Archive for December, 2009

Gettin’ to Colombia

December 22, 2009

This will be a short post.  I’m in Panama City, and I have a lead on a sailboat that leaves from Portobelo on the north coast of Panama on the 23rd and arrives in Cartagena, Colombia 4 or 5 days later.  I think the boat stops on some Caribbean islands for a few days in the middle which sounds like a pretty nice way to spend Christmas!  I heard about this boat from a girl at the hostel I’m staying here, and she just left to take a bus up to Portobelo.  According to her there is still room on the boat.  I haven’t been able to reach the captain yet, but what the hell – Portobelo is only a few hours away.  I’ll go up there and check it out, and if it doesn’t work out, I’ll look for another boat or come back down to Panama City.

I would fly the bike, but another rider on the same year KLR as mine told me that he inquired at the main shipping company (Girag) and was told that it would be $900 to send a motorcycle to Colombia.  On top of that, flights to get myself to Colombia run around $370.  The sailboat would be $375 for myself and $375 for the bike – a significant savings.

I don’t know if I will have internet access in Portobelo, or on these islands that we’ll visit, so if not, have a wonderful Christmas, and I’ll catch you on the flipside!

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Through Costa Rica and into Panama

December 21, 2009

Gus and I crossed into Costa Rica a few days ago, and it was quite an experience.  It seems like the further south I travel, the longer the border crossings become!

We were stopped by the Nicaraguan police before reaching the border. They turned out to be friendly, and we talked with them for a while.

Leaving Nicaragua was an event in itself.  If you are traveling with a motorcycle, the process starts at a small, unmarked office about 200 meters away from the main border offices, where a customs officer looks at your temporary vehicle importation permit, matches up the plate number, and hands you a tiny piece of paper.  Then you must go to the main aduana office and find a mysterious aduana police officer who will “inspect” the bike and sign the back of this piece of paper.  I couldn’t find the right officer, but after pestering a normal policeman with enough questions, he took our papers and signed them without even glancing in the direction of our motorcycles.

Parked at the aduana office in Nicaragua.

Once this paper is signed, you must take it to the main aduana office where an officer behind a desk will look at your passport/title/etc and stamp your passport and the tiny piece of paper.  You take this piece of paper across to Costa Rica, where a police officer collects them.

Somehow we missed a step when leaving Nicaragua – we forgot to go through immigration to get our exit stamps in our passports.  The immigration officer in Costa Rica did not even look at my passport before stamping it, but gave Gus extra scrutiny, and told him that he needed to get a Nicaraguan exit stamp first.

We were a bit flummoxed.  How did we miss this step?  Was it OK for me to go back to Nicaragua with a Costa Rica visa stamp in my passport?  After some discussion, we decided that we both needed the exit stamp, so we rode back over to Nicaragua.  I led the way and we weren’t stopped.  I found the immigration office and after waiting in line for 30 minutes I had my stamp.  The immigration official was confused by the Costa Rica entry stamp in my passport, but I explained the situation as best as I could, and eventually he gave me the exit stamp.  The process went a little smoother for Gus.

Going back into Nicaragua was interesting.  We no longer had those tiny pieces of paper in which we’d collected all sorts of stamps and signatures, so I had to bluff our way past the police officer who was collecting them.  With traffic piling up behind us, he lost interest in us and waved us through.

Entering Costa Rica was a little more straightforward.  We had to buy insurance for the motorcycles for $12 USD each and fill out some paperwork to obtain the importation permit.  A few photocopies later and we were on our way into Costa Rica with no other obstacles to surmount!

Or so we thought.  It’s always something, huh?  Traffic on the two-lane road was stop and go (more stop than go).  A man walking down the road towards us told me that the backup was due to a blockade about 2 KM down.  Gus and I were hot, sweaty, tired and ready to make some distance, so we rode down the side of the road when we could and down the center when we couldn’t and eventually we made it past the worst of the traffic.

I took this photo shortly after we finally passed the horrible traffic near the border.

The longer-than-expected border crossing and the traffic conspired to keep us from reaching our intended destination for that night.  We consulted a map and decided to spend the night in Playa del Coco on the Pacific coast.  Gus wanted to continue down the coast and explore a large peninsula, and I wanted to make some distance, so we agreed that the next day we would split up.  We spent the night at a cheap but nice “cabina”, and I left the next day at 7:45 AM.

I rode back to CA-1 (the panamerican highway) and continued on towards San Jose.  When I was about 10 miles outside of San Jose I noticed that the bike was handling strangely.  Uh-oh.. flat tire.  Sure enough, when I pulled over to look at it, the rear tire was nearly completely flat.  Not a big deal, I thought – I have spare tubes and all the tools to change the tire.  The spot where I’d pulled over wasn’t a good place to change the tube, so I got back on the bike and rode slowly for another 500 meters to the next good pullout.  I parked the bike and started going over the procedure in my head, but then I looked up and had a big laugh.

What are the odds? This was the first Kawasaki dealership I'd seen since leaving the States, and I had a flat tire practically on their doorstep.

The mechanic was out for the weekend, but the owner was kind enough to let me change the tube in his shop.  I pulled the wheel off and removed the tube.  The owner had experience with motocross bikes, and he helped me install the new tube.  I have changed tubes in motorcycle tires before, but it takes me a few hours, and with his help it only took 30 minutes or so.  He didn’t want to charge me for his time or for the use of his shop, so I bought a new tube from him and left him a tip.

By then I was ready for lunch, so when I saw a sign on the highway for “Denny’s Restaurant”, I had to stop.  Was this the same Denny’s?  Here, in Central America?

I don't eat at Denny's often, but I will always have a soft spot in my heart for their french toast.

While I ate, a waiter came over to ask me about my motorcycle.  He said that he owned a 400cc Yamaha (a pretty large bike for Central America) but that he dreamed of buying a large enduro-style bike.  A foreigner he knew was selling her Suzuki DR650, and he was trying to put together the money to buy it.

My friend from Denny's. He was very proud of his tourmaster jacket that he bought from a foreigner. Motorcycle gear is hard to find in Central America!

I got back on the panamerican and continued southeast towards Panama.  The highway outside of San Jose climbs up a mountain pass before winding down to sea level again.

This was the highest pass I'd crossed so far on this trip. The highest point was something close to 10,800 feet! I know, it's no Tibet, but I still found it exciting.

The sun was setting soon, so I hurried to the next big town and found a nice hotel room for $12.  I think the name of the city of San Isidro, but I don’t know too much about it because it began to rain and I didn’t explore at all.

The next day I rode the rest of the way to the Panamanian border.  I stopped on the way for a quick lunch so that I wouldn’t get hungry while crossing the border!  If there’s one piece of advice that I have about border crossings in Central America, it’s this – take care of physical comforts BEFORE starting the process.  If you’ve taken care of hunger and thirst, the rest of the crossing becomes much more pleasant!

The restaurant's owner told me that this was a typical Costa Rican dish: fried fish, rice, beans, fried bananas and salad. Delicious!

