Guatemala

Viva Guatemala!!! Its a gorgeous day as we roll down the road past Honduras customs and into the Guatemalan customs some 20 km down the road. Should be the usual easy crossing...but no...it seems that we must ride the port city of Puerto Barrio to get the bike paperwork completed then return to the border crossing to finish the job. Like they say...in these countries if you can get one meaningful thing done in a day consider it a job accomplished! So this ends up being officially the longest border crossing (and we have crossed 28 borders) to date with a recorded 3.5 hrs. to get into Guatemala legally! (however every one was really nice and Puerto Barrio was not the usual crappy port city!)
For the return leg we are riding up the eastern border of Guatemala towards Tikal and then entering Belize. First stop on the agenda is the pretty village of Rio Dulce...yes this feels like rural Guatemala as vendor stalls crowd the roads while smoking diesel trucks roar in and out of people, vehicles dogs etc. with horns blaring and loud latino music blaring...welcome HOME. We spent our time in Rio exploring Spanish forts (ruins), town itself and took a boat down the Rio Dulce river to the Garifuna village of Livingstone on the Caribbean coast. That was an eye opener...firstly the town is super clean and secondly those rasta types definitely have hustling (dollars out of tourists!) down to a fine art! After falling victim to one such hustler Lori and I smartened up and just ignored them totally!
Our plans were t head into the mountains but non-stop torrential downpours had us changing our mind and we headed north with a really relaxing stay at the Finca (ranch) Ixobel (we had heard of this place as a must visit during our 2000 visit) and it didn`t disappoint!
The roads are easy to ride with little traffic and virtually no speed bumps (topes) so the ride to Tikal was fantastic. We visited the large ancient city of Tikal during our 2000 visit but I have always wanted to camp at Tikal so that is exactly what we did. Although we really both enjoyed our two day stay there is something to be said for leaving great memories alone. A lot has changed at Tikal since our last visit...changes that make sense in terms of protecting this beautiful site...but take away from some of the magic we felt back in 2000. For instance one is not allowed to climb up onto the pyramids...they now have wooden stairs and small platforms where one can view the ruins from up high.
Tikal is rather unique in that it not only contains some of the largest un-earthed Mayan ruins but the site is full of bird and animal species that are all but extirpated from the rest of Guatemala.
So now it is time to head into Belize...a rather interesting road as the road condition steadily deteriorates as we near he border and the last 25 km is a limestone mud (thank god it wasn`t raining or we might still be there!!) mess that is currently under reconstruction. Obviously trade between Belize and Guatemala is non-existent and the border crossing is nice and tranquil. (In fact Guatemalan`s lay claim to Belize saying that it is part of Guatemala)
Guatemala is a really great country...people tend to be rather quiet (probably because a good number of the people in the rural areas we travelled are Indigenous folks) but kind and friendly. The country really seems to be getting its act together economically although aid organizations claim that Guatemala along with Brasil have the greatest disparity between the rich and poor out of all of the latin countries.) This probably does not bode well for this country in the long run but the president is working hard to increase the middle income families in Guatemala. Guatemala is very clean and although we did not run into a single problem with crime, residents and tourists have endless stories of theft and more serious kidnappings (most of which appear to occur in the vicinity of Guatemala City (which we were surprised to learn is the largest city in Central America)

