The end of an Isthmus....

Jaco Surf

Costa Rican roads remind us of the people who live there. A patchwork of different colours, origins and eras, they get you there in the end but at their own pace and their own rhythm. Entering Costa Rica was relatively simple, a logical progression from one building to the next and not a bribe needed anywhere. We broke our own rules by riding a little after sunset hoping the rumours that Costa Rica was noticably safer that the rest of Central America were true. The first night we spent in Punteranas and while getting some food I got offered weed, cocaine and a hooker and we´d been there less than two hours. Beth said this was her kind of place but the next morning I convinced her we needed to move on. We spent the next few days in Jaco on the Pacific coast taking surfing lessons and enjoying the ocean lifestyle. Beth got her first fat lip when her board got between her and a wave. Soon it was time to move east to Turrialba to find some old friends in the hub of Costa Rica´s whitewater region. It didn´t take long to track down Mario Vargas, a local legend, and bump into a few other aquaintences from past seasons on the Gauley and the Arkansas. After a few false starts we got to run the Pacuare on Saturday, a great stretch of class III and IV whitewater, a few tricky moves and some awesome hits. The most impressve aspect of the river is the canyon it cuts through, the valley is alive with sloths, monkeys and birds of all shapes and sizes. Overhanging vines cling to dense virgin rainforest, the occasional native village visable through the trees. After the river we continued through to the coast and partied the night away in Puerto Limon as it celebrated the end of it´s own two week carnival with a huge free concert and an impressive fireworks display which began a little prematurely so the band had to compete for attention over the pyrotechnics above. That night we spent in a nearby barn sleeping next to the bike where a rooster with a poor sense of timing woke us up early the next morning.

Safety Meeting and Side Creek on the Pacuare

Back on the road we cruised down the Caribbean coast past beautiful beaches and sleepy villages to the border crossing of Sixoala. Stamping out of Costa Rica was quick and painless at this less used frontier but physically crossing the border was another issue all together. A disused railroad bridge spans the river separating the two countries. Random rotting sleepers were bridged by loose heavy planks. Fine if you have four wheels but on two it was quite a challenge. Too slow and you risked having to put a foot down but more often than not there was nothing either side of the plank to prevent the bike from dropping and plunging into the river below. Too fast and you risked missing a plank and losing the front wheel into the gaps between the sleepers. A new road beyond linking this part of Panama to the rest of the country made for a lot more traffic but neither side wanted to take responsibility for the bridge so it lies in ruins. It was the most tense I´ve ever been on a bike.

Festival Night in Puerto Limon

Getting into Panama was slow but free once we had all the paperwork in place and a smooth drive over the central mountains with a few other bikers took us into Santiago for the night. Back on the Interamericanan Highway saw us making good time but somewhere outside Penonome we got flagged down for our first speeding ticket. Well deserved, we were doing 98kph in a 60 zone but the $60 fine seemed a little excessive. When we suggested paying $20 "here and now to prevent all that paperwork" the officer happily agreed and we were soon on our way again. Unsurprisingly Panama City lacks any sort of useful signage and whatever logic the city planners employed is totally lost on us, we´ve come to accept that finding the cities is the easy part but finding an address is more about luck than anything else. Driving over the canal was cool seeing all sorts of ships passing underneath us. We got established in the city and set about finding a way into Colombia, we had originally planned to fly into Bogota but a significant hike in prices prompted us to search for other options. While Beth scoured the internet and called all kinds of boats I made for Colon at the north end of the canal, the major port for boats to Cartagena, Colombia. Saw a very different of Panama on that drive, a part that will be hard to forget. Panama city has gleaming skyscrapers but Colon is a slum, following a lead to Pier 3 took me into the worst parts of the city past signs warning tourists not to pass. Guns have become a common sight on this trip but here the police and soldiers were armed and armoured to excess. They travelled in packs and even then they looked tense. Some areas they didn´t even patrol. It may have been a fine city when they were building the canal but today it is in ruins, easily the most umcomfortable place I have ever been. I found the Pier, made my enquiries and left empty handed. Looks like we are flying. Spent a morning looking at flying options and it looks like we´ll have to bite the bullet and pay to airfreight. It´s still within budget but it makes a big dent on the buffer we had for emergencies.

Narrow Gorges of the Lower Pacuare

Rode to the Miraflores lockgates through a spectacular tropical storm and arrived thoroughly soaked to the bone to have a closer look at the canal. Extremely smooth and efficient after almost 100 years in operation. Ships are charged by weight the average being $30,000 but that day the most expensive transit ever took place at $230, 000. The lowest fee ever paid was $0.36 by Richard Halliburton who swam through in 1928. So from Panama it´s on to Colombia and who knows what will happen there. Time is short and the roads are long so we´ll need to pick up the pace a little in South America....

The Miraflores Lock, Panama Canal

Volcanoes in the mist....

"San Simon, patron saint of alcohol and tobacco"

After a visit to San Simon, the Mayan saint of tobacco and alcohol, for a blessing to help us on our way it was finally time to leave Xela behind. One last hike to the top of the local volcano was a fitting way to end the stay and a 4.45am start saw us on the summit by 10 to witness the spectacular sight of neighbouring volcanoes spewing smoke and ash. The early start was worth it as 30 minutes after reaching the top the clouds rolled in and visibility dropped to 50 meters. Suddenly the top erupted in song as various Mayan-Christian ceremonies began. The singing, carried on the mists, accompanied us as we made our descent. The following morning as we packed the bike we discovered Beth´s wallet with her passport, credit cards, ID´s and vacinations record had been stolen, sometime within the previous two days. Obviously a bit of a setback so a visit to Guatemala City and the U.S. embassey would be needed. We had planned to avoid the capital but now we had liitle choice.