At the border I experienced my first tropical rainstorm.  The gray sky had threatened rain all morning, but thus far it had mostly kept to itself.  Eventually the spell broke and the subsequent downpour left me speechless.  The border offices had corrugated metal roofs, and the roar of the falling rain was deafening.  The official who was helping me import my bike into Panama had to shout so that I could hear her!

Two girls run across the road to escape the rain.

The Panama border crossing took several hours, but this was mostly due to massive lines.  The actual process was pretty straightforward.

So I’m in Panama now, and I’m hoping to make it to Panama City today.  My mad rush through Central America will hopefully come to an end and I should be able to relax a bit.  The reason for the hurry was to figure out how to ship my bike into Colombia before the holidays lock up everything, and I’m going to inquire at an airfreight company tomorrow morning.

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Two borders and an extortion attempt

December 17, 2009

As I said in my last post, I spent last night in a hotel near the eastern border of El Salvador in a large-ish town named La Union.  The motorcycle was due for an oil change, so before the sun set I rode to a nearby lubrication shop to inquire about using an oil catch pan and to see if they would take my used motor oil.  The woman at the shop said yes, and she directed me around the corner and into the service area.  I parked my bike, got out my oil, filter and toolkit, and set to work.  It must have been quite the sight for the mechanics (all 6 of them) because I drew a large audience pretty quickly!  While I worked, they peppered me with the usual questions about the motorcycle – how big is it? how fast does it go? how much did it cost?

The oil change went smoothly, and I even received some assistance from one of the mechanics when my oil filter cover proved difficult to remove.  The total cost was nil – I think they were just amused by the tall gringo doing maintenance on such a strange-looking bike!

Anyways, I left for the Honduran border early the next morning after an impressive breakfast at my hotel.  I sort of splurged last night by booking a room for $46 USD at the Comfort Inn – by far the most expensive hotel of this trip so far, but with A/C, hot water, internet, a pool, and fancy (free) breakfast, it was well worth the cost!

About a kilometer from the border I was flagged down by an official-looking guy carrying a clipboard.  I was immediately swarmed by “helpers” shouting promises of expeditement and money savings.  Having been warned about these guys, I declined every offer.  Also stopped were a guy and girl on a BMW F650GS.  Their names were Gus and Angela, and we agreed that it would be a good idea to stick together through the border crossing.  Gus did not speak Spanish, so he had hired a helper, but I chose to do the whole process myself.

The crossing itself went reasonably well.  I had to find the correct office (which unhelpfully had no external markings indicating its importance) and make about a thousand copies of my passport, my license, my title & registration, etc.  I can’t imagine what any government agency would actually do with all of these copies.  A tired-looking official sat me down in front of his desk as he filled out the paperwork required for my vehicle importation permit.  The guy really didn’t look that happy, so I used the opportunity to practice my Spanish by sympathizing with his difficult and monotonous work of filling out such complicated forms by hand.  He seemed to like me, and the rest of the crossing went pretty quickly.  The total cost: $35 for customs and immigration.  Gus paid an additional $15 for his helper’s assistance.  The whole process took about two hours and we finished shortly after noon.

Gus and I seemed to get along, so we agreed to ride together through Honduras.

From left to right: myself, Angela and Gus. We stopped for lunch at a chinese restaurant before saying goodbye to Angela. We were headed south, and she needed to go north to the orphanage where she worked.

Neither Gus or I really had much desire to hang out in Honduras, so after some discussion, we decided to try to make it into Nicaragua.  The ride to the Nicaraguan border was short and relatively uneventful, save for getting stopped by the police no less than 3 times!  I hadn’t been stopped by the police yet during my entire trip through Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador, but Gus said he had been stopped a lot.  I’m not sure if we were stopped because it was Honduras or because Gus had a fancy BMW!

The Nicaraguan border crossing was mostly a breeze.  Again we were swarmed by “helpers”, but since I spoke Spanish, we figured that we’d do this crossing without any assistance.  I would go through immigration and customs first while Gus watched the bikes, and then I would describe the steps to Gus so he could complete them while I watched the bikes.  This worked very well.

We finished the crossing with a few hours of light to spare.  Gus had read of a city in Nicaragua named León which was supposed to be quite nice, so we figured out the route and jetted away.

Just minutes later a policeman carrying an official-looking clipboard waved us down.  He took our licenses and told me that we had made an illegal pass.  We would need to pay a “multa” (a fine) before they would be returned to us.  The police station was over there, he said, and he waved back in the direction that we had come.

Was this actually happening?  I’d read stories and reports from other travelers that had interacted with corrupt police, but in the 4000 miles that I’d spent south of the border, I hadn’t run in to a single one.  Prior to leaving on this trip I researched what to do in these situations, and it seems that my research paid off.

I searched through my tank bag and brought out a pen and some paper.  I asked, in a friendly way, “Como te llamas?”  (What’s your name?)  Why would you need that?, he replied.  I repeated my request.  The policeman shifted the conversation to the extra tires I was carrying, and a few minutes later we had our licenses back with no fine and no ticket.

The delay cost us precious daylight, however, and we rode the last 30 KM to León in the dark.  It was scary, and I don’t want to do it again.  The hotel that we found made it all worthwhile, though!  If you’re ever in León, do visit the “Via Via” hotel in the city center.

Our parking spot inside the restaurant/hotel in León. To get in we had to ride through a lively bar and a dining area with several gawking couples!

After breakfast the following morning, Gus and I left León and made towards the old colonial town of Granada.  In order to avoid driving through the capital city of Managua we took a slightly longer route down CA-3 south.

CA-3 starts out as a well-maintained, fully-paved highway, but as soon as it splits off from the direct route to Managua, it goes to shit.  Potholes are everywhere, and sections of the pavement just disappear for up to 100 meters.  One memorable part of the road had a series of extremely large 1/2 meter deep potholes.  Despite their size we didn’t see them until we were nearly on top of them, and at 60 MPH they nearly ejected us from our seats!

Taking a break from the unpredictable CA-3 to let out air from my tires and change my underpants.

Gus' F650GS carried an enourmous load. And I thought I had a lot of stuff!

The poor road quality let up after 50KM, and once again we found ourselves on nice, smooth pavement.  The rest of the ride to Granada was mostly uneventful.  Although, now that I think of it, we did stop for some road-side repairs on my bike:

Fixing the attachment points on my left-side pannier.

I took a spill on a dirt road in Guatemala a few weeks ago and damaged the attachment points on my left-side pannier. While riding on CA-3, Gus noticed that my left pannier was bouncing around, so when we stopped for lunch I took a look at it. Sure enough, the attachment points were loose. After some wrenching,banging and pulling, we managed to get the pannier snug and secure.

Granada isn’t anything to write home about.  It’s pretty, in that colonial kind of way, but so are hundreds of other cities in Central America.  It’s also very expensive.  We spent the afternoon riding from hotel to hotel until we finally found one that would a) let us park inside the lobby, b) had private rooms, and c) didn’t cost a ton of money.  We settled on a nice hotel with an open courtyard, and I talked the owner down from $45 USD/room to $35, so it didn’t feel like we got totally ripped off!

