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Published: February 2nd 2013
So it's been quite a while, figure it's time for an update. Sorry about the long time between blogs but... I really hate writing them up. It has been a fun seven weeks though so I'll try and hit the main highlights here.
After leaving Mexico City (no traffic issues this time), Max and I headed in a general south direction, through some volcano country and sugar cane fields. In Huajuapan, we spent an evening in a pool hall, watching the Manny Pacquiao - Juan Marquez fight Dec. 10. Marquez, a Mexican, knocked out Pacquiao out cold in the last seconds of the sixth round and the bar, town, and probably entire country, went nuts. Crossing over the mountains to the Carribean side again, one of my headlights blew out so I started driving with the other one (just used for brights) on. Apparantly this caused the light fuse to blow and within an hour I had gone from 2 working lights to nothing. Other than not being able to drive in the dark though, this seemed to be a minor problem at the time.
Enjoying the last few days of great Mexican food, we stopped in Palenque for
a few days. There was a 'Rainbow Gathering' in the area, basically a bunch of gringo hippies with names such as Dandy Lion camping in a field to celebrate the energy in the area around Dec. 21. It was organized by an old guy who went by the name Rainbow Hawk, and whose followers are 'Rainbows'.
The day we crossed the border into Guatemala, I came inches away from driving over a 6 foot long snake, which I thought was dead... but which moved when I got close to it. May have yelled out loud for a while inside my helmet but I survived the first snake enounter of the trip unscathed. Guatemala didn't look a whole lot different from southern Mexico and we headed towards Tikal. Arriving in El Ramate, I caught a glimpse of a motorbike I recognized, stopped, pulled over, and five minutes later we were drinking beers at a picnic table with Andy (from Mexico) and some crazy old Germans who would provide travel recommendations to me, Andy and Max for the next week or so.
Because it was the winter solstice, and the 2012 one at that, Tikal (one of the most impressive
Mayan sites) was covered with tv crews, stages, wires, and tourists. So to see something a bit different, we loaded up the bikes and rode about 30 km north of Tikal to a smaller pyramid site named Uaxachtun. Spent the night of Dec. 20 camping out in some villagers back yard and up early to see the sunrise over one of the pyramids. As the sky began to lighten during the Mayan ceremony, we heard the sound of a conch shell being blown from various corners of our pyramid, which I though was a nice touch to the ceremony. And as the sun rose a bit higher, the figure blowing the conch shell became visible... and he was an old dread locked gringo dressed in travel rags, just adding his own personal touch to the sun ceremony. I like to think he had given away everything he had and was actually hoping the world was going to end. Anyways, we survived the night and the dawn. On the ride back to Tikal, we came over a hill top and the road had turned to a slip and slide from rain the night before. Held it together for a bit but
eventually dropped the bike for the first time on the trip. No harm, just kinda stepped off as the bike fell down. slick section was fairly short and soon we were on our way again, back to our German friends in El Ramate.
The plan was to do one long day of riding to Lago Atitlan and hang out there through Christmas. Our German friends talked me, Max and Andy into doing a longer route through the Western Guatemalan Highlands. Those three days turned into the funnest days of riding so far on the trip. Asphalt turned to dirt, we spent a night sleeping on wooden planks feet away from a chicken coop, and around one corner came across these guys dressed up like conquistadors and reindeer dancing in the street. The second day, we got lost, the road turned to foot deep mud and we ended up 2km from the Mexico border. For three days, we didn't see any other tourists. Finally, we arrived at Lago Atitlan and the first view of that lake is truly impressive, with three volcanos around its edges. Christmas at the lake included a gourmet turkey dinner and, oh yeah, perfect weather.... imagine
that!
My first real bike issue started when me and Max took off from Lago Atitlan for Antigua (Andy had to make a Mexico run). There's one stretch of road around the lake, behind a volcano, where robberies are not exactly uncommon. Unfortunately for me, I hit a nice bump with my bike and the engine just died. Despite both mine and Maxs' extensive mechanical skills (we disconnected the kickstand sensor), the Red Baron was dead to the world, prime picking for any would-be banditos lurking in the nearby woods.
