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Published: November 22nd 2012
Road miles to date: 19,598
On our way through the Yucatan we stopped off for a final farewell to Mexico in Tulum, a beach bum's Caribbean paradise. We took a turn onto a road that followed the coast the length of a narrow peninsula, lined with palm trees, palapas, luxurious hotels, cabins, the odd dreadlocked cyclist, a variety of clapped out VW Beetles and brief glimpses of crystal blue waters and white sand. We found ourselves booking into an eco-cabin where the lights were so eco-friendly that we couldn't see a thing. Within minutes we were on the beach soaking up our first taste of the Caribbean. Looking back from the sea at the variety of accommodation that lined the beach it was clear by the broken plastic sun lounger held together with planks of wood that we had found ourselves a bargain compared to the soft cushioned, thick wood loungers and attentive waiters of our neighbours.
Leaving paradise behind as a storm set in, we headed for Belize. As soon as we approached the chaotic border, we found ourselves in luck that after six weeks of attempting to understand and speak Spanish, we could at last make sense
of directions straight away. As a former British Crown Colony, the country still speaks Caribbean English as well as Creole and Spanish, though it wasn't long before we decided that we actually quite liked not being able to understand everything as Byron got caught up in a 'your mum' argument with a Big Man at the border.
Once we were on the road the change in scenery was immediate with perhaps better crafted houses than in Mexico lining the roads, all built high on stilts surrounded by green gardens. The change in language turned out to be a nice respite too as we stopped for lunch in a tiny town where we could actually have a conversation with a few other customers. Though when they started discussing a recent shooting at the pig market we decided the area might not be quite as tranquil as it looked. Despite its beautiful landscape we experienced more of an underlying sketchiness in Belize than other countries we had come across so far.
After a couple of days travelling through Belize, we got to the Guatemalan border where we came to understand the warnings we had been given of general confusion and
chaos at Central American borders. Following a lengthy exit from Belize, including a fee for the privilege of leaving and a very thorough search of our gear by a Belize officer who had a good look at our diary and tried to take a photo with our camera, we crossed to Guatemala where they fumigated just half of our bike and charged us for the obvious pointlessness.
Temporarily importing the bike to each country has become a whole new ball game, seemingly devised to see how many circles you can run around in while attempting to keep your cool. The process begins with finding the right hut to start off in, where you fill out multiple forms then get them verified by one official in an unmarked building who then sends you to another official in another unmarked building who then needs them photocopied which you can only do in a copy shack over the other side of where all the unmarked buildings sit before you take them back to the second official who decides that another one is needed for another official further on, so you have to go back to the copy shack and fork out for
more copies. This is all before you then have to pay for the necessary stamp into the country. And get it copied.
Once the bike was sorted we then had to get our passports done and pay for the privilege, incidentally to some woman who suspiciously gave us no receipt or visa in return. All this was done in the company of a local kid who latched onto us with protestations of helping when in reality he followed us around aimlessly then demanded a tip. It wouldn't have been so bad if the whole process was less than the usual three hours and if we weren't doing it 34+ degree heat in bike gear under the watch of a token guard armed with a pump action shotgun.
The first ride through Guatemala was a brief one as we made our way along decent roads that turned to gravel without warning then back to decent road, continuously until we reached El Remate where we had heard word of a friendly place to stay on the edge of Lago Peten Itza. We later found the lake played host to local families on their laundry and bath days - something that
would become a common sight from the road across Central America.
The next day we woke at 5am for a ride with Umberto, the owner of the hotel, to Tikal - the site of ancient Mayan ruins in the heart of a jungle. As a birthday treat the guide spotted an enormous tarantula and held it towards Isabel's face for a photo opportunity that didn't quite work out! The tour took us on a trek through the jungle where we spent the time spotting spider monkeys, listening out for howler monkeys, picking up poisonous snakes with sticks, holding tarantulas, having crocodiles snap at us and being shown all manner of colourful magic mushrooms used by the Mayans today.
All that remains standing of the spiritual yet fairly brutal nature of the ancient Maya civilisation are some incredibly grand temples, pyramids and sacrificial stones - most of which have only been uncovered and partially reconstructed in the last sixty years. Each Mayan ruler tried to outdo the last during his reign with a result that one construction is so large it sits a good few tree heights above the jungle canopy. An entire Mayan city sits in the jungle
of Tikal and it took us four hours to explore just half of it. There are still huge grass mounds covered in jungle where more pyramids sit, yet to be excavated. The whole site was extraordinarily impressive, made even more so by the fact that it dates back to 400BC.
