From the lake, Cortés continued on the arduous journey south along the western slopes of the Maya Mountains, during which he lost most of his horses. The expedition became lost in the hills north of Lake Izabal and came close to starvation before they captured a Maya boy who led them to safety. Cortés found a village on the shore of Lake Izabal, and crossed the Dulce River to the settlement of Nito, somewhere on the Amatique Bay, with about a dozen companions, and waited there for the rest of his army to regroup over the next week. By this time the remnants of the expedition had been reduced to a few hundred; Cortés succeeded in contacting the Spaniards he was searching for, only to find that Cristóbal de Olid's own officers had already put down his rebellion. Cortés then returned to Mexico by sea.