Tag Archives: Motorcycle

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!

  • OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA
  • 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.

  • OLYMPUS DIGITAL CAMERA

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).

On the Road in Guatemala

After Mexico, we were lulled into a false sense of security by the smoothish roads in Belize.  Except for the road approaching the Guatemalan border.  That was full of pot holes, dirt, gravel and was generally broken up in places.  At the border the bikes, as usual, demanded more time than we did – numbers had to be checked against documentation- registration and vehicle title,  photocopies of driving licences provided, wheels and underneath framework sprayed.  The whole process took 2 1/2 hours with the guidance of a local helper, who magically appeared at our sides. Strictly speaking, his services were unnecessary, but he knew where everything was, and probably saved us 30 minutes. No specific fee was solicited, I think we tipped him 50 Quetzals – about £5 – probably too much.

Then – we were back into the bumpy ole Mexican style roads.

Initially we stayed on the main road into Guatemala.  The decision was easy as it is the direct route to one of Guatemala’s key tourist attractions – Tikal, which we were keen to visit.  After that we went a bit more freestyle.

Until we left Mexico, we had had quite good navigation. My Garmin Zumo XT was the mainstay, and Gid’s cradled and powered Android phone with OSMAnd was backup and a second voice.  Both systems often came up with different routes and both maps had a different interpretation of ‘no dirt roads’/’no 4×4 roads’ and other criteria.  The Garmin also scores in crowded areas because it verbalises the instructions.  ‘Turn right at the traffic lights’ is useful in crowded unfamiliar areas.  Although maddeningly, it cuts off the intercom not only while it does so, but for many seconds before and after just at the point when we are trying to discuss the intricacies of our route.  OSMAnd verbalises too, but it’s instructions (or mapping) are poor, and utterly useless around slip roads, which it can only display in very limited circumstances.

As a back-up and for planning we always have a paper map, old farts that we are.

But as soon as we left Mexico, Garmin’s North America mapping finished, leaving a blank screen. Occasionally it did show a road but we wouldn’t be on it.   It wasn’t a big problem in Belize because it is a small country with relatively few roads.  The small scale free tourist map did just fine, although absent from it were the new bypasses of some of the larger towns such as Orange Walk.

Gideon: In Belize we hit quite a bit of rain, so the cradled Android phone was pretty useless. The charging arrangements are not waterproof, and it can’t run all day without power. The Samsung A series phone is nominally waterproof, but water got into the camera, and it now often won’t focus properly.  It’s not just waterproofing as such – a phone touchscreen can’t reliably distinguish raindrops from fingerprints.  Clare’s Garmin is a totally waterproof device wired into the bike’s main battery and has an outdoors touchscreen (and big buttons), so it isn’t fazed by riding in wet.  Thankfully, we’ve just discovered, I can at least download the free Open Street Maps onto the Garmin so we have reliable navigation in rain but now it’s the same data as Gid’s phone, so we lose the useful combination of different mapping systems.

Why not use Google Maps? Well, the basic reason is that one pretty much needs to be online, and in the trickier or remoter areas there’s frequently no signal.  Also our IT incompetence and my strange priorities and meanness means that we don’t have a good, mountable, phone which will work on American cellular frequencies. The upside of this is that if some hood does nick one of our phones, we can giggle about their experiences when they try to sell or use it. Clare’s is over a decade old, and its “new” battery holds charge for, well, several hours – if it’s turned off.  Mine doesn’t work on American networks, and the camera focus is broken, and has either an expired Latvian SIM, or an expired USA SIM – ideal to leave on the bike.

Speaking of navigation, for those family members unfamiliar with Guatemala (Map here), we entered the country in the little inhabited, jungly, north.  Flores is a scenic village on an island, in a lake, in the middle, and Quetzaltenango, Lago Antitlan, Antigua and Cuidad de Guatemala run from west to east along the spine of volcanoes that run about 75km north of the Pacific coast.  For the first time on our trip, we actually rode on “the” Pan American.  The carreterre was named on signs.  It runs along the north slope of the volcanoes, from Mexico in the NW, out to El Salvador/Honduras in the SE.  Most of Guatemala’s 18m population is in this southern part of the country.  In retrospect, it’s no surprise that the roads in the north are, err, quite adventurous.

