Long Ride South

The morning after my last post on Guatemala, we headed to Tikal. We were on a bit of a money crunch because there was no ATM near the town we were staying in, and had massive sticker shock when entrance tickets to the ruins in Tikal cost about $20 USD each! Nevertheless, we bought our tickets and entered. Palanque had been a truly magical experience, and one the other Mayan ruins had failed to live up to. The ruins at Tikal though… were every bit as impressive from an architecture standpoint, and the site is truly massive, with a trail to one part listed as 23km on our map.

The temples at Tikal were very different than anything we’d seen before. Giant pyramids towering over 200 feet above the jungle floor, complete with rounded corners and massive staircases flanked by smooth runners leading to the sky – simultaneously marvels of ancient engineering and religious insanity. One of the highest temples had a wooden “staircase” added so visitors could climb it without using the delapidated stairs. I only use quotations because staircase fails to explain this dangerous cross between stairs and a ladder, which shot up a steep wall of the pyramid and worked wonders for convincing one just how tall and steep the pyramids really are.

Ruins coming out of the canopy at Tikal

Me in front of a "Temple 1" at Tikal

Another massive Tikal Temple

We wandered among the ancient city for the better part of a day. As we’d seen before, scattered around the temples were massive stone acropolises and houses, great decorated plazas, and an occasional ball field. Aside from the central plaza and some of the larger scalable temples, most of the park was deserted, and at the last group of structures I wanted to visit, there wasn’t a soul in site, which lead to the full-on assault of strange monkey-like rodents with long tails in the air and long noses to the ground, foraging for food en masse.

Action shot... I don't know what they are, but there sure were a lot of them.

After Tikal, we went back to our hotel, and then to the internet cafe. I met a cool group of people from the US and Canada there, and managed to have the kind of night out I miss: a group of interesting people, speaking english (only because then I can understand everything that’s going on!), and, of course, drinking beer. Just what I needed, thanks guys. The bike of course got some more signatures as well.

The rain had given us a slight break by only mildly sprinking while we were in Tikal, but by morning, it had resumed its full force once again. We made it a pretty good distance and were winding through the mountains when I felt something weird. Though I’m still not sure if I saw it or imagined it, there was a flash of red (the color of my Dad’s bike) in my rearview in a turn, and looking back, I could no longer see my dad behind me. I went only another couple hundred yards at most before stopping.

I was taking out my radio when a truck pulled up behind me and signaled me to come over and speak to them. I dismounted the bike and the couple in the truck, in perfect, if accented, English said “Your partner was just in an accident just a little ways back. He’s ok. Go!” Instantly on high alert, I swung the bike around as a row of semi-trucks came up on where we’d been parked, the truckers practically hanging out their windows motioning me to the last curve, where Joe had crashed.

Around the bend I went, and there was an army of a family, along with my Dad, hauling his bike upright in the dirt on the outside of a corner that had been a right turn for us. I parked my bike and ran up as they were settling the bike unsteadily to its kickstand. They helped us get things situated, and told us it was only by the glory of God that he was alright, and though not a particularly religious person, I’d be inclined to believe it. My Dad and his bike had managed to exit the roadway on the outside of the turn into a cement drainage gutter before hitting soft ground and eventually a boulder (only with the front tire). Sitting Joe down, we managed to ascertain that nothing was broken, and the only open wound was on his leg. Miraculous!

The truck full of Guatemalans who’d helped us stuck around awhile to make sure we were ok and gave us some fresh water. After dressing my Joe’s leg and agreeing we had no choice but to move on to the next town to find a hotel, we proceeded, carefully, back through the mountains with no further incident on the road. We actually passed the first hotel we came to in leiu of the next real town, and as Joe has said, it was a dump. That night I was convinced there were two massive dead lizards in the bathroom window, only to find out the next morning that they were only sleeping there, albeit upside down. I’m not sure if that made me more or less happy with the accommodations.

We decided to eat at the restaurant at the “hotel.” The special of the night was fish, and to prove it, the matron brought us into the kitchen and showed us her son(?) pouring out bags of fish he’d likely caught into a sink and gutting them. We both took the special, and were treated to extremely tasty, if small, fried fish served in the traditional “looking at you” style. Mmm!

