1-22-10 San Luis Jilotepeque, Guatemala

We had another incredible ride to Lago Atitlan and ended up blowing past our exit by half an hour because we were having too much fun to pay attention to the signs.  If viewed from above, the road would resemble a sine curve for most of the time with identical curves repeating themselves over and over and over.  The repetitiveness of the road provided an excellent opportunity to push the bikes sytstematically harder and harder in the turns until things started getting squirrely and toes started dragging.   The road was unbanked but in excellent condition as a lot are in the area due to hurricane-induced mud slides and earthquakes which have forced rebuilding.  Hurricane Stan was the last one to hit and killed several thousand in the Lago Atitlan area mostly via mud slides.

Luis and I rode close to each other and much passing was done.  He could get through the corners faster than I could as he's a better rider with a lighter bike though I could accelerate out of the turns harder and brake harder (thus later) going into the next series of turns which led to a well-balanced competition.

We pulled into Panajachel, the largest of the little towns surrounding the huge volcanic lake and found a little family run hotel/daycare/poultry ranch that cost each man $2.50 a night.  The hosts were great, especially the kids, one of whom asked if she could get into my aluminum pannier to which her mother hissed.  There were dozens of chickens pecking about as well as an eager rooster who did his crowing between 3 and 6am.

We walked around town and were constantly pestered to buy various pieces of handmade artworks, most of which I assume end up at garage sales in just a few years.

The first night I found a litte cafe with WiFi and a live band playing.  Luis wasted no time befriending the local band and was behind the mic after being in the place no more than 10 minutes.   Mid-song a series of explosions detonated rather close to us, the first knocking out the power and the latter ones sending a blinding light throughout the cafe, illuminating everyone.  The concussions were strong engough to reverberate in my chest.  It ended up being some local kids with some legitimate fireworks as I did see one little floral-burst in the air.  The first mortar, however, hit the power line we were told.

With the lights out a roving pack of street dogs saw an excellent opportunity to make their move and descended upon us.  I felt several snake past my legs under my table and saw the silhouette of one jump onto the chair next to me, probably wanting some of my sandwich.  Some American guy shouted out, "Waiter, Waiter! Can you PLEASE do something about these dogs!" Which made me laugh as the waiter spoke no English.

We stayed a few nights and took some water taxis to the nearby villages and did a canopy tour which was superb.  We had to hike 30 minutes up a valley with steep sides to where the uppermost canopy platform was located.  Cables then zig-zagged across the canyon, eventually dropping us off at the visitor center at the bottom. Cables were typically 400 yards long with drops up to a couple hundred feet to the valley floor, good enough to see quite a lot.  We were strapped into a harness which had a pulley on it that was then clipped to the cable.  To slow down we were given a pair of leather gloves with which to grab the cable (behind the pulley so as to keep your fingers attached).  Luis and I swapped cameras in order to take pictures of each other as we came in to land.  On one cable, Luis tried to use the video feature on my camera for some good aerial footge but was unable to slow himself down properly with only one hand.  He then reached up with his other hand that had my camera lanyard wrapped around it to further slow himself down.  He slowed down but also burned through the lanyard on the camera, sending it shooting to the jungle floor.  After a bit of scrounging we found it, works just fine.

We rode back to Antigua for the night then rode out together the next day to the edge of town to go our separate ways.  He had to hustle it down to Costa Rica where he'll leave his bike with a friend then fly back to Vancouver for a few months then hopefully continue his journey in the summer.

"Fue un placer, buena suerte" We nodded then rode off. 

It was sad to see him go as we'd traveled for almost a month and had become good friends.  I'll probably be seeing Luis again in the next few years as he said he's always got a couch with my name on it which I hope to take advantage of on a ride up to Alaska in the near future.

I made it back to Guatemala City where I went to the Moto Guzzi dealer that I found by pure luck.  The city is divided into different 'Zonas' ranging from 1 to 13 or so but are in no apparent order.  The address of places is referenced as the number of buildings away from a certain street. For example 12-88 means that you have 88 addresses ahead of you before you hit 12th street.  Strange, inefficient, but not an issue to me anymore.

The dealer didn't have the tires in stock that I needed but said he'd get them to me the next morning.  I took off and found a hostel that I rode into which didn't seem to please the housekeeper too much (job security?).  At the hostel I met two guys, one from London, one from Sydney.  They were going out for a night on the town and asked me if I'd like to join them.  I passed as I'd had a long day and didn't really care much for the guys either.

About 4 am they both staggered into the dorm room, the Aussie was beyond drunk and had received a good beating by the looks of the his bloody, swolen face.  Apparently he was beat up sometime throughout the night then on the walk back home the pommie had a gun pulled on him and was robbed.

The next day I got the tires which I now have lashed to my rear seat, giving it a bit of a gypsy look.  I took off headed east but doglegged north to a section of Guatemala that looked exactly like Africa- beobob-like trees, tall dry grass, bald, rocky hills and lots of birds.  I've never been to Africa, though this is what I assume it would look like. However, I'm usually wrong about these sorts of things, so who knows.

My destination for the night was almost to the El Salvadoran border at the little town of San Luis Jilotepeque which everyone thought was a strange place to go as there was nothing to do there, but it wasn't far off track for me.

My reason for going there was to to stay with Rhianna, the sister of the boyfriend of the friend of my sister, who is in the Peace Corps.  Upon explaining this to a group of local boys who'd assembled around my bike as I pulled up at here place they paused to think of her relation to me.  One replied, "So, she's you sister-in-law?" 

"Yes, exactly" as it was close enough.

Though an excellent conversationalist and very fun to talk to it was quite evident that we shared very different viewpoints on most everything.  We left politics till the next morning.  "You know that you had a member of the NRA under your roof last night, don't you?"  And so started the friendly banter on gun control.  By the way, should you be undecided on the matter (or even standing firm) I invite you to come down to Central America where guns are either illegal or hard to come by in most places, quite different from things back home.  After a few nights I'm sure you'll have developed an educated and enlightened viewpoint from your experience. 'Nuff said.

We agreed to disagree on virtually every topic, and that's ok.  We did find common ground by acknowledging that the differences between so many charged subjects are miniscule.  Whether religion or politics, there are typically many similarities between opposing viewpoints which, unfortunately, all too often seem to be forgotten.