Clare: Heading from Flores down to Xela (Quetzaltenango) was quite eventful.  Gid had programmed in the destination and was informed that the 90 odd miles would take seven hours.  Cursing the lack of information on the map of Guatemala he assumed that the time required for the trip reflected the mountainous area we were coming into and was quite relieved when he realised he’d set the transport option to ‘boat’.  Boat wasn’t so far out.  We did wind our way up and down the mountains, the roads were quite little. It was at the bottom of one of them that our road ended at the river.  Approaching the tail end of the queue of cars Gid was on my left.  I could see the small wooden boat almost full of motorcycles starting to pull away from the shore whilst Gid was looking at the large nearly fully loaded car ferry.  ‘We can make it!’ he was saying, urging me forwards.  Noticing that the little wooden boat was indeed returning for us I gingerly progressed down the muddy sloping bank none too sure about the prospect of boarding it.  Gid, still focused on the car ferry, hadn’t a clue where I was going.   ‘The ferry,’ he was saying ,’the ferry!’.  Well if that’s what you call it I’m on my way I thought.  I stopped 2/3 of the way down none too sure about what I was committing to.  Gid by now could see the little wooden boat and was horrified with where I was heading.  ‘The Car Ferry!’ he shouted.  Too late, half way down a wet muddy bank I couldn’t turn round now.  I decided I was going for it, took a deep breath and was internalising  ‘Give it some throttle over the metal grid, over the lip at the edge of the boat, then brake hard before I hit everyone else.’  The theory was great.  I managed it.  I shuffled forward to make room for Gid knowing he would follow.   Bless him, he did. The crossing was brief, but about halfway across one of us realised that the boat – floored with loose, gappy, planks – only had a ramp at one end. Sure enough, the local riders, clad in jeans and tees, had all swivelled their 100Kg motos around on the side stand. Oh shit! A loaded Him weighs about 250Kg. Everyone was delayed while we sweated our steeds through 25-point turns wearing All-The-Gear-All-The-Time.

Later that day we still had to reach a sensible place to stop as our actual destination was several hours away.  We made the decision to find somewhere to stop at about 3 pm.  Plenty of time.  The first town we entered didn’t have accommodation with off road parking and it was still early so on we went.  By 5:30, and aware that it would be getting dark soon, we were still looking.  Just a bit further up the road towards the next town Gid was saying.  It sounded promising but an unexpected diversion we were meant to take was blocked off.  In amongst a deluge of swearing Gid shouted “next left”.

‘Have you seen it!  You are kidding!’ I replied.

‘Well, it’s got to be one of these, it’s a short cut back to the main road,’ he said, urging me on.

We took next left.  From the start it was a pretty rough narrow lane.  ‘It’s no worse than Mill Lane,’ he assured me, the rough track to our home in the UK.  After 10 mins of up and down past houses and homesteads we were about to reach the main road Gid declared.  Fast acceleration got us up the next sharp incline but no-one in their wildest dreams could call it a main road.  We had an ariel view over the valley of widely spread dirt lanes interspersed with houses and smallholdings.  The stone strewn, rutted dirt track under our wheels continued who knew where.  We turned back.

Thankfully, approaching the nearest town from the other direction enabled us to see a hotel sign.  It had a gated entrance, always a requirement.  In we went.

The following morning we had another look at the map and navigation.  There didn’t seem to be any reason why OSMAnd had directed us off the main road.  The “shortcut” looked ludicrous when we could sit and study it.  Gid figured that perhaps the OSM data for the main road had a tiny break in it, or 5 metres of dirt road, so OSMAnd would not route it unless it was allowed to use all the dirt roads (we’ve seen this before, but then the Garmin was working and happy to make sensible compromises). Determined to stay on the main road we set off.  It wasn’t long before the surface deteriorated.  We had patches of broken road, stretches of gravel and the odd bit of sand.  So much so that when we came to a dirt road that was a legitimate short cut we decided to take it.  It started off fine and generally was but had some interesting sections of hairpins, gravel, rivulets and ruts.  We made our way down the mountain side across the bridge and up the other side.  Nearing the top we thought we had made it and were quite surprised to see the road ahead blocked.  A policeman directed us to his left waving his arm in a snake like fashion to show the direction of the road.  A dust trail to his left confirmed the direction of the road and that other road users were on it.  It was clearly a single track lane with very poor visibility because of the dust flying up.  We set off not knowing how long this diversion was or what traffic we might meet.

We reached a steep hill and approached it behind a 125 that had come careering past.  It whizzed up.  Dust flying.  Gid was right behind it.  ‘1st gear, 1st gear, ‘ he was calling back to me. ‘And plenty of throttle.’   No one was getting up that hill without plenty of throttle but what was about to come down?  Thankfully, shortly afterwards we reached to end of the diversion.  The poorly surfaced concrete road seemed awesome. 

  • Glamour never rests

Heading further south in Guatemala we were back on surfaced roads.  Belize had offered a respite from Mexico’s endless tupes/speed bumps, but in Guatemala they were back with vengeance.  Some are quite brutal – Gid has scraped his bash guard on a number of occasions, and now takes most of them standing.