That’s about it for the last couple of days.  I want to make some distance, so I think I’m going to head to Costa Rica tomorrow, and Gus will probably do so as well.  I’m starting to feel a little anxious about getting to Colombia in a reasonable amount of time, and this is doubly complicated by the upcoming holidays!  I don’t know if shipping companies will be open during Christmas/New Year’s, so timing will be important.  It’s probably time to start doing some serious research into this.

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A day in Semuc Champey

December 15, 2009

Semuc Champey was recommended to me by lots of other travelers during my stay in Antigua, so I altered my course through Guatemala in order to check it out, and I’m very glad that I did.  I’m a sucker for nature.  Some of my favorite experiences from this trip so far include seeing Zion and the Grand Canyon, riding over the mountain pass to Oaxaca, and climbing up Mt. Pacaya to see the active lava flows.  I don’t think I have the right kind of temperament required to really enjoy spending hours and hours looking at old churches or museums, so when I heard about Champey, I knew it was something I wanted to see.

Semuc Champey is located just 11 KM outside of the city of Lanquin and about an hour and a half northeast of Cobán.  I arrived in the early afternoon on Friday.  Since tours to Champey leave around 9:00 AM, I had to wait until the following day, so I went to be early and woke up by 7:00 AM for a Guatemalan breakfast of eggs, beans, tortillas, and fried bananas, then walked into town to find a ride to Champey.  It was raining pretty hard, but the temperature was comfortable and I felt happy in my motorcycle rain shell and shorts.

A truck carrying some tourists drove by, and one of them shouted to me, “are you going to Champey?”  They looked like a friendly bunch, so I said yeah, and jumped in the bed of the truck.

The 11 KM ride in the back of a pickup truck on the twisty, bumpy, and muddy gravel road with long dropoffs on either side woke me up better than strong coffee would have. Or meth, for that matter.

The drive to Champey was long and a bit nerve-wracking.  It rained hard for the first few KM, but then the rain let up and the sun shined through and dried us out, and I was able to really see how green and thick the jungle that surrounded us was.  Families living in wooden shacks gave us curious stares as we passed by.  It definitely felt very authentic!

The bridge that crosses the Cahabòn River.

When we arrived at the park, I paid the entrance fee of 50Q.  The rest of my group had prepaid for the whole 3-day trip from Antigua to Champey, so I sort of crashed their party, but that’s OK!

The hike to Champey took about an hour and a half.  Our guide led us up a steep incline to a lookout point where we could see the whole of Semuc Champey, which was extremely cool.

At the mirador (lookout point) on the trail to Semuc Champey. The limestone pools are visible in the background!

A closer view of the limestone pools. If you look closely, you can see swimmers in one of the upper left pools.

Another half hour of hiking brought us to the pools.  All that hiking made us really hot and sweaty, and the we eagerly kicked off shoes and shirts and jumped into the refreshing water.  The pools begin at a point where the main section of the Cahabòn River disappears into a 300 meter underground tunnel.  A smaller part of the river continues over land and fills the limestone pools.

The point where the Cahabòn River disappears underground.

The Cahabòn River is warmer than the meltwater-fed rivers in Washington, but not so warm that it’s totally comfortable.  However, since relatively little water actually flows over land through the limestone pools, the sun has time to heat the water in the pools to a more pleasant temperature.  Small fish live in these pools and if I stood still in the water, I could feel them nibble on my toes.

I was pretty excited to get into that water after the hike.

Our guide led the group through each successive pool.  Sometimes we would have to jump a short ways into the next one, and sometimes the path was a little less dignified.

Slimy stuff grows on the rocks, making it dangerous to stand. We had to slide on our butts at a few points.

The last pool ended with a 35 foot waterfall that drained back into the main section of the Cahabòn River.  The guide started to lead us off to the left so we could climb down carefully, but I was having none of it!  I asked, and the guide assured me that it was safe to jump off the cliff and into the water, “as long as you jump to the left.. there are rocks right beneath you!”

I snapped a quick photo before handing my camera to the guide so that he could photograph my jump.

This photo has some finger in it, but it's the only one I have, and I still like it.

The water I landed in felt shockingly cold after the warm water of the pools.  I swam to the shore and dragged myself up, coughing and sputtering, yet laughing at the rush I felt.

When the rest of the group finished climbing down, we swam over to the mouth of the river where it exited the cave.  Our guide scampered up an inclined rock face with water cascading down over it, and led us into the cave.  We followed, and I noted for the second time that this sort of activity would never, ever be permitted in the States, but in Guatemala, pretty much anything goes!

I stopped for a quick shower underneath a waterfall.

The main section of the Cahabòn River exits the underground cave with a ferocity that belies the tranquility of the pools above.

We had reached the end of Semuc Champey, so we backtracked up the cliff and through the pools to gather our things and return to the trailhead, where we ate lunch at an overpriced restaurant with underwhelming food.  When you’re the only restaurant around for 11KM, I guess you get to make the rules!

After lunch, we walked over to a nearby cave for some candlelit spelunking.  The entrance fee was another 50Q.  My cash reserves were pretty low after paying for lunch, but luckily I still had enough for the caves and for the ride back to Lanquin!  A new guide gave out candles to each member of our group and led us up some stairs to the mouth of a cave.

A small stream came out of the mouth of the cave, but as we went further in, the small stream got pretty deep!

We followed our guide into the frigid water, and once our eyes adjusted, we could see stalactites reaching down from the ceiling.  Bats, heard but unseen, squeaked from tall ceilings.

Taking photos of the cave proved to be difficult.  Flash photography resulted in photos with thousands of small white dots, probably from all the mist in the air.  The candles were not powerful enough to illuminate the cave walls sufficiently, so I was really only able to photograph the people.

We climbed several ladders to bypass tricky or flooded sections of the cave.

David and Isolda pose for a quick photo.

Isolda and I pose for a picture together, but Pipin doesn't quite make it all the way in.

After a while our guide turned us around and we made our way out of the cave.  The day was not over yet, though!  The cave guide led us down a path to a building near the river and gave us each an inner tube to use for floating down the river.  After all the hiking, swimming, diving and climbing, a nice relaxing river float felt perfect!

No whitewater here. The Cahabòn River calms down after Semuc Champey.

A self portrait taken while floating down the calm section of the Cahabòn River.

I had a wonderful time in Semuc Champey and I think I made the right decision coming up here.  If you’re ever in the area, I highly recommend checking it out.

Anyways, this all happened last weekend.  It’s now Tuesday, and I’m sitting in a hotel near the western border of El Salvador.  I rode down from Semuc Champey to El Salvador in a day, then spent two nights in a touristy beach town called La Libertad.  My stay there was uneventful and fairly uninteresting, so I won’t say too much about it.  Tomorrow I cross into Honduras, and I’ve heard that this border crossing can be very frustrating, so I plan to wake up early and eat a full breakfast before attempting it!  I’m excited to continue on into Nicaragua and especially Costa Rica.  That’s all for tonight!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Semuc_Champe

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Riding to Semuc Champey (and a minor crash)

December 14, 2009

I neglected to describe part of my last night in Antigua in my last post.  It won’t take long.