Joe had some painkillers and we went in search of new materials for dressing his wounds since we’d used all the tape we had at the site of the accident. At the pharmacy, we had one of what had to be an extremely funny conversation for anyone truly bilingual in Spanish and English as we tried to get gauze, tape, and higher-power painkillers. They offered to shoot Joe up with Morphine though. I still can’t figure out why he didn’t take them up on it…

The next day, it was off to the border with El Salvador, but not before more unnecessary action. While passing what had to be the largest McDonalds in the world, we hit a section of slow-moving traffic, which should have been our sign to be careful considering Central American drivers avoid slowing down at nearly all cost. Though we slowed, it wasn’t enough. Up a hill bordering the McDonald’s parking lot, I could see a flurry of cows being led by two young kids. Apparantly there was a straggler who didn’t feel like being left behind, and he appeared from behind a large truck in full cow sprint, heading across the road. There was a flash of breaks and my Dad swerved away from the cow and oncoming traffic, but with the cow running that way, it was dead center cow ribs. The cow absorbed the impact of the bike with hardly a sway but the 800 lbs of bike, gear, and rider flew instantaneously to the ground, thankfully at a bit of an angle so as not to send Joe Superman-ing over the bars.

Another flurry of activity. I pulled off in horror at having to watch it all play out only 10 feet in front of me. The kids with the cows ran to help. A car pulled off with another Guatemalan who’d seen it happen. We got the bike up and into a safe spot. Explatives poured from my Dad’s mouth. Once again, the bike was practically perfect, with a few things shifted or mildly deformed but functioning. I got to reach into my grab bag of injury-related Spanish again to convince a restaurant to give me a bag of ice for my injured friend, and despite my Dad’s visible frustration, he could think of little beyond getting out of Guatemala, a view I was ok with if I didn’t fully echo his reasons why.

All signs seemed to point to the Honduran border instead of the Salvadoran one, and our confidence in being on the right path was continually shaken despite seemingly being correct according to our map. We were, however, surrounded by trucks bearing Salvadorean plates, so we pressed on, eventually coming to a sign that didn’t look like a standard roadsign, but pointed accurately to the turnoff for the Salvadorean border. It may as well have said “bad roads this way.” What’d the Salvadoreans ever do to you, Guatemala?

It was the standard sillyness at the border, taking far longer than there’s and need, and costing a handful of dollars. Border crossings are by far the worst part about this trip (at least for me, who still hadn’t had a real accident). That said, we were eventually helped by an English-speaking customs agent in El Salvador, who provided the first cursory inspection of our stuff – having each of us open one of our panniers – but mostly helped us through the agonizingly slow process. The sun was beginning to set as we finally cleared customs, and we were treated to one of the most spectacular sunsets I’ve seen in my life over the Salvadorean mountains as we descended into the valley containing Metapan.

Rain all night, rain in the morning.  I was stiff and very sore when I woke.  Coffee and then off on good road towards Guatemala city.  Rain, rain, rain.  Made the turn-off towards the border, then, while traveling in heavy traffic through a small town named Sta. Rosalia, a freaking cow decided to RUN into the road front of me.  Levi was riding behind me, and says I hit the brake, but I don’t even remember doing that.  I saw the cow a split second before I ran into it going 35-40 mph.

This time my first words were, “I am getting real sick of this shit!”

This time it was multiple contusions on my left leg, and lots of scrapes on my left hip and elbow and side.  But no broken bones, and no serious damage to the bike!  Live to ride another day.  Thank goodness for good gear – jacket and helmet.  The KLR is like a tank.

Back up and on the bike again (what choice do I really have?), we continue south.  The road to the El Salvador border is almost un-marked;  we almost turn back when we finally see a tiny sign for Frontera El Salvador.  The road goes completely to shit as we approach the border.  Some sort of political game going on here.

Lots of stupid paperwork just to leave Guatemala, then two hours of ridiculous nonsense before we clear immigration into El Salvador.  Once we leave the border station, the road is now perfect, and we are greeted with a beautiful sunset over fantastic mountains.  We stop in the first town we can, and it turns out to be a very nice place.  It is election night in El Salvador, and we are treated to fireworks, and a great pupusa dinner, for $1.10 each!  We get a very nice hotel room, get our clothes washed for us, and, with plenty more pain meds, have a quiet and decent night.

Woke to rain, again!  Made a bad choice on where to go to breakfast, and wasted a bunch of time.  Gassed up at Flores, then off to the south.  Good road, bad weather.

Somewhere between Modesto Mendosa and Castillo de San Fellipe, I lost control on a wet curve, and went off the road, into a concrete drainage ditch, and ended up against a large bolder on the side of the road.  By some miracle, I was not badly hurt, and the bike sustained no damage.  Out of nowhere, a truckload of Guatemalans appeared to help me get the bike back up out of the ditch.  After a quick field-dressing for the small hole in my right calf, we continued south to an ugly cross-roads town called La Ruidosa.

