Category Archives: Off The Bikes

Panama – Misconceptions and Milestones

Panama was to be a means to an end.  We had to enter it because that is where we will fly or sail past the stretch of land known as the Darien Gap.  It has been crossed with motorbike – not by motorbike.  At an Overland event back in 2018 we attended a talk by a chap who had taken his bike across the Darien Gap.  He had had his bike strapped to a float/pontoon and a number of ‘gerkers’ to assist with getting the bike through the jungle, across the swamps and passed the bandits.  Not for us!

Neither is the more attractive route taken by Itchy Boots, an infamous motorbike blogger, when her bike was lashed onto a small fishing boat as the family sailed her across in what she has described as a ‘nerve wracking trip’.  These sort of crossings that visited the islands on the way are increasingly clamped down on by the authorities. A ferry frequently referred to is alas only found nowadays in the ether. Our choice is air freight or container ship.  Three days, or three weeks.  Expensive, or cheap – well that’s before you add the cost of the storage before and after the actual shipping at extortionate prices per day.  Then there’s the need to meet at a time that’s convenient to all the people with something in your container as it won’t be opened until all are present.  The actual cost is also dependent on what else it is possible to get in the crate after our two bikes.  We’ll fly them across!  As far as we can tell, it isn’t even significantly worse for emissions, although clear info on that is hard to come by.

So, is Panama merely a route to the airport? Heck no, there’s loads to see here and it’s pretty accessible – except for the canal zone which is very extensive, definitely private property and well, if politely, guarded.

The Rio Sereno border crossing is well named. A laid back sleepyville, with a helpful biking janitor, a slow process, but low hassle for a border. Thirty minutes into Panama we were in the comfort of Helen and Scoop’s home.  Helen, an ADVRider ‘Tent Space’ member, was kind enough to put us up for a couple of days while we found our feet and got to see some of the local attractions.  This is the second time on our trip that we have been taken on a bike outing by our hosts and it evokes feelings of camaraderie and biker unity.

Somewhere in the west of Panama…

We spoke of our general direction of travel and desire to see some of Panama before we rushed to the airport.  Helen and Scoop recommended the Caribbean north coast stating that the route across the mountains was beautiful – that’s number one then.  Indeed the views of cloud cloaking the mountain tops was spectacular. ‘Presumably you’ll be heading down to the southernmost point on the PanAm in the Darian region before coming back up to Panama City to catch your flight?’  That had never crossed my mind but now seems just as important to us as heading up to Prudhoe Bay to start our trip.  Prudhoe Bay is after all, where the Pan American Highway starts so there was never any doubt that we would go there.  We’d better see the end of this northern “half” then!

Our highest point on Panama’s northern coast was Almirante.  It’s the port where tourists catch the ferry across to the Bocas del Toro archipelago for another dose of tourism laced with the attraction of turtle nesting beaches. The latter was very tempting but we were very happy to avoid more tourism having maxed out in Costa Rica.   Sadly, it’s the wrong time of year for the turtles which also influenced our decision.  Finding accommodation was our first problem as there wasn’t much online and even less when we tried to check it out down mud lanes barely one car wide.  Thankfully a local on a pedal bike led us down one such lane and round the back to find Edgar’s BnB.  Edgar spoke very good English and was delightful, encouraging us to go walk-about.  It was on our morning ramblings that we came across the dwellings on stilts down by the waters edge.  We’d seen houses on stilts, the traditional indigenous dwellings, earlier on our route through the mountains but here they were right up close.  Amongst the houses there were modern dug out canoes with flat sterns for the outboard motor.  We were fascinated by the area and I tried beating the local kids at skipping – guess what?

  • Still building – the style works for the location

Later, down at Calovebora, we saw more of the indigenous life away from the tourist trail.  Again, on the Caribbean shore where we saw many traditional dugout canoes of varying sizes and states of repair.  The locals were very friendly and mutually intrigued.  We ate their pesca y papas fritas (fish & chips), they offered to take us on a motorboat ride.  Sadly we declined.  I’d have jumped at the chance to have a go in one of their dugouts but that was never on offer and I wasn’t bolshy enough to ask just in case I fell in – amongst the cocodrillos???

  • Somebody didn’t appreciate the climb up the Cerro above Santa Fe
  • Worth it?
  • Clare was trying to operate her GoPro while riding on deep gravel – guess what happened next? Here comes the rescue.
  • Arrival at Calovebora

Just by chance we were in the right area to visit to La Ville de Los Santos on the Azuero peninsula at the time of their traditional fair.  We had no idea what to expect but soon realised it was a Latin version of our Ardingly South of England Show in the UK.   A mix of stalls, souvenirs, eateries, agricultural machinery and livestock but with the added attraction of cowboys.  We’d been told on the Thursday that said vaqueros do a tour of the town and indeed we’d seen them off or so we thought.  There were maybe 150-200 of them.  On our way ‘home’ somewhat later we realised the real scale of the event.  It took us two hours to cover the 1.5 kilometres as we sat and watched the hundreds of horses pass by interspersed with beer trucks and free rum top-ups to keep things lubricated.  No wonder that there weren’t that many caballeros in the cowboy horse trials the following day.

The Carretera Pan Americana, Highway 1, is the backbone of Panama.  We had to use it to reach just about any destination whether it was skipping along the Caribbean coast or the Pacific.  There are virtually no parallel minor roads joining the towns, all the roads radiate off the Pan-American.  This seems to be the norm along much of Central America’s Caribbean coast where boats are the method of transportation – or gringoes can fly in.   But here in Panama it seems almost as difficult to traverse the Pacific coast.  On one route Gid was keen to make it across without flogging along the dual carriageway again and came up with some restricted access routes.  We’d laughed when the Garmin had stated ‘take the road on the right’ and it was gated farmland.  But here he was planning something similar. I vetoed, and he didn’t demur.

It was at about this time that I realised the Garmin seemed to be regularly failing to use excellent roads on obvious routes. It was clear that Panama is actively extending its road network.  In the UK I get reminders every so often to update the Garmin maps. I just needed to get round to doing an update and all would be ok.  Local guy Darby, who you’ll meet later, had commented that the Garmin navigation is compromised by out of date mapping.  I still didn’t think it was a big deal.  Then our Open Street Map route into Panama City took us around the Cinta Costera 111 highway – a six laner, plus cycleway, arcing 2km out to sea to bypass the old town and fishing harbour.  Garmin’s biker icon was in the water!  Highway 111 didn’t look so new.  Research showed it opened in 2014.  That’s how out of date the 2025 Garmin mapping is!  Unfortunately, Panamanian highway engineers are expert at cramming multiple divided highways, with multiple simultaneous slip roads on either or both sides, of the main carriageway, into tight spaces. Garmin was usually oblivious, but Gid’s OSMAnd knew them all but didn’t let on which one we needed. We’d be frantically guessing in a stream of traffic, or stopping on a tiny shoulder so Gid could try to zoom in enough to see the slip-roads and work out what “turn slightly right” actually meant. Very stressful, and a lot of profanity-strewn misroutes.

By luck all our planning, on a bigger scale, had fitted together seamlessly which gave us an extra couple of free days.  We took off back down to the Azuero peninsula where we’d seen the fair, but this time aiming for the Pacific coast at the tip. On our return route we more or less by chance ended up at Punta Chame, a sort of peninsula on a peninsula.  The road out there was somewhat lumpy and breaking up in places and there weren’t many buildings as we made our way out to the point.  It seemed deserted.  We found a Swiss cordon bleu chef and ordered the cheapest things on the menu.  He explained that it is a kite surfing destination but at this time of year there is no reliable wind.  No.  Plenty of rain though!  He suggested accommodation just up the road but Gid nearly fainted at the price.  We were going to give up but decided to take a look at the shipping containers place.  We’d stayed in one before and it was alright.  This was too with a beautiful view.  Beach access, mini swimming pool, what more could we want? We walked out to the tip of the peninsula the following morning when the tide was out.  Barely a soul to be seen but the plastic strandline told of the human occupation. 

  • Beach 1
  • Beach 1
  • Beach 2
  • Beach 2
  • Beach 3
  • Beach 3
  • Punta Chame
  • Punta Chame

Birds abounded.  One, a juvenile yellow headed Caracara, seemed rather needy.  Not only did it fail to fly away when I cautiously crept up to take a photo it actually came down to join me.  It made some heart wrenching mewing sounds and kept creeping up to peck my toes with its serious looking beak.  Sadly we didn’t have any food we could give it.  It was gone on our way back so hopefully off to find a tasty lizard or crab.

We packed up the bikes ready for the half-day ride to Panama City – then it started to rain. Rain?  No, it utterly pissed down, with thunder and lightning. We hunkered down in our luxury container and waited for the storm to pass. Everything disappeared in a grey mist. Gid went for a trunks-and-barefoot run on the beach once the lightening stopped. It was about this time that Clare’s intercom and Gid’s to-hand bicycle light both stopped working. Clearly a nominal IP67 isn’t equal to Panamanian rain.

Like pieces of a jigsaw coming together I was getting a better idea of Panama and how it ‘works’.  Each new piece of information filled a gap in my understanding of a previous experience.  There are six or seven main indigenous peoples in Panama who still practise many of their skills and traditions, protecting their language and way of life.  Just outside Panama City we’d visited an Embera village where the tribe is descended from the Embera-Wounaan community down in the Darien area.  They are hunter-gatherers who have been allowed to continue living in the rainforest near the capital city.  But as it is now a National Park they’re not allowed to hunt.  The nations tribespeople are some of the custodians of the rain forests that feed water to the Panama Canal.  Outsiders can not readily develop Indian owned land.  But they can. During our time in Panama we had had minor but enjoyable interactions with the three groups of indigenous people.

In our first ride into Panama City we’d attempted to get freebie views of the canal. Unlike canals in the UK with towpaths it’s almost all fenced off, along with its roads and services, which are set a good way back. One access was a success but the other attempts ended up down dead-ends, fenced off as part of the “Canal Zone”.  One such effort seemed to lead through – private entrances to the sides with an open section and view point at the end.  Merrily we arrived just past the parked up coach near the signs stating that crocodiles inhabited the area.  No worries, I thought, there’s a long three foot tall barrier right along in front of us.  I wasn’t even off my bike before an official arrived in a car.  “Trespassing” I thought but no.  Crocodiles was the problem.  I queried whether they would get over the barrier.  The uniformed guy repeated my gesture nodding that, ‘yes, crocodiles come over the barrier.’

Still keen to investigate the canal we visited the official Canal Museum in the city.  It was within walking distance from our lodgings but massively biased towards the political story.  Three floors of it for the more robust inquisitor.  We finally made a trip to the more expensive Mira Flores, the canal side viewing platforms and information centre. Still a bit frustrating for engineer Gid – there’s very little real “how it works” information.

Getting a ship through all the locks takes eight hours but cuts out a three week trip around Cape Horn. It consumes a huge amount of water – viable because of the huge amount of rain the region receives and caches in the rainforest and lakes. In 2016 at Mira Flores, Panama opened larger, modern locks to enable bigger ships to navigate the canal. This latest design conserves 60% of the water making them more water efficient than the old locks which are now over 110 years old.  At the visitor centre, a film transposed sepia images of the original steam machinery digging holes, rubble all around, with modern cranes dredging larger loads from a water filled cut.  All of our progress is causing its own problems as global climate change is impacting on the region, reducing the rain fall on which the Panama canal is dependent. What does the future hold?  Even with the canal Panama is one of the few carbon negative countries in the world, as the 4m population is powered by hydroelectricity, and the rainforest, though depleted, soaks up more CO2 than the humans emit.  Most countries have less renewable energy supplies, and nothing like the CO2 sucking rainforest (trees gain bulk maybe 10 times faster than in, say, the UK).

Panana City is like many other cities in Central America and beyond.  A complex mix of sky scraper apartment blocks, improvised housing – plastic strips, corrugated iron, cardboard; street sleepers, bare feet, designer trainers, the near naked, beggars, private gyms, plush plazas, derelict sites, shipping container market stores, supermarkets, street vendors, blocked drains, localised floods, three lane highways round the bay.  All juxtaposed impacting on each other.

Interestingly, it has relatively few motorcycles – most un-Central-American.

  • View from our AirBnb. 20m pool – win!
  • Old Town 1
  • Old Town 2
  • Old Town 3
  • Old Town Museo de Mola
  • Old Town seen from AirBnb
  • More locals

As Clare wrote at the top, Panama City is the conventional place where most PanAm travellers have to surrender their wheels to boat or plane. The PanAm loudly claims to be the world’s longest road, but it mumbles and blushes when anyone mentions “Darien”. For 90km across the Panama/Columbia border, there is no road. Not even an official track. The swampy jungle can be penetrated on foot, ask the smugglers, but even military teams struggle with any kind of vehicle.  It’s supposed to be snake and bandit infested too. So like most “travellers”, we will use freight services to skip it.

But to the extent allowed by governments here, and our government’s advice limiting our insurance cover, we tried to get to the end of the road.  We had to join, indeed create, an “organized tour”, to visit Panama’s Darien region.  We had a jolly two days led by Darby, proprietor of Moto Tour Panama, who would normally prefer to hire you a speedy BMW. I have to say, we envied the F800GS’s headlamp, it seemed to show the road after dark, not a feature of the Himalayan lamps.