I’d been in contact with an ADV rider named Kent, and he sent me a message saying that he was in Antigua, and would I like to meet up for a drink?  Kent was doing a similar ride to Tierra del Fuego in order to raise funds for the Global Peace Network, and was staying in Antigua to learn Spanish at a local school.  You can read more about his journey at http://www.alaskatoargentina.org.

I’m always interested to hear another rider’s stories, so I made plans to meet him at my hostel in the evening after my volcano adventure.  Kristina, my roommate at the hostel, and Nadia, who I met on the volcano tour, also joined us.  Together the four of us walked to a local bar and recounted our travel adventures.

Nadia and Kristina.

Bars in Guatemala close early.  Pretty much everything shuts down by 1 AM.  After closing time, we stood in the street and debated what to do next, but with nothing open, there were few options.  Just then a group of locals invited us in to a neighboring restaurant/bar for a private afterparty!  All together, about 25 people rushed into the afterparty before the bar owner closed and locked the doors.  With the music playing, and the strong (and free!) drinks flowing, our little group of four had a really great time.  Our conversations veered into the relative merits of keeping oneself trimmed down there, and continued on into more unprintable subjects.  All-in-all, a great night!

Kent, Nadia and myself at the illegal afterparty.

The following morning I packed up my things and departed Antigua.  I’d heard from lots of travelers that a place called Semuc Champey was very much worth seeing, so I figured I’d take a little detour northward to check it out.  On the paper map I’d bought, it appeared as if Highway 5 was the most direct route from Guatemala City to Coban and the road that would take me the rest of the way to Champey.  I soon found out, though, that even paper maps are not always trustworthy.

I had some trouble finding HWY 5 initially.  Guatemala City is huge and confusing, and highway signage leaves something to be desired.  Something I still have not managed to figure out is exactly how to parse highway signs here.  For example: I’ll be riding down a highway, such as CA-1 (the panamerican highway), and ahead I’ll see a sign which says, “Guatemala City (CA-1), continue right” and below it, “Antigua Guatemala (CA-1), continue left”.  What does this mean?  Does CA-1 continue to the right, or to the left?  Highways don’t branch in the States, and as near as I can tell, the don’t in Meixco or Guatemala, either, but the signage is very misleading on this point.

Anyways, on to the ride.  Highway 5 from Guatemala City to the city of Rabinal is not completely… well, complete.  There is an 80 mile section which has yet to be paved.  This is why I took the KLR and not the Ducati!  I let out some air from both tires and continued on to the dirt.

Not all of this highway was as wide and nice as this section.

It happened close to the end of the dirt section.  I was coming around a right hand curve at about 12-15 mph when an oncoming motorcyclist surprised me in my lane.  I swerved out of the way and felt my front wheel dig into the gravel, causing and the bike to wobble side to side  before sliding out from under me.  I lowsided on the left side of the bike.  The other rider continued on, probably unaware of the trouble he’d caused.

Thankfully, I’ve been pretty good about ATGATT (all the gear, all the time) on this trip, and this day was no exception.  I bounced back up and ran a quick status check on all my major limbs.  Yup, everything is still attached and OK.  The bike was a little worse off, but nothing too serious – a corner of the left pannier had dug into the dirt, causing the whole pannier to rip off from the luggage rack.  The crash cage on the front end was tweaked, and the shift lever was bent in towards the engine.  All in all, not a bad outcome.  The dislodged pannier’s attachment points were bent out of alignment, but this was quickly fixed by banging on them with a large rock.  I muscled the shift lever back into place with a little grunting.  The crash cage is still bent, but I guess that’s a good thing – better it than the radiator/fan assembly!

The Curve. I was coming the opposite direction, but the crash spun the bike around.

I took a short break to calm my nerves.  After some food and water, I felt good enough to continue (albeit at a much slower pace).  This crash could easily have been avoided if I had been more paranoid about each turn and slowed down to just a few MPH until I could see that the road was clear.  Lesson learned, I guess!

I was still a little shaken up, so I stopped at the next town and found a hotel room for 60Q (about $8 USD).

I parked just outside my hotel room.

I felt much better the next day.  The road from Rabinal was fully paved, so I added some air to my tires, and the rest of the ride to Champey was easy and uneventful.  I’m constantly impressed by the sort of scenery that Guatemala offers.

Guatemala is a mountainous country, making the roads delightfully curvy.

Very little of the Guatemala that I've seen is flat, so farmers have learned to grow crops on hillsides.

I reached the city of Lanquin in the early afternoon.  Lanquin is the closest town to the park which contains Semuc Champey, and I found a private room in a hotel for the equivalent of $12 USD.  There were cheaper rooms for $6, but one look at them and I figured that the extra money for a private bathroom was well worth it!

Walking in to town from my hotel took about 5 minutes, and the surrounding jungle made it an interesting walk.

Heavy labor is the norm for locals here. I've seen small children carrying loads of wood larger than themselves and old men with heavy sacks strung across their backs.

I’d arrived too late for a tour to Champey.  I briefly considered riding the 11 KM to Champey myself, but I decided against it.  Tours to Champey leave in the morning, so I paid for two nights and made it an early night.

I think this is a good length for a posting, so I’ll get to the day I spent in Semuc Champey in the next one!

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Hot Lava: check!

December 11, 2009

Guatemala is a disorganized, loud, and hot country.  Nicely paved two-lane highways turn into 80 miles of dirt without warning.  Insects are everywhere and you need to watch your belongings at all times.  I love it here!

I spent my first night in Guatemala in the city of Quetzaltenango, or as the locals call it, Xela (Shey-lah).  My first impression of the place was not great and I imagine this has lots to do with the uncomfortable ride across the border.  Buses and trucks spew foul-smelling oily black smoke into the air, and they drive extremely aggressively, making it hard to pass them.  Igor and I only rode ~80 miles past the border but by the time we arrived in Xela, I’d worked up a mean sweat and was ready to take a nap.

Igor wanted to spend a few weeks in Xela to learn Spanish at a local language school, so I said my goodbyes and rode away, solo once more.  I truly enjoyed traveling with Igor and Pepe, but I also appreciate having my own pace and my own direction.  As any motorcyclist will tell you, riding in a group can be fun, but it brings additional stress to the ride.  Was he able to pass that truck? Are they still behind me?  Am I going too fast?  Too slow?  Such thoughts occupy my mind, while riding solo puts me in a more pensive and untethered mode of thinking.

I had the worst chinese food of my life when I went for breakfast in Xela. I don't think I'll be ordering asian cuisine again until I get back to Seattle.

