Advertisement
Published: August 9th 2005
Coke guard
Check the guy in the middle...How valuable is this stuff?Decided to stay another day in Copan Ruinas, such a cute little town and plenty to do...and I missed a bit of ElSal, so back to the Horizonte Surf Camp Hotel....
Another morning and everyone picks up from where they were last night....little Beatrice the 15 yo dynamo who seems to run the little palapa restaurant at the bottom of the property, right on the beach, gets out of the hamaca in the bar where she slept last night, she works from 6 in the am til 9 or later at night with 2 older woman who do the cooking, a wood fire right on the bench, gradually pushing in the branches and small logs that fuel the fire, perfect temp control....we chose the 2 bed bungalows, with aircon and fan!!...just couldn't fir in the wardrobe with 3 bunks option....
Along the beach head, rounded rocks, pummeled by the sea for a million years barricade the stone encrusted concrete walls that, most of the time, protect the palapas from falling into the sea...the surf break roars away about 30 metres out, constant thunder day and night, along the shore you hear the hissing, crashing shore break with a rattling clattering of
Always on the job!
My personal ´search´- cerveza research smaller stones washing in and back with each wave...
above the sea wall, rickety posts support the palapa roofs, obviously made for easy destruction and rebuild after the storm..
Along the roads we ride thru little settlements that each feature their distinctive roadside stalls, and in each area the style is identical...I guess someone comes up with an idea and if its successful....like one day someone stops and buys something!...they all copy it exactly!...so the bean area, for a couple of hundred metres there are several dozen bean stalls, a little bench table with neatly stacked clear plastic bags of beans, colour co-ordinated, a stack of red, another of white and another of brown beans, maybe 6 or so kilo bags of each, a shelter of some material to shade the vendor who sits waiting...so this exact scene is repeated a hundred times....then the watermelons, all stacked identically with a similar shade and a machete and chopping block, at another place a string of people all holding bags of something, looks like a peanut brittle confectionery, but all have 2 or 3 bags under one arm, and they wave 1 bag at the passing trade, none of these sit down,
On the boat to the famous surf camp!
Sipocate I think...Back in Guatemala always standing and moving...and so it goes...
And always security in the shops and stores, armed guards, iron bars and locks and razor wire...constant reminder of the state of things altho' it seems to be much better and we hear of no instances of problems...
On the weekends, mainlky sundays soccer games all along the way, and all playing with bright new uniforms, proper refs and all the trappings...v serious business...the only chance of escape?
Now after the border run across to Honduras...see the last entry...like El Sal, this is beautiful country to ride thru, fantastic roads its like the Great Ocean Road going on for ever, and no speed restrictions except the constant threat of death at every corner from rocks, trucks, busses, cattle, people etc etc ...so discretion always...the road slices thru the hills and mountain sides, the colours of the strata are intense, like slices thru a series of sponge cakes, lines of green, yellow, brown, red and white....up on the sharp edge ridges a line of pine trees, the ridges look so sharp you couldn't stand there.....clear water streams and rivers rush down stony gorges, people washing and swimming in pools, and its all green and
Dinner in Sipocate
Can´t believe this fish and the whole presentation! lush...we stop at a roadside stall and drink cane juice from plastic bags with straws, ah, the slice of lime really sets off the cane ..mmmm....the dad and kids, as everywhere we stop!!...hang aroiund the bikes and us, its like we're a travelling circus...then they bring out an armadillo they've just caught, only a month or so old, they'll fatten it up and eat it at about 2yo...probably tastes like chicken I'm sure!!
So we get to Copan Ruinas, a little Spanish town built on a really steep hill so the cobblestones, treach enough at the best of times, are a real hazard for our big machines...always dicky trying to stop and do a u turn but deadly on a 45 degree slope of rough, slippery cobbles!..I'll try to get a photo up...
In fact I´ll try and put some up now...
Ted's site has some stuff now I believe, but he dropped the digi camera yesterday and its terminal so he's gone back to the film one until he can get digi fixed....
try www.tedgrambeau.com and Grant's is still homepage.mac.com/gforbes3/ for alternate (and probably more accurate and less hysterical) accounts of our voyages...
Send me stuff!!...lemme know how you
Bikes in Acuahulta
The bikes huddle together in the rain ...and for security we have them hobbled...they feel better like this... all are!...just don´t mentiuon the footy...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.187s; Tpl: 0.012s; cc: 19; qc: 98; dbt: 0.1371s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.4mb
