HEAVEN AND HELL

Chicken Bus drivers block hwy. to support strike

Monday, November 21, 2011

After a grand dinner of a hamburger (3 choices, Hamburger, chicken sandwich or cheese sandwich) We retired to our room for the night. We are hoping to get to Lago Atitlan tomorrow. This is a place Max has been a couple of times and after hearing about it this has become one of the must see places on this trip. The distance is only 70 miles but knowing the roads we decide to get an early start. After coffee and breakfast (miraculously the restaurants menu grew to include a full breakfast and lunch and dinner selections) we headed out of towngpsroad, i.e. bandits, nor do we have any sort of map other than the gps that shows no road at all, but what Max wants Max will get so after talking to a local driving by who assures us it’s a good road we continue on. OMG! The road begins to climb, not slowly but very steeply. Riding an 800# moto up this shit requires lots of throttle and lots of prayer. The straight parts weren’t too bad but the switchbacks were a bitch. 1Huehuetengo and all it’s traffic. Dufas has lost his way down here so I guess we are on our own. No more than 5 miles out of town we come to a roadblock. 30 or so people are standing in the road they have blocked off with rocks and boards. Turns out it the “chicken bus” drivers staging a countrywide protest for higher

The other end of the roadblock

wages. We start asking around if we could pass but no dice. We were told “maybe 2 hours”, then “maybe 4 hours” and finally “no go till 4”. Shit! That doesn’t leave enough daylight to get to the lake, besides the speed they move around here (except when they are driving their buses) it will take them until dark to move it all out of the way, clearing the road. Max and I go look for an alternative route while John keeps an eye on the bikes. We even considered making a run at the road block but what we didn’t see was they had totally blocked the road a 100 meters up with buses. We walked up a hill to our right and followed a road that paralleled the highway, getting our hopes up. When we reached the top we could see there was no hope of getting through. The road dropped down to the highway right smack in the middle of scores of protesters and their buses. Our hopes dashed, we walked back to the bikes and hung out with the protesters for a couple of hours. They were a fun bunch, offering us water and oranges and curious about the bikes and where we came from. For those who saw my facebook video of the crowd it might have seem as though they were an angry crowd. To the contrary, they were having fun. Each time someone would show up to the party late they would rush him, laughing and shouting, and begin pummeling them with their fists.

No on got hurt, just playing. We had no choice but to return to Huehuetengo for the night. Once in the middle of town we asked a taxi driver to lead us to a hotel with secure parking. He took us to the nicest place in town. Nicest being a relative term. The price was right; they had wifi, a pool and beer so we took a room. Max and I went out exploring the town. Traveling with Max has really opened a lot of doors previously closed to me. Because of my reluctance to get out, get lost and meet the locals I have missed a lot in the past. With Max leading the way you never know where you’ll end up and that’s the fun part! We found a coffee shop where the owner gave us an education on the various regional clothing, weaving and coffee growing. He spoke no English so much was lost to me but he did give us our lattes for free! We found a place for dinner where we met two American missionaries who had been working in the area for 4 years. I asked what the biggest challenge was for them and was told, “trying not to do too much for the people” which I took to mean that in the past the church pushed to hard and the people began resenting it. All and all, other than losing yet another day on our quest to be in Panama by December 8th, the day turned out just fine.

Our first glimpse of Lagos Atitalan

Tuesday

After breakfast we rode out of “Wayway”, and hallelujah, the road was open! This ride took us higher and higher until we topped out a 10000 feet. Max’s bike did well at altitude, so maybe it really is fixed. The mountains are very rugged but most our cultivated right up to the top. The views back toward “Wayway” were amazing. Lago Atitlan rests in a caldera ( a collapsed volcano). Impressed? Briner gave me that nugget.

San Pedro Hostel

It is surrounded by a number of simi active volcanoes and is so beautiful words won’t describe it (just google it ). You would never know by the road we were on that we were heading to such a wonderful place. It was narrow, part dirt, part wrecked pavement and had 20% grades at some points. We finally stopped at a park entrance to ask if we missed a turn off. They told us we were on the right road and we’d be there in an hour. How can that be, according to the map we’re only 10 miles away. Let me tell you those 10 miles were the slowest 10 miles I’ve ever done. The road became even narrower and rougher than before, add crazy chicken busses and insane combia vans, well you get the picture. Then the road began to drop. My best guess is 2000 feet in 2 miles! You do the math but that equals one hell of a grade! We found a nice hostel with parking for the bikes in San Pedro. Max has spent a fair amount of time here so he became our guide, as we walked around he pointed out the orange juice stand that sells coke, pot whatever. The liquor store and finally we end up in the Buddha Bar. Fun place to meet people from all over. Cheap rum and great food. Got lost trying to get back to our hostel. The streets are just wide enough to get tuk tuks through and no one street is longer than a block. It truly is a maze!