On the other hand, bikes are a lot quicker across them than anything with three wheels or more.  Both us and the local riders get a lot of (slow) overtakes in at the speed bumps especially when they’re one of the few places the chicken buses slow down. Oddly enough, later, in Cuidad de Guatemala where there aren’t speed bumps, we’ve seen quite a few Porsches (I mean real ones, not repackaged Touaregs) – they and similar low vehicles must be pretty much confined in city limits – odd.

Reaching our destination, Xela, was also interesting riding as in the old town where we were staying it has a great grid of calles and avenidas cobbled with pretty much random rocks.  They’re ok at speed, but stuck behind crawling traffic, the bike’s front wheel swerves all over the place. As the streets are so narrow, it’s an irregular grid of one ways, making navigation tricky, and distances much longer than the map suggests.

It must have been around this time that we started seeing tuktuks. I don’t think there’s a factory nearby, I think they’re all imported from India. For some reason, they’re almost all red. They seem to thrive in mountain villages, or pueblos & cuidades with tiny streets. They’re geared to labour up any mountainside, but with only half the Himalayan’s engine, and six people aboard, boy, they can be slow.  They must be alarming to drive around downhill hairpins, too.

To reach San Pedro on Lago Aititlan from Xela, we turned south-east, aligning us with Guatemala’s volcanic spine. So we encountered the actual Pan American Carretera. Woohooohoo! Here, it’s a mostly well-surfaced dual carriageway. Not, normally, the Himalayan’s favourite domain. But this road corkscrews its way up, down and around the volcanic slopes, and almost all the wiggles are blind, so few folk dare exceed 50mph/80kph even if their vehicle can do so (and many here can’t). The Himis were fine, although a little more overtaking ooomph, or even a lot more, would be appreciated. Still, we tried to exercise restraint: Altogether now: “Drive at a speed that will allow you to stop well within the distance you can see to be clear” (UK HC Rule 126).

Occasionally we’d be passed, sometimes by a chicken bus – these often belching clouds of black muck from a primitive, or maladjusted (depending on age) diesel engine. USA school buses are tightly regulated, and it seems have to be retired at quite modest mileages and ages. So, like a fair few human retirees, they head south in fleets, and live to a great old age as chicken buses. Often these are brightly decorated, usually they have powerful horns, to blast traffic and alert potential customers. The drivers are not necessarily the most cautious and safety aware of señores, although not remotely in the homicidally obnoxious league of their Indian and Indonesian colleagues (or Aussie truck drivers). So they do tend to hurtle around the bends – after all, the driver saw no obstacle there 2 hours ago, so there can’t be one now, can there? We saw the aftermath of one apparent head-on between a bus and something smaller… the bus seemed to be facing the wrong way at that point. Looked like it’d need a new cab.

Finally, a few snaps of curios encountered on the roads. If you’re into 70s/80s car and truck nostalgia, or radically optimised loading, there’s plenty to entertain on Guatemala’s roads.

Postscript: Sadly, a week after posting this, 55 people were killed in Guatemala when a chicken bus crashed, and a few days before that, nearly as many died in a bus accident in Mexico. On our way back from our volcano hike at Antigua, our shuttle passed a fatal motorcycle accident, the poor fellow still lying in the middle of the road.

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…

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.

Entering Mexico – Baptism by Fire and Paper

We’d spent the previous afternoon filling in the forms at the campsite.  Gid’s android translated the info into English.  Mine didn’t.  I felt as though I was signing my life away with a blindfold over my eyes.  He was feeling challenged with his own form and didn’t need me constantly quizzing him.  We finally got there.  Paid up, two forms.  Copies of this, copies of that.  But one of them said we needed a paper copy and please arrive at the border with it.  We were crossing the border on a Sunday and suddenly we needed a paper copy.

On the way out of our Palomar campsite we’d called into the local convenience store.  The part time lady cheerfully said she’d ask the manager for a print as they did have a printer.  It all seemed quite hopeful.  The manageress arrived flushed and in a considerable flap.  ‘I do wish you hadn’t offered to do this,’ she admonished her assistant.  Despite three heads trying to solve the problems it was not going to happen – passwords, signals, connections – the list goes on.

Gid was keen to try the few random shops we passed.  I was more, ‘Of ‘cos they’ll let us in.  Are they really going to send umpteen tourists away?’  One more failed effort just before the Mexican border left us with no option.  We progressed forwards.  It all seemed very relaxed.  There were a few officers there in uniform but they just waved us through.  Gid exploded.  ‘We can’t just go through. We need our paperwork stamped and the bikes need to be registered.’  He conveyed this to one guy who casually pointed to the office at the side and told us to go through the barrier and come back to do the paper work!