After enjoying my “breakfast”, I gassed up and left Xela.  An interesting thing about Guatemala is that gasoline prices are listed by the gallon instead of by the liter.  Distances are still measured using the metric system, as well as all other volume measurements that I’ve seen (bottled water, oil, etc), but gas stations are different.  You notice these things when you ride a motorcycle – lots of time to think.

The road to Antigua took me through a brief section of fog before descending. Actually, I guess it's not fog if you're at 8000 feet - then it's just clouds, right?

After a few missed turns, I finally found Antigua.  Riding in Guatemala is quite an experience, I must say.  GPS maps are a “best-effort” affair, and even paper maps can be inaccurate or misleading.  After the last few days of travel I’ve determined that any travel-time estimates that I make should be at least doubled.

Anyways, true to reports, Antigua is a very lovely and very touristy town.  I stayed in “Hostel 5″ near the town  square.  The hostel had hot water, clean beds, and free breakfasts.  It even had a spot inside for my motorcycle!  I met some new friends while staying in Antigua, but I’ll get to that in a minute.  First, the main affair:

From the second floor terrace of Hostel 5 I could see Mt Pacaya (an active volcano) in the distance. See the smoke?

I have dreamed of seeing hot lava up close ever since I was a child.  When I decided to do this trip, I made a list of destinations to visit, and Mt. Pacaya was right at the top.  Mt Pacaya is an active volcano and depending on the level of activity, it’s possible to climb up and see molten lava flow down the mountain.  This is something that the authorities in USA would never, ever allow, but in Guatemala, anything goes!

A shuttle bus took me and 13 other tourists from Antigua up to the trailhead on Pacaya for 65 quetzals/head, or about $8 USD.  The ride was fast and scary and when it ended, I was very happy to step on solid ground again.

Entry into the park cost 40 quetzals/head, and the price included a local guide to take us up the mountain.  I never learned our guide’s name, but he was pretty memorable!

Our guide was full of stories and crazy antics. At one point he found a huge larvae and stuck it in his mouth.

The first half of our hike passed through lush jungle, which turned into sparse greenery before giving way to bare rock.

The smoke plume varied in intensity by the minute.

Once we got to the lava fields, the hiking became significantly tougher.  Newly cooled lava is filled with sharp edges and rough surfaces that really, really want to cut your knees and elbows up!  Our guide slowed the pace considerably and we made it up without any injuries.

At first the lava fields were flat and easy to hike...

...but the route got steeper.

Eventually the trail became so steep that we had to use our hands for support, so I put away the camera.  We did stop to rest and drink water, so I had a chance to snap some photos of the gorgeous scenery.

A side view of a two-week-old lava flow.

Kristina stops for water with Volcan de Agua, an inactive volcano near Pacaya.

As we continued hiking, the group began to notice the occasional warm breeze.  In Guatemala, the temperature is still pretty nice even at 8000 feet, but you don’t usually get hot breezes on the sides of mountains.  Our guide stopped and dug into the loose rock a few inches, then instructed us to place a hand inside the hole.  The rock was hot to the touch!  According to our guide, the lava here was mere days old.

After another few minutes of climbing, we started noticing charred rock and a fiery smell in the air.  On the side of the trail I saw my first glimpse of what was to come:

No lava yet - just extremely hot rock.

A stick placed near the red hot rock quickly burst into flames.

After two hours of hiking, the trail finally leveled out and I saw a crowd in the distance.

This was it.  We had arrived.  We scrambled over the still-hot lava crust, careful not to place a limb near anything still red.  In retrospect, the whole experience seems unbelievably dangerous, but nobody got hurt and I’m very glad I went.  This is what I saw:

It looks just like it does in the movies.

My first impression: molten lava is HOT.  I know what you’re saying: “um, no shit, Joe”.  The thing is, you don’t appreciate how incredibly hot this stuff is until you’re standing 20 feet downwind of a river of lava.  I did approach it close enough to poke my walking stick into it, but to do this I had to splash water over my exposed skin, and even then I only lasted a few seconds.  2000 degrees Celcius is pretty difficult for my pasty white skin to handle.

I felt like a little kid next to that lava.

The lava river flowed over a ridge and down the side of the mountain.

As dusk ended, the glow from the lava became much more noticeable.

That’s about it.  The climb back down the mountain was in full darkness.  Everyone had headlamps or flashlights, so we could see just fine, but nevertheless we took it easy until we left the lava fields.

Looking back at the lava flow.

This experience was incredible, and I will never forget it.  I don’t know what else to say about this, so I’ll just leave it at that.

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Oaxaca to Guatemala

December 8, 2009

I have three days worth of travel to cover, so let’s get to it.  When I last left off, I had just arrived in Oaxaca after a long and thoroughly fun ride.  I ended up spending two nights at a youth hostel there.  The weather was delightful, and on the morning I left  I woke up early to visit the ruins of Monte Albán, which lay just a few miles outside of the city.  These were the first ruins I’d seen on this trip, and I really enjoyed them!

The ruins were interesting, but I actually felt quite impressed by how flat the ground was. That can't be easy to do.

There were several guided tour groups, but I declined to join them, and instead decided to explore the place on my own.  As a result, I don’t really know much about it, but I had a good time making up scenes in my head of what life might have been like at one time.

Pictured: the ping pong tournament court.

The ruins seemed to be in surprisingly good condition for their age.  An information placard said that the ruins dated from as far back as 500 BC.  I later realized that this achievement for the Nahuatl civilization might not be as impressive as I initially thought when I saw a team of workers restoring a crumbling stone wall.

To be fair, the workers looked like they were taking extreme care to make the repair work as accurate as possible.

By the time I arrived at Monte Alban the sun was already high in the sky, and since I was still wearing my motorcycle gear, I didn’t last very long in the heat.  I left Oaxaca in the early afternoon and rode towards San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, the last Mexican state I would visit on this trip.  Another motorcycle rider named Igor (igorshen on advrider) and I planned to meet up in San Cristobal and possibly ride together through the Guatemalan border.

Leaving Oaxaca in the afternoon.

My route took me out of the valley and back towards the coast, where I made it to a small town named Juchitan de Zaragoza just as it got dark.  The town wasn’t anything special.  The ride from Juchitan to San Cristobal, however, was pretty interesting!  There is a valley just outside of Juchitan with a very large wind farm.  I found myself riding down a long, straight highway with an extremely strong crosswind (I would guess 30-35+ mph) which was a little unnerving.  If you’ve ever ridden a motorcycle in strong winds, you know how quickly you get pushed from one lane to another if you’re not careful – especially on a tall KLR!

I took this photo while sitting on the KLR on the side of the highway. The gusts of wind were so strong that the bike nearly toppled over several times.

After the wind farm, the road began to climb.  San Cristobal sits at a lofty 7000 feet, and the highway I took (190) goes over a 9000 ft mountain pass before coming back down.  The sky actually threatened to rain for the first time since I left Seattle!

A light mist eventually turned into stinging rain drops when the road actually entered the clouds.