10th May was a big day. We rode into Yaviza, the last town on the PanAm’s northern half. This footbridge is the end. Most of the transport between villages here is by boat, as in the picture. However, in the background you can see a new bridge being built. Maybe soon, you can go a little further.

A Short Tour of Yaviza
Somebody said there’s a birdwatching event down here…

After this little adventure, we backtracked to Panama City, for a little more tourism and logistics, before freighting the bikes to Colombia… Officially, we’re either halfway, or two thirds, through the trip, depending on if you count in continents or miles or months.

Nicaragua – Land of Shadows

I was a little anxious about entering Nicaragua.  In my mind, fed by various perhaps out of date articles, Nicaragua was going to be more lawless and therefore more dangerous to be in.  There are tales that the police are even more corrupt than usual. Both threats have been with us since entering Mexico. So far, either the reports are wrong, or we’ve been lucky.  But, we have seen more road accidents in Central America than we have ever before.

The Honduras-Nicaragua border crossing was particularly tedious and rather exasperating as we had to stop here then there and no one told us about the over there.  Having had our documents checked at one oficina and told now you can go that should have been  ‘now you can go over there to the next stage’.  Gid is very thorough at researching the requirements for each border crossing and not to be fobbed off, but even he didn’t foresee the number of times Nicaragua would check each document.  There were about 7 stages!  Regis, a fellow traveller we met in Leon told of how he was fined while exiting Honduras when imigracion saw that his entry documentation wasn’t properly stamped.  He had been illegal and had to pay the fine of $250 but only had $230.  He had to wait until a fellow French traveller baled him out!  Although we’ve done plenty of borders before, these are remarkably long winded, and it’s our first trip combining tedious borders with motorcycle import permits, really hot weather – and motorcycle clothing. We melt.

From a border we usually plan to stop pretty soon after, but the pueblo of Condega was out of rooms – “Convencion” – so we rode on along the main NIC1 highway to Esteli, to kip in a windowless concrete box with free condoms.  Our actual destination was San Juan de Limay, the nearest town to petroglyphs marked on the map but it was getting a bit late for that rather uncertain route.  We wanted to settle into the country before setting off on potentially rough tracks and start earlier in the day. 

From Esteli there appeared to be a route cross-country but the advice was not to take this ‘short cut’ because of the potential for problems crossing the multiple rivers! We looped back north and round. The paper map showed the NIC38 as mostly dirt road, but OpenStreetMap said it was fairly major.  We turned onto a laid block surface which I had expected to revert back to dirt once out of the town but that wasn’t the case.  In the main it was a beautiful rural road all the way with fab views where we could actually stop and take a few photos, if we lifted our eyes above the endless twists and turns through the hills.

Our arrival at San Juan de Limay was quite amusing. It’s a small rural town, no tourist hotspot.  Gid had found three guest houses online but when we arrived the first didn’t seem to exist. We headed for the Parque Central to get our bearings in the town.  Pausing outside the Museo de la Revolution, to Gid’s annoyance I went in.  What were they going to tell me in there he was saying.  The very helpful young lady understood enough of what I was trying to explain.  She shut up shop and led us around the town on her trailie. The first two accommodations fell flat as they were full.  The third place we visited was still running and had space.  We’d never have found it – hospedage – lodging house – was badly spray painted on the gatepost .  This was it then.  I went to look at the room in a block that could have been the old stables out the back of the family house.  I came out in fits of laughter.  Gid was appalled at how rude that was but it bought new meaning to en-suite.  The room was small.  No problem there but it consisted of a bed and folding chair, a fan and a shower/toilet trough.  No towel, no sheet, no soap, NO TOILET PAPER, no door lock.  The sink was communal with a wash board and trough in front of the rooms.  They all caused us some amusement.  The shower head was at the top of a pipe as you’d expect but the slightest turn of the faucet and the head catapulted forwards spraying a gush of water over the gutter right onto Gid’s kit.  More hilarity but the cacophony that started at 4:15 was definitely a groan.  Our two cockerels were trying to wake the neighbour.   Any disturbance in the brood resulted in an almighty thud on the corrugated tin roof that was suspended above our walls.  To use the one socket in the room was a balancing act but it did the trick – we had a cup of tea in the morning.

Having settled in we set off in sloppy sandals to see what we could find out about trips to the petroglyphs.  The town hall seemed a suitable place to start our enquires.  A rather grand name for an old single story building with a few offices.  The guard patrolling outside suggested the end door was the way to go.  He took us down there and spoke to the staff.  One very kind lady came out to check what it was we wanted and asked us to wait in the main entrance.  Thirty minutes later we were off!  They didn’t check whether it was possible but had arranged it there and then.  Five of us – three staff and the two of us, piled into the 4WD Toyota Hilux.  The lady passed us a leaflet of gordas – stone fat lady carvings that can be found around the town and local area.  I thought we were off to see some of these but no.  We took a back road out of the town and bounced along a dirt track, forded a small river and finally stopped at a pool.  The driver stayed put but the rest of us piled out and set off on foot clambering over rocks to cross the water flow.  What were we doing in flimsy footwear with not a camera between us?  Benito, the main guide, led the way and swept the debris off the few petroglyphs.  The young lady was new to the carvings too but was at least wearing trainers. Our return route was adorned with stops at a couple of local craft places – what a lovely day!

I had expected to move quickly through Nicaragua but in fact it has been the opposite.  Spurred on by near perfect road surfaces (everything is relative) and the relaxed nature of the people it’s been a pleasure to be here.  As always the people we meet and their recommendations of must see this or that has helped to forge our plans.

At Leon, our first stop after the petroglyphs, we stayed at Casa Lula hostel and bonded well with a lovely group of experienced travellers.  No one was in a rush, tales were exchanged, must visits suggested. The luxury hostel was a comfortable contrast to the Esteli condom box and Limay hospedage. A guided tour of the town very much focused on the revolution despite there being some lovely architecture too.  That isn’t so surprising as all the murals were of scenes from the revolution.  It may have been forty years ago but some murals were reworked as recently as six months ago to keep their political message fresh. Our guide, Antonio, explained the events portrayed and also some of the symbology.  Many of the characters (the deceased ones?) were painted with prominent shadows, and these represented their effects on Nicaraguan society and politics after their – mostly premature – deaths. Leon is Nicaragua’s intellectual – and revolutionary – hub, and while there were a fair few tourists, they didn’t swamp the place as they had in, say, Antigua, Guatemala.

  • Christian,Aude,Roger,Regis, in Leon

One’s never far from politics anywhere in Nicaragua – red and black FSLN banners are everywhere, and on some roads I noted all the electricity poles were painted in the colours, too. It feels a bit one party state, although formally, it isn’t.

Thankfully our hostel host was interested in our petroglyphs excursion and pleased that we’d gone off the beaten track.  He lamented that most tourists hit the west coast going straight down the main road and out the other end.  ‘It’s such a pity,’ he said, ‘as Nicaragua has so much to offer and is a very safe place.’  Our horizons were expanding!  Nicaragua is one of the poorest countries in Central America, but also unusually – kind of – socialist. It’s also, currently, not terribly democratic. Some effects of this might be the lower murder rate, far fewer visible guns, the better highways, the better driving, the much greater use of beasts of burden, and the worst housing we’ve seen on this trip. Plus the curious phenomena of being begged by a chap who was fitted with a pacemaker – But then, since Belize, the Caribbean coast has offered a uniquely stylish form of begging.

No matter where our new routing may take us Granada, just down from Leon, was next.  It’s the oldest city in Central America, with elegant buildings and lots of history. So it’s a must see destination and indeed is a very touristy town. It has a lovely promenade to edge Lake Nicaragua, and a small pier.  We stayed near the lake but were warned to go further along the shore away from the town centre to find more pleasant places to swim.  As I’ve said, everything is relative.  We did venture thus to risk a dip only to find that our swimming strokes stirred up one bit of rubbish or another.  One dip was plenty!  Shady trees and a strong morning “sea” breeze made it bearable in the 7am heat offering Gid a venue for a rare jog.

The town was lovely with a vibrant central square.  Despite the churches being flagged up as having splendid architecture and historical relevance they were in the main shut.  There were three on our bucket list to see: one we did see inside, a second we were able to peer into a rather dull side chapel when a service was taking place but the most ancient cathedral in Central America, the piece de resistance, was hidden behind its firmly shut doors with nothing to suggest opening times.  Circling it we found a very shabby rear door that advertised language lessons, but nothing about the cathedral itself.

A large part of northern Nicaragua is inaccessible jungle while the southern half has the 160km long Lago Nicaragua in the middle creating a this side of the lake or that side of the lake dichotomy.  Surprisingly there is a border post at the end of the east or west route down past the lake but no joining road at the bottom.  It’s an odd looking border, really, why doesn’t Costa Rica extend up to the shore of the lake? Presumably the Spanish Empire had a reason, when it demarcated the administrative boundaries this way.

From Granada we took off slightly northwards curving back to reach the ‘that side of the lake’ more petroglyphs being a strong attraction.  Ok we’d seen some in very enjoyable and amusing circumstances but our National Geographic map has many references to them and surely some were going to be more impressive than the six carvings we’d seen.  They were!  Over 2000 we were told.  Many of them were highly graphic and in remarkably good condition for their 2000 years of existence.  We’d followed a sign from the highway 8 miles up a dirt road to reach the ranch style site.  A young guide took us around a trail explaining the meaning of the petroglyphs.  Many were to do with fertility and childbirth.  Some carved on standing stones showed the chief.  While another showed the dog he would eat.  We were now, after months, out of the Mayan area – these carvings were by the Chontales, but there were still some similarities of style.

At the end of the NIC71 highway – mercifully now all paved, and really rather a lovely ride –  was Bluefields.  ‘We don’t see tourists down here.  They don’t come this far’, was one greeting we had.  It was a bustling town with a multitude of taxis.  Tichy cars that four people would pile into and off they crept, or lunged, forcing into a gap.  At least three taxis would fit across the narrow, bumpy streets, and frequently did. 

This eastern coast on the Caribbean is called the Moskito Coast after its original human, not insect, inhabitants. The Moskito Coast of Nicaragua (and coastal Honduras & what’s now Belize) was isolated from the Spanish Pacific coast, with only one through connection – via Lake Nicaragua and the San Juan River. Consequently it was associated mostly with the British-dominated Caribbean islands, and was part of the British Empire until around 1860. To this day, English is spoken in Bluefields. 

A museum told the tale of the slave trade dating back to the 15th century.  Two hundred years later it came to an end in British territories when the British Government offered to pay the slave owners £25 per slave.  They were never paid but the people were freed.  Quite a few freed slaves from the Caribbean islands came here at that time. That was the British/American slave trade of transatlantic journeys: The Spanish Empire’s slavery was quite different – the Spaniards enslaved the indigenous population of the Americas where they found them. That form of slavery was formally ended a little earlier, shortly after “New Spain” declared itself independent of “old” Spain in 1821, although “old” Spain waited another 20 years.

To this day most of the regional transport is by boat.  Bluefields’ connection to the capital Managua was by dirt road and riverboat until the new road was completed in the last five years.  Bluefields is Nicaragua’s Caribbean port, and the boat hub for the rest of the coast.

For me the market by the waters edge was the highlight of the town.  A small school hall sized market where people sat with their wares peering out of the gloom backlit by the opening at the far end where it reached a harbour arm.  Out on the harbour arm a few boats were secured, produce still piled high.  Gid was keen to try some of the novel fruits.  One lovely Nico hombre split his fruit open for Gid to try it.  One came my way too. Gid slurped through his and agreed to buy a few.  A bag was a problem but voila!  I had one.  The chap enthusiastically put a good dozen or so in and said “30 Cordobas” (about 70p).  Gid pulled out a 50 note which caused some concern as there was no change.  After a moments hesitation the man put another half dozen fruits into the bag despite our protestations and was then happy to keep the money.  I was highly amused as I’d given Gid my fruit too.  Thankfully, back in town a barrow man pulling his cart full of fruit passed me as I waited for Gid to buy groceries.  I carefully stopped the man whose tummy enabled him to support the bar no-handed.  There was a space on his cart so I quickly put most of the fruit on it smiling at him as I did so.   He soon realised what I was up to and didn’t seem to mind.

Our route through Nicaragua continued as we backtracked hunting for sloths and quetzals.  Having been fairly unsuccessful at finding much wildlife on our own we opted for guided tours.  One such tour overlooking Matagalpa resulted in guide David claiming for us a female quetzal, the national bird of Guatemala [Alas, when, later we looked at the photo with Nubie, a keen birdwatcher, it looked a lot more like an elegant trogon].  At the same location we had a sloth in a tree and a toad in our handbasin.  We were told, ‘Yes, there is a toad in the basin.  That’s where it lives.’. And did we mention the butterflies?

Lake Apoya was our best location.  The warm volcanic crater lake was clean enough to swim in. The hotel pontoon tantalisingly floating twenty metres away.  Our steep jungly trek up to the village at the craters rim, to the soundscape of howler monkeys, passed another load of stunning petroglyphs – completely unsigned and unexpected.  The lack of exposure to the elements may be why they are still so pronounced.

