa Elena market, find a place called "Hospedaje", and get a room (cell) for Q10 per person double, Q15 single. All other options in Flores start at Q40 per person. If you prefer private rooms and quiet, these rooms are way better value than those at Los Amigos.
In Carmelita you can stay at the house of Carlos and Patricia (hammocks or a mattress on the ground) for free if you book a tour with them, or pay Q15 if you just hire mules from them or go with another outfitter.

Other websites on El Mirador

Other important (and independent!) websites:

Mostly Maya is in fact All Maya. A site written by an enthusiastic traveler who keeps returning to El Mirador, it has been recently the most relevant and informative site on travel to El Mirador and other Maya sites in CA. A big thumbs up for being really independent.

Authentic Maya is a huge site on the history, culture of the ancient Maya with some really detailed and hard-to-find information on recent excavations and archeology. The owners don't answer emails, but never mind, they probably spend that time uploading more stuff to their (bit chaotic) website.

Lonely Planet Thorntree is probably well known to any real traveler, with huge discussion forums on El Mirador. To get there try typing "El Mirador 2010" in their search box, since it is a bit difficult to find the latest opinions on El Mirador from a history of about 6 years.

Mirador Basin Project is the official site of the archeological work being done at El Mirador. Boasting the best design of all the other sites, it has some interesting news topics about recent finds among the general PR and self-advertisement of Hansen, FARES and financial supporters of El Mirador. Oh, and here is where you can donate to the project... unfortunately money is the only option offered.

Global Heritage Fund has a flashy site of the foundation financing the work at El Mirador with the largest amount. Their small state-of-the-art GIS application uses a Google Earth plugin to present the digital archeological site plans of El Mirador and Nakbé, not very practical if you don't have internet. The solution is to extract the .kmz file, convert it to .gpx and upload it on your Garmin GPS, and behold, there is the whole ancient city at your fingertips.

Buenas Cosas - serving community and nature. Not-for-Profit development and volunteer opportunities.

New website for El Mirador

Previously I wrote about insufficient information on El Mirador. This seems to be changing right at these moments. The company called Ecotourism & Adventure Specialists created the website www.miradorpark.com, where detailed info is being published about El Mirador in English and Spanish. Although still very incomplete, visitors will find a wealth of information on archeological complexes within the central area, also about Maya myths and culture. Even though presently what they offer is mostly helitours to El Mirador, the pages have a great potential and judging by the work it will become the topmost source of information about the site.

El Mirador Library

Here is a list of publications our volunteer guides at elmiradorhike.blogspot.com are required to read or learn before accompanying local guides from Carmelita on the El Mirador Hike. We spent months collecting the data, even going to the extremes of paying for some of the papers that were only available through online payment schemes. I sometimes wonder when will GHF, APANAC, El Mirador Basin Project or other big names in the trade make such data available freely and easily to the general public.

We are planning on printing the Spanish translations for local guides in Carmelita who are interested in further training themselves, and English copies for tourists who will be able to read them in Carmelita. Of course, financial support for this is pretty hopeless...

elmiradorhike.blogspot.com Library:

05 THE PALEOENVIRONMENTAL SEQUENCE OF THE MIRADOR BASIN IN PETÉN (David Wahl, Thomas Schreiner, Roger

06 ONE KATUN OF WAIT AT EL MIRADOR, PETÉN: EXPLORATION AND RE-EXCAVATION OF STRUCTURE 34 FROM THE LATE PRECLASSIC (Richard D. Hansen et.al)

07 EXCAVATIONS AT THE SITE OF LA MUERTA, MIRADOR BASIN, PETEN (Edgar Suyuc et.al))

08 NAACHTUN ARCHAEOLOGICAL PROJECT: PRELIMINARY RESULTS OF THE FIRST FIELD SEASON 2004 (Kathryn Reese-Taylor et.al.)

20 THE TRANSITION FROM THE LATE PRECLASSIC PERIOD TO THE EARLY CLASSIC PERIOD IN THE INTERSITE ZONE OF XULTUN AND SAN BARTOLO IN PETEN (Thomas. G. Garrison)

25 RECENT DISCOVERIES AT PERÚ-WAKA’, PETÉN: SACRED LANDSCAPES IN THE SOUTHEASTERN ZONE OF THE EPICENTER (Michelle E. Rich)

26 INVESTIGATIONS AT CHAKAH, PETÉN: A PERIPHERAL SITE OF EL PERÚ-WAKA’ (Fabiola Quiroa et.al)

37 AN EARLY MAYA TEXT FROM EL MIRADOR, GUATEMALA (Richard D. Hansen)

54 CONSIDERATIONS FOR THE DEFINITION OF STRATEGIES FOR THE CONSERVATION OF STUCCO RELIEFS AND FRIEZES IN THE MAYA REGION (Eric F. Hansen et.al.)