Honduras going home

tire repairs on the road - always good for drawing a crowd

Welcome back to Honduras...the border is its usual chaotic mess of bureaucracy and today we have to deal with a money lender who tried to rip us off (the old inaccurate calculator trick!) until Lori put him in his place! Although we have heard that he guidelines regarding immigration have changed in Central America the bike paperwork seemed close to the same as when we were riding south.
Our original plan for Honduras was to take some new roads to the north-east coast and spend some beach time before heading into Guatemala. Our ride to the east coast was quick as the weatherman kept us good and wet.
The scenery here is very different than Nicaragua with tall mist covered mountains where we actually ended up wearing all our cold weather and rain gear. The capital of Honduras (Tegucigalpa) is well known as a dangerous run-down city and ``run by gangs`according to `paranoid planet`(aka Lonely Planet). The ride around the perimeter of this rather colorful and beautiful city was something we will always remember. The roads were in total disrepair...at several points we were riding in the wrong lanes (or else the oncoming traffic was in the wrong lanes!...who can tell!), the road changed from 4 land blacktop to single lane rutted, rock blasted gravel in several places at at one point a stream flowed across the road and hundreds of people were washing their laundry in the middle of the Hwy! All this and a total lack of signs...we definitely breathed a sigh of relief as we cleared the city!
We really didn`t have the luxury of really enjoying the gorgeous scenery as I was in a little pain after doing a good slide down the rain drenched Hwy. A dog jumped in front of me and took out my front wheel and I was very lucky to escape serious injury when I slid towards the ditch instead of oncoming traffic! A few new battle scars was nothing compared to what might have been...someone is looking after us!
However the fun for the day wasn`t over as we entered the large city of San Pedro Sula (another one of those places you really don`t want to be!) at dark and were unable to find a place to sleep. Nothing to serious except I do not have a headlight...good thing the police and drivers don`t care if you have no lights after dark! We did eventually find a `no-star`(actually Lori rated it as a -5 star)
We eventually made it to the beaches of the sleepy little fishing village of Omao... a very nice relaxing place to spend a couple of days! Life revolves around the beach, dock and fishing just off shore. The beaches themselves are looking a little rough after this years hurricane season which is probably the reason that there were no tourists. We managed to keep busy exploring the beaches and enjoying cheap food and beer as well as well as checking out the impressive Spanish ruins of the Fortaleza de Omao. To top it off we finally got some sun and gorgeous sunsets...this definitely rates as one of the places we really enjoyed in Honduras.
So now that we have been through Honduras twice what are our thoughts....people are really friendly (although we did have some problems in central Honduras on the way south) and helpful...the cities are pretty rough with lots poverty, and general chaos. We found that there really is not a lot to do in Honduras...the Bay Is. seem to be the big attraction but the cities are not enjoyable to visit like those in Nicaragua. The countryside is very beautiful...lots of mountains and everything is really green.
Next stop....GUATEMALA!

Nica Nicaragua

Lori relaxing at the beautiful and tranquille Lago Apoyo

Monkey Hut Hostal on Laguna Apoyo...one very enjoyable place to spend some time swimming in the bathtub warm, clear freshwater, hiking and kayaking.

One of the hundreds of fantastic old doorways in historic Leon

Gorgeous cathedrals to go along with the doorways..Leon Nicaragua

It's the end of October...rainy season is pounding us so its time to roll north and see if Nicaragua is a little drier than Costa Rica. Reaching the only road accessed border crossing between Costa Rica and Nicaragua we are reminded of why we through S American folks were more friendly than people in Central America. Firstly the money changers pulled the old “calculator” (incorrect addition) trick on us (but got caught), then we were run through the usual border crossing bureaucracy..a far cry from the free crossings and hearty welcome to our country that we got in SA!
Our first stop is the beautiful Laguna Apoyo...a volcanic crater lake that we spent a few days at back in March. Today the dry, leafless forests of March are gorgeous in a coat of green that comes with the rainy (green) season. What a wonderful place to relax, hike, kayak, swim (bathtub warm, crystal clear water!) Sleeping on the wharf we were treated to a impressive show of lightening every night (not to mention sore backs...my back does not like laying on planks all night!) The people here are so friendly and I needed their help when I strayed off course during a hike and ended up hiking for about 20 km’s through jungle, villages and a combination of dirt tracks and tarmac roads. The hike through the dark revealed hundreds of bats (all sizes and shapes) and fireflies.
After three days on the lake its the first of Nov and time to move on...today we ride to Leon and I figure that it should take no longer than 3 hrs to travel the 130 kms. Wrong-o! We end up having to ride in the capital city of Nicaragua (Managua) and I can tell you that we are NOT impressed! Even though Leon is a city of over 100,000 souls their is not a single sign and at least 15 branches in the road. To compound the problem Managua lies on a plain that is as flat as a board...to mountains to guide one about! First of all we get stopped by the police for riding about 20 feet the wrong way down a one way street (what is a offense here is considered standard MC operating procedure in S America!) After a long argument and lots of whining (in decidedly crappy Spanglish!) by us we are set free. Then..just as we break free of the city (yes!!!) three cops jump out on the road and flag us down...I am accused of passing on a single line and speeding. This one time I am definitely innocent and protest strongly...to which the police say “yes we believe you..here is your papers back...but its Lori who was actually speeding and passing dangerously! They show us a book...with driving offenses in it...around 100 US for the supposed infractions...no f’ing way and after a “Mexican standoff” of about a half hour we get our papers back and continue on (through 35 degree heat!) Now to really add insult to injury two farm tractors that we passed before we entered Managua actually passed us while we were arguing with the police!!
Not to worry...we are in Leon before dark and grab a fantastic hostal for 12 bucks per night. Leon is a really neat historic city with some spectacular cathedrals and a very laid back friendly atmosphere! We spent our first day exploring the many sights in town then booked a two day hike into Volcan Telica with Quetzeltrekkers..a group that completes treks where all the money goes to helping street kids in Nicaragua. There was only three of us on the hike and ironically Heather, (the third person) works as a firefighter for the Vanderhoof Forest District and knows Rob and Jason Moore. We make a pretty good group along with our guides (guias) Trevor and Claudio..a pretty and easy hike to the crater after which we lay around and BS in the alpine area forgetting one of the golden rules of camping...get your tent up as soon as you arrive (especially if you are not familiar with the tent in question). Well guess what..we ended up tossing up the crap tent in the middle of a torrential rainstorm...one fun night of sleep with three of us in a leaking tent laying on a quarter inch thick piece of foam...ugh! So much for bitchin...a good hike and tomorrow we head to Honduras!!!

