(Daniel) Having disassembled the two ball joints on the Wolf yesterday, prior to getting the bad news from our new French friends about the scale of the work that we had undertaken.  I awoke early today, and began to put back the various bits and pieces that we had worked so hard to remove.  The rear trailing arm ball joint had now been cut in our attempt to remove the sealed joint from it’s bracket, but this unit was still solid enough to complete many years of service even without the retaining bolts.  I braved the mosquitoes under the vehicle for around an hour until the work was undone, and once again I was back to square one.

The reason for the turnaround in tactics, was that Yerko and I had agreed to enter the jungle tracks which I had found on the map, driving first from the back of Tikal to the jungle town of Uaxuctun (Washuktung) and then to the ruins of El Sotz, normally only reachable by horse.  From there we would continue through the jungle to San Miguel and hopefully pick up a main road around Flores, where we could return to the Tikal site, and I could finally see the temple ruins here.  The only slight niggle in the plan, was that the price of entry to the temple would triple from tomorrow in a long publicized and controversial increase.

I walked to the Jaguar Inn restaurant, which had satellite internet available for an extortionate amount per hour.  From there I sent our emails to the Home Team, explaining my planned movements and timetable, and when my next expected contact would come.  Also I spoke to Nii on Messenger, discussing the immigration lawyer which I was about to employ to try to get her a visa for my return to the UK.

With these essential tasks complete, I returned to the vehicle to look for Yerko, who had been mysteriously absent for the morning.  On return to the Wolf, a young guy approached me, and introduced himself as also being on an expedition, travelling the length of the Americas, although his vehicle was over in Antigua, a City to the east of Guatemala City.  His travelling companions all from Australia, as was he, were busy sorting out some issues, he had taken a bus across to see the ruins here before returning to them in a day or two.  I gave him the run down our my own trip, including our planned jungle excursion today, then pointed him in the direction of the camping warden.  It turned out that the Aussies name was Daniel too!

Just as I was walking away from him I heard Yerko calling me, he was having breakfast under a shelter nearby.  I went to join him, ordering a standard breakfast of fried beans, eggs with tomatoes tortillas and beef.  Yerko had been talking to some people about our intended route.  All of whom had told him that we would need a guide, and that the tracks were in extremely poor condition.  He was worried about it just being the two of us, and said that he would really appreciate having a spotter along with us.  I mentioned that I think I had just met the person, thinking of Daniel 2.

Just then Daniel 2 walked in, and by a strange co-incidence, Yerko and he had already met, in Mexico whilst surfing on a secluded beach.  Daniel 2 was up for coming with us despite my warnings of possible days spent in the jungle and serious hard work with the remote possibility of disaster ever present.  Together the three of us planned our packing lists, then separated and began to pack our stuff.  Daniel, who’s stuff was already packed, went for a lie down in his hammock, having had an overnight bus journey to get here.  However he soon returned having found a scorpion crawling on his neck while he dozed.

Just as we were getting ready to leave, Olivier and Marie Anne returned, they had finished their tour of Tikal, and had plenty of advice for us.  I tried to get them to join our jungle trip, but having been on the road for two years already, Olivier looked drained at the mere suggestion of several days of unknown adventure!  I have to admit, that I am starting to understand how he feels!  That being the case as I am writing these journals after the jungle trip in question!

Leaving the Globemaster trailer behind, and with Daniel 2 as my new copilot, Yerko in his ‘86 Toyota Landcruiser, complete with Warn 9000, Old Man Emu suspension, Bridgstone MTs and front and rear ARB air lockers.  We headed into the Tikal ruins site to get our special permissions to enter the jungle.  The permissions were simply a formality, although they had to be paid for, and passports and drivers licenses were required to be seen.  With these on board, the gates were opened for us, and we drove past crowds of tourists walking to a from the ruinsout into the jungle tracks leading to Uaxactun, the start of the real off road sections.

About 15kms down the track, we came to a fire lookout tower, where we stopped and climbed high up above the jungle canopy, from there we could see jungle as far as the horizon in every direction.  A lush green sea of life, broken in the distance by the huge towering temples of Tikal.  The jungle noises were amazing, with howler monkeys always somewhere in earshot, growling or making a haunting raspy breathing noise.  As we climbed back down from the tower, slight rain began to fall, judging by the permanent damp of the forest, I doubted that this would make much difference to the ground.