The Mexican immigration office was to the right on a one-way street.  With no access to it we had to park further down the road and walk back.  The señor in the office was very patient as we tried to locate, from among the umpteen forms we’d saved, the ones that he wanted.  We emailed them to him so that he could print them out.  Stamped and dated off we went.  The vehicle importation was equally trouble free once we’d sorted out which paperwork equated to which bike and whose it was. Our recently hard-won, but very elementary Spanish hadn’t really been challenged, but it had had a little outing.

In.  Now we needed some Pesos.  Going down the main drag I spotted an ATM sign.  We pulled in behind a car.  Gid jumped off his bike and in he went.  Moments later un hombre policia appeared pen in hand opening the pages in his ticket book.  He pointed to the writing on the side of the kerb and said what must have been, ‘No Parking’.

‘Un momento, Un momento,’ I cried, calling to Gid through the intercom that he was about to get a parking ticket.

‘I’ve just put my card in, I can’t come now,’ he anxiously replied.

The policia was gesticulating that Gid’s bike needed be to moved.  I indicated that I would move it.  But of course as I swapped bikes mine was now illegally parked.  I was trying to wiggle Gid’s bike round mine when Gid reappeared.  Thankfully the policia seemed to despair of this comedy act and walked away.  Two bikes two riders, money, we were off.

As we set off down the road Gid informed me that a high proportion of the population have never taken a test.  Pay a little extra and the licence was yours is what most Mexicans did.  Somehow I was sensing that and the signage wasn’t as clear as we’d got used to either.  There were stop signs used in the same way as in the US but the accompanying stop line had been erased – some of the signs had suffered over the decades of time.  I ploughed straight through one.  Thankfully no one was coming.  Later we learnt that irrespective of red lights, Alto signs and what ever, ‘Get eye contact!’ before progressing, that’s the important thing. Things seem a little “loose” compared to the UK, Spain or USA, but it works on civility yet is not remotely in an Indian or Indonesian league.

Further down the road I was overtaken on the hard shoulder. A car just came careering past me on the inside.  Wow!  What was that?  The next half hour was a sharp learning curve.  The hard shoulder albeit much narrower than the road lane was regularly used to over take.  One vehicle straddled the solid white line that demarked the hard shoulder while the overtaking vehicle straddled the central solid yellow line.  All sorted then.  One good thing was that as the hard shoulder served as a lane, of sorts, it wasn’t full of debris. The crap was piled high in the pull outs and off the side of the road.  No $1000 fine here for littering.

Another surprise was the trucks passing along through the towns and along the highways with armed soldiers masked and in full uniform standing in the back.  Regular check points along the roads also told of the extent of the drugs problem in Mexico, a lot of it driven by the trade over the border in the USA.  The nearest we got to being searched was one bored pair of young military guys asking where we had come from and where we were going.  Other vehicles, mostly northbound, had numerous inspectors with torches pawing all over their trucks.  The bigger the vehicle the more extensive the search.  We settled into the new regime. The road to Ensenada passed through a scenic wine making area, and wasn’t heavily trafficked – a great introduction once we’d worked out the hard shoulder plan.

Ensanada was our first destination, for very prosaic reasons. But it was a joy to visit. The internet-booked motel was just fine, and after months in the western USA and Canada we could again wander around a town. While none of the pavements were consistently flat it had a centre we could amble through enjoying the atmosphere. Gid could have stayed a few more days, but after all the delays I was keen to get on. The plan was to travel the length of the Baja peninsular, then ferry across to the mainland. Interestingly, it was two weeks before the famous Baja 1000 desert race. We decided not to enter.

We’ve visited Spain a number of times and the similarities here were stark.  In some towns with buildings set back from the road, many things were broken down or in need of repair with the occasional thing half built while others had large murals and were brightly painted with bougainvillea adorning the walls. Whereas the western USA has almost everything in town concreted over, in the pueblos the road had a wide apron of dust – of course, everything was coated in it unless it moved.

We’ve travelled fairly extensively across the globe, and it was a pleasure to see again local, improvised, low key services along the road. Home made as well as printed signs are common, and as Baja California is both very sparsely populated, and not highly developed, sometimes we needed to see that “man with a can” gas stop, or the little stall selling burritos (we hadn’t even been entirely sure what a burrito was). And every café had a “wifi” sign – the wifi may well have been the most reliable service. There were many “proper” gas stations, but interspersed with can men whom we really needed at least once pricey though he seemed. Very sugary pop is also always available, more difficult is avoiding it!

Another change – to us – is an expected one. In the USA we tended to avoid the trafficked and expensive megopolises, and skip from scenic park to scenic park, camping. In the less developed parts of the world, there are fewer campsites, debatably less safe, and our pounds go a lot further. So we tend to reverse the pattern and skip between cheap hotels in towns. Cheap hotels here can be jolly nice, usually best not booked through a big website – local rates are cheaper. El Hotel Frances was a memorable 19th century historic building, in rather mid-western style (but of probably tropical hardwood), but most are pretty new, Hispanically concrete. None has yet approached in cost the San Diego campsite!

