South America 2008

There are two ways to cross the border from San Carlos, Nicaragua to Los Chiles, Costa Rica. One is to take a small boat from San Carlos on a 90 minute trip through the jungle. The other way is to drive 30-60 minutes east of San Carlos, catch a large ferry that can take trucks and cars across the river and take a road for about 14 km to Los Chiles. The problem with that crossing is that you need to get special permission. Unfortunately for us, we weren’t able to get it.

The pictures in the last post showed what a pain in the ass this was but, hey, it’s all part of the adventure. (I got some great video footage of Roar riding his bike down the narrow customs hallway with people smashing themselves against the walls trying to make room.) At the dock, the guys had to lower the bikes a few feet down to water level and then manhandle them on the boat. Roar’s bike was first onto the front. Then they turned the boat around to load mine stern. All this time the boat was full with passengers watching this spectacle. I think most were entertained, some irritated at the delay, and some just didn’t care either way.

I hoped that the unloading would be a little easier but it wasn’t. We were able to get Roar’s bike off fairly easy, just off onto the concrete dock and four of us pushing it up a flight of steep stairs (only about ten of them).

Mine was tough. They backed the boat up to a dirt bank. It was a lot tougher then it should have been because they unloaded the bike back end first. In retrospect it would have been much easier to rotate the bike in the boat so that it came out front first onto the bank.

The four of us heaved and ho’d that bike, bit by bit off the boat. One guy helping us lost his balance and fell completely into the water. Another older guy started hypervenilating and I was afraid he would have a heart attack. My boots are waterproof but not if the water gets in from the top.

We finally worked the bike out and turned it around. I started it up and rode it up the bank and got air as I cleared the last curb to land on the street. I gave the two locals a $20 tip for their help. I think that they might have needed the money to dry clothes and for possible medical aid.

Note to Motorcyclists: There is a place at the Penas Blancas border crossing on the Pan Am highway where you can get insurance right away. There isn’t one in Los Chiles. The customs official was extremely helpful and faxed our documents to the guy at Penas Blancas. We then had to wait about four hours for him to arrive with the paperwork.

No big deal, we spent the night there in quiet little Los Chiles and headed down to the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica the next day.

We’re happy in the back of a pickup-truck that gave us a ride from the hot-springs in Gracias, Honduras. They saved us from a 90 minutes walk in pitch-dark wilderness after our taxi abandoned us.

Riding through some new highway construction. We’ve done a lot of miles on this sort of stuff and I’m sure the new highway will be just super when it’s done.

We ran into the Swedes again while stopped in the middle of new highway construction. We went over the maps and got some tips on where to go.

Detour through the forest because the bridge doesn’t exist yet.

We finally made it to Tegucigalpa for some beers and beer snacks. Ulrich had promised they would serve us Guinea pig but all we got was chicken and other normal meats. I guess the new owner has a heart.

Since we didn’t know how to get to the hotel except for which direction to go we got stuck in a dead end and had to hop on the sidewalk and cross this section of a walking-only street. We got stuck on the other side because of some cars and trucks and got busted by the cops. “Don’t do it again…” was all they said before the helped us get through.

Bikes parked at Ulrich’s farm.

View from our sleeping area

Our sleeping accomodations. The beds were hard for sure and the animals wake you up at around 5 in the morning.

At El Jobo junction (population guesstimate in the 50′s). We went there for beer and ice and chilled out with one before heading back. The dog was chilling like no other we’ve seen.

Puppies at the farm

On our way from the farm to Managua

Wonderful Santos in Managua. I highly recommend it.

Olvar’s last night out, we shared a couple of bottles of Nicaraguan Flor de Caña Rum which Nicaraguans claim is the best in the world.

Grenada by Lake Nicaragua. 1 HP in the background… probably 40+ HP up front

Andy and friends

The road from Managua to San Carlos… the last 78 miles were kind of bad… this is a photo of the absolute best part

Andy is very proud of his new Machete!

Up the Rio Frio for our Jungle-Tour

One guy is a real ranger, the other guy is just pretending with his never-used show-off Machete

Killer-ants the size of beetles crawling up my leg. We were told 5 bites would kill you.

