Old Town turns 10!

This year marks the 10th anniversary of Old Town Outfitters! We have been running adventure tours in Guatemala since the end of 1998. Its been a long but very fun road and we have come a long way in these past 10 years.


This past weekend we squirreled away a rare Saturday of no trips and headed up to Earth Lodge for the 10 year anniversary blow out.


There was a 75 pound pig on the spit and plenty of great food thanks to the lads at Earth Lodge, plenty, well almost plenty of beer to go around, and no shortage of debauchery to ring in the celebration.



Thanks to all of you who have made this possible, who have supported us in these past years and to those who have worked here at Old Town.

mateo

OTO Racing....Fast...Its coporate policy!

Team Old Town Outfitters continues to hammer the race scene fielding 3 riders across the categories.  
Young gunner Pancho Haeckel is dominating the Jr. Elite with his lightning fast climbing prowess and surgeon like ability to pick his way through the technical bits.   He finished in 1st place this past weekend at the Race in Tecpan.

 Follow the Old Town race team as we head to Coban, Vera Paz the 19th of April. 

Mountain Khakis

Our good friends at Mountain khakis have hooked up the team at Old Town and sponsored us with their incredible line of Outdoor Utility pants and shorts.   Our guides are out most days and appreciate clothing and products designed and built for outdoor professionals.  This stuff is the bomb!  I highly recommend you get yourself in a pair of 'em and find out for yourself.

Voluntourism

Wanna get involved? We have teamed up with a couple different organizations here in Guatemala and abroad to help get travelers connected to the community. We can customize your adventure trip with Old Town Outfitters to head out into the campo and volunteer on different projects. Mountain bike a few days with us or trek into the countryside and stop off in a small community to get involved before moving on to the next stop.



There are any number of cool projects to get involved with around the country but one that we think is great is building high efficiency stoves in rural communities. These stoves were designed by the guys at Global Vision International, an international volunteer placement organization, and are said to not only reduce the amount of smoke in the house but uses up to %90 less fuel wood thus keeping our hills greener.



This stove below was finished by a group from Play It Forward, a U.S. based travel company that focuses on adventure travel with a moral compass. Voluntourism as it has been called is getting more and more popular. We are facilitate travelers to not only come and tour Guatemala but to give something back to the rural communities in which we travel.


Get in touch with us at www.adventureguatemala.com and let us help design a trip for you, get involved, get your hands dirty and get out on the trail.

Take time to Travel

Tim and Sue, friends of ours from the lively Harrisonburg, Va. area came down to Guate to hang on our home turf for a few weeks of riding. Seeing as they abused a group of us up there a few months back we decided that we wanted to have them here to try and get a bit of revenge. First, to level the playing field we made sure to have plenty of homebrew on tap to give us a leg up the next morning.



We spent a few days hanging in Antigua and riding each day to get a feel for whats around. There are any number of rides in the area so we tried to hit as many as possible. Just south of town sits Agua Volcano at just over 12,000 ft. The views from high up on the trails are second to none passing through old growth forest and flower fields on its way back down to the valley floor.



Antigua boasts a new ride on each new day. Most of the trails lead high up into the surrounding mountains and each side of the valley is distinctly different from the next. We are working on a project to circumnavigate the valley on a mix of trails, jeeps tracks, and chutes like this one below on the bottom of the Cielo Grande Ridge ride.



With tons of terrain nearby to play with some times its just better to hit the trail with some German engineering underneath ya. We headed out and made a big ole lap around the valley on the 650's and even managed to explore a new bit of trail that is going to make a beautiful 2 day ride out to Lake Atitlan. Stay in tune for that one as I'll be doing it soon on a mountain bike to see how it pans out.



A couple hours of stout trail climbing above Antigua lies one of the areas best kept secrets. Earth Lodge is an active avocado farm and travelers mountainside hostal that always makes for a good time. The good folks who run the place always make sure to take good care of us. The food is second to none and more than even a hungry cyclist can manage to get down the gullet. This is going to be a normal stop over for our new ride that will make a 2 day loop around the valley


Heading west we took off for a few days of riding at world famous Lake Atitlan. There is a pretty solid network of trails there that serve for most riders as downhill runs. However, we managed to find oursleves climbing trails and making new rides. It was a fresh change from the way we normally ride these rides and certainly puts the black in what we call a black diamond run. The scenery from the trails is absolutely stellar. There is hardly a ride that does not have a huge view to the lake down below.


Heading further afield we made the trek up to the high plateau of the Cuchumantanes mountain range. These are Central America's highest non volcanic mountains. The riding like the scenery is spectacular and very different here than anywhere else in Guatemala. The rocky trails offer up an experience much like that of East Coast riding. So Tim and Sue were once again in a good spot to show us how its done in the rocks. There's more than a few days worth of riding up there but we were on a mission to hit as many different places as possible. We mapped out a ride that would take us across the mountains into no mans land and connect to an area that likewise we knew would have great riding.

Acul is a sleepy little village nestled deep in the mountains that were once plagued by civil war and Guerilla patrols. Now the wars over and the area is opening up to mountain bikes. Our long time buddy has opened his family run cheese farm at the Hacienda San Antonio to tourists. We took advantage of the area and managed to find a new trail that I would venture to say has never see fat tires.


A parting glance from my room at the Cheese Farm in Acul

Gone Fishin

One of the best kept secrets about Guatemala is that the waters off the Pacific Coast are absolutley stocked with billfish. Some folks who fish the waters furhter north are happy to catch a handful of Sailfish or even see a Marlin in a single season.




This couldnt be furhter from the truth around these parts. This little stretch of coast line boasts some of the highest numbers hooked Sailfish and Marlins. Very few boats in the water means no over fishing and every racoon eyed fisherman that I run into has some outlandish story of the days legendary catch.



After hearing all the hoopla we decided to take a trip down to the Coast outselves and see if the crazy stories of 20, 30 sometimes up to 45 fish a day being pulled into the boat were true. We set it all up and headed down to Puerto Itzapa jumped on board the "Allure" that our Antigua buddy Kiwi Chris Captains.



Sure enough its not but a few minutes after we drop the first lines that we land the days first catch, a nice sized Mahi Mahi that the crew swiftly filetes up for lunch in a couple hours. Now ordinarily a few missed hooks on sailfish back home might dampen ones spirits, but here in Guatemala seeing the lines zinging out to sea every few minutes I knew that there would be plenty of time to hookmy first fish.

The crew were amazing and showed me the secret to hooking my own fish. It wasnt long before I had my first Sailfish on the line. After a fun fight we pulled her up into the boat so I could get a picture with the little cutie.


After a full day of fishing and beer drinking we managed to pull in nearly 40 Sailfish. If you work the math on that over about a 7 hour peroid that comes out to be something crazy like a fish every 10 minutes or so!!

So next time you hear the crazy story of how good the Sport fishing is off the coast of Guatemala, you'll know its not just another ole Fishin tale. Come down see for yourself.

-Mateo

Mountain Bike Magazine 2009

We've done it again! Another magazine turned believer. We had the lads from Mountain Bike Mag down here to ride last March and as per usual, they were blown away. They tagged along on one of our tours around the country with a Canadian Based Company called Sacred Rides.

Magazine ran an 8 page spread showing some of the best of the riding around here in the valley and out at Lake Atitlan. hey but dont listen to me. Go out and buy yourself a copy and hold it tight.