A typical street in San Marcos

Wednesday

We take a boat over to San Marcos for the day. Max spent 28 days here at a full moon to full moon meditation and yoga retreat a few years back. The whole town seems to cater to the mellow, spiritual, and healthy life styles. You can almost feel it when you get off the boat. He wants to take us to his favorite restaurant but the rains have been heavier than usual and the place is mostly underwater. We find another place and have a great breakfast accompanied with fresh organic coffee grown right there at the restaurant. Can’t get any fresher than that! While searching for the only Lonely Planet in the town (we need to get border info) we find it at a little restaurant run by a woman from England. Briner finds his spot and hangs there and Max and I go for a dip in the lake followed by a tour of the Las  Pyramidas where Max spent a month. A cool place with little Pyramid cabins dotted around the place. I met a couple of his instructors and they all remembered Max.

Boat to San Pedro

After I treated myself to a 90-minute massage (this is the first time in memory I’ve gotten one for no other reason than pure enjoyment). The boat ride back was fun. The wind had come up and a man, a very inebriated man, had gotten on board and spent his time on the bottom of the boat rolling around wailing about god knows what! I must say I was surprised he kept his cookies down the entire trip across. Dinner, a wild Tuk Tuk ride and back to the hostel for the night.

Thanksgiving Day

It takes us an hour to get out of the towns (two or maybe three signs would cut the time down to 15 minutes), back up the switchbacks, and another 20 minutes looking for a road to get us through the mountains. After a few inquires we find the village we need to hook up with the road. As we leave the village it becomes apparent this road will be a challenge. It is steep, rutted and not maintained very well. I stop to get John and Max’s opinion. John points back toward the village we came from and Max wants to go on. I, personally, don’t have a good feeling. We haven’t inquired about the safety on this road, i.e. bandits, nor do we have any sort of map other than the gps that shows no road at all, but what Max wants Max will get so after talking to a local driving by who assures us it’s a good road we continue on. OMG! The road begins to climb, not slowly but very steeply. Riding an 800# moto up this shit requires lots of throttle and lots of prayer.

Max riding the notch

The straight parts weren’t too bad but the switchbacks were a bitch. 1^st gear all the way up. Add the heat and I was getting wiped out. We did see a few trucks going the other way and that gave me hope. When we reached the top all the work was forgotten. The view was increasable! You could see a hundred miles. Volcanoes, valleys, rivers, villages, just unbelievable! We could also see the road down and that scared me! Narrow, steep with loose sand and rocks not to mention switchbacks. We began our way down using all of my brakes; I had to turn off the ABS to keep from going off the edge at the switchbacks. Suddenly I had no rear brakes at all! None of us did!

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We stopped and took a 20-minute break to allow the brakes to cool down. While sitting there a number of women came by carrying loads on their heads and backs moving faster than we could! The people up here are in incredible shape! Back on the bikes and using front brakes only I started down. The road got even steeper and I had to ride “clutch in” standing on the front brakes trying not to slide the front wheel. When I reached what I thought was the bottom I crossed a stream and waited for Max and John. After about 5 minutes I began to worry. I thought I best get my bike off the road and while pushing it back I lost it and the bike went over. I can’t believe it, I road over that mountain without losing it once and I drop it at the bottom!

View down the valley towards CA2
The Pan American Hwy

Anyway some guy and his son come walking by to go cut wood and help me with it. My 1^st thought was “great, I’m by myself and I run into a bandit welding a machete” but the guy was friendly and ended well. Finally Max showed up and said John was having trouble with his brakes and had fallen. When John caught up he says both front and back brakes went south on him and he had to plow into the uphill side of the road. Had he gone off the other side……? Well best not think about that. We eventually make it out to a real road after a number of false hopes while riding through these small villages only to be dashed when we get through and the road returns to its previous condition.  I think I have taken the GS mother ship, and myself, to the limit on this road.

Civilization!

We then turned onto CA2 for the drone through El Salvador. We stopped in a restaurant along the highway and there were a couple of Harley clones sitting there. They belong to this guy Carlos and his son in-law Julio. They are having lunch with Julio’s mother and brother. They give us a welcome found only in Guatemala! Ordering us beers and chatting it up like we’ve know each other for years. We exchange emails, take pictures and head on down the road. Around 5 Max’s POS KTM gives out a backfire and begins to idle high. We decide to get gas and stay the night a little hotel nearby in Brito. I adjust Max’s idle without solving the mystery and it seems to run OK so we go to bed thinking all is good in our world.

Guatemalan friend we met at a roadside restaurant

Friday

Another border crossing today. Up and on the road by 8. We get to the El Salvador border around 10. This time we thought we’d go through the process without help but after meeting Anthony we figured $4 apiece would be worth it and after getting the bikes exported out in less than an hour we had already gotten our moneys worth.

Did that sign back there say "Bridge Out?"

Next was processing into El Salvador. Anthony came with us but was little help. He didn’t have any pull on this side of the border so we had to wait like everyone else. And wait we did. Max and I stood 1^st in line for 2 hours while John watched the bikes. These guys just sat there, drinking water, eating and smoking, ignoring us. Max would occasionally try to humor them with questions to no avail. Finally they take our papers and the process began. All and all it took us 5 hours for the whole process. I had talked to a guy who told me of a place on the beach near El Liberto, a beach area known for it’s fabulous surf. It sounded like the prefect place to spend the night! 4 Kms past the border the POS KTM quits!

