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Check out this sweet client posted video of a recent Old town Outfitters trip up the twin summits of Acatenango and Fuego volcanoes. 

36 Hours in Antigua

The New York Times 36 hour column just featured Antigua as one of its destinations!  Our Old Town Outfitters trip to Pacaya Volcano was featured as one of the top experiences while here in country.  It is indeed a great trip.  If your thinking to visit Guatemala, get in touch and lket us get you out there off the beaten track and onto a unique adventure trip.  Congratulations to all the other folks that also  were featured.

37 in 27

January of 2015 4 hikers set out to hike 37 of Guatemala’s volcanoes in just 27 days.  This would be quite the undertaking to get up and down and then on to the next peak in that short amount of time.  This is remarkable not only because of the feat of climbing that many volcanoes in that sort of time but these four guys were doing it not for themselves or any sort of fame, but to raise awareness and money for four different developmental organizations in Guatemala that they each had a special link to.

Old Town’s own, Nico Marceca, Reinhard Prosch and Luis Galindo were supporting Niños de Guatemala, Integral Heart Foundation and Asociación Q'ukumatz.  Steve Cook was trekking for Habitat For Humanity Guatemala.

These selfless 4 some pulled together Guatemalan and International sponsors to help not only fund the trip but also to fund their respective projects.  At the end of the month they had managed to climb the 37 volcanoes with a day or two to spare.  Using their home base of Antigua and her four resident volcanoes as the grand finale the group invited folks to join on the Acatenango/Fuego overnight as well as “sold” spots to donors for famous Pacaya Volcano.  All said and done the group was able to raise a over $20,000 and plenty of awareness for their organizations.  

Good work lads and Old Town is happy to have been able to help out! For more information on the trek visit their website at: 37in27.com. Donations are always welcome and will go to a good cause. Visit their crowd rise page as well. 

Guatemalan Highlands Hut to Hut

Over the past year or so we have been working to open a few new routes out in the Western highlands of Guatemala.  This has always been one of our favorite areas to ride as its aboslutely criss-crossed in single track.  One of the challenges of riding up here is that to truly get out there and away from it all it unfortunately means that you will also be away from any sort of lodging.  

We wanted to open a route like those epic rides in Colorado or Europe where cyclists can basically leave the worry behind of camping gear and cooking and focus on what you are there for: the riding!

We came across a couple pretty cool communities on our rides that have started to create some basic lodging options in the way of community hostals or posadas.  Last year we started working to find creative ways to link these hostals together to create a pretty unique adventure mountain biking experience.  

The trails are great, the scenery is even better and there is a cultural freshness to the rides that is second to none, anywhere!  The going is tough in some places, hell, most places but to reach such untouched, unridden areas means that you will have to push you bike at some points.  The beauty is that you can do this and not have to carry mush with you in terms of camping gear.  At the end of each day there is a warm bed, good filling food and in most cases cold beers, and if no beers there’s most likely moonshine.

About the same time that we were thinking to head out to link all the rides together, about 5 or 6 days depending on how you do it, we were contacted by none other than Hans No Way Rey who was coming to Guatemala and wanted to do something unique.  He was en route to hand out about 50 bicycles to school kids in need via his NGO Wheels For Life in the Antigua valley and was looking for something to do afterwards. 

This seemed like the perfect opportunity to head out into the Guatemalan backcountry with a couple seasoned pros.  Over the next 5 days we would push through areas that rarely receive foreign travelers, much less on bikes, and ride a huge swath of Guatemala much of which probably hasn’t ever seen a mountain bike.

This area of Guatemala between Huehuetenango and Quiche doesn't receive that much tourism. Let alone mountain bikers pushing through the backcountry and villages where roads ad power are non-existent.  If you are looking for a unique once in a lifetime sort of ride, our new Highlands Hut to Hut is it. Get in touch with us a Old Town and ask for it. 

See us on the trail!

Here is a video of a recent trip down to the pacific coast of Guatemala to the beach town of Monterrico.  Old Town Outfitters offers a one a two day sea kayaking trip in the mangrove canals of this quaint little beach town.  This trip is a great opportunity to see the diverse waterfowl and other animals that make this mangrove ecosystem their home.  We head out to the sea turtle conservation project on the beach to see what is being done to help the resident population of turtles and with a little luck during the right time of year you will be able to sponsor your own turtle for release.

Biking to the ruins of El Mirador

Just just recently got back from an one of a kind mountain bike trip out to the Northen Jungles of Peten, Guatemala.  Our idea was to be the first to ride the famous Carmelita to El Mirador trail.  This trail has long existed, infact it dates back to the Mayan pre-classic period and follows much of the original Mayan Sakbe or Mayan highway from Carmelita to the ruins themselves.

 In its heyday Mirador was one of the largest Mayan city/states in the area.  It still boasts the largest pyramids built by ancient peoples, ANYWHERE!  In modern times these trails have been used by Chicleros, or the men who walk out into the junlge to harvest Chicle.  This is the stuff that we used to use to make gum.  Today the chicle trade isnt quite what it used to be but the trails still exist.  Most of the traffic on the Sakbe these days are adventurous backpackers and gear laiden mules headed out to the ruins.

 After having hiked this trail years ago I wanted to be the first to take a crew in on bikes.  Having seen the trail, the lack up elevation that I am acustomed to in the Guatemalan highlands,  and mapping the distances it didnt seem like this was going to be too hard.  After all, the trail is only 43 kms. from Carmelita to Mirador.  Most groups walk this in two days overnighting on day one at the ruins of Tintal.  

 We sent an advance team to Carmelita with the gear and food that we would need and loaded the mules.  They set out a day ahead of us so that, assuming all went to plan that they would be arriving in Mirador about the same time as us.  We had caluclated that the mules would take a full 2 days to get there while we on bikes moving much faster (we hoped) would be able to cover the 43 kms. in a hard day.

                                  
We didnt really take into account the heat and humidity into our calculations of effort and time needed to make it to Mirador.  It is totally do-able in a day.  But you need to be prepared to have access to a LOT of water.  Upon planning the trip everyone that we spoke with out in Carmelita tod us that it was going to be hard going and hot but at the very least that it was dry.  What no one told us was that it would be potentially better to go a little later in the season.  They had gotten a  lot of late season rain which with all the mule train traffic had created this lunar hardened mud post hole effect that was like riding through a 43 km. boulder field in 35* heat and 90% humidity.

 We did make it though.  Crossing the many altos and bajos (high and low ground) where the terrain would change from rolling, beautiful singletrack to hardened mud post hole hell out to the ruins.  We slung our hammocks and listened to the sounds of the jungle and mosquitos lull us to sleep.  We decided that we would give this trip another shot the next May a little later in the season when enough mule traffic would work to smooth out the crusted mud formations and thus make it a slightly easier ride.

We spent 3 nights in the woods riding from ruin to ruin far away from anywhere.  It was a pretty amazing experience.  One that although was the hardest 43 km ride ive ever done and looking forward to next years trip.  We are hoping to create a tour to help the locals promote and protect this amazing resource.  Stay tuned to jump on the next ride out.

Acatenango Volcano