Western Highlands Mayan Trail

One of my favorite trips that we do here at Old Town Outfitters is the 3 day trek across the ancient Mayan trade routes that once connected the Maya cities of the lake atitlan area to those of Xela.


The trails wind their way through farms and fields where the locals are going about life in much the same as the generations before them. We camp the first night just outside a traditional Mayan settlemet that has been abandoned after Hurricane Stan came through in Oct. '05. The government has yet to rebuild the road that was washed away forcing the locals there to move up on the ridge


From up on the ridge we traverse the mountain tops at just about 3,300 mts. The mountains cut a ridge that seperates the Xela valley below on one side and the lake titlan caldera on the other. It is a spectacular place to camp.


But the weather can roll in at any moment and close out the view. It always breaks though giving up huge vistas over the pacific ring of fire and the atitlan basin.


It's a stunning view back to the east over looking the lake all the way back to the volcanoes outside Antigua.
The walk continues on the ridge before dropping down some 3,000ft through lush bamboo thickets and dense cloud forest


It's a tough walk, certainly not for the faint hearted, but such amazing areas are worth the effort. Here are a couple more shots from the trip.

The Northern Traverse

Last week the good lads from BIKE Magazine came to Guate for a week or so of riding and some off the grid exploring. We spent the first couple days here in the Antigua valley and took advantage of a crystal clear night donned the lights and went out for a night ride. Agua volcano just south of town is the perfect place for a twilight ride. We left Antigua in time to enjoy the sunset from the top f the climb and then pick our way through the rocky descent with lights. A perfect way to roll into town and stop off at the local watering hole at Cafe No Se.
After Antigua we headed out to



Lake Atitlan where we hit all the local favorites: the Santa Cat, La Culebra, Atitlan Slickrock, the San Antonio MayaInca, and a new trail called ladies choice named for luisa who found the new jewel.
We shuttled out to the cuchumantes to start our northern traverse but first hit the Todos Santos downhill as a mice way to warm up for the big days to come. The trail into todos has some of the nicest flow in all off Guatemala. I think Jordan's images will showcase this amazing piece of trail.



What goes down must go back up and climb we did out of the Todos Satos valley back up to the high elevation altiplano of Paquix.
The riding on the plateau is fun and rocky and pretty techy. You definitely want to bring your "A" game up here. We stayed the night in the Blue Unicorn, a super sweet horsefarm at 3200 meters. From te horsefarm we pushed out through uncharted waters linking together century old Mayan trails and trade routes across the mountains.


We camped for the night in a beautiful high alpine valley before setting off on our 2 day unsupported push across the mountains.
We pushed, rode, fought and triumped our way up the ridge to the remote throw back village of Chortiz. Life here has not changed for centuries and it's like a page torn out of your Anthropology text book. The trails were either super technical or high altitude valley cruisrers, not much middle ground. We got to town managed to roust up a couple cold beers (some poor soul carried those a half day just so I could have a cool beverage at the community hostal whil swinging in my hammock.


Our last day treated us to nearly 1200 meters of fore arm burning, foot numbing, brake squealing ear to ear grin downhill all the way out of the mountains to the nearby village of Acul where lunch a cool unit and a shower were awaiting. We screamed past a group of hikers amazed to see us up there and mos likely afraid of the crazed glaze on our faces as we picked our way down the descent.



Keep your eyes open for this summers issue of BIKE to get the whole story and some sweet images of the ride.

Guate's only true mtn bike park

We at old town have been working with some friends of ours to design and build guate's first and only true mtn bike specific trails. Some friends of ours have an enormous piece of land on the volcano just south of town and want world class trails.
We've finished about 6kms so far of roller coaster goodness. Once we're open for business we'll let ya know!

Bike magazine

We're gearing up and heading out a week of riding with the lads from BIKE magazine. Be sure to hit the newstands this summer to see the goods


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Kayak T Rescue Seminar

In an effort to keep out guides trained up to keep you safe out there on the trail with us we headed to the pool for our yearly kayak T rescue day. All our guides have to pass a series of these sorts of seminars to be able to be included in the old Town family of guides. Its kind of like a Boy Scout earning their merit badges.

The T rescue is imperative to learn to keep out customers safe out there on our paddling trips. There is always that day when the wind picks up and we are forced to help one of our overturned guests get back into their boats in the middle of the lake.

We here at Old Town Outfitters strive to make sure that our guides are the best in the biz. In shop training days, team building activities and weekly group rides are how we do it. Looking for a fun new direction to take yourself in? Come hang with us at Old Town.
Ciao,
Mateo

A great ride for a great cause this weekend!

This upcoming Sunday we will be adding a special stop to our already great valley ride. Friends of ours at CasaSito are sponsoring a local music festival where various childrens choirs will be performing to raise awareness for various Guatemalan Non Governmental Organisations.

We will stop in to the neighboring village of Santiago Zamora and check out the festivities and childrens choirs. Also, all Old Town Outfitters profits for this trip will go to the Casasito Education fund so that schooling programs and projects like this may continue.

Another day on the River

The rainy season has been good to us here in Guate filling up all the local rivers. We took advantage of a dry spell to head out for a kayak run down the Maria Linda river down on the South Coast.

Its a fun fast run with pretty constant class III rapids one right after the next. . The river is only an hour and a half from Antigua making it a great option for a half day paddle. Myself, Guille the mad frenchman, and Greg, the man of river bounced, surfed and dropped our way downstream to the cold Gallos at the take out.

Guille about to enter the "rock drop"

We got there just in time for the damn release so the river was running at a good fun level which made the normal class III+ rapids a little more manageable this time around.

Yours truly dropping off the top of the "rock drop"

Its bigger than it looks i asssure you.

Old Town can help you arrange logistics for just about any kayak adventure in Guatemala. We have a competent set of world class paddle guides and the expedition class support to make any river trip a one of a kind experience.
Taker easy -