Ometepe island was another attempt to see sloths.  An online search suggested that they were around on Volcan Maderas.  Wrong!   Not here we were reliably told by locals.  The scenic ride around the eastern end of the island compensated for our lack of sloths.  Amusingly, when we passed a sign for petroglyphs we didn’t even stop. Mombacho on the mainland came up trumps though. We found our own sloth – distantly – curled up in a tree, then a guided night walk found one actually doing the sloth upside-down tree locomotion – hurrah!

Now by this point in the posting, our biking friends are chafing – what about the riding, how are the bikes? The roads are in pretty good nick, and more are surfaced than to the north. At least two long rides (38 and 71) were really nice, light traffic, good surface, entertaining and scenic roads. There’s a much more restrained feel to the driving and riding. That’s possibly because we saw a lot of police actually taking an interest in driving standards, which may be why foreign riders complain of “corruption” – the speed limit is maximum 80kph and even those roads have many short sections of much less.  A KTM Super Adventure might be hard to restrain: The Himis kept us out of trouble, but still blast past the lorries. Someone says it’s more fun to ride a slow bike fast, than a fast bike slow. The SUVs and new pickups still flew past, occasionally. 

But some of the accommodation – even posh places – have been up bloody awful tracks that we would have not voluntarily have tackled. The Himis seem to take it in their stride – first gear seems to chug up anything that can claim to be a route – but our skills and strength are strained and we arrive in a frazzled state of mind and a muck sweat.

  • DCIM100GOPROGOPR2720.JPG

There was a scary moment leaving our hostel in Matagalpa, coming down the very steep, loose, dirt track (can’t call it a road), Clare couldn’t hold the bike on the rear brake, pressing with all her strength. The 300 kilo combo of Clare, baggage, Indian steel and souvenirs was gaining speed! Fortunately it all stayed rubber down until the slope eased.

Photo – Peter Damsgaard

That’s when we spotted Clare had unexpectedly worn down her rear brake pads (not the fronts, of course there’s a set of those under her seat). Unfortunately, Royal Enfield have no presence in Nicaragua. The pads might have lasted until we got to San Jose, capital of Costa Rica, but Gid’s online researches revealed that possibly a very few local bikes shared the pad pattern, and after about half a dozen dealers and parts places (repuestos), somebody found a badly packaged set from Bajaj in the shop’s box of oddities. Alarmingly, they cost only $3. But they dropped in fine and do seem to work.  Adjusting Clare’s pedal higher has made it easier to apply more pressure, even seated, which seems to have been the actual problem.

I-Spy on the highway: The 1979 revolution didn’t enamour Nicaragua to the United States (remember the “Contra” affair?), so of course the USSR pitched in with support. Thus giving Gid a little entertainment spotting the USSR’s automotive antiques among the Toyotas and Chevrolets.

So, as we go on to Costa Rica, crossing a border from one on Central America’s poorest countries, to one of the richest – how was Nicaragua?  Just great.  It actually did feel safer than its northern neighbours, for example, police and security guards are still common, but less often armed.  It’s often quite underdeveloped, with an eye closed we can mistake poverty and improvisation for bucolic bliss, and tourists are rare enough to be welcomed.  The underdevelopment, and perhaps a degree of isolation after the revolution, mean that much more old growth forest remains than in some neighbours. The only regret, really, is that so many times, we stayed in accommodations run by foreigners, as we ofttimes didn’t find local places where we were headed.

Finally, a few scenes from Nicaragua that don’t fit into the narrative above, but are just nice to see.

Honduras

After extending our beach stop in El Salvador to allow Gid to rise from his sickbed, it felt good to be back on our bikes and focused on covering distance. Well, some distance – our stops aren’t far apart in Central America, as there’s plenty to see. Most of these countries have nominally a middling population density, but in practice crowded urban areas, and middle density farming on the coastal plain and valley bottoms, leaving very few folks left to populate large areas in the hills or the north, toward the Caribbean coast. Much of which is still roadless jungle. Many of the small communities there are not connected by road to their countrymen. Being roadless, these large areas are not connected to us, either, we’re only in the more populous areas.

Copan Ruinas, our first Honduran destination, was slightly NW from our border crossing. After 2 hours in the border, Aduana, we were fairly focused on making some progress but then reality hit.  The road was still under construction.  Sections of it were near perfect but for some reason it had 2m bands of gravel every 150m or so.  No need for speed bumps here.  The views were beautiful but viewing spots are a luxury seldom found. Other parts of the road were very much still under construction but we soon learnt to go ‘native’.  Honduras is back to swarms of bikes.  At road works they weave their way to the front and beyond given half a chance.  On one such occasion we followed the bikers and a family of cyclists through on to the coned-off raised new road. Ten metres or so before the end of this section the lead bikes peeled off to the left, across the approaching traffic, along a dirt track bordering the road, through the petrol station and down a narrow lumpy path and back onto the road.  I stopped at the start of the footpath.  I wasn’t alone.  A man on his bike loaded with wood stopped too.  We dubiously looked at each other and the kangaroo jumps the bikers ahead were doing along the footpath.  Gid squeezed through.  He got 2/3 of the way along with his bike bucking all over the place and stopped on what seemed like a position stranded half over the next lump. After that moment of route planning, so Gid says, (or buttock clenching), the Him bounced through ok.  With a subtle shake of our heads the guy and I turned back.  We had to wait a short while before we could squeeze out alongside the approaching traffic.  Safe and sound off we went.

A little further along the road we took a turning.  Dirt road the navigation informed us but – wrong,  It was a newly laid 8km stretch of beautiful surfaced road with some wonderful views thrown in as we wound our way up and down mountain sides.  Encouraged by this we took the next dirt road too.  This 30km short cut bypassed a whole big loop around the top Gid informed me.  But no such luck this time. Although a definite road it was dust, gravel, ruts, gulleys, hills, descents and a ford , along which, in the main, a steady dribble of motos overtook us.  That was encouraging as it felt as if it was in constant use servicing the villages and other tracks along the way.  Nearing the end however, three men overtook us but then stayed just in front.  That was unnerving as they should have disappeared into the dust.  Why were they hanging back with us?  Thankfully it wasn’t too far until we were back on the main road.  Our escort went in the other direction.

Copan Ruinas was delightful.  Although another cobbled ancient town it had retained some of its charm because it wasn’t so full of tourist shops or heaving with tourists.  When walking round the ruins themselves we were two out of four people in the place although a couple of groups were arriving as we left.  The main attraction of Copan ruins, another Unesco site, was the option to go down into two tunnels and look at the previous temples.  Because the temples were enlarged by successive kings who wanted their temple to be bigger and better, the carvings on the former temples had been covered and were still in very good condition.  Somehow it felt magical to glimpse at what had been hidden away.

 Archaeological work was very much still in action both on the surface and inside the tunnels which felt as though we were experiencing history as it was being uncovered.  The displays in its mini museum linked the Copan ruins to several of the temple sites that we have already visited. Copan is the last major and most southerly Maya site in Central America.

We decided to traverse Honduras along the northern, Caribbean coast. This has a wealth of cultures with eight different languages being spoken.  One of which is Garifuni – the Caribbean freed slave culture & its partly creole language scattered all along the Caribbean coast from Belize south.   Asking for milk at the local store in Tornabe proved interesting.   It wasn’t Spanish or English is all I can say. The place felt a bit like Hopkins in Belize, except zero tourists, as the locals were of African heritage and mooching around on foot. The only hotel, like most of the other buildings, was right on the beach, with our bikes parked on the sand between us and the sea. Locals wandering past. We had a comfy night, although it bucketed down at some point.

To get there, we’d swing by the famously beautiful Lago Yojoa.   Appealingly, we could stay in a micro-brewery.  When at Lago Yojoa we took another archaeological walk around Los Naranjos.  We were warned that the original temple was made of clay so had been left covered but that hadn’t sunk in until we arrived at the temple to see a relatively small grass mound and nothing more.  Thankfully a small museum at the site’s second entrance had a display informing us about the ruins and its place in history, being very old in Central American ruin terms.

Both of us enjoy birdwatching and one of our best experiences was on Lake Yojoa.  We’d booked onto an early morning bird watching boat trip.  Honduras does boast a wonderful number of resident birds but our own efforts to see them have been fairly pitiful.  Our guide, Mattias, took us off to the canal armed with binoculars.  We hadn’t even reached the water before we were looking this way and that.  Two to three hours passed in perfect bliss as we were paddled along spotting various birds.  The highlight of the trip for me was the osprey.  Sitting high in a tree but clearly visible with binoculars it wasn’t far from a white chested hawk.  The pair were magnificent.  The osprey flew over which Gid spotted first.  Sadly I barely saw it. As we so quickly forget, Gid made notes of the different birds that were pointed out to us, many of them brightly coloured, and announced we’d seen over thirty species.   A few of them like the herons and fly catchers were almost omnipresent.

The botanical gardens at Tela was another attempt to see more wild life.  It was more of an arboretum but occupied a spacious area with signage informing us about some of the species.  We had hoped to see some birds here but in the heat of the afternoon nothing much was evident. We stayed onsite, in a splendid wooden cabin left over from the fruit company days, so the following morning took an amble in the softer light which was much more pleasant but still lacked wildlife.  When preparing to leave our host came to tell us that they was some issue up the track.  ‘Motos would get through,’ she said,  ‘pero no carros!’  True enough!  There had been rain overnight and a land slide. Part of the road was missing.  Cautiously we went through aware that a lot of the area looked sodden.

Gid hasn’t been interested in waterfalls.  To be fair in 2023 we toured Norway where in places there’s a stunning waterfall every 100 metres.  But link a waterfall walk with bird watching and we were off.  Three toucans almost make up for our cumulative zero quetzals. Our stop here was a guest house focussed on the local rafting tourism on the Rio Cangrejal. Right on the rocks by the white water river, it brought back a lot of memories of our paddling days.

Biking back along the muddy & potholed dirt road from the rafter’s guest house towards La Ceiba I had hoped that some of the slimy mud down the lane might have dried out a bit.  No such luck.  The drizzle started as we finished packing our bikes.  That together with last night’s rain ensured that it had remained a slushy, muddy, dirt and gravel road with numerous pot holes and oversized puddles.  Faced with a large muddy puddle and an on coming moto that was going to take the rim around the left hand edge I went for it straight through my side.  My bike squirmed a couple of times, some water splashed over into my boots but a bit of adrenaline kept me going and I didn’t slow down.  ‘ A twist of the wrist’ so the name sake book says will nine times out of ten get you through a problem.  It worked.  I was chuckling, the approaching biker, who had slowed to watch the drama, had a broad smile and gave a thumbs up.  Who else was on the road? – oh yes – an inexplicably abandoned porker.

Sodden was here to stay – we had a lot of heavy showers in Honduras.  We had set off at 9:30 with a 100mi to cover so expected to be there by lunch time.  With just a short lunch break we arrived sometime after three.  The potholes along the way had disintegrated into large areas of mud and broken road.  The traffic ahead of us on both sides was weaving across the road and slowly negotiation the holes.  We picked our way along the main road at times behind tired buses, trucks and tuk-tuks.  Consumed in clouds of exhaust as yet another overloaded knackered out X tried to pull away from the speed bumps or pot holes.  Frequently, at the speed bumps, we sped past.  Once we were officially on a dirt road the surface was in a much better condition.  Thankfully a lot of the traffic had also turned off by then so we were able to make better progress.

Here’s an assortment of Honduran road photos. We take more photos on dirt roads ‘cos there’s usually more to see, and time to look.

And here’s a few photos of what we could see from the road.

As far north-east as we could reasonably go, a couple of days at the beach at Trujillo was to round off our trip to Honduras.  Gid had highlighted the fort and a couple of historic points of interest in the small town. Yes, um, it was indeed small, but attractive enough, once it had stopped pouring with rain.

Leaving Trujillo we soon turned south and headed down a lovely road enroute for the capital city, Tegucigalpa.  It was the best road we’d been on for a while so we were merrily cruising along.   We soon realised that we had a third rider also on a touring bike tailing us.  After a brief roadside stop we agreed to a coffee somewhere ahead.  Steve, a Canadian rider, was on a tour to Panama – his version of the Snow Goose descent south for the winter.  We stopped together for the night and shared food, beer, and stories.  Steve’s BMW RS boxer was five times as powerful as our Himis, but the sporty suspension & position wasn’t so accommodating over speed bumps and potholes. He might have said it wasn’t entirely happy on the low octane gasoline, either.  But we’re all doing it, that’s the main thing.  Forums are full of “what bike for …” discussions, and journalists pontificate endlessly (with a nod to their advertisers!), but the best answer seems to be “the one you have”.  We do seem to be a bit off the moto tourist trail now, we no longer see occasional groups of looming, be-panniered, be-foglamped adventure bikes going the other way, or whizzing past us. Of course, just by time and distance, we’re getting beyond the range of a ride-from-home tour for North Americans with jobs and families needing them back soon.

Honduras’s capital Tegucigalpa was busy but pleasant enough.  After all the usual online warnings about crime, the biggest threat was clearly as a pedestrian trying to cross the roads.  Maybe it was our location, but the traffic seemed more cramped and more urgent than either Mexico or Guatemala Cities.  Tegucigalpa is not reckoned to be much of a tourist destination, although we did visit a few places.  We were in the city because it had a Royal Enfield dealer, one of only 2 in Honduras, and I had discovered some loose spokes in my front wheel. I wanted to be nearby when I had my first ever go at a motorcycle spoked wheel tweak.  In the event, the adjustment seemed to go smoothly, and no parts or help were called upon.