Luckily, within about 30 minutes, two cops in a pickup truck drove by, stopped, told us it wasn't safe (which we already knew), and offered me a ride. The four of us loaded up my bike into the back of their truck and drove us to the next town where I got unloaded at a mechanic shop. As we were arriving in town the cops turned on the siren and lights of the pickup in order to (I think) show off their gringo in the back. They didn't ask for anything, but I gave the cops about $15 for their help (not sure if this is a good
thing or not). My mechanic checked the electrical system of the bike, after stripping it completely down. He found two blown fuses, not just one (lights and fan). We got the fuses and headlights replaced but the bike still wouldn't start so the next day, I got another pickup to haul me the 3 hours to the Kawasaki dealership in Guatemala City... which was closed for New Years when we got there and I had to find a parking lot to offload and store the bike about 2km from the dealership. Then it was the chicken bus for me to Antigua, about an hour away to meet up with Andy and Max for New Years. Note: chicken buses are a whole lot less fun to ride than a motorbike.
New Years in Antigua consisted a bunch of fireworks, mojitos and probably a few other beverages. Details are foggy but it is generally agreed that a good time was had by all. New Years Day I booked it back to Guatemala City so I could be first in line at the Kawasaki dealership the following day. Getting up early the next day, I pushed my bike 2km to the bike
shop down the Panamerican highway, much to the delight of numerous city folk. Two american guys, Zac and Zac from Chicago (henceforth referred to as the Zacs) also on KLRs had been broken down for 2 months at the shop because one of them forgot to check and add oil to his engine. My bike turned out to be an easy fix, just a malfunctioning safety sensor on the kick stand which was quickly disconected. I also picked up a new rear tire with some good tread on it as mine was becoming quite bald. Unfortunately the shop guys had seen fit to wash all my hard earned mud off the Red Baron, but the bike looked good the Zacs were finally repaired and ready to hit the road as well.
I had 10 days to make Panama City in order to meet up with my friends Ryan and Meagan on Jan 13 and my brother Steve on the 16th. Max hadn't shown up from Antigua yet, so I said my goodbyes to Andy and me and Zacs headed off for El Salvador.
And now time for a word on Central American border crossings. They are not fun.
And if you are crossing with a vehicle they are significantly less fun. Typically it involves cancelling vehicle insurance from the country you're leaving, getting your passport stamped out, crossing the border, getting your passport stamped into the new country... and then getting your vehicle in, which is real pain-in-the-ass part because you need to get photocopies of about 4 different documents (including the page of your passport with the stamp into the relevant country so you can't get these photocopies ahead of time) to get a vehicle entry permit. Once that's done more likely than not you need to purchase insurance for whatever country you're entering, get said insurance stamped by any random number of officials (who could be randomly walking around no man's land), present all your paperwork to another guy, and finally get the bike fumigated for another small fee. The thing is it's not that complicated but the various offices you need to visit are spread out all over the place and the order that things need to get done is not always the same.
Basically, border crossings have been taking anywhere from 3 to 6 hours, and in the case of Honduras may have
involved paying off the police to let me and the Zacs through (more likely we just got scammed but a couple guys who were 'helping us out'😉. We booked it through El Salvador and then Honduras in about a day each. In Nicaragua, we cruised around smoking volcanoes and decided to spend a few days on Ometepe, a big island in a lake with two volcanos on it. Getting to the island was interesting because our ferry was full of vehicles with no room for our bikes. I spoke with the truck driver of the last lorry on the boat though and asked if we could just lift our bikes into the back of his truck. So that's how the three of us ended up crossing the lake, with our bikes covered in banana goo because that's what this particular truck normally transported.
