1-15-10 Antigua, Guatemala

I slept well that night in Semuc Champey, curled up in a hammock under the eve of a little hut.  As usual, Luis woke me up in his typical fashion though I had a hard time getting to my feet as my left butt-cheek was thoroughly asleep and stayed that way until noon.  This made hiking around the pools and waterfalls a bit more challenging as my left leg just kinda flopped around only partally under my control.

Before leaving I bought a fresh pattie of chocolate spiced with cinnamon from little Erika, a local girl. All of her little chocolates were wapped in wide-ruled paper, I wonder if that was donated from the States?

Not wanting to break our habit of fluctuating between mildly bewildered to totally lost we took the wrong dirt path out of town which we didn't realize for about an hour.  As usual, we were steered astray by the locals who had no idea of their place on earth.  I asked one guy which way it was to Guatemala City and he pointed ahead.  I then asked him which was it was to Coban and he pointed behind me.  Though lost, I stll knew that Coban and Guatemala City were on the same road in the same direction from us.  I thanked him and took off.

After being lost for a couple hours we finally made it back to the little town near Semuc but had burned a lot of fuel on our morning adventure and needed to refuel before moving on. The problem was there was no gas station in town and the nearest was out of range.  After asking a few people we were put in contact with a boy who had some combustible liquid in antifreeze jugs that he filtered into our tanks with a pair of pantyhose.  He was happy to charge us almost $5 a gallon and we were just as happy to pay it.

We finally did hit the proper paved road which I had a newfound appreciation for.  I rode slow for a while taking special note of how good it felt to not to have my innards shook about.

Luis rode up alongside me and gave me a nod which I reciprocated and we were off again.

It was a 5 hour ride to Guatemala City which gave me time to prepare for the traffic that I'd been thinking about for quite some time.  Before leaving on this trip, whenever I'd visualize how driving conditions would be I'd always revert back to the few days I've spent in Guatemala City in the past and how lawless the roads were, unlike anything I've seen anywhere.  Namely the chicken buses, old smoke-blowing school buses that seem to be driven by aspiring rally racers and are typically painted awful colors before having shiny objects affixed to the outside.  The windows of the chicken buses are also highly tinted before stickers are placed on them, including all over the windshield. Why? I have no idea. 

We hit the city and were slowed down instantly to a crawl.  The road was laden with stoplights and cops overriding them with hand signals.  Buses stopped frequently which jammed traffic behind them where peanut salesmen would then converge on the stuck motorists in hopes of a quick sale.  It clearly didn't resemble the main artery of the city, which it was. 

After a few minutes of standing still in traffic breathing terrible fumes we decided to lane-split which is common down here.  The problem was that our bikes are wide, about twice what the little local bikes are.  The general rule of thumb when approaching a tight spot is to go closer to the car of less valule, luckily we had no incidents.  We became pretty efficient at snaking our way through traffic and blocking cars for each other which made things easier.  At one point the Guatemalan version of an HOV lane opened up which was just the left lane of oncomming traffic.  No signs, cones, or flags denoting this, just a few cops waving people on as usual.  We'd missed the proper exit for the HOV which was going slow, yet faster than we were so we opted to jump up on the raised median, duck under a few trees then darted between some concrete posts (one of which I kissed with my right pannier slightly) before jumping the curb into the HOV, all in time to ride a few hundred yards befor the HOV emptied back onto the main road.

I asked a cabbie where the exit was to Antigua and was told that it was a ways off so we went back to lane-splitting for a while, holding our breath when riding through black clouds of smoke.  I then asked a fellow motorcyclist where the exit was, he said he'd point it out to us and to stay close to him as we rode.  Not much later we got split up by a car which I left a boot print on.  Luis and M-725-BXY shot to the right around a bus while I swung wide to the left.  Upon passing the bus I looked for Luis and saw him behind me, pulled over on the side of the road, waving at me.  I'd blown past the exit.  I darted over to the furthest right lane and couldn't believe I'd missed it.  Mr. M-725-BXY then hopped off his bike and blocked traffic before waving for me to come back.  I started rolled the bike backwards some 50 yards to Luis before dropping off on the exit ramp, where I thanked the friendly motorcyclist who gave me nod.

The road heading up to Antigua was a fun one; traffic was thin enough to let us ride at a good pace yet congested enough to make us change lanes every few seconds.  We did this for the 45 minute to Antigua where we hit their famous cobblestone streets which weren't too bad to ride on, turning was always unpredictable, though.

We checked at five hostels, all were booked.  Finally we found some obscure little hotel that had room for us and allowed us to bring the bikes inside for the night.  I staggered off in all my mud-covered moto gear in search of food when I was told by a sassy gringa that I was the dirtiest guy that she'd seen in a long time.  I was too tired to fire back anything with much wit and simply agreed with her.

Later that night I found two little dread-locks that were sprouting behind my left ear.  The culmination of sand, sweat, salt water, dusty roads, exhaust and being whipped in the wind, I guess.  I was able to work them out with the help of a salad fork.  If memory serves me correctly, the proper term for a fork used as a comb is a dinglehopper, as per The Little Mermaid...One of the many wonderful byproducts of having little sisters.