At 5500 feet the road entered the cloud cover.  Visibility dropped to ~50 feet and stayed that way for over half an hour.  Thankfully, most other drivers slowed down to reasonable speeds, and the highway had a wide enough shoulder to move over for any lunatics that wanted to pass.  It actually rained for a short time – the first time since leaving Seattle!  Eventually the road passed out of the top of the clouds and I arrived in San Cristobal shortly thereafter.

A small corner of the lively market place in San Cristobal.

Igor had sent me an email with a location where we could meet that evening.  When I got there, I found him talking with Mike (bouldergeek on advrider), another motorcyclist from the States.  Mike was on the return leg of a ride all the way down through Central America to the Darien Gap at the end of Panama, and Igor ran into him by chance.  The three of us went out for drinks and talked shop for a while.  Mike had lots of advice about places to stay and things to do in the countries ahead.

From left to right: Mike, Igor, myself.

Mike, Igor and I made plans to meet the following morning for coffee before Igor and I set out on the road together.  To my surprise, when I found them the next day, a fourth motorcyclist had joined us!  Pepe, a Mexican guy from Monterrey, had seen Igor that morning, and he decided that riding to Guatemala for a few days sounded like fun.

Before we left, Mike gifted a spare oil filter to me, which he didn’t have to do and which I accepted gratefully.  I now have three spare filters, which should be enough to get me down to Patagonia with regular filter changes.

The three adventurers set out from San Cristobal. From left to right: myself on my KLR 650, Pepe on his BMW F650GS Dakar, and Igor on his KLR 650.

The Guatemalan border is only about 2-3 hours away from San Cristobal, so we took it easy on the ride down.  Based on Mike’s recommendation, the three of us stopped at a town near the border called Lagos de Colon for the night, with the intention of crossing the border early Monday morning.  Lagos de Colon is a small town with several beautiful freshwater ponds that feed into one another and eventually cascade down into a small river.  There were a few places where the water had overflown the roads, so we had a small taste of the many Central American water crossings ahead of us.

One of several short water crossings.

The next morning we rode the last few KM to the border and began the emigration/immigration process.  Unfortunately, Pepe realized that he could not actually afford to travel into Guatemala, so with reluctance we said our goodbyes and Igor and I continued on together.  As non-mexican citizens, we had to cancel our Temporary Vehicle Importation Permits (TVIP) at the Mexican Aduana office (customs) and get our exit stamps in our passports.

Pepe and Igor trying to figure out the Mexican Aduana. The process to cancel our TVIPs was actually quite painless.

Guatemalan immigration and customs was also pretty easy.  A charge of 40 Quetzales for the vehicle importation and 13 for “fumigation” and we were on our way.  A second border successfully crossed!

Importing the bikes into Guatemala at the Aduana office.

My first impressions from Guatemala are mostly good.  The people have all been very friendly and the terrain is mountainous, green and beautiful.  I don’t like how polluted the air gets in the city, though!  Vehicle emissions are even worse here than in Mexico, if that’s possible.  I hope that the rest of Central America won’t be as hazy and dirty.

Well, that’s just about it for now.  I plan to head towards Antigua today.  There is an active volcano named Pacaya just outside the city, and I want to see some hot lava!

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I made it to Oaxaca

December 3, 2009

I did not write in very much detail about yesterday’s ride.  This was mostly because yesterday was intensely frustrating, and I did not want to think about it.  My plan was to find the road that connects the coastal highway (MX-200) with the inland highway to Oaxaca, but my hopes were frustrated by bad roads, misleading directions, and imprecise/inaccurate GPS map data.  After a long and broken conversation with a group of four local men who (I think) were saying that the road I wanted was in very bad condition, I cut my losses in the late afternoon and returned to the city of Ometepec for dinner and a night’s rest.  As it turns out, this was just what I needed.

Today I woke up earlier than I have this entire trip.  I woke up so early that it was still dark out!  Laugh if you want, but I am not a morning person by nature, so setting my alarm to 5:30 AM was truly a testament to my devotion towards finding Oaxaca.  I was on the road by 6:30, and the sun did not rise until close to 7 so I enjoyed the twilight and the cool morning air while I had it.

The fields were covered in a thick mist this morning, and the riding was cool and quite comfortable.

After a couple of false starts, I found the right highway and made my first real foray into the highlands of Mexico.  The road I took (MX-125) starts off slowly, but soon begins to climb into the mountains.

Clouds dominated the skyline on the southern side of the mountain range, but it never rained.

This was exactly what I’d been looking for.  Don’t get me wrong – the coast is nice, and I love the beaches and the sandals and the warm weather, but I’d been missing the mountains and those lovely mountain roads for a while.

Today was a day of (nearly) non-stop jaw-dropping riding.

The air chilled considerably as I climbed. I actually had to close the air vents on my jacket for the first time since entering Mexico!

The riding was phenomenal, and it was only with great difficulty that I was able to pause and snap a few shots before jumping back on the bike and zipping off.  The extremely narrow (and often non-existent) shoulders complicated things, as I had to search hard for safe places to leave the bike in order to shoot photos.  I’m very glad I did so.

The road had very little traffic, which helped make it safer for photographing.

Imagine this, only 200+ kilometers of it.

Exhibit A: one extremely satisfied motorcycle rider.

According to my GPS, the route peaked at about 8000 feet, whereupon it began to descend into the valley which contains the city of Oaxaca.  The mountain must have a very powerful rain shadow effect, because the southern side was green and moist while the northern side remained arid and hot.

The northern slope was less green but still beautiful.

The mountain road eventually turned into a high-speed toll highway which I followed for the last 110 KM into Oaxaca.  By then my ass definitely felt the effects from all the hard mountain riding, so I was more than happy to coast the rest of the way to the city.  I found a hostel near the historic center of the city, and tomorrow I intend to explore some of the ruins near the outskirts of Oaxaca.  I probably won’t stay for more than one night since I’m excited to get to Guatemala, but this city has already shown me some cool sights.

La Iglesia de Santo Cristobal - a really large church in the middle of the historic center of Oaxaca.

I watched these kids toss around a large, inflated plastic bag in the city's main plaza.

I had my first chance to try the Oaxacan cuisine. This tamale wasn't much to look, but it sure was tasty!

My first impressions of this city are decidedly good.  It’s at a higher elevation than most places I’ve stayed so far (5000 feet), which helps with the heat and the bugs.  I’m looking forward very much to going out tonight and checking out some of the bars that I noticed while walking around earlier this evening!  I don’t know where my next destination will be, but stay tuned – I expect to be in Guatemala in 3 or 4 days.

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To Acapulco, and beyond!

December 2, 2009

We are still about three days behind on this blog, so this post will hopefully bring everyone up to speed.  I am currently sitting in a hotel room in a small town called Ometepec in the state of Guerrero after riding all day from Acapulco.. but I digress.  Let’s start from the beginning.