Although our Honduran visas were for 60 days, we were aware that the CA4 group of countries only gave us 90 days from entering Guatemala, so we had to exit both Honduras and Nicaragua, by 29th March. East of Tegucigalpa the Honduras/Nicaragua border hove into sight all to soon, after around 3 weeks in Honduras. Another border to cross, another country to plan. But just before that, Gid misunderstood what he was told about the nightly rate, and our last night in Honduras was rather a splendid indulgence, and a bit of a moto museum, too.

Browned Off? El Salvador

As we entered El Salvador, about the most crowded of the Central American states, and quite prosperous, we were immediately hit by the greater concentration of traffic.  Gone were the nippy little 150s, replaced by bumper to bumper SUVs.  Gone were the traditional Mayan costumes.  Gone were the streams of ladies carrying stacked up wares on their heads.  This could have been any town in England. We’ve been on the road now 8 1/2 months, the last 4 in Central America. We noticed that we were getting a bit browned off with our tourism options too.  “Shall we go and see X?”   Well, maybe not; it’s going to be very similar to the last three Xs we’ve recently seen:

  • Historic, charming, cobbled, cities of the Spanish Empire – check.
  • Elegant or elaborated catholic church – check.
  • Colourful local market – check.
  • Mayan ruin – check and check again.
  • Pre-Columbian anthropological museum – check.
  • National museum of country since independence – even these are getting a bit samey.
  • Beach with warm blue sea – check, although it never truly palls.
  • Volcano hike – Clare sez never again!
  • Souvenir shops – Gid has seen enough and more.
  • Weaving School – Still some potential
  • Spanish School – Not yet ready for more, are we?

Which was one reason we sort of dipped out of El Salvador. Our fault, not its. We made the mistake of crossing into El Salvador without a plan, other than noting that the obvious way south was initially the much promoted “Ruta de Flores”.  We did follow said ruta, but without the intended excursions into charming side-towns it was a pretty unspecial kind of ruta.  Reasonably smooth, vaguely bendy, sort of nice countryside, though not many flores to be seen. 

And briefly – after it, i.e. at lunchtime, we decided to bomb across this small country to the southeast, and try for a birdwatching boat tour near Jiquilisco in El Salvador’s largest estuary, an Unesco Biosphere reserve.  The boats went, apparently, from Puerto de Triunfo.  Google showed one hotel, which usually means there’s three or more local joints that would give us a convenience walking distance to the ferry. We ignored Lonely Planet’s 2018 advice to skip the town.

When we arrived in the afternoon, the dockside had proved hard to negotiate on the bikes.  The queue of traffic behind us was impatient as were the traffic controllers.  They only wanted to grab the parking fee, but we didn’t want to park. We were looking for an hotel and no-one had time to listen to us.   There was a cacophony of people wanting something, be it official or commercial but mainly – get out of the way!  Both Google and LP were right, there was only one hotel.  We eventually we found it in the gathering darkness tucked behind a bingo hall. It was physically good enough.  The owner seemed fine until we said one night, maybe two – her face fell.  The following morning she rather gruffly announced that we had to be out by 8am or pay a day fee, lousing up our plan of researching the boat trip early by foot and possibly staying another night.

We groused, cleared out quickly, and made a new plan certain now that we would also advise people to miss this place.  Back to the west! That sounds crazy, but we had always planned to enter and exit El Salvador in the west.  With a direct route from Guatemala into El Salvador there was little choice and Copan, possibly the best ruin site in Central America, in western Honduras wasn’t to be missed, requiring a return to the west (few travellers would voluntarily go through the border paperwork again to save a few miles). We’d visit El Salvador’s seaside instead.

Fortunately, both LP and our hostel host in Antigua had agreed that El Tunco was a nice beach village, with a strong surfing flavour.  So we set a GPS pin for there and off we went. An easy ride on a good road, until they decided to dig it all up in La Libertad. That was a very sweaty last 20 miles. But reaching El Tunco, in need of a bed, we lucked right out. Pulling over when we saw three different hotel signs on one bend, Gid disappeared on foot. Two were pricey, shiny concrete boxes for prosperous tourists. Number three was great, locally owned, been there years, day access for locals and kids, big pool, basic restaurant, chickens, dogs, cats and children running loose. A palm shaded aircon room less than half the price of the previous two.

The beach only metres away was great – firm sand, nice little warm waves, free loan of bodyboard.  Local fishing boats launched off the beach in the late afternoon returning in time for breakfast.  The night’s catch was loaded onto trucks in cool boxes.  Our hotel was the first stop.  A carefully selected basket full of fish hanging under the scales couldn’t have been fresher.

And did we say it was a beautiful beach?

I managed a 5K run by doing five laps of the beach, then succumbed to a cold – in this heat!   Thereafter a daily stroll into the surf-dude nearby village for basic groceries was all I could manage. We stopped four nights. One evening was enlivened by a helicopter and lots of soldiers, as El President used a spare field next to our hotel for a visit to – something or someone. El Salvador was redeemed.

But we still legged it to the Honduras border, even though these borders are always horribly tedious, completing the paperwork for the bikes. Hmmm – we could have gone straight from Guatemala to Honduras, saving one border – but El Tunco was nice, even with a cold. We barely scratched the surface of El Salvador’s beauty and interest.

So, what are we left to do in Central America, the countries of Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama? We have to recapture our mojo. Maybe some more nature hikes, because we really are in the jungle a lot of the time.  We’ve not been very successful at beastie spotting so far but what are we scared of?

  • Bandits?
  • Armed guards?
  • Getting lost?
  • Volcanos – definitely.
  • Jaguars – grrrr – be serious!

The Tourist Trail – Guatemala

Clare: The first tourist spot heading into Guatemala from Belize is the Mayan site of Tikal.  We were both feeling rather pyramid puffed and ruins’ed out but it had to be done.  Tikal itself has just a few expensive holiday apartments, way above our budget, so we cruised up and down for accommodation in the nearest village of El Remate. Bingo!  A nice little local non-internet hotel. Even a swimming pool it boasted.  Pool there was but rather small and murky so neither of us jumped in.  As accommodation goes it was fine by our modest standards, friendly staff, bikes parked right by our window, and the gate closed overnight, a roof terrace for a bit of gym. It was new year’s eve, and a fair was in town – Gid took a few sunset pictures, but we both conked out before midnight.

Being on the bus route to Tikal was what really mattered and we duly caught a collectivo the following morning. The driver and conductor were flexible.   The sign in the windscreen suggested this route normally finished in a hamlet some way short of Tikal but us and another “wealthy” tourists were too much of a temptation and they diverted for Q50 (£5) each, which initially struck us as extortionate. We weren’t sure if they would take us the whole way to the ruins or just to the ticket office on its outer perimeter.  We hoped for the former, but it didn’t matter. ‘It’s only one kilometre down the road to the actual ruins,’ Gid said. The crew started to earn their Q50s as they sorted out our tickets in the queue of “tour” tourists.  Thankfully they did deliver us to the ruins as 5 kilometres after the tickets, we still hadn’t reached the site!

Tikal was unique.  The extensive site was spread out amongst the jungle with small tracks joining the buildings (there are still hundreds that haven’t been excavated).  We choose from the map which we wanted to visit leaving the central plaza until last.  The outer edifices were fairly quiet with a feel of having been recently discovered and left in a more rural state which added to the attraction.  Plus, we could clamber all over them.  A few which were more delicate – or dangerously steep – had steps up the side with a ledge leading back onto the pyramid near the top which seemed a good compromise. From the top, we had a view over the jungle treetops, with the odd pyramid protruding.

The stepped pyramids are so called because they’re built as layers of successively smaller squares, often with tapering sides. We’ve all seen the great flights of stairs up the front. Except… those stairs are very awkwardly tall and narrow, hard to get up, and ruinous to fall down. It’s all the more curious as the modern Maya, and presumably their ancestors, definitely tend to be short-legged folk, even allowing for them being shortish as well. It would be wonderful to understand why the ancient Maya built them just so.

The central plaza was awesome.  It had a large pyramid at each end and a maze of buildings/dwellings on each side.  The plaza itself had a line of standing stones to one side from which one could readily envisage edged the market place.  We clambered all over, taking time out to observe the howler monkeys in the trees overhead and a coatimundi that was snuffling around looking for scraps amongst the ‘Don’t feed the wildlife’ signs.

The island of Flores was next on the tourist trail but didn’t appeal to us.  It seemed to be an overcrowded little island joined to the mainland by a causeway.

Gid: Clare didn’t even go to see it, but stayed in bed nursing a cold. I ran around the periphery, once – it was a bit like a miniature St Malo made of coloured cottages, sans croissants. The main drag, on the mainland, was much more interesting – full of motorcycle shops & workshops and hardware shops. My souvenirs from Flores included a SIM card and a useful selection of washers.  As in El Remate, a “local” hotel found by cruising around was comfy and a lot cheaper and less touristy than the online offers.

Semuc Champrey was another of the Lonely Planets recommendations and one we plotted into our itinerary.  That failed due to us grossly underestimating the time it took us to travel on the northern Guatemalan roads.  We finally gave up on swimming in the picturesque limestone pools when we were still 50km away riding in rain with soon to be fading late afternoon light.  Enroute our tarmacked surface finished abruptly.  Faced with a steep stony but wide track sweeping sharply up a hillside round a corner to err, where?  That was the problem.  What was round the corner?  How far did this gravel with fist /palm/head sized rocks continue for?  Ominously, there wasn’t any traffic whatsoever on this stretch whereas we had been accompanied through all the small villages along the way.  With a blackening sky overhead we turned back scurrying downhill (video here) into the first hotel we found and just about got inside before the heavens opened.  Anyway, it wasn’t going to be much fun in tomorrow’s drizzle scrambling around the rock pools in our swimmers.  As it happened it was a stroke of luck, as it really did take us three, not two, days to Quetzaltenango (Xela), and we had not only accommodation booked, but Spanish lessons too!

While idling in Flores (Clare had a grotty cold), we’d realised that we’d dropped into a rather tiring pattern of riding for a day or three, arriving at some tourist site and “doing” it, then moving on.  Although it broke up the riding, it was pretty remorseless. Whereas when we cycled 2016-2018, we’d ride for several days, with odd rest days, then stop for a few days in an interesting place. That gave a time for a real break. When cycling, the physical break was more appreciated, as churning out the miles, if not too gruelling, is mentally relaxing, but the legs, shoulders, bum suffer.  Whereas on the motos, usually the riding isn’t physically demanding (no iron-butt rides for us), but the constant enhanced alertness is very taxing.  We decided to change.  Lonely Planet suggested Xela was a great place to sign up for Spanish lessons with an immersive homestay.  At the last minute, over the weekend, we booked with El Quetzal Escuela de Español!

Arriving in Xela mid afternoon, we found our way to El Quetzal.  Proprietor Glenda and husband, Daniel, bade us welcome, refined the week’s plan, and posted us to our homestay for the week, where Fabiola and Jenny made us very welcome.

The arrangement was, we had a week of one-to-one Spanish lessons from 2pm to 6pm, and four mornings of outings in Spanish. Spanish was the language with Jenny and Fabiola (actually Jenny’s English was pretty good, but she was very tolerant of our garbled espanol).  Claudia was assigned to wear out Clare, and Fernando was to exhaust me. So much for our mental rest!

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  • Pollo Guisado

Another attraction of Xela was the presence of schools of traditional backstrap weaving.  A taster session as a part of our language course was all it took – Clare was going back for more.  Another week in Xela.  I continued with 4 hour Spanish lessons, Clare cut down to two, and spent long mornings and late afternoons in the weaving school.  By the time we left Xela, we were loaded down with:

  • Two tablemats from the taster session (one each).
  • One table runner
  • Scarf #1
  • Scarf #2 on its portable loom of sticks and string.

One thing that has been remarkable in Guatemala is the amount of traditional fabric actually worn by the ladies. According to Clare’s spanish teacher Claudia, it’s not cheap, and it’s blooming heavy – multiple layers of heavily woven cotton. But a large proportion of ladies – rural and urban – especially those maybe 35-plus – wear the skirts and blouses every day. It was very notable that as soon as we crossed into El Salvador, this traditional dress vanished.

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When we planned this trip, the Americas were easy to visit in terms of paperwork, but since August 2024, UK citizens need a visa to enter Honduras (in retaliation for our government doing the same to them), and the visa application needs a home country criminal record check.  As we hadn’t planned for this, we put hurried arrangements in place paying HMG extra for a fast track, and Gid’s sister, Jo, kindly got it couriered (thanks!) and El Quetzal was a perfect postal destination.  As we finished our second week of school, the certificates set off via DHL.