There we hit a new low, as far as bad hotels go.  Cigarette butts on the floor, broken out windows, and huge lizards living in the bathroom widow.  No hot water, bad beds… this place had it all.  But I had the shakes bad, and was cold and wet and sore and tired, so we had to stop.  Lots of pain meds, and I was able to sleep.

The leg injury really was not too bad;  my right shoulder and ribs are bruised and very sore.  But it was really amazing that I was not more badly injured here.  “Que milagro” is the first thing I said when I got up off the ground!

Woke to another day of rain.  The ceiling light in our room had blinked on every twelve seconds all night long.  Some great Guatemalan wiring!  The shower in the bath had an on-demand heater installed at the shower head, with wires connected inside the shower enclosure, so whenever you stood under it you wondered if you were about to be electrocuted!

Huevos rancheros for breakfast, then back up the hill to the Tikal site.  Fantastic is all I can say.  An incredible Mayan site.

(pictures)

Lots and lots of walking;  rain almost stopped.

Back to tiny El Cruce (El Remate) and cruised the lakeshore and nearby bio-reserve.  Very beautiful here. Dinner of hamburgers and french-fries and beer, with candy bars for dessert!  Tried to get some blogging done, but the internet connectivity sucked.  Levi found a couple of young folks to go off with, and I settled on the porch of our ‘hotel’ and read my book.

A great day, and a nice night.

Ahhh, the neverending battle of uploading photos. Catching up through Palanque puts me 10 days behind on photos, but at least it’s a start. Only another 250 or so to go before I’m current! Mind you, they all won’t be posted, only handy for the unlucky saps who come over to watch my boring slideshow when I return.

A mountain city in Chiapas, built around a lake formed in a volcano

The crowded beaches of Acapulco

A medium sized church in Oaxaca

Pro-Palestine Grafiti in Oaxaca

The BIG church in Oaxaca

The altar at the "big" church

Crazy red shiney trees and stovepipe cactus east of Oaxaca

Me on a waterfall in the Palanque ruins

A temple at Palanque

The Temple of the Laws in Palanque

The observation tower at the Palace in Palanque

Mayan Labrynth

In the morning we maneuvered the bikes off the hotel porch, and loaded up.  Found a bookstore (the owner claimed that she had the only open used bookstore left in the country!), and stocked up on reading material.  Off, in the rain, to the border, only a few miles away.

The border crossing was an experience.  Had to pay to exit Belize, and then deal with incredible third-world weirdness with Guatemala.  Immigration was a snap – stamp, stamp!  No customs AT ALL!  But the vehicle importation required photocopies of all sorts of papers, and, of course, there was no copy machine in the border station.  We had to walk through ankle-deep mud, 1/2 mile down the road into Guatemala, and across a two-way one-lane bridge, to a roadside hut that sold photocopies, and then back, in order to complete the entry process.   Fortunately, there was an english-speaking Guatemalan hanging around waiting to help confused foreigners like us, for a small fee.  Without his help, who knows what we would have done!  All very silly, but not too bad and no-one was nasty or threatening.    Quiet the contrary, everyone was very friendly and patient;  just the normal crazy bureaucracy, I guess.

We found an ATM in the nearby town, and got some local currency, then set out for Tikal.  The road west started out as greasy, slippery, nasty mud for the first 5 miles or so, then changed to badly rutted and washed out gravel, then changed again to pot-holed and un-maintained blacktop.  Nice first impression for Guatemala.  The rain continued without a break.  We rode all the way to Tikal, only to find that there were no affordable lodging there: so we back-tracked to the small town at the turn-off from the ‘main’ road, and found a place there. $16 USD.  We celebrated our first night in Guatemala with an expensive dinner, and cuban cigars.  Rain, rain, rain. Got in some internet time.  Both bikes are running good, at last.

Still raining in AM.  Started early taking my bike apart, to install new spark plug and PM the air filter.  The front yard of our hotel looked like a used motorcycle lot.  Besides Levi and mine KLR’s, there was an ’92 BMW R-bike airhead with a California plate, an Aprilla one-lunger with a plate from Ireland, and a Dakar from Alaska.  The three riders were all traveling together, on their way to Caracol in southern Belize.  When they came out to load up, we had a nice chat with them.