After a last dip in Lago Peten Itza, we set off on a long ride across Guatemala passing village after village where pigs, chickens, horses and cows roamed free and menaced traffic as they occasionally made a run for the other side of the road, usually just at the point when a bike or car was passing by. The area was so visibly poor that the main modes of transport we passed were either re-painted US school buses with luggage (and sometimes people) stacked precariously on top, horses, bicycles, small Chinese copies of Japanese motorbikes or pick-up trucks where bars around the back held up to thirty people with standing room only. Many commercial trucks were transporting workers in the back where their seat was whatever goods they were carrying at the time, often with the result that the rear end almost dragged along the road. People also were
using the roads as footpaths from village to village. Most of the women we passed were dressed very traditionally in long skirts and loose, colourful tops, usually practising the amazing art of carrying huge containers of water or food balanced on their heads. Every man we passed was almost without fail, brandishing a machete either hacking away at the grass verge or emerging from the fields or surrounding jungle. Like kids everywhere, those we passed were kicking balls about, playing and shouting out at us as we passed by. Most of the houses were about the size of just one or two rooms and constructed of wooden planks or corrugated metal, with very few concrete or occasionally brick builds. As in the Yucatan, Mexico, the majority of people seem to sleep in hammocks and despite many of the communities having no running water, a fair few houses still had satellite dishes.
We rode higher and into the jungle where enormous rolling mountains, covered right to their peaks in tress and hanging vines, seemed to close in on us, giving the impression of the road being nothing more than a narrow crack carved straight through the jungle. As clouds loomed
ahead we stopped at a roadside cafe (a wooden shelter where the delicious food was cooked on a wood burner set up in a cave of the cliff behind it) for traditional chicken and rice and watched the chaos of a nearby petrol station where people poured out of trucks and vans and attempted to get tarpaulins across their luggage and over their goods before the rain set in while local kids and women filtered in and out of the trucks selling fruit, nuts and whatever it was that they had carried there on their heads.
As we set off and the rain subsided we passed two loaded up European bikes that quickly turned around for a chat on the roadside. Bernd and Heidi were two Germans heading in the opposite direction to us, having set off from Argentina in January. They were the first other motorcycle overland travellers we had met on the whole trip! We had a good long chat, exchanging tips and good places to visit as trucks and vans full of people we had passed earlier honked their horns and passed us by. That evening we stopped in Coban and treated ourselves to a fairly
decent hotel with hot water, not knowing at the time that it would be the last hot water shower we would have in nearly a month, and maybe longer at this rate!
The next day we approached the border where we were literally chased by about six men, all so-called tramitadors (fixers) who usually claim that we have to use them by law, but this time were just offering to just help us across, all the while completely ignoring the insistent 'thanks but no thanks' from us. When we had finally ditched the last one, despite him flashing us his official badge repeatedly, which coincidentally we never actually saw, we eventually navigated our way through the mayhem of getting out of Guatemala (see getting in to the country further up and just reverse the process) exit stamps intact, albeit a few Quetzals lighter and embarked on El Salvador.
Writing this with hindsight and the experience of a few more Central American border crossings, El Salvador was by far the most hassle-free of them all. The officials were very helpful and only worked out of one building. The vendors didn't hassle anyone to buy anything, the money changers waited
with their huge wads of notes until people went to them, the pump action shotgun guard didn't look like he was about to use it and the whole crossing didn't cost us a penny. The only downside was that as one of the C4 countries, they didn't do stamps in passports.
We stopped for the night in Metapan, not too far from the border where we managed to get street tacos for the first time since Mexico. The people of El Salvador were noticeably friendly however, all the hotels kept their front doors locked, most shops either had security bars up constantly or armed guards and along the road most commercial vehicles carried armed guards in the back. Supposedly the reason is down to a large number of emigrants who had got caught up in gang violence in the States before being deported back, en mass, a few years ago, bringing the violence with them. We only witnessed the measures put in place rather than the cause so we are not entirely sure if this is accurate.
We rode south the next morning and down a long winding dirt road that followed the rim of Lago de Coatepeque
to stay at a hostel which backed onto the lake. Lago de Coatepeque is actually the crater of a huge dormant volcano and sits in an almost perfect circle. We took the hostel canoe out into the centre to explore for the afternoon and the next day caught a bus up to a nearby volcano park, Cerro Verde, which is home to three active volcanoes. The bus ride to the park got interesting when two police officers boarded, both armed with a shot gun, pistol and truncheon. One of the officers decided to practice his English on us the entire journey while at one point another guy carrying a machete got onboard and sat down next to us. Carrying just a Leatherman and a pink pocket pepper spray, we weren't too confident of getting out of a bust up on that journey in one piece.
