The Future of Petén

It’s the end of our first full day in the ancient Mayan city of El Mirador. We slogged fifty or so miles on foot to get here, over two days. The hike in took us through the muddy lowland bajos or swamp areas, then up on an ancient Mayan causeway until we reached El Mirador. The trip was full of unexpected turns. We arrived late to Carmelita, our starting point, so the mule train took off without us and with all our food. Then we lost Michael and a few members of our archaeologist crew on the first day. Our guides told us that we couldn’t afford to wait for them to catch up since it was getting dark, so we pushed on through jungle, through the dusk and then the dark, to the mantra “una hora más.” The following morning, Michael and the others made it to our camp, with the help of some archaeologists in our group who had stayed back. Our second day was much more routine, and a drier hike, and we arrived at El Mirador in good spirits.

So far, the reward of being here has been made the journey worth it. Today we were toured around by head archaeologist Richard Hansen who has been excavating the site for 30 years. Although the city has fewer fully exposed buildings than sites such as Tikal and Copan, the effect is equally if not more impressive due to the scale of the buildings and the richness of the artwork. We have crawled into burial tunnels, climbed pyramids, and viewed large-scale masks and carved glyphs. We’ve also had the opportunity to watch the archaeologists as they unearth artifacts.

Tomorrow we’ll explore the Danta complex with the site’s largest pyramid and spend more time interviewing the people who have been uncovering the buildings one brushful of dirt at a time.