I pulled my tank and installed a new spark plug;  cleaned and oiled the air filter, and checked the fuel selector to see what could be preventing the reserve from working.  I adjusted my chain, but it is stretching badly.  My bike has 12,500 miles on it now, and this is probably the original chain, so I an thinking it is near the end of is life’s.  We rode around and actually found a Kawasaki dealer on the Hummingbird highway.  He said he could find us oil filters and have them in a few hours, and would install my chain for a reasonable amount. (The new chain was an ‘endless’ one with no master-link, which requires dropping the swing arm to install).  So we left my bike with him, and walked down the road to have a drink at a near-by bar.  After an hour or so, we checked back, and they had the new oil filters, and had my chain was installed.  So we gladly left Belmopan behind, and rode the few klicks to St. Ignacio.

This turned out to be a much more reasonable town than Belmopan.  More stores, more life, more of everything.  We located a very cheap hotel right in thr center of town, and had a very good Indian curry dinner.  Levi took off for a night on the town, and I hung around the hotel and watched the Daily Show and South Park on Comedy Central on TV.  The TV had 125 channels, more or less evenly divided into english, spanish, and chinese language channels!

Except for a few fleas and very bad beds, the hotel was a bargain;  out bikes were pulled up onto the porch and off the street, and chained to the railing for the night.  This is a swinging, wide-open frontier-like town, with lots of night life and activity.  Really the nicest place we have seen in Belize.  We spread out all our wet stuff, and ran the fan all night to dry some of it out.

My leather boots have taken a real beating with all the wet weather, so I bought a pair of sneakers as back-up footwear.  It is not an easy thing to find size 12 shoes in any of these countries.  It rained all night, again.

No luck finding my long-lost friend Kevin at the bars last night. I did manage to consume approximately twice my weight in Belizean beer (Belikin stout being my preferred local grog), talked to some backpackers from Kentucky, played some wicked foosball (good enough to make you proud, Justin), had a beer bought for me by a biker from Trinidad, drank a flaming shot, chased by more liquor, and when I didn’t grimace enough for the bartender, followed by another mouthful of unnamed hard liquor, and didn’t make it home till around 3-4.

In the morning, we grabbed an expensive breakfast, filled up on gas, and managed to find the only bookstore in belize, where we bought 8 books between the two of us. As our likely last opportunity for anything that may be called a “selection” of English-language books, we were excited. 20 minutes out of San Ignacio, and we had arrived at the Guatemalan border.

Arriving at the border, we realized we were very lacking in funds. Told before the Belizean currency was hard to get rid of, we’d completely cashed out before hitting the border. The money-changers there insisted there was no Guatemalan ATM anywhere near the border, and explained all the fees we’d have to pay. Furthermore, Belize charges over $15 USD as an exit fee (poor ex-pats have to stay I guess?), so we had to chew through a decent bit of our (read: my dad’s) emergency-funds.

The Guatemalan border was a joke, with no customs at all. An english-speaking Guatemalan guided us through the entire process working for tips (I gave him a little more than $3 USD, and he seemed quite happy), and he earned his fee. To bring in vehicles, we needed photocopies of several documents, and to get those, we had to walk over the border, over a ridiculous bridge, and to a random photocopy store where the owner joked in perfect english “Welcome to Guatemala, a third world country with lots of wasteful paper.” I guess he’s never filled out a 1040 in the US!

With minimal trouble, we entered Guatemala, and with the help of incredibly friendly locals, we found an ATM and got enough Guatemalan Quetzals (the most fun currency to pronounce to date!) to get us to the next bank. Before leaving our first Guatemalan town, I realized four things: people speak Spanish again, the streets were covered in literally inches of mud, the people are incredibly friendly, and the countryside is unbelieveably beautiful.

We pressed on to Tikal, the site of our final, colossal Mayan ruin. We had been told there were hotels inside the park, and so we proceeded directly to the center, despite having no plans to actually visit the ruins that day. The so-called cheapest hotel in Tikal quoted us their price – $60 USD! – and I just about laughed in their faces. 30 kilometers outside the park, we’d passed a town with upwards of 10 small hotels, so we simply returned to them, and found a place with a room with 2 beds, hot water, and private parking for under $17 USD. If we felt miserly, which we didn’t this particular night, we could have passed for $10 USD with a shared bath without hot water.

We had a fantastic dinner at a small restaurant, and smoked a couple cuban cigars. It’s continued to rain pretty steadily everywhere we’ve been for the last few days, and I can only hope our luck in weather changes before our trip to Tikal tomorrow. In the meantime, with all our worries about Guatemala, so far, so great… here’s hoping these trends continue!