Andy getting his bike through customs the Adventure Way ™

First my bike is loaded on to the front of the boat

Then Andy’s is loaded up aft almost crushing the outboard motor

A 90 minute boat ride with our bikes on board, my bag with most of my stuff on it is kind of hanging over the side just attached by a rope with a knot I did.

Stuck at customs in Los Chiles, Costa Rica because we don’t have insurance. Apparently people don’t really cross from Nicaragua to Costa Rica here with motorcycles from California.

Oh, on the way out from Managua the cops stopped us for crossing over the solid yellow line to pass a truck. There are tons of checkpoints throughout the country and we’ve only been stopped before throughout Latin America so that the cops could check out our documents or the bikes or both.

This time the cop saw us cross the line and he ran out into the middle of the highway to stop us. I followed the advice from other people on the motorcycling forums and just sat there on my bike and played dumb and said no entiendo a bunch of times. It worked. The two cops tried and tried to explain the violation and the whole process of a multa (fine or infraction, I think) but they eventually tired of the frustration. We got our licenses back and went on our way. If we had done something dangerous or really wrong I would have understood and went along with it but passing people on the highway under any conditions is completely normal. Besides, unlike most others we’re pretty safe in our passing.

On to the dirt road to San Carlos…on the red line on our map it showed 125 kilometers (about 78 miles). We started at 2pm and the road quickly deteriorated. Big holes, whoopties, gravel, lots of rocks. At first I flew over this stuff, it was like fun riding out in the California desert. But then I saw the sharp rocks and I bottomed out a few times when I got air on the little jumps. I thought about the bikes and how they need to last the whole trip. I thought about the possibility of puncturing a tire and was more worried the farther we went as it looked more and more primitive.

So, we slowed the pace down but it was already kind of too late for Roar’s baggage. It had suffered some damage earlier and the difficult road and the constant pounding brought the moment of reckoning much more quickly. Roar noticed that the case was bouncing off the frame and had to stop to readjust everything so that the cases were empty. He put everything in a duffle bag and a backpack and strapped it to the tail. It’s pretty much the same set up as the Swedes and it’s genius. Simpler is better and I plan on doing this for the next motorcycle adventure. Everything in one large duffle bag strapped to the tail of the bike.

Advantages: duffle bag weighs just a few pounds, our hard cases and frame weighed 35 pounds….easy to take off and carry to the hotel room…bikes are narrower for easier passing….indestructible hard cases are not in reality but how do you really break a duffle bag?

The sun started getting lower and we knew that we only had a short time before it turned dark and it SUCKS to drive at night on unfamiliar roads in unfamiliar conditions. Plus, if you have a mechanical problem or a flat tire, everything is complicated when you can’t see. In the race against the coming darkness we got flagged down by two excited campesinos.

I know, Lucila, you said never to stop for anybody trying to stop you on the back roads because that is how they ambush and rob you. But I made a judgement call. The people in that area seemed very friendly and it wasn’t too isolated. The guys spoke so rapidly to me and in such an accent that I could only understand the words “bolsa” (bag) and “bicicleta” (bicycle). We continued riding and a couple of hundred yards later another guy flagged us down. This time I made out bolsa and autobus and he pointed down the road. A bus had passed us a few miles back during one of our breaks. Now, it made sense. He had forgotten his bag on the bus and needed help getting it.

I motioned to him to get on the back of the bike and he did. He just hopped right top of my bags so he didn’t even have a real seat. Mr Toad’s Wild Ride commenced as I hauled ass trying to catch up to the bus. We jumped across ditches, bottomed out several times, and were passing onlookers with their mouths wide open. Nobody rides like that out there. Heck, there aren’t any bikes out there big enough to do it. Roar told me later that he thought that the guy was gonna fall off the back since his butt came off the back about a foot a couple of times.

After a few minutes, we got sight of the bus and I slowed a bit because I knew that we would catch it. I’m sure he appreciated it. We stopped the bus and the guy hopped off and gave a nice thank you. Knowing we still had a bunch of miles to go, I nodded to him and we took off. That bag must have had some important stuff for him to consider riding with me but maybe he didn’t know what he was in for. At least he’ll have a great story like I’ve got.

