South America 2008

Our beautiful hotel in Antigua, Guatemala

The view from the terrace of the hotel  in Antigua

Ramon, Roar, and Lucila planning our off road route in Guatemala City

On the roads from Guatemala City to Escuipulas, Guatemala

It’s common for people to get their vehicles decorated in Esquipulas so we tried to blend in, too. I rigged up this plastic folder so that I could easily look at the map, which came in handy many times. For the next trip I plan on getting a real tank or handlebar mounted map holder made for a motorcycle (although I’ve been told that “maps are for gays” (inside joke)). It’s a necessity.

The road from Gracias, Honduras to Esperanza, Honduras along La Ruta Lenca. Too bad we couldn’t snap photos of the sketchy detour around a bridge but we both had our hands full trying to keep from crashing.

People look at us all the time as if we were aliens. Looking at this picture I can see why. Here, in Esperanza, Honduras we took a short break and got the biggest, widest smiles from the locals. It was nice.

We had bumped into the Swedes a couple of times that morning. Shortly after this picture was taken we took off and ran into the Swedes (also riding through town) for about the third time that day. Without saying anything to each other we rode together for about the next hour before taking a bathroom break by the side of the road. We all rode at about the same pace and it was fun riding together but it was kind of funny how it happened. We didn’t talk about riding or hanging out together. It just happened naturally on its own…

Thanks Alexis for the comment. Thanks to everybody else who has posted as well. It’s nice to get feedback….

It was great riding with the Swedes yesterday through Honduras. It’s always fun riding in a group and it reminds me of riding bicycles with a gang of friends when you were a kid. The variety of riding was incredible…we started on cobblestone (my favorite), then dirt (including this powdery fine dirt that’s like soft sand in that short detour we had to take; I almost wrecked!), then beautiful, smooth pavement up and down mountains and across valleys. After that we had hard highway riding, dealing with typical Central American traffic, passing hundreds of cars, trucks, buses, on the right, on the left, however we could. Finally, the capital of Honduras, which I still can’t pronounce (Teguchigalpa, I think). Man, I’ve driven in some pretty wild and crazy places in a car but I’ve never ridden a motorcycle through this. In and out of traffic, lane splitting (those hard cases turned out to be too wide and a detriment; the Swedes had a much easier time), jumping up curbs onto sidewalks, riding through pedestrian only streets. By the time I was done, I was completely soaked in sweat and I felt like my personal temperature guage was well past the red line.

After a couple of beers with Roar and the Swedes, though, I felt better and could appreciate the experience.

We left Tegus around noon and headed to Nicaragua. Beautiful paved roads. The best part was the road from the border at Las Manos south into Nicaragua.

(I almost killed another bird; in Guatemala a yellow and black bird flew across the road and slammed into my visor, which I’m pretty sure killed him; this time some lazy, black bird floated across the roadway and I had time to duck my head and miss him….crazy)

We arrived in Esteli where we met up with the Swedes to talk about our plans. Early night for all of us tired folk.

The plan is to go out to the farm that Ulrich owns tomorrow. Then Friday we head to Managua for a weekend of fun…..

We’re in Tegucigalpa, Honduras now. After crossing the border and seeing the wonderful ruins at Copán (where I took lots of photos that I can’t upload now hehe) we sort of followed a couple of Swedes we met at the border crossing, Ulrich and Olvar (if I mis-spelled their names i don’t care… they’re only Swedes after all

Los suecos told us about some hot springs by Gracias so we went there… kind of late we thought but the spot filled up and was kind of happening, didn’t find the Swedes though. The tricycle taxi out there was about 20 minutes of bumpy dirt roads and the driver promised he would be back by 22:00. We were chilling with a few beers, chatting with some locals. Around 22:00 we walked back to the parking lot… no taxi… shit! Asking around it was clear walking was a 90 minute endeavour and not a good idea at night. So we hitched a ride in the back of a pickup-truck with a drunkish dude and his two girlsfriends… Thanks!!

The Swedes showed us a hotel in Tegucigalpa and we went out with them last night to locals-only spots… cool… Andy is still recovering.

Ulrich owns a farm in Nicaragua and told us we could stay there so we will… he promised hard beds and MONKEYS!!

Today we head for Nicaragua, I don’t know how far we’ll get but if we can get to the farm that would be great… and then for Managua. Ulrich has great things to say about Nicaragua so we may stay for a while and kind of skip Costa Rica like we kind of skipped Honduras… I might like Honduras much better if a little girl didn’t throw stuff at me while riding through her town… bastard!

The riding yesterday was awesome! Really good twisty roads with clean asphalt, then miles and miles of new higway construction, the kind where they just carved the road out of the mountains and it’s still just dirt and gravel everywhere and huge construction equipment rolling around… really, we were riding through miles and miles of active highway construction. Then we came to a part where they were still constructing a bridge so we had to detour through dirt-roads in the forrest… I’m glad I didn’t fall over!

More twisties before we went through the traffic of Tegucigalpa where we did some of the nuttiest city driving I’ve ever done, we even went up on the sidewalk and across a pedestrians-only street! The cop made Andy promise to never do it again (at least to walk the bike across next time) before he helped us get past these trucks blocking our way by riding 50 meters on the sidewalk… cool cops!

I’m looking forward to Nicaragua! We may stay for a while since we have a local guide of sorts in Ulrich…. then we may just blast through Costa Rica as we cross into Panama on the Atlantic side which is supposed to be the best roads, the smallest border corssing and a crazy bridge to get across.

As an update to my random observations I must say that we had lots more animals in the road, we rode through a little herd of cattle, sort of herding them for a bit, and almost ran over a few pigs… but the weirdest thing I think was another staggering drunk guy walking along the road at least 20 miles from the nearest town all dressed for business carrying a brief-case. Tough job I guess!

All my best to family and friends!

I actually don’t know what day today is… good!

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