Ola’s flight did not board until 4:20 PM on Sunday, so we spent the morning together until she had to leave at 2 PM.  We found a taxi for her just a few blocks away from the Casita on the town’s main thoroughfare and said goodbye in the early afternoon.  There’s a funny thing about taxis (actually, this probably applies to most everything that you buy down here).  I wanted to make sure Ola had enough money for the taxi ride, so the night before Ola left, I asked a group of taxi drivers what the cost was to drive to the airport.  Well, one of the taxi drivers quickly blurted out “350 pesos! 35 dollars!”, but was interrupted by another taxi driver who quoted us a lower price of 300 pesos.  When we got the taxi for Ola the next day, I asked again, “Cuanto se cuesta para ir al aeropuerto?”.  This taxi driver quoted us $250.  The lesson: prices are extremely negotiable.

The other lesson, of course, is never ever pay for anything using USD.   It’s not uncommon to hear a price qoute in both Pesos and in USD, and the exchange rate used is always 10:1.  For example, the taxi driver last night told us either $350 Pesos or $35 USD for the taxi ride.  The USD price is really, really bad because the actual exchange rate is a little over 13:1, so $350 Pesos is actually closer to $27.50 USD.  Don’t pay for anything using US money.

In any case, I finished packing up my gear and got back on the road by 4 PM.  The sun sets at around 6:20 here, so I really didn’t have much time, but I wanted to get as far as I could while I could.  The ride was uneventful and I pulled in to the tiny beach town of Maruata as dusk settled in.  I chose Maruata because of the large sign saying “Hotel” on the highway.  The coast in this area is pretty sparsely populated, and the fact that I hadn’t seen a hotel for over 20 miles made nervous, so I readily paid the $200 Pesos for this room.  The price was higher than it should have been, but hey – I probably need the money less than they do.

The mattress rested on top of a lovely cement shelf, and I thought the lawn chair was a nice touch.

Sort of industrial-looking, but it was clean and everything worked. Cold showers are starting to grow on me in this super hot/humid area!

I hadn’t eaten, so I went out in search of a restaurant for some dinner.  Just a few blocks from my hotel was a dilapidated building with “Restaurant” written in chipped white lettering on the front, and since there didn’t seem to be much else going on in the four blocks of the city center, I went in.  A jukebox blared out Mexican dance songs (it would continue to play for the duration of my meal) and two old men sat at a plastic table with two beers each in front of them.  Seeing that I was looking for food, one of them motioned me to peek my head in to a doorway near the far side of the room.  I walked over and found a fat, shirtless man sitting alone at a table with a beer in hand.  I asked if he served food.  He muttered something about a beef dish and a salad dish, so I chose the beef and sat down with the two men at the plastic table.

I wish I had brought my camera!  These guys were local fishermen, and they were both born and raised in Maruata.  We struggled through some conversation in Spanish and one of the guys told me that Spanish was not their native language.  I think they spoke Nahuatl.  We didn’t understand each other very well, but nevertheless we had a nice time, and they kept the jukebox going!

The next morning started early.  I was on the road by 8 AM (unheard of for me!) and the road was an absolute delight.  The coast of Michoacan (the Mexican state that contains Maruata) is hilly, and as a result the coastal highway is very, very twisty.  I don’t have any pictures of the twisty parts because they were just way too much fun to stop riding, but I do have a couple ones from the straight parts.

Straight roads can be fun, too.

I love how green it is here!

My lunch. I haven't gotten tired of these yet, which is good because sometimes they're all you can find.

My goal was to reach Acapulco.  I felt that this was easily achievable and I expected to be showered and relaxed by 5 PM, tops.  The motorcycle gods did not smile on me, however, and I hit horrible traffic ~10 miles outside of the city center at 4PM.  The road entering Acapulco from the west is under heavy construction and I did not reach the downtown area until 6PM.  The bad traffic only worsened as I got closer to downtown!  My plan was to drive around until I found a hotel, but Acapulco is huge and the neighborhood I was in did not seem to have any.  On top of this, my motorcycle was overheating!  I determined that the cooling fan was not running even though the temperature needle was all the way in the red.  Uh oh.

Hot, sweaty, tired and frustrated, I found an internet cafe and sat down.  No more aimless riding in search of a hotel.  I would find one online and ride there directly.  The cheapest place I could find was the K3 Youth Hostel, so I plugged the coordinates in to my GPS and found it without much trouble.

November/December is the off season for this area, so the hostel was mostly deserted.  It probably has capacity for 60-70 people, but I think there were only 10 travelers staying there and I was able to get a 4 person room all to myself.  I drank some water, took a shower, had a meal, and afterwards felt much better!  When in doubt, take care of physical discomfort.  Everything else seems easier if you feel good.  Feeling relaxed, I went out to make friends with my fellow travelers.

A Swedish guy named Valle provided us with entertainment that evening.

There were eight of us and we had a great night of sitting around, drinking, and just shooting the shit.  There was a group of 4 Swedish guys, a girl from Holland, a Canadian and two Americans (myself included).  It was a really nice time.

The next day I tackled the overheating issue.  I knew the fan wasn’t running, so the first thing I did was check the fan fuse.  Sure enough, it was fried:

Thank you for saving my fan motor, Mr. Fuse.

But what could cause the fuse to short?  I really didn’t want to have to trace the wiring and look for shorts, but I pulled off the gas tank to get a good look at the fan assembly.  After jiggling with it for a little while I realized that it was much looser than it should have been.  Ah ha!  The bolt that attaches the fan/radiator assembly to the frame was loose and had actually fallen out enough to lodge the bolt head against the tip of the fan.  This caused the fan to stop, which probably blew out the fuse (instead of the fan motor… phew!)

Working on my bike on the sidewalk of the busiest boulevard in Acapulco.

I reinstalled the guilty bolt and made sure to tighten it.  I’m not sure  if the bolt worked itself loose, or if the mechanic at the shop that serviced the bike before I left merely forgot this little step – but I’ll keep an eye on it in the future.  In any case, I solved the mystery and now the fan runs properly.

Acapulco is pretty, in its own way.  You can tell that the city has been around for a while just from the narrow, windy, steeply graded streets.  The city is too fast and busy for me, though, and the tourism industry definitely drives prices up.

The waterfront is dominated by hotels and touristy clubs.

I left Acapulco this morning, and I don’t think I miss it.

Today I rode further down the coast and took a little side trip through some small, remote villages.  I had intended to find a route through the hills to a highway that would take me to Oaxaca, but after an hour of frustrated riding with maps that did not seem to match up with reality, I resigned myself to backtracking and returned to Ometepec for some rest.  Tomorrow I will likely continue down the coast and take one of the major highways into the Oaxaca area.

The side trip was not a total loss!

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Casita de la Playa

December 1, 2009

Ooh, boy.  This is going to be a long post.  I have a whole week to cover, so bear with me.

Ola and I rented a small beach house on the shore of Santiago.  We were just a few miles north of the port city of Manzanillo, on the Pacific coast of the small Mexican state of Colima.  We found the place online and decided to take a chance on it.  It was very worth it!  The beach literally abutted our lawn and we had an incredible view of the ocean.  The house was built just last June and we were one of the first people to stay there.  It was a real treat!  There was a locked parking area for my motorcycle, air conditioning, and a well-equipped outdoor kitchen.