Destroyed or Lost

okay, Chris and Lori have been having this discussion for awhile now, so time to tally who has lost or destroyed more things on this trip.... here is the list

Lori

set of keys for the bike (but she thinks Chris actually lost them)

one digital camera (destroyed)

MP3 player

2 computer hard drives

Chris

camera and lens (dropped into a mangrove swamp in Honduras)

1 pair of reading glasses

1 walkie talkie

one pair of sunglasses

one digital camera

(all above destroyed when truck runs over his jacket)

one small padlock and keys

riding jacket

3 1/2 pairs of riding gloves

tripod

daypack

1 set of moto keys

to be continued.....

Costa Rica Costa Rica

A backroad to Costa Rica's Volcan Arenal provided great views and a great ride!

Lori and sunset on Playa Tamarindo, one very busy tourist beach along Costa Rica's pacific coast

One tree contains an entire ecosystem in the Monteverde cloud forest reserve!

Lori and the Hondogs on the Caribbean Coast of Costa Rica...great fun for sure!

Caribbean Coast...this says it all!!!

New wiring..new sprockets (for you Felix!)=New Hondog!!!

From Panama into Costa Rica...see that semi in the background (followed by about 2o more!) According to the Costa Rican officials the one way bridge blocked by Costa Rican semis is Panama's problem, which in turn was our problem when we tried to cross this border!

Blue Jean Rana (frog), one of the poisonous dart frogs in Costa Rica

I hate spiders, but don't consider tarantulas spiders! But I have to admit I picked up this 5 inch orange-kneed tarantula only after Peter (who has owned tarantulas) picked it up!