We still felt very wary of much adventure in Mexico and there’s only one main road down through the Baja peninsula which was generally ok, two lanes, little traffic, and relatively few slow bits through pueblos.  Occasionally it was a pristine new surface but at times a pitted pot-holed mess – no worse than our home town in the UK, but that’s not a 60mph road.  On our Himalayans we didn’t need to lose much speed to plough through whatever the road surface threw at us.  Along the grotty sections we even overtook some cars and trucks.  We passed a road repair team on a couple of occasions.  It was a truck loaded with tarmac and some spades.  The truck stopped. Out jumped the team.  One filled the hole, another raked it flat while a third flagged the approaching traffic.  All sorted.  Move on.  They had their work cut out!  More dangerous than the overtaking, and the potholes, was probably the occasional livestock, rare in the first place, that had gotten out of the fenced ranches and now munched at the roadside.

But plenty of the roadside was also lovely to look at, and especially in the north, quite curvy with fabulous views.

The country side we passed through changed from sparsely covered desert to a rich environment with many desert plants thriving.  Despite my resolution to not camp in Mexico on the grounds of personal safety we did camp at Cataviña.  We’d just passed a police station next to a deserted motel when we came across a small community: a campsite with two motorbikes and a tent inside a perimeter fence, opposite a taco shack and a fuel stop.  Encouraged by the gated entrance and bikers already camping we went in and were enthusiastically greeted.  We were staying then.  Alexandros spoke reasonable English and encouraged our efforts in Spanish.  He’d also done the southern half of our planned trip and gave us the book he’d written pointing out the pages that recorded his crossing of the Darien gap.  ‘Three weeks for the bikes,’ he said. ‘Three hours by plane for us.’  We spent a fabulous evening sharing tales.  A surprise bonus was the campsite’s tour of the desert by truck to see the painted caves just up the road and off in the desert.

So, we’re off! ¡Vamos! Well, now we stopped in the lovely resort of La Paz, there is the ferry terminal, but it’s so nice we’ll pause awhile.

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…

Death Valley?

Death Valley had been on my wish list from the beginning.  Gid, however, was vehemently against it.  He is far more sensitive to the heat than I am.  Gid had bought mesh biking kit from the UK thinking that he would rather try to layer up and be slightly cold whilst I had brought full winter kit.  Recently I have purchased summer gloves and mesh trousers but I’m still in my full on winter jacket.  I just open up the zips, shrug occasionally to circulate some cooler air, boil a bit but seem to get by.  Gid has also had problems with becoming slightly faint when he didn’t realise how hot he was getting.  On one occasion when we did stop he was seriously affected.  Heat is an issue for him and Death Valley is seriously hot.

I hadn’t given Death Valley a second thought as we’d set off from San Francisco back towards southeast California, for a last bit of tourism before the real adventure resumed at the Mexican border. To begin, we were aiming for the Yosemite National Park.  Stopping for fuel on the way in I chatted to a couple of bikers swapping the normal stories.  Where have you been? Where are you going?  I spewed forth with the ‘On our way to Yosemite bit’ while they replied they were doing Death Valley tomorrow. ‘How are you going to do that?’ I asked.  Not even realising that it was ‘just down the road’ at that point.  Right off HYW 395.  They explained that they were booked into accommodation near the start of the access road and planned to be riding by sunrise. We said our goodbyes but the seed was now festering in my head.  If they could do it …

I relayed the discussion to Gid who’d not been there through the conversation and declared that I was going to do it.  He didn’t have to come I said we could meet up on the other side.  Gid was very uncertain about it but was at least not panning the idea but it was clear that if I did it he would come too.  Later in Yosemite Nat. Park we met more bikers.  They had crossed Death Valley.  ‘You’ll never see anything like it anywhere else in the world,’ one biker said and went on to describe some of the sights.  ‘It’s the right time of year’, he continued, ‘End of September and February/ March are best times to do it’.

Gid was starting to show some interest and looked at where we might find accommodation near the start as packing up the tent to be on the road by five would be tricky.  After leaving Yosemite, we agreed to visit the Lone Pine Visitor Centre situated at the end of the road leading to Death Valley to get an accurate weather forecast and find out more information.

Arriving there and off my bike first I strolled in full of confidence now that we could do this.  I asked the advisor if I could have an up-to-date weather forecast for Death Valley.

‘On the screen’ he replied without moving a muscle.  I looked at the screen which displayed a load of text.

‘No it’s not’ I replied.

‘It’s a rolling screen, it’ll be back,’ he added.