When we reached the park and found a guide with a group to join, it turned out the armed police escort all tours up to the volcano too. We couldn't get a straight answer as to why other than it being El Salvadorian policy. The trek was a good test in stamina as we
had to descend the mountain we were currently on before we could start climbing the volcano. All in all it took a good hour and a half to reach the top, hiking down muddy paths, through open fields, up extremely rocky, windy paths and then straight up the peak. The site at the top was surreal as a turquoise lake sat in the pit of the volcano, despite it last erupting only three weeks before. The lake was enormous and appeared to be incredibly deep and when Byron decided he would climb down a bit closer, even the hard nosed police guard jumped up to warn him back. The view was awesome and from one point you could see Lago de Coatepeque sitting far below on the right and the volcano lake just meters below on the left. Despite rolling on ankles and a fair few stumbles, the trek back was a tiny bit shorter and the bus ride back was just as eventful.
We had obviously caught the local commuter bus as tons of young men piled on from the surrounding fields, machetes in hand, while one woman sat next to us, made herself comfortable then took a
chicken out of her bag and let it fall asleep on her lap. The bus stopped halfway back to town and two policemen got on, walked the length of it, stopped where one man was sitting, said about two words to him to which he simply got up and walked off with them. He hadn't said anything back and none of his friends said a word, even after he left. The El Salvadorian ways did baffle us a fair bit but the people were also the friendliest by a long shot.
The next day we got stuck beside some extensive roadwork but eventually reached San Salvador where the traffic wasn't too bad but the streets were overflowing with people and vendors. We attempted to weave our way through people wheeling wheelbarrows of fruit and veg, shoes stalls where the shoes were just laid out across the road, vendors balancing bowls of every product you can imagine on their heads and all of their customers out shopping. We eventually made it through the racket and out the other side to find ourselves riding through a small red light district where rows of houses had their windows and doors wide open
to show rooms overflowing with women half dressed, smoking and laughing and reaching out to passing men. As we rode through the other side we got stuck behind a jam of buses where tons of street vendors were jumping from bus to bus, trying to sell their stock to the passengers before attempting their luck down the lines of waiting traffic. The snapshot of this part of the city gave us a glimpse of what nineteenth century London might well have felt like.
Leaving San Salvador behind, we made our way to the coast in search of somewhere to learn to surf. Having had no internet for a few days, we chanced that a few coastal towns on the map would be a good place to start. Sadly, despite the beauty of the area it was not geared up for tourists at all and of the three small towns we visited not one had a place to stay. The only hotel in the area was obviously well aware of this as their prices were astronomical and the place was consequently deserted. Overheating had become a problem by this point so instead of carrying on the search we ditched the
plan and headed to the nearest big town. We found a hotel with no running water, a huge pre-filled bucket for washing, no sheets, no towels and no glass in the windows. Despite the lack of basics that you might expect to be included in the price, they did have telly. The next morning we were woken by the El Salvador Navy on exercise through the streets, chanting as they went.
After much debate, a plan was hatched to leave El Salvador, cross Honduras and enter Nicaragua in search of beaches and surf. Looking at the map, the distance was achievable in a day and we thought it would just be the two border crossings that had the potential to hold us up. Little did we know what that day had in store.
After our early morning military wake up call we got on the road and exited El Salvador with the usual pointlessness of being sent round in circles, paying questionable fees and attempts to lose the fixers on our tail. Once we passed through the Honduras side we came up with a new fool-proof policy: if an 'official' trying to stop us doesn't have a gun,
we don't stop.
Honduras was much the same by way of landscape as the last few countries we had travelled in that it was incredibly green and overrun by huge volcanoes. However, in contrast we noticed a lot more piles of rubbish here that was often being burnt along the roadside. Also, although a huge number of stray dogs roam across Central America we seemed to clock a lot more squashed ones on the road here. We rode for quite some time before stopping to ask a few locals if we were on the right road for the border. It turned out we were heading to a different border than we had intended to cross and these guys were very serious in telling us that the one we were heading to was dangerous and people had been killed there recently. Not wanting to back up, we carried on riding up into the mountains and stopped for some lunch where we flipped a coin to decide what to do. Eventually ignoring the coin, we decided to back up as we realised our current path was going to take us on an even bigger detour to where we were heading in
Nicaragua.