Standing in front of the Casita as the sun began to set on our first night.

Our casita's lawn. The outdoor kitchen is in the back, behind the hammock.

One of my favorite things about the house was the kitchen.  I’ve been eating out and snacking on pre-cooked meals this entire trip, so cooking our own meals was a welcome change.  The kitchen was outdoors and separate from the main house.

Crepes and nutella under a palapa roof with a view of the Pacific Ocean - hard to beat!

The kitchen had a hammock nearby with a very nice view.

One of our goals for this trip was to have as much beach time as possible.  Ola flew in from Seattle, which is currently cold, wet and quite dreary, (or so I hear!), so after spending some time on our own sandy beach just outside our house, we rode to another beach that the house’s caretaker recommended.  I’m not sure of this beach’s name but it is in a community on the west end of Santiago called “Club Santiago”.  A nearby peninsula protects the beach from big waves, making the area a desirable place for snorkeling.

Sitting beachside and waiting for our drinks.

Something that I have not yet acclimatized to is how pushy the vendors are here.  I know that we were in a touristy area, but I felt a little overwhelmed by how many people came to us to display their bracelets, necklaces, pottery, pastries and other wares.  One man in particular was extremely pushy with trying to sell us a snorkeling tour – I think he approached us four or five times, and each time we declined!

Nevertheless, I really enjoyed all the beach time, and we did eventually end up going for a snorkeling tour of the bay.  The Club Santiago bay has several underwater attractions including a sunken ship from the 1800′s and a coral reef.  Our boat operator gave us a tour of the coastline and explained some of the geological features.  He only spoke Spanish, so I served as a translator for Ola, and together we had a great time.

Ola, looking pretty on the bow of the boat.

Ola took a picture from the bow of my considerably less pretty mug.

Look, an elephant-shaped rock! I usually wouldn't post this, but it was actually kind of cool in a dorky, touristy kind of way.

After the narrated tour we dropped anchor next to the coral reef and donned our snorkeling gear.  It had been about 10 years since I’d last gone snorkeling, and the first several minutes were rather difficult.  Knowing logically that you can breath with your face underwater is one thing – overcoming the primate instinct to get your face the hell out of the water is another.  I had to take some time to calm my breathing before I could enjoy myself, but after a short while I got back into the hang of it and had a great time.

Eventually I was able to do some diving and enjoy swimming through the plentiful fish.

There were a good number of fish near our anchor point. Unfortunately, the water was fairly murky and not many of my shots came out, but I liked this one!

On a side note – I am extremely happy with my camera purchase.  Prior to this trip I did some research (actually, my photographer girlfriend did the research) and I bought a Panasonic TS-1 camera.  It is waterproof, dustproof and (reportedly) shockproof.  I’ve been very satisfied with the photo quality and it was fun to take some photos underwater!

Happy snorklers, heading back to the beach for some post-snorkeling food and drinks.

All that swimming made us quite hungry so after returning to the beach and tipping our guide we found a table at one of the many beachside restaurants and ordered an appetizer of fish ceviche (yummy chopped fish cooked in lime juice and served with onion, tomato, and spices) followed by shrimp quesadillas and barbequed fish fillet.

The fish was not actually barbequed, but I don't remember the actual Spanish word, and BBQ is a pretty close description.

No mexican vacation is complete without tequila, so that evening  (or maybe the next one, I don’t remember – it all just blurs together into one scrumptious, lovely week!) we had an impromptu tequila tasting at our home.  We’d bought a bottle of Campo Azul blanco a few days before, and we added a bottle of 1800 Anejo and 1800 blanco to the selection.  Salt, lime, cheese, bread and marinated sardines completed the evening.

The 1800 anejo was our favorite.

One of the many amenities that came with the house was a set of boogie boards, which we naturally used several times.  Having the beach just feet from our front door made playing in the surf a low-commitment, high-comfort activity!

This was Ola's first time boogie boarding. She's a natural!

I caught a few waves, too.

We played in the surf for hours. I felt like a little kid, and had a really great time!

Another notable adventure occurred during a day trip that we took.  The house’s caretaker recommended that we visit a small town called Comala which lies just a few miles outside of the state’s capital city of Colima.  It was only 100 KM away from Manzanillo, and the route looked straightforward enough.  We jumped on the KLR and took the libremente (non-toll) highway out of Manzanillo towards Colima.

The adventure started when we arrived in the city of Armeria.  The libremente and the cuota (toll) highways merge here, and there’s a series of turns that are marked only with small “To Colima” signs.  I saw the first two, but I missed the third, and continued off-course for a good 20 minutes before acknowledging that we were going the wrong way.  Our diversion took us through progressively poorer sections of Armeria and eventually onto a narrow, bumpy, and windy dirt/gravel road.

Some curious locals stare as we ride by on the KLR.

At this point we were both thinking: this can't be the highway to the state's capital, can it?

The dirt road came to a river. We could see several bridges but none of them were accessible to us. Doh!

After realizing that no access to the bridge we needed existed from our dirt road, we turned around and headed back to Armeria.  My GPS was invaluable here, as it prevented me from taking further wrong turns on the way back.  After another 20 minutes of hot, sweaty, dusty riding, we made it back and I parked in the shade next to a store.

Ice cream and lots of water kept us in high spirits.

The store’s owner gave me directions, and after checking the tire pressure and adding a few PSI, we continued on.  In my haste to make it through the city, I had missed a right turn onto a fairly major thoroughfare.  It was a good lesson, and it just goes to show that in Mexico you need to have patience and care when riding.

Laughing and enjoying our rest!

Shortly after our detour, we arrived in Comala and found a restaurant near the town square for a late lunch.  We’d set out from Santiago at about 1:30 PM, and by the time we arrived in Comala it was 4:00 and we only had a few hours of daylight left, so we didn’t get to explore the city much.  Our lunch was delightful and the square was a great spot for people-watching, though!  I think that my favorite part was the ride itself.  Ola and I had never gone for a long ride together on the KLR before.  At home, we’d only gone for rides on my considerably more aggressive Ducati 996, which was fun but only for feasible for short rides.  The KLR was comfortable for both of us and I could see us going on more rides when  I return.

We didn't get to see much of Comala, but I didn't much care.

For our last night in Santiago, we went out to dinner at a nice steakhouse called Vaqueros.  It was next door to Walmart, but don’t let that fool you – it’s really, really good.  It was also the by far the nicest place I’ve eaten dinner at this whole trip.

The half a bottle of champagne and two margaritas may have contributed to my rave opinion of this restaurant, but honest: the food was amazing!

Well, that’s about it.  The week was just what we both needed, and I don’t think it could have been any more perfect. Ola is back in Seattle, and my plan now is to make a break for Guatemala.  I am currently sitting in a youth hostel on the waterfront of Acapulco, so I still have a couple days of catching up to do with this blog.  Hopefully I’ll get another post up tonight and we’ll be fully up to date!

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