This was 4 in the afternoon and the temp was high forties.  He produced a newspaper style information brochure which I opened up to show the map.  Gid had joined me by now and asked how long it took to cross Death Valley and which bits were likely to be most challenging.  The advisor spewed out a load of statistics and information way to fast for me to comprehend.  I explained that I wasn’t familiar with a lot of the terminology he was quoting to me.  Please could he talk slowly so that I could have a chance to get my head around it.  He stated unfathomable feet rather than miles. I work in centigrade he was quoting Fahrenheit.  ‘It’s very hot out there,’ he restated.  He was aware I clearly wasn’t absorbing this.

I told our story of the biker who had said that this was a good time of year to do it and the guy who had setting off at day break to get across before the temperatures got too hot.   ‘It’s hot by mid morning,’ he said.  Still rattling out his friendly advise at a rate that I could barely take in.  ‘This isn’t fall here.  Fall hasn’t started yet!  It’ll be another month before we get fall.  End of October beginning of November the temperatures drop, that’s the time to go if you really want to do it.  That or end of March /April.’

Ok we’d got it we’re one month too early.

Gid asked how long it takes to cross Death Valley.  Using the map he broke the route down into three sections giving a time for each bit.  Two and a half hours at the national speed limit of 60mph.  We wouldn’t be achieving that.  ‘Stay on the main road,’ he said.  ‘That way if you do run into trouble you’ve got a chance that someone will pass you by.  A couple of German lads went along this other route,’ he showed us a smaller road on the map.  That’s the one that had attracted me because it passed to lowest point in the park.  ‘They got into trouble and they made it into the papers for all the wrong reasons.  They were on their own and they didn’t make it.’  Not that way then.  Gid questioned how many people travel along the main road.  ‘Oh you might expect someone to pass you every five mins,’ he said.   ‘There’s two mountain ranges.  After the second range you’re down into Death valley.  Then you’ve got to climb out of the valley.  Then what are you going to do?  You’re straight into the desert.  It’s mighty hot out there!’  He was talking to us in an exasperated fashion.

Gid pointed at a couple of towns on the map.  Our advisor’s retort was, ‘They’re just names on a map.  There’s nothing at those places.  That one’s got about five buildings, that one’s not got much more.  You won’t find accommodation down that road.’  I explained that we intended to head on down that road to Joshua National Park.  He nearly exploded. ‘You’re just not getting this are you.  This area to the east of Death Valley is all desert!  It’s all extremely hot.  I wouldn’t advise you to visit Joshua National Park.  That’s going to be extremely hot too!’

We left the visitor centre with our tails between our legs.  We would need to get up at four in the morning.  Sunrise is five, we’d been told.  It would take us 1 1/2 hrs to reach Death Valley from the nearest town.  Then 3 and a half to cross it with no photo stops.  We’d be pushing 11am by the time we got across when we can expect the temps to be getting seriously hot.  On air cooled bikes it was all looking seriously doubtful.

We agreed that crossing Death Valley wasn’t on for us but decided to visit the first viewing point inside the National Park, Father Crowley Point, and from there ride down into the first valley to take the Panamint Valley road back out.  The view was spectacular.  The road delightful.

Our route to the turn off in the valley took us past a Panamint Springs and its store.  We stopped to get a drink.  The cheerful young man in there said, ‘It’s been a hot one this year.  Up in the 50s’ – Phew he was talking centigrade.  ‘You’re in Death Valley National Park so you can get the sticker,’ he chuckled. We got the sticker.

Panamint Valley – Miles like this on either side.

Southern California

After San Francisco, we thought we’d had enough of the coast for a bit, and we’d both been a little frazzled by the extra population compared to our recent months in the mid-west. So we headed back inland, aiming south for Yosemite, the Mojave desert, and Mexico.

We set off cutting south below San Francisco across rolling hills, all golden brown with occasional trees sticking up.  The route was fine until we got snarled up in endless smallish towns.  All with endless traffic lights where we were stuck in the sun.  Stop start boil all the way.  We got out of that by cutting further east and heading along much smaller roads, ending camping at Don Pedro Lake – a huge but deserted site, shared only with numerous woodpeckers.  We both stripped off and jumped straight in.

From there is was easy enough to get onto the 108 for the Sonora Pass dropping down into the Yosemite National Park and then on down the Hwy 395.  Brian had recommended the 395 and it was coloured on the map as a scenic route. The first of the two highways was beautiful with a number of winding roads and high passes.  The Sonora Pass, the highest of them all, being quite spectacular with beautiful views spreading out before us.  From there we swept down towards Yosemite. 

  • Can you see Mt Whitney?

We couldn’t actually stay in Yosemite, having, again, arrived in a National Park on a Friday. But it’s a fairly small park, and Saddlebag just outside (chilly at 10,000ft!), then Tuttle Creek were hospitable. The latter gave us a day trip to view Mount Whitney, the lower 48’s highest peak (it’s the distant dit-dit-DAH peak in above the cornering motorcycle below).