We escaped a very narrow miss when a bus, driving without deviation and at full speed came towards us on our side of the road, with no apparent reason at all. Although this happens an awful lot with cars and lorries using very poor judgement to overtake, normally they get back on their side just in time but on this occasion, this idiot wasn't even overtaking anything and forced us onto the verge. After some ineffectual fist waving, we carried on, getting caught behind herds of enormous bulls with thick horns and hump necks and passing more burning piles of rubbish before we got on the road we were originally aiming for. Looking back, we probably should have listened to the coin.
The road was a minefield of holes that made the potholes that people complain about in the UK look like pinpricks. These were full on craters littering an otherwise decent looking, paved road. In a stretch of twenty metres there was at least one for every metre and sometimes two or three sitting consecutively. The problem wasn't so much the holes themselves but the fact that enormous lorries and cars were zig-zagging right across the
road to avoid them, both in our direction and coming at us. This, mixed in with trees lining the road and casting shadows over them, meant we were often riding blind. Ironically we battled miles and miles of this road and left behind much of the traffic when, just ten miles from the border the trees shaded out the road and we hit one large pothole that then catapulted us directly into another, much deeper one.
As soon as we landed, upright needless to say, it was obvious all was not well. We wobbled to a halt as a kid guided another herd of cattle past us, and a quick visual revealed that the front wheel was not only bent but had split from the rim a good eight inches around the circumference. Both of the rear shock absorbers had exploded on impact, not only self destructing themselves but also sending oil everywhere, the latch securing our top box to the bike had broken and the front fork seals that were already on their last legs were now well and truly written off. Not too sure whether to laugh or cry as we stood there in the middle of
nowhere, miles from the last town and only a short distance from the border, it was agreed that with darkness fast approaching we needed to get off the road. With no other option, we decided to limp on at a heady 10mph to the Nicaraguan border where we would get the crossing out of the way and then see what could be done.
Despite some would be tyrant officials, we got through without too many problems and paid their somewhat unwarranted fees for exiting a country that had nearly run us off the road several times and destroyed our bike, all in just over three hours. As we gladly left Honduras behind we crawled to the nearest Nicaraguan town that sat about four miles from the border. Ignoring its dodgy, border town vibe it was dark and we had no choice but to find somewhere to stay for the night.
While not expecting too much, the best of the bunch offered a tiny end room, complete with a bucket of water for washing, a candle for light, an enormous broken TV taking up the last of the floor space, squeaking geckos, mosquitoes and what turned out to be
a family of mice that got to work during the night scratching at our luggage and poo-ing everywhere, including on the bed and our pillows.
We got talking to a few guys staying in the hotel who turned out to be prospecting for gold in the area, one of whom was pretty mean looking but spoke good English and offered to get us anything we wanted while running a finger in a line under his nose. They attempted to help us out by asking a friend to take us to the next city with the bike in the back of his truck. Although incredibly kind, we just couldn't afford to pay what they were asking as we knew a hefty repair bill was waiting for us around the corner. So it was that we decided to wake up at the crack of dawn, escape the cell that was our room and limp into Leon, our original destination.
The seventy mile ride that would usually take us about an hour took a good four hours, but meant we passed most of Nicaragua having breakfast and getting up for work and saw volcanoes and the landscape at a speed that
allowed for some half decent photos.
Not knowing how long we would be staying until we got fixed up, the owners of the Bigfoot Hostel, Gedi and Cleo let us ride the bike through the hostel to park outside one of their private rooms and stay as long as we needed. Riding a broken motorbike in the boiling heat up an improvised ramp covering several different sets of steps is hard enough without a bunch of bemused, Western backpackers looking on and escalating the pressure to perform.
That afternoon Byron stripped the bike and confirmed that the suspension was beyond repair and the front wheel would need replacing. Using the hand axe, the wheel was straightened out and JB-welded (a repair technique only the A-Team could pull off) as best it could be. Nothing could be done for the suspension so it was bolted back together in its sorry state.
Next up a call was put out for help through ADV Rider (an adventure motorcycle travel internet forum) to see if anyone could help us out with sending parts down to us. Considering we were in a country where the majority of its people rode small replica
Chinese bikes it was a very long shot that we could find parts for a thirty-three year old German bike. We were immediately inundated with messages from people offering to donate parts or sell them at a much reduced rate and then ship them down to us. In the end, Kurt from Michigan offered to supply us with the new suspension, while Chris from Boxer Metal in California offered to supply a new wheel along with a selection of other bits we needed. We couldn't have been more doubly grateful!