No tell parking. 

 At least it quit in front of a “Auto Hotel” (No tell motel). This worked out great. We had a secure garage to work in and we each had our own rooms for the 1^st time on this trip. This was good as my attitude was not the best at the moment. After a beer, a muscle relaxer and a freeze-dried dinner it improved. Max and I by now the routine so well we can pull the gas tank and have the crab removed in about 15 minutes. The owner of the place was quite curious and hung out with us while we worked on the bike. I think he may have been running some of the girls living there but he never offered them to us. The first thing I notice is the throttle return cable has come loose. Digging further into the carb we find the needle clip has come off and the needle was just floating in there. This was wonderful! We could actually see the problem for once. We put it all back together and waited till morning to see if it was fixed. We had decided if it wasn’t running we would flag down an empty truck heading toward San Salvador and take it to the KTM dealer there. By the time we went to bed I was feeling pretty good about things. Besides the bugs in the room, a rather large one under my bed screeching all night, and the toad in the shower drain the place was ok. The next morning we fired up the MRS stove and had fresh coffee and oatmeal. Max took the bike out and it started right up and ran as good as ever!

Saturday

Back on the road by 9. The Highway soon begins to hug the coast much like Highway 1 in California. The only difference is instead of a rugged coastline this one has pristine beaches along the whole way.

It was beautiful and I really hated to pass by this area so quickly. But with all the delays we really need to make tracks now. Once past the coast the road goes inland and the landscape looks much like I picture the African Savanna to look, flat with grass and trees spread around. We continued riding toward the border with Honduras hoping to cross the border 1^st thing in the morning. We ducked down into La Union thinking it might be a cool place to stay but it turned out more of a run down fishing village with few hotels.  We continue on and get to the border soon after. Not wanting to cross this late in the day we stop by a gas station to top off before getting a room for the night. That’s when we meet Jose. The guy comes out of know where and is curious where we are going. We tell him Honduras and he says the banks will be closed tomorrow (it being Sunday and all) and we won’t be able to export the bikes until Monday. Fortunately good old Jose has a plan! If we hurry and use his services  (for $5) we can just make it through before the banks close. Word of advice: When a stranger comes to you and says we need to hurry walk away as fast as you can! After all the 3^rd world traveling I’ve done I still let myself be conned into thinking faster is better.

As it begins to get dark I wonder if we have made a mistake

I will spare you the details of the next 4 hours but suffice it to say it turned into a nightmare costing us an additional $40 apiece and having to stay in a flea bitten hotel at the exorbitant price of $30!  These people are running a syndicate here. You have the handlers, the ones who approach you offering their help. The paper guys, the one you normally don’t see who move your passport, import papers etc. around to the various government officials and the guy on the bike who just follows you around keeping an eye out for persons wanting to steer you away from their services not to mention the government officials themselves. Honduras has certainly lived up to its corrupt reputation. They have no idea how damaging this is to their tourism industry. I had been forewarned about this crossing and most Moto riders spend as little time as possible in this shitty little country.

Sunday

We are up and on the road by 6:30. Slept in my sleeping bag liner and still got bit to shit last night. Riding through Honduras usually means numerous police roadblocks and bribes. But we make it through without trouble. It’s anticlimactic after yesterday. The area we ride through is pretty much nondescript. Maybe more roadside garbage but other than that just unplanted fields and trees. Since we are traveling without a map I’m surprised when get to the border by 8:30.

Chili n at the Nicaraguan Border

We decline any help and are through the export process quickly. We then go to the Nicaragua side we import the bikes and take care of our visas in record time! And nobody wanted a bribe. In fact I mistakenly gave the customs guy $20 too much and he returned it! I like Nicaragua! You can feel the difference. People here are much friendlier and happier. We get lunch and are out of there by noon. The scenery immediately improves. We are riding towards a number of volcanoes and sugarcane is aplenty! We decide to make an early day of it and ride into Leon by 2:00. It’s the usual confusion of unmarked one-way streets but Dufas has the city center marked so I head for that. While driving up a busy street full of venders a man to my right starts yelling something at me. I stop, put my right foot down and shit! There’s nothing there! I have put my foot in a 2’ deep hole and the bike and me go down right into a crowed corner. Fortunately I don’t break my leg and the only damage is a cooler that was on the sidewalk. By now a large crowd had gathered so I pulled a $20 out and gave it to the cooler owner and got the f%$! Out of there! By now we had a guy on a ped-a-cab guiding us to the town center where we found a hostel the will accommodate our bikes and us. Leon has lots of history (stand by, I haven’t taken the tour yet) and a beautiful Zocola. Again, some calibration was going on with bands, parades and lots of dancing.  Had dinner on the roof of a Karaoke club overlooking a skate park and called it a night.

`They make cool looking volcanos here.

`.Ah! Nicaragua what a nice change of pace