The wait for the courier opened up the perfect time slot to visit Lago de Atitlan.  It was maybe half day’s ride away, so an visit.  As we approached the famous lake, we stopped at a mirador (viewing spot) near the top of the mountains surrounding the lake.  I had looked at the map and knew there were habitations around the lake but was expecting a few villages dotted around the shores.  I was horrified. It was so built up!  Creeping down the endless tight hairpin bends kept us very focused on the road. Emerging into the cobbled streets of the town there were the familiar highly coloured murals adorning many of the walls juxtaposed with wrecks and rubbish abandoned along the way.  Town dogs mixing it with traffic, tuktuks filling every possible gap while Mayan ladies wearing their tradition costumes, baskets on their heads, boldly striding down the streets set a more appealing scene. The roads, we learnt later, are one of the three prime uses for the volcanic rubble which accounts for the random cobbles. 

13 metres – and she did it again!

We trundled along San Pedro main street eyeballing possible hotels – could that alley allow us to ride our bikes right into the hotel?  I scouted on foot. Sure!  Park amongst our family bikes the friendly owner, well, gestured mostly, to be honest!  The hotel had the requested lake view if you poked your head out of the door but even better was our easy access to the water across the road.  Atitlan is a swimming lake we’d been told.  It didn’t take us long to head off down the opposite passageway to assess it.  Sharing the path with a deep ‘road water’ run off channel was the first dodgy point but on reaching the lake the piles of rubbish, and locals washing themselves, their laundry and crockery was enough to quell our desire for a dip.  A couple of days later however when visiting San Marcos, a small hippy hamlet on the opposite shore, famed for its jumping platform, it had to be done. That activity also showed us where all the young male tourists were, to complement the young women prowling the tourist stalls and cafes. We were definitely the oldest jumpers while we were there!

Antigua is a must see in anyone’s book.  A UNESCO listed ancient capital city overlooked by menacing volcanoes has numerous ruins following a series of eruptions & earthquakes over the centuries.  In 1773, then the capital of Spanish Central America, it was shaken to the ground and the capital was moved, taking the name Cuidad de Guatemala with it, and bequeathing the name Antiqua Guatemala to the ex-capital. Antigua has numerous respectfully painted one storey buildings lining broad cobbled lanes.  As a UNESCO city there are very strict rules as to what is acceptable and no advertising slogans disfigure the walls.  One has to pass a building and peer in to see what is sold.  Open spaces were crowded with street sellers, musical performances and a few omnipresent beggars but pavements themselves were oddly devoid of café furniture and sellers.  A procession in connection with the build up to Holy Week took place at the old cathedral.  These processions gain in momentum up to Easter Week when the streets of Antiqua are blocked.  During the Easter festival the streets, which criss-cross the city, will be lined with flowers and relics from the biblical scenes.

Oddly enough, Antigua has weaving schools, too.  It also has jade shops. Clare had been looking forwards to these, and dived in with enthusiasm. Most of the worlds quality jadeite jade comes from the Sierra de las Minas, a few hundred km north, and much finds its way through Antigua to be made into jewellery.  But although the city’s  buildings were attractive, whether in use or elegant preserved ruins, the place was such a totally tourist town – 20 person long pavement tours and hardly being able to put a foot down without negotiating another tourist – that we both got a bit fed up with it after a day or two. Rather pricey, too.

We travelled on to Guatemala city aiming for the the Honduran Consulate to get our visas.  Cuidad de Guatemala isn’t much of a draw for tourists, although it does have the modest national museums, and a fine central plaza. It’s the only place in Guatemala with a Royal Enfield dealer (there’s none in Belize or El Salvador), and one of the few with outdoor gear shops.  As in Cuidad de Mexico, we chose an apartment rather than an hotel or hostel.  Again, it was newer and smarter than anywhere we have lived in at home. Unlike Mexico, this time the district was rapidly gentrifying, new towers springing up in every block.  But we could still get a cheap lunch from a street vendor, if we avoided going into the posh malls hungry.  I, at least, quite enjoy the buzz of a city, if only for a while. A big draw was that the deal included the gym on the top floor. We could try and get fit for our return to Antigua and the…

Volcan Acatenango Hike:

Gid has had ‘climb a mountain’ on his bucket list since Alaska.  I was not so motivated.  I’d managed to avoid a couple of possible climbs riding down through the Rockies and wasn’t keen to change my resolve but Acatenango had added attractions.  It came with a base camp sleep-over near the top, a view of an erupting ‘sister’ volcano, Volcan de Fuego, from our campsite and a follow up extra hours hike to the top for the sunrise views the following morning.  Whilst it did look enticing we had hiked up the Volcan San Pedro to admire the views of Lago Atitlan two weeks before to a height of 3000m and I had struggled badly.  Scary after a lifetime of breezing up things like that.  Was I just unfit?  Nine months of very little exercise sitting on a motorbike has to take it’s toll. (Gid has taken every opportunity to jump up and down, workout on the yoga mat and go for sporadic runs). Or was it the remnants of my cold and chest infection?   Either way I was nervous of committing to a 4 hour plus hike, sold as ‘hard’, up a mountain to near 4000m.  Gid was generally unaffected by our Atitlan hike but had foolishly not manicured his feet.  The descent wrecked his big toes’ nails as his feet pressed against the front of his boots.  The toe nails got infected, to the extent of seeing a doctor who prescribed intensive cleaning, antibiotics and no running for a week.

We enquired at an Acatenango hike tour operator before leaving Antigua and rather hesitantly booked up for two weeks ahead.  A bit of breathing space for both of us.  We could have a personal guide so could set our own pace, and private hut at the base camp so could have uninterrupted sleep and rest.  Gid is very sociable so would miss the cameradie but that was the deal if I was to do it.  That gave me two weeks to make some improvement on my health or fitness – laughable really.  A good start was our Guatemala City AirBnB in a sixteen floor apartment building so up and down the steps was the first stage, the treadmill in the gym was stage two together with actually using my skipping rope which had started to collect dust.  Out walking around Guatemala City for 3-4 hours each day must also have helped. Plus I bought some lightweight fabric boots – our Altberg dual purpose boots are comfy, grippy and robust, but very heavy for a long climb.  Altitude sickness pills completed the preparations.

The day arrived.  I had to keep my head focused, brain in gear – the next ten steps, the next ten minutes.  Keep my head down.  Don’t look up – I don’t want to see the bigger picture.  Slowly but surely.  We had regular stops and snacks but didn’t stop for long.  Just keep plugging away.  Our guide, Ezekiel, was fabulous.  He started by telling us how many minutes it was to the next seated rest area.  As we made progress he would tell us how much we had covered and how far to go keeping it all very positive.  A stroke of luck was that our tour operator was one of two that had its base further up the mountain side (it has a small camping area, and is accessible by motorcycle).  The others’ Ezekiel said were a further hour’s hike down the mountain side.  On the climb I chatted to a couple of men and a lady who were on their way down.  All three looked nearer our ages than the hordes of thirty somethings that seemed in abundance.  The guys said, ‘It’s just a long slog, take it steady and you’ll be fine.’  The lady was equally encouraging.  On we went.  It was pretty much a dusty footpath the whole way up with some fabulous views – very steep in places and rocky clambering once or twice but nothing remotely technical.  We made it in a respectable 4 1/2 hours, to ‘our’ comfy little shed with a fabulous view.

The following morning we made it up to the top.  Not quite in time for the sunrise but we still had plenty of low light views.  We had decided to have breakfast before leaving camp and taking all our kit so we could continue on our downward route from the top.  This would enable us to take a less populated route down, and see different views.  After a quick lesson in scree running down a mountainside we bounded down. The volcano’s outer layers are made of volcanic ash and ejected rocks, it’s very fertile for plant life, but also very uncompacted.  At times the trail was eroded 3m into the soft surface – the trailside clifflets showed all the layers of successive events. The technique changed to little tip-toe steps down the steep loose sandy gravel.  With only one slip between us both proved successful. There are some remarkably dramatic or epic youthful tourist (influencer?) descriptions of the hike online – it’s perhaps a lot harder wearing the wrong footwear whilst trying to Instagram at the same time. While we were both pretty knackered by the end, we weren’t as broken as after the easier San Pedro hike – the training, new boots, and toe care had paid off. In addition, Clare shrugged off a nasty attack of dodgy tummy that she had at the base camp.

Volcan de Fuego is famous for it’s very frequent low level eruptions – until 18th Jan 2025 – just three weeks before we arrived when it stopped.  It has a long history of violent eruptions which resulted, back in 1776, in the capital of Guatemala being moved.  Our masseur, a post walk treat/necessity, informed us that it hasn’t been so active over the last twenty years and now they are waiting to see if it’s building up for a big explosion or is actually dormant.

Luckily, girls in our neighbouring hut at the top of the mountain discovered that whilst we couldn’t see any glowing lava with the naked eye that night, cameras and phones could long-expose a red peak (they’re probably more sensitive to infrared than us).  During the afternoon we’d been watching steam trails wafting up so knew something was happening.  The night before, at 1:15am or so, a tremor had shaken our hotel bed in Antigua, a morning Google said it was 5.5 on the Richter scale.  Something was occurring.

Guatemala – what have we missed? Well, it has to be said that our relatively unadventurous riding style means we didn’t make great loopy diversions amongst Guatemala’s mountain roads and tracks. There’s a lot of fun riding here for those with better skills and bodies. We felt it was too physically risky for us, even when we contemplated hiring lighter bikes and a guide. Even so, of the 90 days we’re allowed in the “CA4”, Guatamala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua, we’ve spent over 40 days in Guatemala. Most of it stopped in cities.

Leaving Guatemala was a strange experience as we had been in cities and towns for weeks.  The road to the border was back to rural.  Vast expanses of wilderness, valleys and mountains but we were on a relatively busy road, and as is the norm in Central America there are very few places one can safely stop and take a few pics.

We try and take nice pictures, and occasionally succeed.  I, at least, was really impressed by the postcard images by local Marino Cattelan (https://www.instagram.com/cattelanmarino/?hl=en).  Lovely.  Perhaps our own standards have slipped, or maybe we haven’t the time (great images rarely just happen).

Belize

Belize, our route map shows, has been another case of zigging and zagging about. We didn’t need to come here at all, as it doesn’t span Central America’s skinny land mass. One can pass from Mexico directly into Guatemala. But it’s an interesting place, so of course, we were curious. We dropped in from Mexico, right at the top of the country.

It’s a small country, so it’s possible to go from North to South Belize in a (long) day.  We’d rushed past the fishing village just across the border on the east coast and before we knew it we were a third of the way down the country at the baboon sanctuary.  The baboons – actually yucatan black howler monkeys – were fabulous.  We were barely in the forest before we heard and saw them. Our guide was our first Garifuna encounter, all laid back and charm, in r e a l l y s l o w English, and creole with his mates. For indeed, Belize used to be British Honduras, and the official language is English.

From there we were at the north-west regional hub of San Ignacio – and the “ATM”. ATM is at the top on all of the must see lists.  It’s not the Automatic Teller Machine or Another Tourist Missing but the Actun Tunichil Muknal cave.  Having been there I can see why it’s number one.  It’s stunning!  Our tour guide was ex-military but once we’d got over the ‘I’m here to look after you.  If I give you an instruction please will you follow it’ – shouted to the petit oriental young lady at the front of our group.  On the first of our river crossings to get to the cave she had failed to release the safety rope and float away down the river to a different landing site when Patrick had shouted the command.  The water was chest high on us and had a fair flow so she was probably rather insecure with the idea of letting go of the safety line prematurely.  We soon learnt when Patrick shouted ‘jump’ we echoed ‘how high’.

After the initial blip Patrick proved to be a very nice guy.  He was very knowledgeable about the jungle happily answering some tricky questions from our young undergraduate enthusiast.  Equally, we were soon to find out, he was very knowledgeable about the cave itself.  We crossed the river three times to reach the cave where I have to say, I was pleased to be wearing a buoyancy aid.  I’d quickly given up any hope of keeping my t-shirt dry to try to keep warm.  Once in the cave, having scaled the rocks and dropped down into deep water, we started our one hour wade, swim, clamber; at times making a human chain to get round a deep corner or to cross a deep section as the water gushed past.   We stopped a number of times to admire and investigate the rock formations created over centuries of water cascading down with layer upon layer of calcium carbonate leaving its track.  We finally reached the main attraction.  10 feet above our heads was the start of the massive cavern that had been used as a sacrificial site up until about 900AD.  We clambered up a very convenient rock with a supporting rope attached to it.  At this point we had to take off our shoes to try to minimise the damage made by aggressive footwear. 

We were in the ‘living’ museum.  This was not some mock up but the real thing.  Every thing we saw was as it had been used / left by the Mayans, the Belizeans having made a conscious decision not to excavate it.  Many areas were calcified showing that the water had coursed through this way leaving calcium deposits in its wake. In the 900 and more years since the Mayans were in here, some deposits had built up to a few inches thick, blurring and obscuring the thousands of broken sacrificial pots. The thickness of the deposits helps with dating the offerings, which generally, went deeper and deeper into the cave as time went on.  In a sub equatorial rain forest with 82 inches of rainfall a year there is never any shortage of rain water.  Well, except in about 900AD – climate change and drought are the leading theory for the demise of the southern Maya cities.