Our joy took a bit of a kick though when we discovered that shipping the parts would cost a minimum of one thousand dollars without a guaranteed arrival date. Addresses down here are pretty sketchy too with the address for our hostel being 'half a block South of the Banco Pro Credit', incidentally a relatively comprehensive one when compared with others we later heard including, 'where the petrol station used to be'. We later got told that when the package actually arrived in Nicaragua it would be sent to customs in Managua, a city about one hundred miles from where we were staying, where we would have to pay
whatever import fee the customs officer thought fit and that it would be easier to just hire a fixer to get the package through. All of this would be clocking up dollars to our already hammered budget, not to mention adding a waiting period to the trip that no one was prepared to confirm.
We were stuck at a deadlock, unsure of what to do until we received an email from someone who had read our message on ADV Rider and just so happened to be flying down to Managua in a little over two weeks. After a quick chat on Skype, Aaron from Miami offered to bring our parts on the plane with him and invited us to his house to pick them up and use his garage to fix the bike. At this point we couldn't have been more trebly grateful!
So with an international plan in place, Kurt from Michigan sent the suspension to Chris in California, who forwarded it on with the wheel plus a few other parts to Aaron in Miami who then flew down with all of it, plus a Christmas tree (not for us) and wedding centrepieces (again, not for us)
to Managua. A logistical exercise that international rescue operatives would find hard to beat.
Without the help and time generously afforded to us by Chris, Aaron, Kurt and all of the people on the ADV Rider forum we would undoubtedly be a few thousand dollars lighter and be forced to cut the trip a bit short, not to mention still sat around waiting for the parts to arrive. So the least we can do is appeal to you that if ever you find yourself in California and wanting to buy a motorcycle, look up Boxer Metal and likewise, if you are in need of a lawyer in Miami check out Conde & Cohen.
While Byron was busy sorting the bike rescue operation, it was slowly becoming clear that we were going to miss our boat crossing from Panama to Colombia. The Darien Gap, which sits between the two countries is an area of jungle controlled by guerrillas where there are no roads so unless you are feeling especially daring, you have to either fly or sail between them. With no passenger ferry service currently in operation, the only boats that do the trip are sailing boats and the
flights are more expensive, particularly with a bike.
Not many of the boats take bikes, or are safe to take bikes, so we had booked onto the legendary Stahlratte - a one hundred foot, ex Greenpeace schooner currently run as a non-profit organisation. Sadly though, the next trip this boat was making was the day that our friends would fly home from coming to Colombia to meet us so Isabel got busy attempting to find an alternative option that would leave later than we had planned but still get us to Colombia in time to meet our friends and carry our bike too. After finding some particularly questionable options, one of which was a catamaran captained by a guy who recently sunk one of his ships by apparently overloading it, we found a smaller catamaran and were assured it could comfortably take up to two bikes. With few other options, aside from missing our friends' trip, we booked it up and are hoping for the best.
So with our predicaments resolved and with two weeks to kill before we could get on the road again, we explored Leon, walking on the roof of its Cathedral, visiting its Revolution
War Museum (the city was the site of much violence during the revolution just over thirty years ago), volunteering with La Isla Foundation (an NGO exploring the cause of a devastating chronic kidney disease epidemic among local sugar cane workers that has killed off seventy percent of men who work the fields), playing football with some local street kids as part of the One Big Change foundation, boarding down a nearby volcano, drinking lethal rum at a local cock fight, visiting the Surfing Turtle beach, taking some much needed Spanish lessons, frequenting the local markets for dinners and lunches, going to the cinema a fair few times (at a bargainous £1.80 a visit), learning the art of Cornhole and spending many an evening playing (or avoiding) the nightly games of flip-cup in the bar.
We also met so many people passing through the hostel and made some great new friends. We even managed to catch up with more motorcycle overland travellers including Adam and Mackenzie from Tasmania who we had been in contact with since the States but had never actually met, and Bill from Alaska.
After a great two weeks spent at Bigfoot, we were devastated to
learn that the morning we left was the morning the hostel planned to finish the construction that had been going on outside our door throughout our stay, hang new hammocks just outside our room and open the only hot water shower in the building. Just when we thought our luck was back on track! We said our goodbyes, managed to steer the bike back down the improvised ramps and set off slowly for Managua to meet Aaron.