Just further down the hill we saw something black in the road, I stopped to look, it was a huge Tarantula, black, with a red tail. The giant spider seemed oblivious to us, as it wandered across the road, we took photos and some video, then Yerko, who had managed to get the hairy creature to stand on his shoe, kicked it at me.  Despite not being scared of spiders, one this large being propelled at you through the air is not a pleasant experience, not least for the spider, who quickly made an exit after his short flight from shoe to my trousers.

We arrived in Uaxactun at around 4pm, asking in the village for the track to El Sotz.  A young man, confidently gave us directions along a track which we could see heading into deep jungle.  Unlike the tracks which we had used to get here, this one was simply an opening in the trees, and even from the road the deep muddy ruts looked foreboding.  Yerko, who speaks fluent Spanish, finished listening to the mans directions, and translated. “It’s this way, just keep heading straight don’t deviate from the track, there are big cats and many other animals, but most are afraid of men. The only real danger is the snakes, so watch out for those.”

Sounded like the adventure had begun, I took the lead, driving straight down into the track, and along it for 50 meters before entering huge ruts deeper than my ground clearance, and getting stuck.  The ruts stretched on for another 70 meters infront of me.  We got out to have a look.   To the left of the track, was another set of ruts, that led to the same point farther down.  It looked slightly easier, barring two huge sinkholes at the end filled with water.  I got back in the truck and managed to reverse back far enough to swap tracks.  The mud here was soft and slippery.  Climbing out of tracks was extremely difficult, as I had thought earlier, it looked as if this place never dried out.

I managed with some considerable momentum to clear the first 60 meters of track, dipping in and out of the first two holes, but did not have quite enough forward motion to get out of the last hole.  I jumped out and connected the winch controller.  Winching from a nearby tree I pulled myself clear of the hole and moved aside for Yerko’s attempt. 

Between Yerko and I, there had been some Land Rover, Toyota rivalry conversations, which escalated upon the arrival of Olivier in his Land Rover, who had stated that next time, he would take a Toyota, leaving me struggling in a very one sided argument.  Now it was the turn of the Toyota to prove its worth.  Yerko had fitted front and rear diff lockers to his vehicle (I have only the standard Land Rover setup, with the heavy duty 3 pin rear diff.) 

The Toyota began well, clearing the ruts with ease, but on the first of the three holes, despite good momentum, he drove in, but could not climb out again, I smiled the smile of the righteous.  However, I also noticed that his front wheels were not spinning, and on closer inspection that his wheel based locking hubs had not been engaged.   Once these had been turned to the lock position, the vehicle climbed out of the hole and completed the other two with relative ease.  We had now done about 200 meters.  These tracks looked to be around 50kms long on the map.  What had we let ourselves in for?

Another 100 meters along the track, we came to a large water filled hole. I stopped a we approached it to check the depth and the best route.  As I did so, I noticed small turtles living in the hole, most of them about 5-10cms, but some as large as 20cms.  They were cute little things, that hid in their shell as Daniel 2 and I approached.  We also noticed another huge Tarantula, slowly making it’s way through the undergrowth in the same slow paced style that the other had been sauntering across the road in.  suddenly upclose these spiders didn’t seem so bad, they were kind of fluffy and slow.  I wanted to pick one up, but wasn’t 100% that this was a good idea.

We drove through the water without problems, carrying on to yet more ruts which we negotiated by climbing the sides.  A deep hole saw me get through, but Yerko as he drove through caught his bumper mounted hi-lift on a rock, bending it to a serious angle, and getting stuck in the process.  I used my kinetic recovery rope to pull him out, after taking a few photos of the Land Rover rescuing the Toyota of course!  Poor Yerko looked quite upset about his hilift, but as darkness was setting in, we had to keep moving to try to find camp for the night.

It soon became obvious that the track was getting worse, and that a clearing would not appear soon.  So as darkness fell, we stopped in the tracks, getting the Wolf as level as possible.  I set up the rooftent, as Yerko and Daniel 2 hung a fly sheet over the area to the aids of the vehicle.  We got out the chairs, and set up the cooking stove to boil some water for dinner.  Cracked a few cold beers and sat back to discuss the day, and more importantly the days ahead.

It seemed as if this track was worse than any of us had expected, but everyone was up for the challenge. Over a dinner of noodles with mackerel and tomato sauce, we listened to the sounds of the jungle, which grew in intensity as the night got darker, until we were almost forced to shout in order to be heard over the cacophony of frogs, monkeys, insects and things that go bump, scratch, scrape, growl in the night.

Eventually the three of us climbed into the rooftent, leaving muddy boots outside and slept soundly.

PREVIOUS |  NEXT