I talked the Zacs into climbing the big volcano on the island the next day. Got up early to meet our guide Antonio, who turned out to be scared of heights, a perfect characteristic in a mountain climbing guide. Antonio also wasn't crazy about climbing the whole volcano because he does it 3 times a week;
he tried his best to interest us with facts about different kind of trees and 'walking slowly so we could see wildlife'. At the halfway point climbing Concepcion you get out of the trees and have a good view of the lake. The top half of the volcano was covered in fog and Antonio must have thought it was his lucky day and his 3 gringos would turn back. Obviously that wasn't happening, and two miserable hours later, soaked from the rain, me and Zac were treated to a wonderful view of absolutely nothing because... the top of the mountain was covered in fog.
From Ometepe, we drove through Costa Rica and onto Panama City in three days. I met up with Ryan and Megan and crashed on their fancy hotel floor for a couple of nights. Yep, living the high life complete with a rooftop pool and hot tub. Spent a couple days hanging out in Panama, applied for a Brazilian visa, then rented a car and picked up Steve at the airport. Of course when we left the airport, I drove off with my blood meter on the roof of the car and it failed to make
it back to the city.
Me and Steve drove to Santa Catalina, a small village on the Pacific coast, for three days of scuba diving in Coiba National Park, centered around Coiba island, formerly a prison colony. The diving there is pretty amazing and we saw sharks, rays, turtles, and giant schools of fish. No whale sharks though. I'll try and upload some videos to facebook. Currents were strong at some dive sites; it was underwater rock climbing at times down there. And we had an open water moment, where we surfaced a ways away from our boat adn the captain wasn't looking for us. A current was moving us further from the boat and despite our yelling, whistling, and waving of flippers, it was about 30 after surfacing that el capitan finally saw us. During which time, Steve's head got a wee bit sunburned.
After our diving trip, we headed back up the coast to Punta Chame for two days of kite surfing. Actually, Steve did two days of kite surfing and I had 8 hours of lessons and got my ass kicked for two days. Then it was back to Panama to send Steve back to
winter.
Because I didn't have anything to do until catching the boat to Columbia on Feb. 3, I took a ride down to the end of the Panamerican highway where it ends at Yvisa and the Darien Gap begins. My Darien Gap adventure was not what I expected. The road was paved most of the way and it only took me four hours to get there. Sure enough, the road just ends at this small town by a river...and there's nothing there. I had a bunch of blisters on my heels from diving and kite surfing so could only wear flip flops comfortably and with everything i'd read about the Darien being prime fer-de-lance (very nasty, agressive, and venemous snake) territory, I decided any hiking in flip flops was probably not the best idea.
Instead, i grabbed a boat over to La Palma, another dead end for me because the police there said I needed written permission to go exploring any further. Spent two nights around La Palma where the highlight was stumbling across a baseball tournament in a very small village. Was looking forward to getting back to the city after three days in the boonies. Back
on my bike, I was five minutes into the return trip when my rear tire went instantly flat and I discovered a four inch nail going in one side and coming out the other side of my tire. Not good.
I had been wondering when I would get my first flat and how I would sort it out when it happened. Well, turns out, I don't know how to fix a flat tire. Based on the damage to the tire itself, I thought I might need a new rear tire and not just a tube patch. I figured my options were to leave the bike, take the tire to the nearest shop, and come back for the bike later OR stay with the bike, give the tire and some money to a passerby and get them to get the tire fixed and (hopefully) bring it back to me. Then the third option showed up. A cop drove by, flagged down a pickup truck which was right behind him, and we loaded me and the bike into the truck box. 20 minutes later we were at a tire shop and an hour later I was back on the road. The
tube was destroyed with no hope of repair . Luckily I was carrying a spare tube - should probably pick up another one now that i think about it, and we put two patches on the tire itself where the nail went through. The entire flat tire repair experience cost me $7 and about two hours start to finish. Not too shabby considering where I was.
Anyways, now I'm back in Panama City, waiting to catch a boat to Columbia on the 3rd. Gonna miss the Super Bowl unfortunately but probably shouldn't complain about that. I'll try and update this thing more regularly from here on in.
later,
Andrew
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Trevor Sterling
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Keep it up man. Write it down or you'll forget. Pictures are awesome. You need tires yet? We are all in awe as you go. I was talking about your trip with Kamloops, Vancouver and Victoria offices. We all think it is pretty cool. Trev