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Boston to Ushuaia on 2 BMW F650GSs - Corporate Runaways
Who doesn't get tired of the corporate grind? We've decided to run away from our corporate jobs and take our bikes from our home in Boston down to Ushuaia, Tierra del Fuego - the End of the World. We'll be riding roughly 20,000 miles through 14 countries and we're giving ourselves 4 months to do it. The plan is to avoid civilization whenever possible, camp constantly, enjoy beautiful scenery and hopefully find just enough adventure along the way.
These are our bikes: http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4085/...2a65120ecb.jpg This is Kay: http://www.corporaterunaways.com/wp-...ay-300x225.jpg And Dachary: http://www.corporaterunaways.com/wp-...ed-300x227.jpg This is our proposed route: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5250/...4b3fddcbd5.jpg and this is our website Corporate Runaways where you'll find these posts, a link to our spot tracker, videos, and more. We're going to be documenting the journey from the start (yesterday) as we try and make it out of the North East without hitting any snow. Will our dauntless heroes make it out before the snow strikes? Will the motorcycles be so overloaded that the frames break before they even leave the U.S.? Will hypothermia claim the brave riders and end the trip before it's truly begun? Stay tuned and enjoy the ride with us! |
End of the world?
It depends. You will see. When you are there and have your face looking at the sea... maybe it is the end. But if your backs are to the sea, well, it may be the beggining of America.... Have a good journey. Remember: if you meet any hipopotamus crossing the road on hunting for some pigmeos, you'd better change your GPS, get back a little and ask some info to the nearest local guy. My dear heroes: I'll stay tuned! Cheers! beer |
Day 1 - Leaving the Great Cold North (Or Not!)
Note: Dachary and I (Kay) will both be posting via this account although most of the posts (like this one) will be written by her.
--- Motorcycle trips always seem to take longer than you expect to prep, and a 4-month trip over 20,000 miles warrants the extra time. We’d done as much as possible to get ready to go before the big day came, but there was still a lot we had to do the morning of to get the house and dogs ready for the house/dog-sitter, and get us ready for the road. We had some last-minute packing to do, and a few last-minute scares of things we thought we’d forgotten and had to unpack and then re-pack to check. Long story short, we didn’t get on the road until after 11AM, and didn’t hit the interstate (where we’ll be spending much of our time in the U.S.) until close to noon. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5006/...9f840895a0.jpg Dachary's bike packed to go. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5202/...40b22fc2c3.jpg Kay's bike packed to go. We quickly discovered that Kay’s bike needed some adjustment. The bike was initially having speed wobbles at 65mph. We’d put new chains on the bikes, and added a dry sack duffle to the back of Kay’s bike, but otherwise hadn’t changed the configuration so the wobbles were a mystery. We only got about 15 or 20 miles from Boston before we had to pull off at a service area to check out the bike. A quick Web search later and we adjusted the pre-load on the front suspension, checked the alignment, checked tire pressures and decided to hit the road again. Cranking up the pre-load helped immensely, but the bike was still wobbling a bit around 70mph and it was decided to stop again before we hit I-84 into Connecticut. We hit another service area just a few miles before the exit, and cranked up the pre-load and added a bit of air to the tires. Of course, the bike was on a slant and when Kay stepped off of it it fell right over. Checking underneath before lifting it revealed that no, the kick-stand hadn't done anything wrong. The bike had simply pivoted on it when it went over. When we got back to the interstate, the bike was riding well. Pre-load and air had done the trick. By this point it was past lunch time, and we’d been riding in the cold, so we planned to stop at Traveler’s Books and Food in Connecticut. We didn’t realize how close it was to the Massachusetts border and reached it far sooner than expected. Had a tasty lunch, and I got the most amazing grilled cheese and tomato soup combo I’ve had in my life. Seriously. Truly heavenly. If you’re in the area, stop there and eat. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5290/...aee7d4c290.jpg The Perfect Soup and Sandwitch We managed to get about an hour and a half down the road before we had to stop again. It was time to gas up, and we were getting close to New York City during rush hour, so I decided I’d like a bathroom before we tried to tackle any of NYC’s notoriously traffic-y bridges. The first gas station we hit was a dud, so we rode on until we found a Stop N’ Shop gas station. One of Kay’s ears was hurting so he took the helmet off to adjust and give it a breather, and took glasses off to take the helmet off. And, leaning forwards to set down the helmet, crushed underfoot the glasses which had fallen to the ground in a way that looked impossible to repair. At this point, it was around 4:30PM and already getting dark. The temperature was around 35 degrees and Kay effectively had no glasses (and needs them to drive). Back-up glasses, you say? Kay doesn’t have any - the plan is to grab some when we hit a border town in Mexico. We were mulling over our options when a guy at the next pump in the gas station heard us talking about the divey looking hotel we’d passed and recommended one just down the road. He said it was cheap but clean, and that’s how we ended up at Shoreline Motel in Milford, CT with the sun setting at 4:30 on a Tuesday. We only made it 160 miles from home on our first day, but between getting out late, diagnosing bike troubles and broken glasses, there’s not much we could do about it. We prefer not to ride at night anytime, and with the cold it’s really quite dangerous to ride at night, even with our heated gear. We immediately exploded our gear all over the (cheap) hotel room and pulled out the JB Plastic Weld that I remembered we’d brought. Kay went to work fixing glasses while I called around on my never-ending quest to find some Michelin Anakee 2 tires for my bike. A few hours and some Domino’s delivery later, we’re fed and warm, have fixed the glasses, have located some tires for me in Louisiana, and I actually managed to get some work done, too. With one black rim and one white JB Weld rim the glasses look like a reject project from some 1980’s video though. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5202/...04af9a9cb9.jpg Kay's JB Welded glasses Not how I’d have planned our first day, but not horrible. Tomorrow (Wednesday) we’ll try to hit the road earlier (and find some wi-fi so I can send my work off to a client and post stuff to the site for the ride report) and cover some miles. The immediate goal is to put the Great Cold North behind us - the sooner, the better! |
go for it guys! will be interested to follow your story. ride safe!
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Day 2 - The War of Attrition Continues
Day 1’s casualty was Kay’s glasses. Day 2’s casualty was my boots. I’d gotten the Rev’It Rival H20 boots just a couple of months ago from RevZilla. I called up Neil at RevZilla who spent nearly 40 minutes on the phone with me measuring the calf-size of boots and we decided the Rev’It boots would be my best bet. We didn’t know it until today but it turns out women’s calf muscles extend lower than mens, which makes them wider at the top of boots, and explains why it’s so hard to find an adventure boot that fits a woman well. Anyway, they were great - up until a few weeks ago.