Seven skeletons were present, deep in the cave system. Some of the remains were in a heap where it is supposed that they had been washed down in the flow of water before being glued in place by calcification.  Each had been sacrificed.  Archaeologists tell us that towards the end of the greater Mayan society the rain fall was less reliable and there was a change in the sacrificial offerings, brought on, perhaps, by desperation.  Initially the skeletons were of older people but what is believed to be the last two are young males. This greater sacrifice was of young males was thought to be in an effort to please their gods who would they hoped provide more rain.  One boy, believed to be twelve is considered to have been bound up and left to die whilst not far away was the skeleton of a seventeen year old boy although he was laid out flat.

Unfortunately for us, cameras, phones and other lumps are forbidden following an accident where a camera was dropped on the 12 year old’s skeleton’s skull.  It now has a letterbox shape hole in it where the camera landed. Therefore we took no photos, except of Patrick selling Clare his patented old tyre sandals.

A brief diversion from the same base of San Ignacio, was the local Green Iguana Sanctuary. These have some endangerment so they’re captive bred there, then released. The Black Iguana, in contrast, is very common, and we saw them all over the place: The two on the log, actually in Belize Zoo, are sneaky visitors, not captives.

The Belizian roads are in a better condition than the Mexican roads.  Their speed bumps are better labelled and they seem to have three sorts.  One sort – a set of three narrow rumble strips you barely have to slow for and another a well marked smooth mound, then there’s single or double rows of metal domes that usually make the bike wriggle alarmingly.  They do have some potholes but nothing like the near total disintegration of the road that we frequently experienced in Mexico.  There are probably less roads as well as the population of Belize is quite small so perhaps less traffic.  Decent main roads and short distances made Belize pretty uneventful on the motorcycling front. Off the main routes it’s back to dirt roads but because of the recent flood in Mexico and the current heavy rainfall we’ve stayed off those.  The combination of rain and soft sandy mud, or slimy mud will make them pretty dodgy places to be on two wheels.

We’re back to the Caribbean coast for Christmas. We broke the journey to the beaches at Maya Centre where we took one guided night stroll and another guided day stroll in the Cockscomb jungle – nope, no jaguars. One frog, one turtle and two catfish is hardly an exciting haul but the red brocket deer in daylight was a pleasant surprise. Belize has made a point of having a lot of nature reserves, although they do mostly seem to be on land unsuitable for agribusiness type farming. But – revelation – here’s a chocolate making tour. Guess who dived straight in? We’re taken off to Narciso’s chocolate farm, where we learn about the fruit, and the beans, and the 6 day fermentation and 7 day drying. Then to the factory where they’ve been roasted. Robert directed the procedure: taste “nibs”, grind them, mix in the cane sugar (grows everywhere in Belize), and extra cocoa butter. Scraped into the mould, place in fridge for 5 mins. Eat. Very yummy! The chocolate drinks here are something else, too.

Beach village Hopkins, recommended by a number of people, is a vibrant colourful small town full of very friendly Caribbeans and wooden shacks.  People were happy to stop and chat, many with a cause or two that we should contribute towards.  One chap offering us magic mushrooms and a number of cannabis bars along the street might explain the very relaxed vibe to the place. Hopkins is presumably run by the ladies as the chaps all seem to be relaxing around their omnipresent beer bottles. 30 miles south on the coast is Placencia.  Wow is it different!  The road in is lined with concrete barricaded mansions interleaved with “plots” – prominent Private Keep Out warnings with For Sale banners and ‘gated’ developments available.  It’s a bit of paranoid “me-me-me” Florida dropped into the “hey man” Caribbean coast.  At the end of the peninsula is the main village of Placencia.  The village itself is back to colourful Caribbean settings but millionaire’s row has left its mark, it feels a bit phoney and fleecing compared to Hopkins, albeit in much better repair.  Our main beggar in Placencia wanted money for an eye operation, whereas his colleague in Hopkins claimed to be a shaman…

Belize is about the size of Wales, but only ~400,000 citizens inhabit it. Having been part, not of the Spanish Empire, but the British (a legitimisation of piracy and unrestrained logging), it speaks English, has yards, and miles. Interestingly, the Belizeans couldn’t say if the petrol was sold in US gallons, or Imperial, although Gregorio from Maya Centre reckoned the measures were short!  I went into a hardware/motor parts store to buy an M8 bolt for my pannier rack, but almost everything was in inches (I know not if Imperial or American SAE): Bizarre, indeed as they do have quite a few pre-90s American pickups and lorries which will be SAE, but 90% of their vehicles will be metric. They have Charles III as monarch, which led to some very odd conversations, so I’m not sure what they’re told about his role. Elizabeth II, pictured at around 1965 I think, still graces the banknotes and still seemed close to their hearts. And Philip, we were proudly told, visited them in 1985 and planted that tree.

The country is an ethnic melting pot. Whereas Mexico seemed mostly like a creamy soup of well, Mexicans, Belize is sort of ethnically lumpy stew, different peoples in different places or roles. Is this a result of Mexico being freed of external rule in 1821, but Belize’s being in the British Empire well into my lifetime? It seems the Mayans dominate the southern countryside, putting them in charge of the jungle and the important chocolate supply. The (germanic, white) Menonites often stay quietly on their large farms, and do most of the food and deforestation. The garifuna dominate the coast, catching fish, tourists, and the odd beer or splif. The numerous north American expats like secure gates, big houses, “private” signs, and, naturally, F150 pickups; they run a lot of the tourism businesses, stating their prices in US dollars, not always clearly so, and much the same prices as US prices too (perhaps to pay for their USA medical insurance?). Whereas greengrocers and restaurants are often Spanish, every large village has are two or three medium-sized supermarkets, selling the same broad selection of goods, and always, it seems, run by merchants of Cantonese descent. I’ve probably missed someone out – Wikipedia has more detail and yet more. They all seem to get along just fine. Belize is officially English speaking, but as a tourist, it would be helpful to know the Spanish, Creole and Cantonese for “shall I charge the tourist double?”, although the north Americans charge most of all, and then you realise it’s in US not Belizean dollars, a fixed 1:2 rate doubling it again.

Southern seaside village Placencia was our Christmas break choice.  Snorkelling was on the plan but we didn’t know much more about it.  We planned a four night stop in the backpackers hostel, hoping it would be a lively community over the Christmas break.  When we arrived it was only us; a few more travellers did turn up, but it stayed pretty quiet.  Mark and Sheila, the owners, were very helpful and pleasant but we couldn’t help notice the For Sale sign as we came in.  The nearly new hostel is three miles out of town so we’re wondering if it’s too far out for backpackers who frequently occupy hostels but have no transport (although the hostel has bikes and the buses are cheap).  The village itself seemed to have plenty of tourists on Christmas breaks. The dive centre had space tomorrow, 24th Dec., but that’s it until 2nd Jan.  We booked up for tomorrow.

Kitted out we set off and were told it would take an hour to reach the coral destination.  The sea was flat so we zoomed along with little discomfort.  Our snorkel guide explained the ropes.  We were going to circumnavigate the little island.  He would narrate and had a pointy stick to draw our attention to certain features.  Once in the water I was off keen to make the most of our forty minutes.  The kit worked well and I could dive down to take photos although a lot of the corral was barely three feet beneath us.  On a couple of occasions I got left behind and was redirected back to my group.  It was fabulous.  The seaweeds were moving with the flow.  Fish darted to and fro or just nonchalantly drifted past. The coral and fish were colourful and gorgeous.

Once lunched on the island we were off to the second site.  Here we were told we would see turtles, nurse sharks and sting rays.  Yep, they were right.  It was stunning.  Barely in the water I watched a white spotted eagle ray swim past.  It seemed huge!  The graceful flapping of its ‘wings’ seemed poetic.  So slow was the motion as the ray glided along.  Mindful of its tail that must have been at least six feet long I didn’t get too close.   Minutes later I’d seen a few other smaller rays but was anxious that turtles and nurse sharks were also on the list.  I heard an ‘over there’ call directing me past one of the other boats.  As I approached it the sea bed was disturbed.  Cursing inept snorkellers who must be putting their fins down I circled round the outside of the sand storm.  Wrong!  It was nothing to do with snorkellers.  I watched a nurse shark wiggle down on the ocean floor and with a thrust spurt up leaving a sand cloud behind it.  It was in this area that I also found the turtle with cleaner fish nibbling under its tummy.  Wow, how beautiful!

Nurse Shark

To cap it all on our way back we happened upon – or our captain found – a school of dolphins.  Eight fins were visible at one point. Some came very near to our boat swimming alongside occasionally jumping. One even did a completely airborne breach.

Christmas day away is weird when you are used to spending it with family.  What were we going to do?  Family phone calls made we were at a loose end.  Supper would be late so we could use the day light but we still didn’t have a plan.  There was another village, Sein Bight, to the north, much closer than Placencia, but devoid of tourism. We wandered off to it having been warned that a number of places would be shut.  Having topped up our supplies in the only open supermarket we reached the other end of town before cutting through to the beach for the walk home.  In this local’s village it’s no problem reaching the beach but back nearer to our accommodation it was ‘Private’ access again.  We weren’t sure where we would cut back to the road.  We stopped at a bar on the beach.  A rickety Caribbean owned place to sup and admire the palm tree framed view of the sea.  The owner chatted to us asking if we were going to come back later in the afternoon to see the Christmas Day tradition.  He told us people dress up and go around the houses.  We’d be able to take photos, video, whatever. We ambled back along the beach, and cut back to the road through a smart resort, wondering if we only got away with that because we’re white like most of the guests and none of the staff.

At two o’clock it was pissing down.  Three o’clock it had cleared up. Off we went back to the beach shack to find out more.  We found the procession.  It was awesome.  Drummers thumped out a rhythm while youngsters performed a traditional dance, shells on their knees to add to the beat.  Wanaragua (mask) is a dance performed in pink mesh masks and white shirts creating a satirical representation of the white slave masters.  The dance is a part of the South Belize heritage which is passed down the generations and we were lucky enough to experience this tradition.

We’d come into Belize a bit haphazardly, and now decided to retrace our steps northwards, to the second city of Orange Walk, to see the Mayan ruins at Lamanai. We wimped out of the 30km wet dirt road access, and took the tourist launch which meant we had, unusually, a tourist guide, Amit, with his no 1 badge. He was genuinely informative, more so than what we usually gleaned from signage. Old friends might be intrigued to know that Holpitan, the name of the people who built Lamanai, means canoe people, but they were called Yucatec by the Spanish.

Our brief interlude of English over, we next head to Guatemala, and it’s Spanish* all the way to Ushaia…

*Ok, Brazil is Portuguese, if we divert west.

Meandering through Mexico

Mexico had such impressive pre-hispanic ruins that we gave them their own post. So what else did we do in Mexico? We certainly zigged and zagged. North and east of Mexico City to start with, then south to the Pacific coast, then north east again to Yucatan. Cheap, basic hotels are readily found in most small towns, but we generally pre-booked to stop in tourist hotspots.

After Mexico City and Teotihuacan, we travelled a short day’s ride to Real de Monte the Mexican home of Cornish Pasties and a British style graveyard dating back to the 1880s.   Cornish miners were encouraged to travel the world to find work back in 1880s when Cornwall’s mining industry was collapsing.   One intrepid group had arrived in Real de Monte.  Families had packed up shipping everything from personal possessions to heavy mining equipment, and not forgetting the recipe for their prized pasties, to their new homes.  The streets were littered with signs for Traditional Pasties, and we’d arrived amidst some kind of fiesta.  It had to be done.  We tried a few.  My first mouthful almost reduced me to tears as the chilli, not a modest amount, scorched my mouth.  I courageously swallowed it washed down with copious amounts of cold drink.  Now my whole throat was on fire.   ‘No chilli / Sin picante!’ became a new phrase in my Spanish vocabulary.  Our Cornish friend, Tony, complained that they weren’t properly crimped.  Neither were they limited to swede, tatties and mince.  An interesting take was the rice pudding version. We tried a few others over the next few days.

Arriving in the town had been an interesting experience.  Once off the main intertown route the streets were pretty much all cobbled.  Garmin was navigating us to hotel accommodation which Gid often sorts out on-line, but had not this time.  We would stop, he’d speak to the receptionist and a decision was made – yes or no.  On this occasion, complicated by it being a bank holiday weekend, the first nice looking accommodation was deemed too expensive.  We tried a couple of others which were full and ended up heading off out of the city centre. It was, naturally, rather warm, and compounded by the steep 45 degree cobbled lanes – a number of them being blocked by bollards necessitating a u-turn, or festivities linked to the bank holiday, I was getting rather fraught.  Across the valley we’d seen an orange hotel halfway up the hill and headed for that.

Not so simple.  The sinuous narrow roads were blocked by delivery trucks, the street names weren’t visible and who knows whether this road would actually go somewhere.  The sat nav didn’t distinguish between the tiny streets and twittens with staircases.  We ended up going far too high up the hill and clearly needed to head back down to find the orange hotel.  Gid was leading.  The road got quite narrow heading steeply downwards.  I refused to go.  Very quickly Gid realised it wasn’t such a great idea (steps, bollard) and was trying to u-turn.  Nope that wasn’t going to work either.  He accelerated at the grassy bank thinking that he might progress a little bit up it and then be able to roll back.  Wrong!  The front wheel went down not up, now he was stuck in the hole.  I had to get off and help but was on quite a slope myself.  I managed to turn my bike around by going into an entrance to my side.  “Reception”, it said on the side of a rather grand looking building.  Staff rushed out.  They were keen to check my non-existent booking. I needed to help Gid.  ‘Esposo stuck’, I repeatedly said pointing over my shoulder in a down the lane direction.  Communication established two guys rushed off to pull Gid backwards.  Minutes later he arrived by my side.  After thanking the staff he asked me if we were going to continue looking for cheap accommodation.  He must have seen the glare on my face as he conceded we were staying here, in possibly the most expensive boutique hotel in town. While there, Clare found that nearby was a rather exciting via ferrata course. She did (Clue: Photos not taken by Gid!).