60 EXCAVATIONS IN THE LA DANTA COMPLEX (Howell)

64 THE MONUMENTS AT NAACHTUN, PETÉN (Peter Mathews et.al.)

74 THE SEQUENCE IN THE CERAMIC TRADITION OF EL PERÚ-WAKA’, PETÉN (Edwin Román et.al.)

75 PRELIMINARY STUDY OF ANIMAL UTILIZATION DURING THE LATE PRECLASSIC AT EL MIRADOR, PETÉN (Erin K. Thornton et.al.)

88 CULTURAL GLOBALIZATION AND FOLKLORIZATION OF THE “MAYA”: THE CASE OF THE GUATEMALAN ARCHAEOLOGY (Marcelo Zamora et.al.)

Surfaces and beyond: the political, ideological, and economic significance of ancient maya iron-ore mirrors (Marc Gordon Blainey)

The Search for Site Q (Angela M.H. Schuster)

A geographic analysis of ancient Maya settlement and polity (Clifford T. Brown et.al.)

Building a GIS System of Ancient Lowland Maya Settlement (Walter R. T. Witschey et.al.)

Popol Vuh: Literal translation (Allen J. Christenson)

The Electronic Atlas of Ancient Maya Sites (Walter R. T. Witschey et.al.)

Some thoughts on the composition of Murals 1 and 3 of Structure 1, La Sufricaya, El Petén, Guatemala (Elisabeth Wagner)

Analysis of Samples and Artifacts from the Mirador Group, El Perú-Waka' (Michelle Rich, FAMSI)

Function and Meaning in Classic Maya Architecture (Stephen D. Houston)

Maya hieroglyphs Study Guide (Inga E. Calvin)

The mammals of Guatemala

Tropical Deforestation, Community Forests, and Protected Areas in the Maya Forest (David Barton Bray et. al.)

Conservation assessment report and recommendations, Mirador Basin, Guatemala (John Hurd, GHF)

Mirador Basin 2008-9 Progress Report Summary (GHF)

Surviving in the Rainforest: The Realities of Looting in the Rural Villages of El Petén, Guatemala (Sofia Paredes Maury)

Publications we are still searching for (any help is most welcome):

Excavaciones y Rescate de la Estructura 1 de La Florida, Peten (Balcarcel et.al.)

El Protoclásico en las Tierras Bajas Mayas: Algunos Apuntes sobre los Resultados del Taller de Cerámica (Brady et.al.)

Desarrollo de Vegetacion y Cambio Cultural en la Cuenca Mirador, Guatemala (Castañeda et.al.)

Estudios Botánicos en la Cuenca Mirador: Desarrollo de Vegetación y su Significado Cultural (Castañeda et.al.)

Monumento 18 de El Mirador: El Contexto Arqueológico y la Iconografía (J.P. Laporte et.al.)

Tiempo Mesoamericano IV: Preclasico Tardío (400 a.C.-200 d.C) (Clark et.al.)

Maya Water Management in the Mirador Basin (Fairley)

La Arquitectura Preclásica en Nakbe: Un Estudio Comparativo de Dos Períodos (J.P. Laporte et.al.)

La Estructura 27 de Nakbe, Peten (Forsyth)

La Estela Hauberg y el Reinado Preclásico de Kan (Guenter et.al.)

Discovering the Snake Kingdom: The Epigraphy of the Mirador Basin.

Initial Explorations at Nakbe, Peten, Guatemala (Hansen, Richard D.)

Excavations in the Tigre Complex, El Mirador, Petén, Guatemala (Hansen, Richard D.)

The Maya Rediscovered: The Road to Nakbe (Hansen, Richard D.)

Early Polity Formation, Adaptive Settlement Response, and the Epistemology of Apocalypse: Final Research and Lab Analyses at Nakbe, Guatemala (Hansen, Richard D.)

El Mirador, Guatemala: El Apogeo del Preclásico en el Área Maya (Hansen, Richard D.)

Exploraciones Preliminares en el Sitio La Muralla, Peten (Hansen, Richard D. et.al.)

Investigaciones arqueológicas en el sitio Tintal, Peten (Hansen, Richard D. et.al.)

Climatic and Environmental Variability in the Rise of Maya Civilization: A Perspective from Northern Peten (Hansen, Richard D. et.al.)

Developmental Dynamics, Energetics, and Complex Interactions of the Early Maya of the Mirador Basin, Guatemala (Hansen, Richard D. et.al.)