Death Valley was only a day’s ride away, but that turned into a bit of a saga, with its own posting.

At this point we were feeling the looming pressure of a long overdue blog update and the need to prepare for Mexico, so we hunkered down a few days in underused ski lodges in Big Bear Lake. But – would the town still be there, on the other side of the hill?

And at the time of writing, that’s where we are.

Clare’s Three Mistakes

As related in the previous post, we stayed on two occasions at Lake Lahontan State Park near Reno. The first time we arrived there, we didn’t really know what to expect, and were dismayed to find a notice saying swimming was off. But as it was late in the day with no other campsite nearby we proceeded anyway.  The tarmacked park road gave way to gravel which as we turned down toward a chosen patch of beach gave way to hard sand, and much softer areas.  Across this we proceeded slowly hunting for the most solid surface and seemed, with the odd squirm or two, to reach a ‘parking area’, before the obviously soft looking beach, and its tent-beckoning patch of shady trees.

Lake Lahontan – Idyllic, isn’t it?

The 4x4s, of course, went right down onto the beach.  They revved up and sped through what in places was deep soft sand.  One, however, clearly picked the wrong route or went too slowly.  It sunk a good 8 inches in.  Further wheel spins were just cutting deeper.  I fetched some broken branch pieces putting them under the tyres. Initially it looked as though they were just going to get whizzed through and spat out but they did hold long enough for some progress to be made.  Eventually the vehicle was pulled out by a second 4×4 who, chains attached, gave the mission some real welly.

On our second visit to the same spot at the lake we suffered more excitement.  Gid had a squirm or two reaching the ‘parking spot’.  I thought I’d picked a good line.  However, my bike went into a number of squirms.  My feet shot down trying to stabilise the bike.  Gid was shouting, ‘Back brake, back brake,’ as I wobbled precariously close to him standing by his bike. Maybe the squirms were our new front tyres? I stayed upright.  Just!

That excitement over it wasn’t too long before a second wobbly moment.  This was on the approach to Virginia City’s high street on our second visit.  It was on a direct, and entertaining route from Lahontan Lake to Reno so we ran it a couple of times collecting parts for the forthcoming bike services.  We approached Main Street ascending the steep Six Mile Canyon road.  It’s quite a sharp drop down over a lip into that road from Main Street and of course quite a steep tricky climb back up.  On our first visit where we had approached up the hill to turn left at the junction I’d made a bit of a mess of it.  Luckily I had pulled up to the left side of Gid at the top of the lip and the road was clear so I went straight across.  This time – I had a perfect plan.  The approach road has several stop signs at minor crossings.  You had to slow right down but not actually stop as the visibility was so good.  I had given Gid plenty of space as I approached everyone of them.  So had the biker tailing me.  I could see the Main Street ahead.  The approach was very steep crossing one last crossroads and then continuing steeply up the other side before reaching the main street. Or so I thought.  Gid stopped as expected at the stop sign but he didn’t immediately proceed.  He stayed there!  I was much too close now as I had expected him to slow and go, moving on quite quickly.  It was just a minor cross roads after all.  Wrong!  This was the main street and he had to wait for traffic.  I pulled up behind him quickly realising my mistake and how stupid this was.  I was on such a steep angle that my front brake wasn’t holding the bike.  It was sliding backwards.  Gid had now moved on but I had a death grip on my front brake.  It wasn’t holding!  Getting myself together, I balanced enough to put my foot on the rear brake.  That held the bike. In first gear, slowly I let out the clutch.  Would it have enough pull to move forwards from this spot at this steep angle? The engine revved like hell but gradually it inched forwards. I slowly pulled away.  I needed to take a sharp right to go round the parked car and stay on my side of the road.  I was moving. Sod the right side of the road.  Thankfully the approaching car was coming slowly and was some way back.  I gradually pulled round on the wrong side.  But I was up.

My third mistake was the big one.  We’d left the southbound highway, 101, to meander up and down the coastal hills and along the minor coastal road heading south towards San Francisco.  It was wonderful!  The route twisted this way and that.  The views along the beach were beautiful and quite deserted.

We’d ended up in a small village called Petrolia.  Following a quick lunch we set off again.  The main road, now called HWY1, was just east of us  It was the big road all the way into the City and the route the Garmin had displayed.  Gid had looked on our Michelin map and checked on his phone and come up with an alternative road across the wilderness nearer to the coast again. Garmin wasn’t happy.  Normally once we’ve continued on a route for a while it concedes and reroutes accepting the new alternative.  This time it didn’t.  It was having none of it.  We arrived at the point where Gid declared,  ‘It’s left here.’  There wasn’t a road in any sense of what we’d experienced so far.  Forrest, an aptly named forestry worker, on his Himalayan, was standing at the corner discussing with his friend, hanging out of a pickup, their next move.  The route they had hoped to take was closed so they were heading off along the same track.  The pickup driver was a little apprehensive.  Forrest was local and assured us all that what we could see was what we would get.  And I believed him?