We didn’t make it to San Carlos by nightfall. The last half hour or so was in the dark. We slowed down because it was tough to see. We hit one narrow section that worried me but that was it and we rolled into San Carlos. It had some of the friendliest people we’ve seen on the trip. People went out of their way to give us directions and even the kids were fun and interested in us. I let some sit on the bike while I held it straight up and they loved it.

The next day (Tuesday) we went on a jungle tour. It was a small tour, just us and two backpackers, one American and one Israeli. The highlight was seeing spider monkeys and white faced monkeys climbing and jumping from tree to tree. I bought a machete right before we headed out and I broke it in on some inconsiderate plants that were in my way. That machete is now strapped to the back of my motorcycle and for me it completes the image of the adventure motorcyclist…actually, a shotgun would be pretty cool now that I think about it….

Last Thursday, we left Esteli with the Swedes and headed out to Ulrich’s farm, which is located about 30 minutes east of Matagalpa, Nicaragua.

He has a working farm whose main focus is cattle. This farm was Nicaraguan style where the animals and humans coexist. The main farmhouse was a simple wooden structure with no electricity and minimal plumbing. The animals were welcome on the first floor and I had never been to a farm with so much activity. Chickens, dogs, puppies, cats, turkeys, pigs, cows, they were everywhere and they were always talking their animal languages about God knows what. So much for a peaceful time at the farm since these guys were always talking, crowing, fighting, or eating together. It was nuts. You’d sit in one place and see all sorts of animals just meander and pass by doing what animals do. Puppies would tear at your socks, then wrestle each other, if one got too close to a hen and her chicks she would peck him on the nose. It was straight comedy sometimes and as Ulrich says, “It was kind of fun”.

The only quiet time we had was at night when we sat atop Ulrich’s unfinished concrete home atop a small hill and had some beers. We spent the night on hard beds on an open air balcony and woke up with the animals (how can you not?) at about 6 am.

We left the farm to do some riding on some pretty cool dirt tracks that Ulrich knew. Roar had his first river crossing and almost lost it. He hit the throttle a little too hard and had water splashing over his helmet. I almost lost it, too, but Roar’s crossing was much more spectacular.

We found a spot to stop so that we could do a little hiking in the rainforest. I can’t remember if we spotted some monkeys on this hike or not but we saw howler monkeys and spider monkeys by a river on the farm the day before.

Some more challenging dirt riding and another river crossing, which Roar and I aced and we left the jungle.

We headed with the Swedes to Managua and had a great weekend. The nightlife was a lot of fun.

On Sunday, Roar and I headed out to a well known toursty town called Granada on Lake Nicaragua. It was great to go for a ride on the bikes without any bags and with only tshirts and jeans.

I made a friend named Raquel through MySpace. On Sunday, Raquel and her friend showed us a nice little ride to Los Cruceros. At the top we could view the Pacific Ocean but it was windy as hell and reminded me of Baja California. On the way back we got a great view of Lake Nicaragua….

The popular border crossing to Costa Rica is on the Pan Am highway which runs along the west side of Lake Nicaragua. Looking for a little adventure and wanting to get off the beaten path  we headed on monday morning to San Carlos. The first part of the ride reminded me of Baja again. Kinda brown, dry vegetation, a lot of wind, and nice curvy asphalt. That changed when we turned south towards San Carlos. Bumpy, hard, rocky, dirt road for a hundred miles…..

Sometimes our maps are way off. A red line turns out to be a beautifully paved road. Other times a red line is this crap. Actually, I loved it. It was the California desert with whoopties but boring because it was so straight. There’s a little more to tell on this part but I’ll leave it for next time.

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!

Nada más!

We’ve done a lot of miles by now and I’ve found out that…

Traffic lights and road markings are only suggestions… I’ve run more red lights, gone against more one-way streets and ignored more ‘rules of the road’ in two weeks than in my entire life so far. The crazy thing is that is works! I guess people expect the unexpected so they don’t freak out. Cool!

You can pass a pickup truck full of police in Mexico going 110 in the 80 zone (km/h) without being pulled over… Nice!

