ELT: Spanish Tuition and the El Mirador Trek

Now that we had finished our medical training we set off for San Jose in Guatemala for 5 days of Spanish tuition. We arrived at the sleepy village in late afternoon and after climbing the famous steep hill up to the school we were assigned host families and were all taken away individually to meet them and for dinner. We met up that night to discuss how it was going to that point. Everybody had made fools of themselves either by not being able to speak a single sentence or through simple misunderstandings. All of our host families were excellent however and so we looked forward to a fun week.

As well as learning Spanish in the mornings, activities were set up for us to learn a little more about Central American culture. On the first afternoon we were shown around the village and were given a history lesson about the Mayans in Guatemala including more information on the Cardinal Directions and the celebrations which took place 3 times a year within their religion. Later in the week we had a chance to make tortillas.

The local chef who instructed us made a perfectly circular tortilla every 10 seconds. We, however, needed at least a minute and even then our ´circles’ were pretty dubiou

s – all except Ralph who was a natural! We also had a chance to make some local jewelry using seeds and stones.The tuition continued to go well with everyone improving and being able totalk more to their families. The chance to swim in the perfectly clear lake every afternoon was also much appreciated and by the end of the week we all wanted to stay longer. Unfortunately, during this time, our leader, Jade, had to leave to go back to England leaving us to see out the rest of the trip using our newly learnt skills from the TELS course, an opportunity we all decided would be great experience. Jade, you are missed though!

We left San Jose to start our ElMirador trip. The first day was hectic leaving at 4 30 am to catch the bus and after only 4 hours this time we arrived at the start of the trek. We met up with Ron, our guide for the trip, and after arranging horses and a muleteer, a must for the village to allow trekkers passage, we set off into the Jungle around 11 am.

After an hour of walking the heavens opened drenching us but no one minded as we had been dodging knee deep mudfor the first hour and with the rain this no longer mattered.

We passed through the La Florida camp around lunch time marking 12 km and continued to make our way to our camp for the night at Tintal, another 14 km. After a 13 hour day we arrived at our camp and got to work on a fire to dry us out and to warm us up. We then ate our first tasty ration dinner and went to bed to prepare for the next day; walking to the Mirador camp.

However when we awoke things took a turn for the worse. Both of our Medics had suffered severely all night from D&V and after assessing their state in the morning it soon became apparent that we were not going to be able to trek that day. Due to the rations we had bought we therefore could not attempt to reach El Mirador and be back in time so we set up an alternative plan. While Pippa and Bobby recovered, Pete, Myles and Ralph looked around the Tintal site which played a very impressive second best to El Mirador, still boasting much Mayan architecture and, more importantly, large pyramid temples that looked over the jungle canopy. After this day trip we returned to asses our medically challenged medics and found that Bobby was making a good recovery. Pippa, however, was not so we made a plan to return slowly to Carmelita over the next two days.

We set off back to La Florida the next morning and just made it without the need of serious medical attention! We let the walking dead rest up during the afternoon and again looked around that site seeing some great ruins of Mayan structures including a prison/funeral house which we could actually walk through. We then had an early night and left early the next morning to return to Carmelita.

We arrived around 10 and luckily managed to find a bus to take us to Flores so that the victims could rest and recover. Although we didn’t reach our goal of El Mirador we still saw some great ruins and learnt a lot from our guide and historian, Ron. The walk was also far enough and hard enough due to the mud to make it feel like a worthwhile trip.

So now we are in Flores about to head back to Barton Creek for teaching and project, the last major parts of our trip. The end is in sight unfortunately – we all wish it could go on longer!