After our nice relaxing stay at Boca del Toro it time to hit the road norte to Costa Rica. Today (Oct 19th) we are crossing at the remote village of Chanquinola..but first we have to traverse a series of single lane, rotten wood bridges over several rivers that cause Lori more than a little stress (and for good reason as a slip means a 20 m plus drop into a raging river. One has to be a magician to figure out how to get to this border crossing and when we do we are in for a surprise! A single lane ramp leads to yet another ancient single lane bridge. First we need to park in the doorway of the immigration office (literally) so that the semi’s from the Costa Rica side can pass into Panama. After getting stamped out we face the challenge of crossing this bridge. A line up of Costa Rican semis stretches on forever and they will not give me even a minute to cross (only one vehicle on the bridge at a time)...finally I ask Lori to run across to the Costa Rican side to block truck traffic by standing in the middle of the bridge approach. When she tried this the semi drivers hit their horns and the Costa Rican police came out and forced Lori off the road. When she explained the situation (we only needed a couple of minutes to pass) they said “This is Panama’s problem..not Costa Rica’s”. However her blockage gave me enough time to get my bike on the bridge and by blocking pedestrian traffic and various other methods we are across and into Costa Rica in just over 2 hrs.
Our first stop is Puerto Viejo..a tranquille village on the Caribbean Coast...a nice hostal with a pool and some nice beach scenery and a very laid back lifestyle sure felt great. We spent some time exploring various beaches up and down the coast and then headed inland to Fortuna.
We had already visited Fortuna (and Volcan Arenal) in March but this time we were rewarded with some nice clear views of the Volcano (which is strange considering that we are in the middle of rainy season!) Rainy season or not we have lots of tourists and the usual high prices for food (lodging isn’t to bad). Just to clarify..when we say high prices we are comparing prices to other Central and South American countries...in terms of cost Costa Rica is still as cheap or cheaper than Canada.
Leaving Fortuna we took a series of dirt roads around the shore of Lago Arenal..some beautiful views of the volcano and we also saw our first white-lipped Peccary. It is a beautiful ride with little traffic (actually most of the roads in Costa Rica are in good shape and very nice to ride as traffic is generally light with very nice scenery) as we make our way to the mountain village of Taliran where we holed up while a rain storm raged for most of the evening.
The next day we completed the ride to the pretty mountain village of Santa Ellena (Monteverde). There is lots to do here as Monteverde is supposed to be the most popular protected are in Costa Rica. What is strange about most of these villages is that the 20 or 30 km directly before the villages are still dirt road and in the case of Santa Elena (Monteverde) the road is pretty rocky but we can run it a lot faster than the trucks and bus. In Santa Elena we spent a day hiking in the cloud forest reserve (our hi-light was finding a orange kneed tarantula) that contains some spectacular cloud forest ecosystems...a single tree contains a entire living ecosystem! We also checked out the orchid gardens, the frog (rana) pond and literally walked the entire town.

As we drop out of the mountains we kiss the nice cool air goodbye and trade it for the humidly of the Pacific Coast as we spent several days at both Playa Tamarindo and Hermosa. This area of Costa Rica has been devastated by floods and judging by the absolute torrential rains that hit us the flooding is not yet finished!
Playa Tamarindo is one of the more expensive places to live and stay in Costa Rica and the amount of construction is progress is impressive. Here you find 200 dollar per night hotels but main streets full of mud and holes, no sidewalks, polluted beaches. While we were there we had a huge rainstorm and water was over 2 feet deep on mainstreet and flooding into fancy stores! This is supposed to be a surfers paradise but its definitely “yuppie” surfers compared to the dredlocked laid back surf scene in Puerto Viejo! (Because it is rainy season there are virtually no waves!) The road into Tamarindo is a mess..all that rain and semi-trucks running over a mud road makes for a big mess!
Playa Hermosa is more our style...laid back and we stayed at the Hostal Iguana which is owned by a Canadian that bought the place when he was 20 and smoked way to much dope to ever leave! Just kidding (well actually not!)...Ken is a really nice guy with the usual wife that is at least 20 years his Junior!
Its getting to late October and time to head north! So what did we think of Costa Rica? The people are really friendly! We think that the tourist industry tends to lean to the high-end tourist..not the cheap backpacker type. One needs to pay fees (fairly steep fees) to do just about everything. Costa Ricans take good care of their country...little garbage and their parks are well run. Lots, lots lots of tourists...numbers of tourists have risen 12% in the last year alone!!!

Panama again

One of the large container ships pass through the Miraflores Locks on the Panama Canal. Thirty to forty ships cross the canal each day and pay 60 to 200 thousand dollars for the 40 hour passage. (About one tenth the cost of crossing around S America)

Close up of the beautiful Blue Morpho butterfly

Central American tarantula

Felix, Lori and I riding the dirt road from Carti on the Caribbean Coast to Panama City through the San Blas Cordillera mountains.

San Felipe is known as the dangerous part of Panama City but the old dilapidated buildings are gorgeous and are slowly being rebuilt in the old town which was designated a UNESCO World Heritage site due to the unique architecture of this old part of Panama City.