Another box to tick was ‘the best roads in Mexico’.  The Mex-175 was regularly near the top of the lists especially the section from Oaxaca down to the coast.  Gid wasn’t that fussed about going to the coast but I was keen to ride one of Mexico’s top roads.  Alex, in Mexico City, had told us it was through jungle which added to the intrigue.  The road itself was a delightful mountain road, full of twisties some of them very tight.  A little unsettling was the contrast between the bright sunlight which was at times dazzling and being plunged into darkness as we cornered round the base of another ravine especially as the road surfaces are very unpredictable with ruts & ridges, gravel & gullies, pot holes and generally broken surfaces in the mix.  Not to mention topes (speed bumps), which vary considerably from signed, smooth sloped, rising mounds to severe unmarked, abrupt, high lumps.

Later we were on the Mex-190 which I think I preferred.  The road surface was generally a lot better and the bends were more sweeping meaning we could maintain a higher speed throughout the twisties.  The, at times, frequent cow on a yellow warning sign had vanished with a slinky big cat replacing it.  Later came an explanation – you might see one of Central America’s last remaining big cats but it is illegal to purchase a jaguar the signage declared.  Sadly we didn’t see one.

Pot holes which locals sometimes very kindly fill with anything from leaves and sticks and more usefully small rocks are everywhere. Cones are not unknown in Mexico, but absent officialdom, locals put rocks out, sometimes even painting them, usefully marking subsidence at the edge of the road.  The lack of any such notification on a section of subsidence caused Gid a flutter or two when he nearly took the nearside round one “pothole” only to discover that the road was completely missing.  The road had subsided down a small cliff.  We’d just passed subsidence on the opposite side of the road with an approaching car not far from it.  The height difference was about a foot which would have hit the undercarriage of most cars angled between the two.   I wondered how the approaching car was going to handle it and had luckily taken the higher section when we hit the same problem going round a mountain bend. In quite a few places, the villagers seem to dirt-fill potholes in the village, then stand in the middle waving a hat for change. This also happens by a tope, or, they put cones out to bring the traffic to a near halt. Unfortunately, a motorcycle doesn’t have a change pocket (HD or BMW might, electric of course), so we don’t contribute. Similarly we leave unremunerated the occasional jugglers, snack sellers and screen wash merchants at traffic lights.

It can be tricky to get the correct balance between making progress and going slowly enough to avoid all the pot holes, especially when dappled shade makes the surface hard to see.  It’s far better to be some way behind the vehicle in front especially through towns but not always possible because, inevitably, as a gap appears someone will overtake and fill it.  Among days of biking we’re going to get it wrong somewhere.  On one such occasion Gid hit a large hole at speed, the front suspension and tyre both bottoming out.  He yelped!  The bike felt ok but he could see the fork legs vibrating from 50mph – the cruising speed for these roads & bikes.  At an approaching village we stopped for lunch and to asses the damage.  Yep, he’d flattened a section of his rim, with four loose spokes. The massive front tyre* looked unscathed, and the tube obviously hadn’t split. We decided we could limp on but Gid was obviously disappointed and concerned.  He explained that there was a problem with his bike to the waitress who cheerfully said the mecanico de motocicletas was across the road 10 metres down a dirt lane.

Moments later we were in his yard amongst an assortment of relics and a jumble of tools straining our Spanish to explain the problem.  “Si, ahora”. He could fix it, right now.  Verily he did.  Off came the wheel, then the tyre.  Out came the dead-blow hammer. Bing, bang, bong.  Fixed.  Well almost.  Gid tried to explain about the wheel balancing and the need to mark where the tyre was situated to be balanced on the rim. Such interference was politely resisted, but our man – Tito – was very careful to line up the bolts to show the order of reassembling.  That worked well until one of his offspring, keen to be a part of the intrepid fixing of the European’s bike picked up Gid’s disc that had been carefully placed on a seat, bolts all in place and put it upside down on the ground.  That part was reassembled but back to front.  To be fair, it was very much a family affair as one person held this or that while dad walloped it. 

This process got the rim all but circular.  Unfortunately Gid had hit close to the balance weights, which Tito couldn’t replace, so didn’t take off, so that bit wasn’t hit and was still a little flat.  Tito was sure that he could do a better job so into the workshop they went.  The wheel was placed on a big bearing press and a jack wedged in to try to press the last flattened part into shape.  The result was pretty good so the bike was reassembled.  Tito took a considerable time, with the traditional screwdriver fixed onto the forks as a guide, to tighten the spokes so that the wheel ran true.  And it did.  It must’ve taken 2 hours, albeit interrupted by other things.  We guess that straightening moto wheels must be pretty common on that road, and fortunately the Him’s are steel rims with spokes. The charge was very modest indeed, we tipped a bit, and later added him to Google maps and Open Street Map – his business was undetectable to the phone generation, which clearly included his daughter, who was inseparable from her device.

*Tyres: Dunlop Trailmax Mission, 21″. It has huge knobbles for highway and dirt, deep tread, and weighs about twice the stock tyre, or indeed most front tyres. We both commented on the bike’s loss of steering response when we put them on. But they’re versatile, tough (fingers crossed) and long-lasting.

At the coast we stopped at Zippolite, a wonderful Pacific beach resort.  It’s also Mexico’s only legal nudist beach, and a dangerous one.  No, no –  it’s because of the rip currents, it’s not a place for much swimming or beach toys. The beach boys, on the other hand, were out in force (did you see that!?).  We did a tiny swim – there sure were strong rips- but it was nearly sunset. Gid’s still wondering if he should have done his morning run along the beach starkers – but none of the other runners did.

Although Mexico has around twice the UK’s population, it is much bigger – each Mexican has, nominally, over 4 times as much space as a Brit. So there’s a lot of wild country and wildlife. From the Pacific we headed north to Frontera on the opposite, Caribbean Sea, coastline, and took a river trip into the Pantanos de Centia nature reserve.  Our hotelier had a mate, that old chestnut, who appeared very promptly at our hotel door, introduced himself as Negro Chon, and outlined the deal.  It sounded fine, just exactly what we were looking for and he could pick us up from the hotel.  All of this was agreed from our hotel room. 

At 9:30am promptly Chon was there.  And so was his car!    It hadn’t passed an MOT in the last 30 years.  No self respecting scrappy would touch it!  Gid, who’s normally quite particular about working seat belts, got in the front, relieved, I think, that the door did actually shut (allowing for a certain amount of visible daylight around the edges).  I climbed in the back.  The door almost shut.  Thankfully it wasn’t likely to rain.  I needn’t worry about seat belts – the  attachment point didn’t exist nor was the seat actually attached.  In fact the whole car, inside and out, was totally rusty, wrecked or ripped.  Off we went.  It did seem to work.   Around town Chon was perfectly cautious but once on his local road he changed up a gear.  Chicane Chon would have left any grand-prix driver in his wake the way he spun the wheel weaving left and right avoiding the pots holes, using the dust along the tree lined edge and back to the other side. The boat trip with his son-in-law was tame by comparison, but we did glimpse a croc – eeek! – and a multitude of diverse herons as well as other birds.

The next mission was another set of ruins, Calakmul, but this time in the jungle that covers the south eastern part of Mexico. The site is quite large, but isolated with a slow, narrow, jungle access road. Pootling along it, ocellated turkeys were little concerned about our bikes, and Gid glimpsed silhouettes streaking across the road, one probably a marmol or ocelot, and later we saw a grey fox. A day later, still based in the town of Xpujil, we visited some much smaller, quieter ruins. For 30 minutes we sat quietly on top of a small structure, at treetop height. To our right, a bat falcon polished off something more like a small chicken than a bat, and on a path ahead of us a grey fox lounged in the sun. Perfecto.

That evening we rode back down the road to the “bat volcano” and watched 3 million bats stream out of a cave at sunset.  The second largest bat cave in the world.  Talking to a Scottish couple at the event they exuded excitement about the cenotes they had been to.  It had become a theme in their holiday to explore as many as possible.  They were telling us the merits of this cenote over another.  We’d not even heard of these sinks holes / caves, many open to the public to swim in, which are abundant in this area of Mexico. Yucatan is dry on top, but made of limestone, it’s riddled with underground watercourses, many quite near the surface. Cenotes are formed when the roof collapses. Many are connected, and scuba diving them is popular.  Our new Scottish friends had said that they were often warmer than their hotel swimming pool.  Our posada (inn) in Xpujil barely had a shower.

But first, we had to return the maybe 40Km to Xpujil. In the dark. We knew there were a few big dangerous potholes on this stretch, but at least we had ample time and knew where to go. It was still terrifying at times. In daylight, we observed that Mexican vehicle lights are quite random – all sorts of flashing colours, indicators/hazards used according to all sorts of strange thought processes, none of them in the UK highway code, brake lights left broken.  At night – well, Mexicans driving at night either have very little or total trust to the gods, or fit huge LED lamps that only half of drivers dip. Even though traffic was light, it was scarey – statistics confirm that it’s a massacre. Our worst moment on this ride was when truck B decided to overtake truck A with us oncoming. The road there was actually quite wide enough to do this, but the b*st*rd didn’t dip his huge LED floods and didn’t indicate that it intended to pass (they never do).   We were completely blinded as it pulled out into our lane and couldn’t see the road 2 metres in front. It had taken us a while to realise what was going on, because most truck drivers did dip, and the relative positions weren’t clear in the dark. We pretty much came to a scrambly halt, unsure if in front of us was ditch, pothole, or road. It confirmed that riding at night in these parts was a very bad plan.

On a brighter note we spent much more time on larger single-carriageway roads, but the excursions were more interesting. Two of the pictures are points where we gave up and backtracked: One road shown clearly on the sat nav shrank and shrank until it completely ended in a logging camp. Another road was flooded out for maybe 50 metres.

A bit of research had us concerned at the cost of entry to some of the cenotes. Undeterred Gid came up with an area close by that had a few.  He picked one that we visited enroute the following morning. It was fabulous!  We’d become a bit wary as two of our selected underground attractions in the area had been closed since Covid.  One was a cave system with paintings the other was an underground water system.  Both shut.  The chosen cenote was open, cheap and not highly populated. We descended about 5m down a wooden stair, to water level.  There were two small diving groups who disappeared downwards to explore the cave system joining it to other cenotes in the area but the surface space was pretty much clear, except for their bubbles.  The natural lighting was beautiful clearly lighting the stalactites and different colours around the cave.  A guy who seemed experienced at the qualities of different cenotes told me that this one was one of the best because it had crystal clear water and you, together with the fish, could swim about in it.  He commented that some of them are rather pokey holes with murky water.  ‘The ones nearer ground level can be cold’, he added.

Looking at our Mexican travels on the map, there’s quite a zig-zag, but now we were getting to the end of the road Mexico. We decided to stop for a couple of days to catch up the blog and plan next steps. The east coast of the Yucatan peninsular is more beach resort than history, scenery and nature. We chose Tulum.  Tulum the town had every tourist facility at a US price, but we found somewhere cheapish.  After a stroll around Tulum’s small, but very scenic ruin, one of the few in Mexico to have been walled, we wondered down to the beach.  But the sun went on strike at the sight of Gid’s bethong’d behind.  Overnight it poured down with warm rain and into the next gloomy day which didn’t clear until the following afternoon making it perfect for updating the blog.

Wanting to finish this leg of our trip with something more Mexican we set off along the back roads and were rewarded with many rural villages.  We had hoped to stay in an isolated nature reserve at Noh-Bec where we might see the elusive jaguar but the rain thwarted us.

Not able to make it to Noh-Bec, Bacalar, a low budget traveller town on a big freshwater lagoon, became our final Mexican stop. The signage on the board walk notified everyone that swimming was fine but stay 3m away from crocodiles and not to feed them.  At the other end of the town the fort, Spanish built back in 1729 now a museum, was very informative.  It outlined the succession of invaders from the Spanish perspective.  In the mix was Sir Frances Drake.  Whilst the text acknowledged that Queen Elizabeth 1 had given him a knighthood, to the Spaniards he was no more than a bandit.

Let’s sign off the Mexico blog posts with a reminder of Mexico’s colours.

And so to Belize…

Mexico City

From La Paz, on the end of the Baja California peninsula, we were heading for Mexico City (CDMX), because Clare unfortunately had to return to the UK for a week, on family business. We’d normally avoid such a big city, but it offers direct flights to London, and a couple of young Aussies we’d met in California said it was great fun. ‘Not to be missed!’ So, there we go. The ride started with an overnight ferry from La Paz to Mazatlán on the mainland. It was ok, but “bring your own tiedown straps” was a PITA. However – Be Prepared – we now have them for our next ferry crossing.