We decided to stay in Antigua, about 45 minutes from the capital which provided a respite from the roads which are still in terrible condition since Hurricane Stan hit a year ago. Antigua is beautiful, old cathedrals nestle alongside earthquake damaged ruins. Cobbled streets converge upon a town square that hasn´t changed in centuries, each street and avenue holds endless surprises. Traditional food stalls, contemporary restaurants, an artesan´s market and architectural wonders all set between 3 towering volcanoes. It provided a good base from which to resolve the passport problem. For some unknown reason Central American cities have a strong aversion to signage so although it only took 45 minutes to reach Guat. City it took another hour of suicidal driving to reach the embassey only to find they are closed on Mondays so we had to do it all again the following day. Any excuse to hang out in Antigua for a few more days was more than welcome. In the end it only took two hours to issue a temporary passport so before long we were back on the road. Couldn´t resist another hike up another volcano, this time a fully active one.



A short drive from Antigua is Volcan Pacaya with a road taking you to within 2 hours of the crater providing you don´t have any Dutch people on the hike, 3 hours later we were as close to the crater as you´d want to get. A matter of footsteps seperate lush rainforest dripping with moisture and a moonlike surface of hardening lava and acrid fumes. The contrast is remarkable but one is totally dependent on the other. We were able to get within a meter of a lava flow, molten rock bubbling up from within the mountiain. Occasionally a larger chunk would break off and tumble down towards us, we were reassured by our guide that only ¨some people¨ had been killed on these hikes.

It was now time to make up some time and distance so we hit the road early Thursday and the next few days were a blur of border crossings and long hours in the saddle. We were behind schedule so a night in El Salvador on the shores of the incredble Lago de Coatepeque, only 4 hours in Honduras, two of which were spent at the borders doing paperwork and we found ourselves in Nicaragua. The border crossings require a good deal of patience, lots of practice of our broken Spanish and plenty of small bills for greasing palms at each part of the procedure. On pulling up you get surrounded by guides and fixers who assure you you won´t make it through in less than 4 hours without there generous help for only a small fee. At the Honduran border seeing the lines of trucks and people with armloads of paperwork convinced us that this time some help would be a good thing but in retrospect there is no reason we couldn´t have done it on our own. The day was wearing on, it was hot and humid and the prospect of being on the road after dark was not appealing so we paid over the odds and got through in just over an hour. Wish we´d done a little more research on that one.

So now we are in Granada, southern Nicaragua, another beautiful colonial city on the shores of Lago de Nicaragua surrounded by Volcanoes. Decided to stop here for a few days over the weekend to give the bike an oil change and enjoy the festival currently taking place. Think it´s more of a politcal rally but the streets are filled with music and everyone is in good humour. The central plaza comes alive in the evening with people, birds and music. It´s very hot and extremely humid so there is nothing else to do but grab a cold beer and watch the world go by. We are now halfway through the journey, a month on the road and realising it will take more than another month to get there so may get to Chile by the end of November

Serendipity

Ever try asking directions to a town you can´t pronounce in a language you don´t understand? The reponse is generally a sympathetic smile which we supect means "you poor simple folk" before a rapid diatribe of of expressions and gesticulations which often leaves us more than confused than when we started. Hence the need to take Spanish classes and what better place to do that than in Quetzaltenango, once we found it. Called Xela for convenience, its Guatemala´s second biggest city famous for it´s language schools, the warm, friendly people and the week long fiestas which seem to take place every week to celebrate saints, scholars, independence and just about every other excuse they can come up with for a party. It´s been relatively peaceful here for the past 8 years but every evening you´d think a war was raging throughout the city as fireworks and rockets light up the sky.



We thought we´d made it through Mexico without getting ripped off by officialdom but a fat, sweaty border guard, the last person we'd see in Mexico, made sure we didn't leave with any misconceptions regarding people in uniform. Entering Guatemala was like....well, entering a diferent country. Gold toothed smiles abound and everyone is more than willing to offer indecipherable directions and advice. A huge improvement in road conditions made for swift progress but no sooner had we entered when a new vibration from deep within the bike dampened the exhileration of opening the throttle once again and enjoying the endless 'curvas peligrosas'. Several stops for a roadside inspection revealed nothing but as we neared Xela the dreaded sound of metal on metal made the undeniable transition from an overactive imagination to reality.


For those of us who don't believe in fate or providence what happened next is still a little hard to comprehend. We literally stumbled upon the president of the Guatemalan BMW owners club who had a workshop within 100 meters of where we had pulled over. Inside the workshop was a collection of classic vintage and modern touring bikes, all pristine beamers. Roberto Ascoli, if you are reading this, "tu eres un heroe". A more thorough inpsection revealed one of the rear wheel bearings was in damaged and in urgent need of replacement. Luckily our plans included a week long stop early in the trip for Spanish lessons so the timing worked out perfectly. While Roberto ordered the parts we enrolled in language school opting for the full immersion method. For the past week it's been 5 hours in the morning of one on one lessons 'mucho gracias Magda y Claudia' followed by activities in the afternoon, tours of the local community, hikes and salsa lessons all while living with a local family close to town. Traditional meals 3 times a day and endless opportunity for practice. It's been a full week culminating in a pre dawn hike up a dormant volcano, Santa Maria, which looms ominously over the city flanked by her very active little sister. Time to move on, however, past Lake Atitlan and on to Antigua. As we look back on Xela one of the more bizzare events in the journey will no doubt spring to mind. While walking through the outskirts of the city we got attacked by a stocky little indiginous woman who accused Beth of stealing her children. Many come to Xela in search of work but find alcohol instead, social services take thier children and for some reason there is a rumour circulating that westerners come here to buy them. No harm done but an interesting insight into how we are perceived in some places.