Heavy rain ALL NIGHT.  Still raining in the AM.  Free coffee (real brewed coffee, a rarity here) in the hotel lobby.  Met a fellow from the US named Kevin who travels often in Belize, and gave us lots of good info. on Belmopan.  I rode around to several parts stores looking for stuff we needed for the bikes, but no luck.

Kevin bought us breakfast at one of the few non-chinese restaurants in this town.  Then we headed out towards Belize city.  Paid a whole $.35 road toll, and made good time to Belize City.  Rain, rain, rain.  Took a lot of searching and asking until we finally found Ben Quip, a real motorcycle parts place.  Lots of friendly folks willing to stop and help us out.  Everyone seems super nice, and very friendly.  Got the spark plugs, filter oil, and drive chains we needed.  That is a real relief!  But it cost us $250 US.

We spent some time looking around Belize City;  not much to say for it, other than friendly english-speaking natives.  We stopped for a couple of over-priced drinks at an ocean-side hotel, and decided to continue inland to Belmopan.

Rain, cold, dark; soaked and tired.  We tried at 5 hotels before we found a cheap room.  Went to an ‘Italian’ (not really) place and had a very decent pizza for dinner. No internet or phone, everything damp or worse; a real shit-hole room with barking dogs and poor ventilation.  Not our best day.

This is Belize’s capital city – that is just unbelievable!

Still no luck getting my pictures updated, so I figured I’d go with an update instea since I just continue to fall farther and farther behind the torrent of my dad’s smaller pictures (Damn you 6MP camera!) and shorter posts. Let’s start with Palanque…

What a trip. Our friend Timo from Oaxaca had drawn me a map, with a detail I’d only ever expect from a German, laying out an amazing path through the jungle outside the designated park at Palanque. Beginning with dense jungle, we went over an amazing waterfall, through incredible Mayan ruins yet uncleared from the jungle, covered in moss, surrounded by near-impenetrable lush jungle, and with trees busting through complex piles of ancient rocks. Timo: We missed the orange string, but didn’t care one bit! Thanks!

Somehow, just before my dad convinced me to turn back, the trail dumped us in the parking lot outside the enterance. Drenched in sweat from the intense heat and humidity, we paid our fare and entered the cleared ruins. I’ve said before and will tell anyone who cares to listen, the ruins at Palanque defy our ability to describe. Moreso, they show our inability to express the emotion a place can instill in us. It felt magical. It was simultaneously somber, spiritual, exciting, and magical. It felt like Steven Spielberg may pop out at any time behind a giant movie camera filming Harrison Ford running from a boulder. Indiana Jones must have been born here.

Inside Palanque, there are a plethora of well-preserved ruins. There are many giant pyramids that served as temples, a decent number of housing complexes with staircases, rooms, hallways, and enterances still in tact. Stucco frescoes and intricately ordained rock patterns, faces, and figures clung to walls, under benches, and overlooking plazas. In the middle is a tremendous “Palace” with courtyards, tall arched hallways, preserved, labyrinths dripping with condensation and ambiance, and topped with a monumental stone lookout tower that looked like classical European architecture, but built before it existed.

We spent nearly the entire day wandering through the ruins, climbing ancient Mayan staircases, and thoroughly failing to hide our awe. Then we hit up the museum outside, which had contained a solid stone casket recovered from the far depths of one of the pyramids, covered in glyphs and chiseled drawings, and seriously, about 5 feet tall, 7 feet wide, and at least 14 feet long.

From Palanque, we hit the Yucitan, which is flat as flat could be. Cruising along at the highest speeds since the states, we still managed to be passed by semis decimating the posted speed limit. We found another place with cabañas in a town called Xpujil (try pronouncing that!), and I uploaded a few more pictures (still woefully behind) at an internet cafe. A decently cheap, incredibly loaded seafood soup later, and it was off to sleep.

Xpujil was surrounded by Mayan ruins, and after Palanque I wanted more, so we stuck around an additional night and went to two after futzing with our bikes. First, we went to Xpujil, the site for which the town was named. Containing an extremely impressive ruin with 3, massive towers, one with a terrifying ancient staircase leading part way up, I already felt our stay had been validated. We continued on to Becan, which was much larger, and very impressive, but didn’t quite stir the emotions as well as Palanque. A few more pictures uploaded, and another cabaña night.