We took a pretty direct route from the Mazatlán ferry dock towards CDMX. UK FCDO recommended against going into some areas on the way, because of the threat of violent crime, which in turn meant our travel insurance would probably be null-in-void, even if a problem wasn’t crime related. Thankfully the toll roads are considered safe. We took them. They did indeed feel safe but stunningly boring. They’re big modern roads. The traffic is light, largely trucks – time is money – but Mexican trucks are rarely fast. Our Himalayans gleefully overtook them. Moto tolls seem modest until at the end of the day we realised we’d spent twice as much on tolls as fuel (fuel being roughly £1/litre). Ouch! Once in a FCDO “safe” area we took the normal roads as Mexican towns and villages are often vibrant and lively but the famous topes (speed bumps) and potholes need constant attention.

We did it in four days: Day 1 ended in Tequila (yes, it is! No, we didn’t), the local hills blue with the agave farms. Day 2 ended in Morelia. Not internationally prominent, but a lovely old centre to this provincial capital, so we spent day 3 there too.

Finally, on day 4, getting into CDMX was tedious, especially as we forgot to allow the satnav to use motorways. We wound our way round back streets in a very tedious fashion. CDMX is one of the worlds big cities – over 9 million people in the city itself, 23 million in the conurbation. But we got to our very nice CDMX apartment around sunset.

Our rather smart (think yuppie) accommodation in a block with 24 hour concierge and gated car park was in a modest neighbourhood. Busy, often tatty or improvised little shops and street food, lined these streets together with moto wrecks. But it really buzzed, enterprise was everywhere, broom laden folks kept it clean, the streets throbbed with traders.

It was a short walk to the supermarket, motorcycle workshops, and other useful things. I even availed myself of the local scrap metal merchant to replace a missing pull-up bar in the apartment (supplied & cut to length for $1). A longer stroll would get us to the Royal Enfield dealer, in the lower floors of a smart retail development – they even had one of those destination cafes, although perhaps wisely, it was associated with Ducati and Piaggio, not RE (but Chai would be nice!)). Naturally the city centre tended towards the posher end of things, but most places didn’t feel exclusive.

The city quickly grew on us. As our walks grew in length we started using the very diverse public transport. CDMX must have some rough areas, and times, but everywhere we went was busy and felt safe. CDMX is also crawling with diverse police forces, and when I went into a big car/moto parts place to buy some lamps, I couldn’t help noticing the security guard toted a shotgun – it was nearly as long as she was tall. Establishments of any size have security, although usually not so heavily armed.

At the end of our street, a single railway line ran diagonally across the grid of streets. I only ever saw one train on these tracks – a big loco very slowly pushed a few big hopper waggons. On the front of the first waggon, three workers perched, whistling and hollering to anyone who might be in the way. They not only at the diagonal junctions, but also along the track, as the railway’s spare space to the sides had recently been made a “parque linea”, with a pavement one side, and a cycle track the other. I found it a great route to go for a morning run, flat, easy to follow and not too busy. Turn at the Soumaya art museum for 5Km run, or Temple Wok for 8km. It took some acclimatisation though: CDMX is at 2,200 metres. If I connect the diagnostics to the bike, air pressure is reported as 11psi (sea level is nominally 15psi, although the air filter reduces it to 14.5). So it felt like hard work. I didn’t much trouble the numerous outdoor gym installations. And the hopper waggons? They were heading for the giant Corona Cervecaria’s gates. Must be barley, or collecting the spent grain.

La Dia de los Muertos

Unusually for us, we actually planned for The Day of the Dead, and arrived in time to enjoy the festival, before Clare flew home. It’s a visual and aural spectacle, so we’ll leave it to the photos…

Parade

Parade.

In the City

Apart from ruins, the oldest buildings are imperial Spanish, together with later ones from different republics or briefly the Mexican empire. They’re generally pretty ornate, going on florid. Many now crumbling, many in use and often cherished, especially churches. Above them gleam typical late 20th/early 21st century skyscrapers of glass. Much as any big city nowadays, although CDMX has many more vacant lots or little used old shells than London.

CDMX is also full of motorcycles. Mostly quite small, locally manufactured, all that’s needed for urban use. But there were quite a few bigger imports too, which made it easy to find somewhere to get the messy parts of the bikes – 18,000 mile service now done.

The aussies were right – it’s a great city. And that’s with us oldies eschewing the bars and nightlife.

La Paz

The small city of La Paz sits near the south end of the Baja California peninsula. From there we would take the ferry to the mainland. La Paz faces into the Sea of Cortez, which divides Baja California from the mainland. The sea is warm, shallow and sheltered, attracting wildlife. It’s a beach hotspot.

We intended to spend a few days in La Paz but it was such a wonderful location it turned into a week.  I’d marked on the map that swimming with whale sharks was a possibility but knew little else – information online was confusing, so we’d check that out when we got there. 

Our Casa Buena accommodation was a real hit as it had a very comfortable room, a social area and a swimming pool that you could actually do lengths in.  15m wouldn’t qualify for a training pool but was wonderful to push off, stretch and not stub your fingers on the other end. And, apparently, Itchy Boots stayed here when she came through.

The town itself is a tourist resort which has managed to find the balance between tourist tack and a functional Mexican town.  The promenade provided access to the golden sandy beach although the advice was not to swim from the town’s waterfront.  There were plenty of cleaner beaches further along.

On our arrival in La Paz we pulled over at the posh marina (not inside, it wasn’t free!), and the gatehouse attendant dug out a jolly fellow called Oscar, who did boat trips, only to find out that the sharks are seasonal and won’t be in for another month but the boat trips to the island of Espiritu de Santa are still happening. ‘You’ll be able to swim with sea lions,’ he enthused.  Sea lions, they’ll do.  ‘Lunch on the beach and snorkelling over coral reefs during the afternoon.  Arriving back about 5,’ he continued.  Great!  But we couldn’t go for at least two days because the winds were too strong and the harbour was closed. 

The ferry from La Paz to Mazatlan goes three times a week and we had to be in Mexico City by 30th Oct. Putting our crossing back two days was still perfectly achievable. We instantly extended our stay visiting the museums and wandering around the town to fill the days.  The Baja California Sur Regional Museum was as to be expected – stairways to well organised rooms, displays annotated in Spanish, QR codes available for English translation.  The second museum was a real treat.  The Museo de la Ballena y Ciencias del Mar was a sandy grit base with three shacks housing exhibits with plenty more aquatic bone collections outside.  Pickled brains were a blast from the past and reminded me of my supper the night before which luckily Gid ate.  Hippopotamus and whales were on the same display and one of the earliest separations on the time line.  There were also a few electronic displays in Spanish but the cooling fans were the biggest attraction.

We started to understand where things were in town, and appreciate the steep price gradient as one got nearer to the Malecon (promenade). Speaking of which, Gid chose the statue of Jacques Cousteau as a running turn-around point, but couldn’t find him the first time and fell short. The run had to be completed by 8am, as by then it was getting much too hot. Locals knew that, the prom is pretty busy 7-8 but everyone soon vanishes, emerging again just before dark.

We arrived at the jetty at the appointed time ready for our boat trip.  The wind had died down but the sea was still producing some big swells.  We were one of two couples booked in for the ‘swim with sea lions’ boat trip, along with an extended family.

We set off full of expectation. It soon became evident that it was too rough for our crew.  As to be expected really, the swell was still up.  The two children were whimpering as the boat bounced along spray flying high.  Once we were heading away from the shelter of the land the chop became more intense.  Our plaining hull rose over one wave crashing onto the next covering us in spray. One wave came over the bow and ran a river down the footwell over our feet.  The children panicked. It might swamp the boat. The next wave we jumped had us all briefly zero-g above our seats. Gid and I would thrive on this excitement being seasoned sea-kayakers but the two children instantly burst into tears.  That was the end of that.  Sea lions were off!  The day turned into a snorkelling over coral in the sheltered bays exercise.  It was pleasant enough, and scratched our “beach itch”, but not what we had paid for. 

As we set off for home from our snorkelling pursuits Andrea, our guide, announced that we would visit the nearby lighthouse rock as it was reported that sea lions were there.  I assumed that they had had radio communication with the other tour boats in the area.  A smile was back on my face.. It wasn’t far to the rocks which we circled in the boat looking for sea lions.  Nothing!  Andrea asked who wanted to snorkel anyway.  Gid and I jumped at it but the rest were set for home.  We were quickly ready and in the water.  Circling the lighthouse rock the visibility was great on one side but less so on the other.  Just as we were ready to call it a day a squeal of excitement alerted us.  A single sea lion swam lazily past us.   Success!?

At breakfast the following day our German friends exuded enthusiasm for their trip where they had made it out to the island.  They were full of how wonderful the experience had been – swimming with numerous sea lions.  They talked of how close the sea lions came, the acrobatics they performed, the babies on the rocks and the unmistakeable bark of the sea lions.

It had to be done.  We extended our stay at the guest house again.  Thankfully we hadn’t booked the ferry yet – back that went another two days.  Once on the mainland we had to make Mexico City in three days now.  Perfectly do-able providing everything went well.

Our second boat trip was a totally different experience.  A more professional set up that cost twice as much but our guide, Andrea, gave a more extensive dialogue about the marine biology and geology we passed along the way, and more of a look at the local birds too.  It cost twice as much but was worth every peso. And, the sea was now flat.

Indeed, we swam with numerous sea lions.  They came really close, performed superb acrobatics, the babies were on the rocks and the unmistakeable bark of the sea lions surrounded us. 

California Sea Lions – A pup and (probably) an adolescent male. No, those aren’t the tasty fish.

More videos here!

And there was another delicious ceviche lunch – a food we’d never heard of before La Paz.

Ever Decreasing Circles – Goodbye USA

The sensitive reader might look at the last few posts, and the dates, and wonder why we don’t seem to be making much progress in a southerly direction. At times, so have we. The zig back from Flagstaff to California’s northern coast was for touristic reasons, but otherwise we have been having a rather frustrating time of it…

We slowly circled around Reno trying to coordinate our AirBnb, the arrival of tyres, then the arrival of sprockets.

We planned a 3 day rest and IT stop at Big Bear (a ski resort, quiet and cheap in September), which extended when we had an IT crisis when our picture store disk failed, and a major crisis in our family at home.

We ordered some stuff from Amazon for delivery to a locker somewhere on day X, but then they said day Z, and it finally turned up on day Y.

The lawyers dealing with Clare’s 2022 motorcycle accident claim on the IoM organised an MRI scan in Mexico, but trying to choose a date when we’re moving and they are glacially dynamic meant we were hanging around in California for a week or two.

So we thrashed around a bit! It has to be said I’m more tolerant of stopping in odd places than Clare is! Joshua Tree National Park was well worth the two days there, though boy was it hot. And, maybe our first California crowded campsite – some pretty noisy neighbours, with a heavy stereo habit. Lots of nice photos though.

We were learning, or re-learning, an important lesson. In southern California, we’ve been alternating between coast and inland, and low and high, quite often within a day, and it’s really drumming home the lesson of how the temperature depends on altitude, and is different at the coast. As we left Joshua Tree NP, we descended (was it?) 1000m from the baking hot Mojave Desert, to the bonkers hot Colorado Desert. Fortunately we’d timed it well (early), so temperatures were muted. But it was very clear how the vegetation changed: Joshua trees vanished, ocotillos and smoke trees appeared, amongst other changes. Them tough ‘ole creosote bushes were in both though.

Salty Salton Sea was 72m below sea level and insanely hot – remember this is late September – and we really felt for the (presumably) Mexican workers picking in the huge fields of fruit and veg. Their convenience store, though, was one of the best we’d seen for a while. We legged it though – could not take the heat.

Now, our Amazon order: Maps, parts, and pants. Now, like most people, I’d heard of “Palm Springs”, the millionaires playground, but for some reason, thought it was in Florida. It ain’t, and I’d ordered our stuff to an Amazon locker right in it. Interesting. Madly hot – why is PS even here? – but very well kept. Lots of grass. Lots of posh shops. Lots of posh cars. Same endless traffic lights as most US cities. It’s a shame it was so hot, as it would repay a photo session – but not wearing motorcycle armour. We found a lovely campground, Hurkey Creek, forty miles away up a wonderfully winding hill road. But it was frustrating having to base there three days.

Still killing time, we decided to venture to San Diego to check out some moto clothing, and pick up the next oil change kit (Northern Mexico being rather short of RE dealers). The beach-side campground reminded us why we hadn’t much enjoyed this stretch when we cycled it in 2017 – crowded and madly expensive. And why do US state & national campsites penalise motorcyclists with “extra vehicle” charges! Still, I enjoyed an extended dip in the Pacific, failing to bodysurf in the nice little breakers: It was too chilly for Clare, and when I got out the second time, I was pretty cold. I somehow hadn’t expected that, right at the south of golden California, the boardies would all be wearing full wetsuits.

Finally, searching for a campsite within a short ride of the Mexican border, we stumbled across the campsite for Palomar Observatory. High up, shaded by pines, it was almost too cool. We took the nice walk to the 200-inch telescope and its museum.

Unfortunately our last 2 nights in the USA were again marred by noisy campsite parties. It’s probably fair to say California has cemented it’s place as our least favourite state, though it’s undoubtedly beautiful. Still, we’ve only ever visited 11 states…