Not content with already having gone out of his way to bring the parts down with him, Aaron had us set up in his garage, drove us all over town looking for a replacement bolt that had bent, let Byron ride his DR650 motorbike, then he and his fiancé Connie invited us to stay the night and join their BBQ where we met their friends and they served up delicious jerk chicken (Aaron used to be a chef) and introduced us to the finest Nicaraguan rum, Flora de Cana. To top it all off Aaron had also bought us some English tea, baked beans and jam from the British store in Miami. A true legend if ever there was one!
The
next day we were sad to say goodbye to such a lovely couple but we had to make tracks to catch our boat from Panama. We took a very wrong road out of Leon, travelling through incredibly poor neighbourhoods that we had been warned about the night before, along extremely rough and bumpy roads - a nerve racking test for our newly fixed bike - adding at least two hours to a part of the journey that should have taken half an hour at best. Eventually we corrected ourselves and got on the main highway, stopping for our last Nicaraguan meal about an hour from the border to make the most of cheap food before prices would rise severely in Costa Rica. The meal of steak and chips was delicious and Isabel went as far as declaring them the best chips of the trip.
As we approached yet another border crossing with dread, we were pleased to find that we had become pretty adept at dealing with them and although it still took three hours and we had to pay yet again for the privilege of leaving another country, we entered a new country for free and even remembered
to buy the road insurance. We stopped that night just outside the border as our detour earlier that day meant it was dark by the time we crossed over and although riding at night is not supposed to be as dangerous as other countries, the pedestrians walking the roads and bikes without lights would suggest otherwise.
The next morning we set off fairly late, knowing we only had a two hour ride ahead to get to Puntarenas where Isabel's cousin Lucas had arranged for us to stay in his friend's house on the beach. As we had experienced in Mexico, when you think there is a short ride ahead, it doesn't always work out that way. We felt a familiar wobble on the back about fifteen miles out of Puntarenas and pulled over to find our back tyre was flat, succeeding in disproving the theory that bad things come in threes.
Luckily we had stopped near a roadside bus shelter and Byron's brain kicked into override working out how to get it fixed quick. When it has happened before, one of the big problems has been being able to lift the bike high enough to get the back
wheel off. He worked out that we could pull the front of the bike up on the bus shelter platform keeping the back tyre hanging off the edge, hook the bike up to the shelter frame using our luggage straps from shipping the bike and thus creating enough of a gap to slide the back wheel out. Once the wheel was off we discovered that this time glass was the culprit. To our despair we also discovered a small, hairline crack inside the wheel that was undoubtedly another casualty of the Honduras potholes. With no way to fix this wheel yet, we could do little else but tape up the crack and deal with it later. Although we had no puncture repair kit, we had one last spare inner tube and as we started working the tyre back on the wheel a few locals got interested and came to watch the spectacle, slowly winding us up by sitting and staring as we worked up a sweat.
The last problem came with air. We had only been carrying a bicycle pump and couldn't fill the tyre with nearly enough pressure to seat the bead. Previously we always managed to get
the wheel to a garage for air, one way or another, but we were a bit stumped at this point and time was ticking on. As Byron pumped away, watched on by just one unhelpful local guy now, Isabel got to work flagging down lorries, trucks, buses and cars, most of whom just waved back and the few that did stop were unsurprisingly not carrying a pump.
Eventually a local guy, Steven pulled up and despite not having a pump, he wanted to help. He offered to take us to a nearby garage with the wheel and get it filled. Not wanting to leave one another or the bike, he offered to take the wheel for us and bring it back. So we sat waiting, gradually wondering if we had just made a massive error when he pulled up and handed us a freshly pumped wheel. Another generous save! He even started calling local garages to see if they had a much needed new rear tyre that we could buy. Eventually he got on his way and we got the wheel back on. Three and half hours after stopping we were back on our way, in the dark to
Torre Baja, courtesy of Lucas and his friend Tony Sedgwick. We spent the next day in unusual, homely comfort, in a huge house complete with a pool and with nothing left to do but write this blog and think about getting ourselves a better pump!
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Rach
non-member comment
Heavens!
Hi guys, we have been worried about your lack of blog and tried to post a message the other day but failed...v pleased to read this entry!! What a time of it you've been having - some really tough travelling there but glad to hear you are back on track and will still see your friends in Columbia. We're heading home for Xmas and then flying out to Quito on Jan 14th so let us know if you're anywhere near! Typing this in Casa Luna, Coban after a lovely hot shower to try and ease the sand fly bites I got in Honduras...not even at the beach!! Send us a FB message from time to time so we know you're OK you naughty youngsters :-) Rach (Pete, Tilly and Kiah) x x