Then it was time to clear out of Mexico. Finally! We zipped out of the Yucitan, stopping briefly at yet another Mayan ruin, Kohuilich (another fun one to say!), which is the remnants of a Mayan city. It was cool to wander through yet another very big site that was very different from Palanque: mostly housing, way more evident renovations done to the structures (you don’t add a bedroom to your temple :), and even a place that looked like a castle, with 24 foot walls, one enterance, and seemingly a guard station.

Zip over to Belize. The way there was amazingly well-labled if you know that Belice is Spanish for Belize, and we stood before the imposing Belize customs center. As my dad said, we paid $5 Belize ($2.50 US) per bike to have it off-handedly sprayed with pesticides, handed over our passports to be stamped, and happily passed, unpreturbed, over the Mexico-Belize border. We had paid extra for Mexican tourist cards and vehicle permits, but the Mexicans could care less.

We passed first into Corozal, a quaint coastal town. Everyone was friendly, the architecture was distinctly carribean (houses on stilts, rust and fading paint everywhere, decaying vehicles in yards), and the people spoke Spanish, some sort of pidgin language, and always English with an accent I can only call “Island” mon. As if to punctuate our change, we hit our first rain since heading out together, and man did it storm! I changed my remaining pesos to Belize dollars (kept at exactly $2 Belize dollars to $1 USD), and we continued to Orange Walk.

What a strange place! About 90% of the stores had names like “Xiu Jan Restaurant” or “Zhang Dung Store.” Try as we might, we couldn’t find one non-chinese restaurant, and ended up settling for one and ordering seafood (delicious and cheap!) while a bad Chinese soap opera playing on a TV over our heads provided the soundtrack for our confusion. Try as we might, we still haven’t figured out why more Belize businesses than not are owned and operated by the Chinese.

We stayed in a great hotel with the worst slow internet yet, and revelled in our fine beds, free coffee and bananas, and just plain swanky accomodations. Another 50 pictures uploaded, but I’m still not done with Palanque. Oy! We also met a very cool Ex-Pat named Kevin who was in the process of moving to Belize. He was starting to work in the experimental corn business there, and was a great guy to talk to to find out about the country. He also bought us breakfast. Rock!

From Orange Walk we headed to Belize City, where I intended to have us stay, expecting tourists galore, wonderful beaches, and drinks with little umbrellas in them. What we found was an unimpressive beach, no tourists or seemingly tourist industry, run down buildings, more Chinese stores and restaurants, and determined for at least my shaded beverage, we found only a bar that lacked little umbrellas as badly as our beverages lacked actual booze! Disappointment!

We searched like animals trying to find the one real Motorcycle shop in town, and a very nice guy on a scooter finally drove us all the way there. We lucked out and found two chains that were miraculously the right size (which is even more amazing since they didn’t have a master link, which means we couldn’t take out links if they were too long), foam air filter oil (I had practically given up on this existing outside the US), and spark plugs of the right size. We also bought cleaner to clean the air filters and a giant can of O-ring chain lubricant. Likely the biggest customers of the day, they gave us a discount. Too bad Belize dollars didn’t spare us the big bill!

Disheartened by Belize City, I gave up on my fantasy and we struck out for Belmopan (the capital, though a town of around 12k people so we’ve been told) as the rain poured down and the sun began to set. After striking out at 3 hotels, we found a very cheap one which we shared with 3 other adventure riders. We met them in the morning, great bunch: A guy from San Francisco on a ’92 BMW, one from Alaska on a newer F650GS (BMW), and an Irish lad on an Aprillia Pegasus (apparantly the basis for the F650, news to me!). They’d all started independantly and met up along the way, which was great to hear. Only the guy from San Francisco was heading all the way down to Tierra del Fuego – the others were heading as far as Panama – but at least we weren’t alone in our lunacy. It rained very very heavily all night. In the morning, we also realized my dad had lost his laundry bag (with socks and perhaps other clothes) and I had lost one of my 2 polyester shirts (arghhhhh!) in some completely unknown incident. At this rate we’ll be lucky to make it to TdF with our underwear and shoes!

We lucked out in Belmopan by finding the country’s sole Kawasaki dealership, and we had them install Joe’s chain, and they managed to track down and bring in 3 more oil filters, which would have been extremely hard to find otherwise. They also let us check our email, and had free coffee. For that, here’s our first real plug: thanks Motor Solutions!

From Belmopan, we hit San Ignacio, the last real town in Belize before the border. Supposedly, my good friend from grade school, Kevin Mezak, is somehow somewhere here in town, though I haven’t heard back from him. A small town like every one in Belize, I hope to run into him at the bars tonight, which I think I’ll be hitting up riiiiight about… now! Next stop Guatemala!