Colorful buses in Guatemala are driven by madmen and are very dangerous… let them pass… Peligro!

Guatemala has a lot of wonderful roads with excellent pavement and tons of twisties up and down the mountains… no tunnels so far… Great fun!

Obstacles in the road so far have been a bunch of cows, some horses, two donkeys, hens and chickens, a rooster or two, a peacock, a sheep cadaver, some unidentifiable cadavers, a million street-dogs, some goats, a staggering drunk man with a half-empty bottle of booze in his hand, a staggering drunk man with a 2-foot long machete in his hand… I think that’s about it…

People are almost always nice and will return a smile with a ear-to-ear grin… probably because we look strange with all our gear… Lucila has been especially nice and we can’t thank her enough for taking care of us in Guatemala City… without her we may still be driving around looking for a hotel

We’ve been lucky with the roads, the weather, people, the gear, just about everything… I hope it will continue… and I hope I didn’t just jinx us!

This internet connection is pretty good but I forgot my USB cable… no pictures now either…. I have a ton of cool photos but… más tarde amigos…

I’m in Esquipulas right now where the main street about 7 blocks long with a median with trees and stuff… there are tons of scooters with one or two or three passengers, quads, tricycle-taxis and other vehicles… going round and round like a racetrack! It’s fun to just watch.

Getting here from Guatemala City we took mostly dirt roads and WOW! I’m exhausted but it was fun! Thanks Ramón for helping us plan the route! We didn’t take too many wrong turns… hehehe… I love GPS!

Tomorrow we head for the border to cross into Honduras and the Copán ruins, I’m looking forward to it.

Peace Out!

P.S. Jim! I hope you’re keeping my Suzuki warm while I’m gone… hit some twisties at A.C.H. or something! Hehehe…

The pace of our trip has slowed considerably. Initially, this was supposed to be an entirely South American motorcycle trip but we had to change that. From the beginning I just wanted to get through Central America as fast as I could so that we could spend more time in South America, but I’ve changed my mind for a few reasons.

As my friend, John, asked just before we started, “Is the trip about the journey…or the destination?” When you are focused on the goal of heading far into South America it’s easy to lower the priority of seeing and experiencing the places that you are actually in. There’s a lot to see in Mexico and Central America and it’s worth the extra time to check them out.

The blistering pace we took through Mexico really started taking its toll once we hit Guatemala. The riding, traveling, partying, and sightseeing takes a toll on your mind and your body. The fatigue just doesn’t go away. You have to make time to rest and recover. It gets to be too much.

We’ve spent a lot more time in Guatemala than I thought we would but it’s been a pleasant surprise. The people have been really friendly, the country has a rugged beauty to it’s green mountains and volcanoes. The only negative so far has been the dangerous roads. The truck and bus drivers are out of control!

In Antigua, we made a couple of friends from Guatemala City, Mario and Lucila. We arrived in Guatemala City yesterday (February 22nd), bought some new rear tires (Bridgestone Trail Wings) at a huge moto store, took them and the bikes to a bike shop, and met up with Lucila, who introduced us to her friend, Ramon.

Ramon has been riding motorcycles his whole life and has ridden pretty much all of the good and bad roads of Guatemala. Together, we planned a ride using as many unpaved roads (read: FUN!) as possible from Guatemala City to the border with Honduras, near the Copan Ruins, which every person we’ve talked to has recommended.

Today, we’ll get on Google Earth so we can plot some waypoints in our GPS’s and buy some things we’ll need because we can get them here. It’s not so easy to find things in the smaller towns. Last night was a lot of fun partying in Zone 10 and I expect that tonight will be more of the same.

I’d like to give a special thanks to Ramon, Mario, and Lucila, for their time and for their help in giving us expert local knowledge and helping us plan this part of our adventure….

Torg has made a Google map for us, thanks Torg!

http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?ie=UTF8&hl=en&msa=0&msid=113455286385524778856.000446cf73facb6624db9&z=5

And as far as partying and riding goes we don’t party too hard when we’re riding the next day. In any case, Guatemala  shuts down at 1 am so we’re in bed by 2.