Early Social Complexity and Kingship in the Mirador Basin. In Lords of Creation: The Origins of Sacred Maya Kingship (Hansen, Richard D. et.al.)

Excavaciones Arqueológicas y Ecológicas en la Cuenca Mirador: Rescate y Excavaciones en el sitio La Florida (Hansen, Richard D. et.al.)

Forgotten Structures, Haunted Houses, and Occupied Hearts: Ancient and Contemporary Perspectives of Abandoned Sites and Buildings in the Mirador Basin, Guatemala (Hansen, Richard D. et.al.)

Operación 402Q y 402N, Escalinata de acceso de la Primera Plataforma hacia la Segunda Plataforma del Complejo Arquitectónico “La Danta” en El Mirador (Ordoñez-Fajardo)

Acrópolis Central: Excavaciones en la Estructura 313, El Mirador, Peten, Guatemala (Balcarcel)

Excavaciones en la Estructura 204 del Grupo Cascabel, El Mirador, Peten (Hansen, Richard D. et.al.)

The Tintal-Mirador Causeway: A Monumental Prehispanic Sacbe in the Mirador Basin, Guatemala (Hernandez et.al.)

Los Faisanes: Exploraciones y Mapeo Preliminar de un Asentamiento Preclásico al Noroeste de El Mirador, Peten (Morales-Aguilar et.al.)

The homepage of the cooperative

I found a relevantly new homepage about the Carmelita Cooperativa, under the umbrella (they call themselves a "trademark") of Mayan Land.
The site is a perfect example of professional design and PR language. It gives the impression that all the problems of local villages are solved through community involvement, forest certification and enthusiasm.
Reality, as always, might be a bit different. About certification (they boast the FSC logo): one can see personally the clear cut areas in the La Gloria and Carmelita concessions on the Flores-Carmelita road, a practice definitely not certification-compatible. Well, that is not unusual anywhere else in the world.
But, they also make a great deal of advertising beneficial xate collection practices. It is probably all true, but let me post an opinion of a local "xatero" from Carmelita (Walter Mendoza):
"When we could sell the xate directly to the international buyers, we made a fair amount of money. But now, since the cooparative manages all sales, we receive much less for our work. Of course, we would be happy to sell it again directly, but we are afraid. My friends have been threatened by gunpoint, and one pick-up has been smashed up when we tried going around the local cooperative. I don't want any trouble, better to give it all to our organization" (smirks).
I don't know if this is true or if it is just a local guy complaining about nothing, but it might be important to listen to the "other side".
He also mentioned a figure for chicle, another local product, explaining that the Japanese company buying all the chicle from Carmelita pays 10Q for a "brick" (probably 1 pound), but the cooperative pays him only 6Q.

An investigative, independent, professional reporter would be needed to get all the facts straight, we just channel local voices to the internet.

Carmelita unveiled III.

All this of course would not be possible without the active support of travel agencies in Flores, who, naturally, are all about the profit. It seems they don’t care if it is just one person benefiting from the tourism revenues of El Mirador, as long as the price of guides and mules is the lowest possible. Recently the Association of Travel Agencies in Flores (not sure if this is a legally existing organization) agreed on a fixed price for the 5-day hike to El Mirador, namely US$200. And they will send their groups to whoever offers the lowest price. According to Patricia, she will not reduce her prices that have been in effect for ever two years now just to start a pricing competition (she offers the same trip from Carmelita for about US$150). Apparently he logging cooperative will accept any group for any price as long as they get the job. My experiences support what Patricia told me, during my 10+ trips to El Mirador I often met with guides from the logging cooperative who often tried to persuade me not to employ Carlos as a guide, since he is not a member of the cooperative, even going to extremes in accusing him of being irresponsible, leaving people behind and stealing. Of course, none of this is true, nothing even close has ever happened on any of my trips guided by Carlos or his family members. Marina (or Maria) and Umberto, guides famous from El Mirador blogs were the worst, the former actually going up personally to anyone wanting to strike a deal with Carlos, and telling them that they should employ “cooperative guides” if they want to have a safe hike.

Carlos (who is also busy organizing and certifying a private collection of Maya artifacts with CONAP, similar to that in Uaxactún) in them meantime just shrugs, and tells me at the end the people who want him out of the business will lose to justice. I am not so sure.
It is not the purpose of this blog to provide justice, take sides or make business with anyone on either side (our guides work on a volunteer basis), all we can do is try to provide some extra information that might persuade future hikers to take a more responsible look at the situation in Carmelita, as opposed to foreign NGO’s using funds and a western approach, based on a few reports and day visits, to solve problems of community interrelations they claim to know all about.