The 25 meter tall Cathedral is one of the few remaining structures on the old original site of Panama City. In 1568 pirate Henry Morgan (the Irish devil) destroyed Panama City (as well as the port cities of Portabelo and Lorenzo) The city was then moved to the San Felipe area.

Some pretty cool trees in the Panamanian jungle...don't want to think of the critters and varmints living in this tree!

Lori in the ruins of the old city of Panama (Viejo Panama)

Sailing Colombia to Panama via San Blas

October 5th - 9th We sailed from Cartagena, Colombia to Porvenir, Panama on the Stahlratte - a 100 ft sailing ship built in the early 1900's. We spent 4 days en route in the San Blas Island paradise. The San Blas archipelago are an autonomous region of Panama owned and governed by the Kuna people of Panama. So far they have resisted commercial tourism on the 350+ islands so there is very little tourist infrastructure making this area authentic and paradisaical. It`s 11 in the morning...October 5th and we are on board the Stahlratte, captained by none other than Captain Ludwig...one jovial fellow for sure! On board with us are the Hondogs, Felix and his BMW and about 15 other passengers. Today we leave for Panama via the San Blas Islands on the historic ship, the Stahlratte. Build in 1903 in Holland as a fishing vessel this ship is now owned by an association that leases and rents the boats out to pay for it maintenance costs.
Our cast-off is delayed somewhat by a visit from the Colombian Coast Guard...first a search of the ship that takes about 2 hrs after which one search crew leaves and returns with what we assume is a `drug sniffing mutt` (black lab). Some 2 hrs later we get the OK to leave but not before we have to sign a document that says that the coast guard completed the search without hassling people, treated us well, then we need to give finger prints!
For the next 24 hrs we sailed across the Caribbean Sea..the big blue! This ship is fantastic compared to the 41 foot sailboat we came over in...private rooms...and it sails so smooth that no one is sea-sick! Late afternoon finds us cruising into the San Blas islands under a gorgeous sunset and Captain Ludwig has us anchored in a idyllic spot...within swimming distance of three gorgeous coconut tree covered islands with white sand beaches! Man...this is heaven.
The next two days are spent eating, (we had cooking and clean up duties one day so got to spend time in the kitchen...oh boy!), drinking, swimming, swinging on ropes, exploring islands, having a great barbeque, reading, snorkeling and chilling with a fantastic group of people on the ship. Lori and I only spent the first night in our room and the next three nights out on the deck under a fantastic Caribbean sky...one of the few times we have seen the milky way in the tropics. The San Blas Island area has the second most number of lightning strikes of any place on earth and I can believe it...every night was a fantastic show of lightning..but no rain! Our time in the San Blas came to an end way too quickly...but the next portion of our trip begins when we hit shore in Panama. HOWEVER..to do this we must unload the motos into Kuna canoes...a somewhat nerve-racking operation as these are carved wood canoes, long in length but narrow in width. We may be nervous but the Kuna Indians figure no big problem and along with our three bikes toss in a full load of paying Kuna Indians! Once we hit the shore we continued up a narrow river for about 2km (here even the Kuna got a little nervous as the heavily laden canoe was barely able to make progress against the current ) after which we ended up unloading the motos in the river. Here we said goodbye to the friends we made on the Stahlratte (however we have continued to see some of them up to a month after leaving them on the banks of the Rio Carti) and started on the rough dirt track through the Cordillera San Blas (mountains) to the tarmac Darien Gap road which will lead us back to Panama City!

Stahlratte in the San Blas (constructed in Holland in 1903 as a fishing boat, the "Steel Rat" is a historic sailing vessel owned by a consortium of German folks that own the boat and rent it out to pay for upkeep and maintenance costs)

the Stahlratte gang

Kuna village in the San Blas Islands

off loading Lori's bike into a canoe on the Panama end......

3 motos in a Kuna canoe

We get boarded by the coast guard and the sniff dog before we leave Colombia - with cocaine selling for less than $5.00 a gram here, I wonder why?

relaxing on the boat

Kuna woman selling her molas

maybe we should stay....