Usal Road it was called. It was dusty dirt, gravel and a good mix of bigger stones disappearing upwards between the trees.  But nothing daunting.  Away I went.  It wasn’t long before we were both distressed.  Our route wound its way up and down along a narrow track with an ever deteriorating surface.  Soon it had deep gullies carved out by rain coursing down the hillside and diverting down the track.  In places these were twelve to eighteen inches deep weaving from left to right exposing rocks, roots and gravel.  One minute a single gully the next a delta of grooved out rivulets wound it’s way ahead of us.  At one point I suddenly stopped.  ‘Left, Gid, left,’ I shouted down the intercom. A deep gulley was opening up diagonally ahead of us, but I’d missed the safe route on the left.  The gulley started on the left but was getting far bigger as it carved right. The narrow path wide enough for one tyre took you along the clear side. I’d done this sort of thing on my mountain bike numerous times before but they are a whole lot lighter and easier to throw around.  Kiwi Adventurer, a lady we’d met in Canada, had said she swapped her nappies for a motorbike and found off-roading easy.  ‘You just open the throttle to raise the front wheel up over the obstacles,’ she’d said. Now I was going to try it.  Gid was calling after me, ‘Well what are you going to do?’  I didn’t wait to reply.  I couldn’t think this too much I had to get on and do it.  I got the bike moving and aimed for the slight dip on my side where I was going to ride over the lump in the middle, rise up the other side of the gully and turn sharply to head up the track again.  Miraculously I managed it.  Don’t ask me how but along we went again.  Gradually it seemed like one roller coaster moment was followed by another.  Soon I was berming on my motorbike. In a couple of places the cliff edge curved round in a clear arch above an uneven mess on the track.  I knew how to tackle this.  I’d encouraged my grandson often enough when he was learning on his pushbike. He’d set off without enough speed to sweep right round and slide down in a heap when only half way.  I needed some good firm throttle and the courage to edge the bike perpendicular to the curve.

Unfortunately, we were so focussed on surviving the difficult stuff, that we took no photos, and the GoPro only captured a short bit of the easier stuff, towards the end of the first day. So these pictures only show the easy bits!

All of this was taking it’s toll.  My nervous energy was draining.  Gid had declared down the intercom, ‘Firstly, I’m sorry for getting us into this mess.  And secondly we can’t stop at the half way campsite because neither of us will sleep a wink with fear of what’s to come.’  Forrest had passed us enroute and was stunned when we said this was way beyond our skill level.  We’d never done anything like this before.  But time was passing, by the campsite we had only an hour of daylight left:  We camped. It was slightly reassuring that there were a few dozen other campers, apart from Forrest, with macho trucks.

As I lay there, the following morning, contemplating the rest of the route the pines wept for me.  Great big splodges landed on our tent.  I lay there dreading the moment when I had to get up.  I lay there aware of my aching shoulders and forearms.  Although the Garmin had not adopted this route latterly, when struggling yesterday, I had been able to see Hwy 1 on it.  We had seemed to zig and zag left and right but not make any actual progress towards it.  The distance we’d covered, 23 miles at a speed of ten miles an hour, had become a nightmare. Seven miles we still had to cover – new horrors were still to come.

We’d seen one wrecked pickup that had careered off the edge.  Jammed in the trees it hadn’t got very far, and looked like it had done so on its roof.  The canopy of trees above our heads hadn’t been much of a comfort as the redwoods grow up to 100 metres tall.  Look down from the track edge you couldn’t see the bottom!  As we set off on the final seven miles we were aware of convoys approaching the beach/campsite.  How the hell were we going to cope with meeting a convoy of cars, party intent 4x4s, coming towards us?  The sun was also very low – beams carving through the trees..  At times it totally dazzled us. Firstly Gid cried out, ‘I can’t see, I can’t see!’  Seconds later I was screaming too blinded by the sun.  The panic in me was rising.  Albeit momentarily, I couldn’t even see the road. Gid was leading and beeped his horn at each tight blind bend.  He soon stopped as no-one in a car would hear him – sound systems blaring, windows wound up.  We did meet a couple of cars.  Gid called out, ‘second bike coming’ as he passed them by but one had already moved on towards me.  It stopped quickly enough when I came into view but I shook my head at the small gap I was supposed to ride through.  It pulled a few extra inches up the edge.  I inched past.  We finally made it to HWY 1, nerves shredded.