In prep for the trip, we’ve been doing a lot of mini-trips around the area. A few weeks ago we rode down to Rhode Island and rode around with some ADVRider folks in Arcadia and Pachaug. I’ve only been riding for about 7 months, and my inexperience combined with the stock Trailwing (Deathwing) tires on my bike = me falling in the mud a lot (and cracking two ribs). The boots stayed waterproof on this, their initial foray into wetness, and I didn’t think twice. Fast forward to a week or two later when I tried to don my boots to ride the bike to a friend’s house for Thanksgiving. I couldn’t get the left boot to zip up properly. I fussed with it for a few minutes and then handed it to Kay, who was able to work the zipper up and down a bit past the problem spot. It seemed like the zipper was working in so I put it on and rode out. Zipper was even harder to zip on the way home, but I just figured there was some dirt in the zipper from its immersion in mud and thought it would work its way out. When I put on the boots yesterday, I realized there was a spot where the zipper wasn’t zipping properly. Today, I unzipped the boot completely and tried re-zipping it to get the teeth re-aligned. It wouldn’t go. An even larger portion of the zipper was borked. We manhandled it past the trouble spot and through the hard part just above that and decided to give RevZilla a call and see if they could help us, since we didn’t have time to wait around for a warranty repair. More importantly, we didn’t want to get stuck south of the border with boots that wouldn’t stay closed properly (or at all). http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5284/...d0e6296f7c.jpg The Zipper of Doom See those tiny zipper teeth? Ridiculous idea on something that’s going to be down near the dirt. We’re both 100% against the idea of getting motorcycle boots with zippers now - particularly zippers with fine teeth. I spoke with Chris at RevZilla, who gave me the contact info for Rev’It and offered to help expedite the repair. Unfortunately, even an expedited repair would mean I wouldn’t have riding boots for several days, and we didn’t want to wait around in the cold cold north, in costly motels. We didn’t want to spend the cash, but I made a decision to go to RevZilla since Philly was on our route and see if they could find me another pair of boots. Of course all of this calling around took time and it ended up being after 10:00AM (when Rev’It’s offices opened) before we finally hit the road. Got to Philly at around 1:45 and the staff at RevZilla were just as awesome in person as they have been on the phone and on ADVRider. There we met Chris who had helped me on the phone, Patrick who helped me try on pretty much every boot they had in my size, and Anthony who does the video/is an owner (the owner?) at RevZilla. Patrick’s family owns property in Costa Rica and he’s ridden as far as Panama and into the Darien Gap on an F650 (he’s hardcore!) and was able to offer us lots of helpful advice. First though, we had to get the boot off. At some point between putting them on and riding to Revzilla the zipper had come open all the way from the bottom. It took Kay pulling with a Leatherman to get it to move, and then the zipper pull came completely off. In the end, the pair of boots that fit me best (i.e. fit over my calves, but also fit really well) was the Dainese Visoke D-WP Boots. Sad for me, they were expensive and I hadn’t planned to buy new boots - but they fit so well. Actually, they were the only ones that fit properly at all. And they’re so comfortable. And they kept me nice and warm even in the low 30s we were riding through for much of the day. Of course, we totally forgot to take a picture of me surrounded by opened boot boxes. Stood around and chatted with the guys at RevZilla for a while and I still can’t say enough good things about these guys. They’re real riders who actually care about their customers and I can’t recommend them highly enough. They’re taking care of the warranty exchange for me on the Rev’It Rival H20 boots (which I’m gonna turn around and sell when I get home - anyone need a pair of boots?) The guys came out to check out the bikes and Anthony took a couple of pictures with us - all three of them were really cool. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5085/...c2820a4af6.jpg[/url] Us at RevZilla Hadn’t had lunch yet and by the time we left RevZilla it was 3pm. Anthony had recommended a Pork Shack around the corner for lunch but they closed at 3 so we had to make due with the IHOP across the street. Not the most exciting cuisine, but warm food relatively cheap. By the time we got back on the road it was close to 4PM. We rode until around 5:30 to get to the Days Inn hotel we had chosen for the night (because it had WiFi and wasn’t exorbitantly priced) in Aberdeen, Maryland. Day 2 tally: 242 miles. Milford, CT to Aberdeen, MD. Again, a short day, but we spent a while at RevZilla (and getting off the interstate in Philly) and hit the road late because of all of the calling around. If the attrition continues at this rate, we’ll be broke sometime in Mexico - gotta stop having these expensive malfunctions! But it was lucky we were near RevZilla and they were open. I am loving the new boots and hopefully the unexpected expense doesn’t set us back too far in the long run. Goal for tomorrow: break 300 miles! (We’ve done around 400 comfortably before, but the cold, the wind, the fact that the sun sets around 4:30pm and all of the delays have been costing us mileage. We want to get south where it’s warmer, damnit! Side note #1: Revzilla’s toilet revs. Side note #2: Today’s unsung hero was the 5-function digital meter we got from Aerostich. It includes a battery voltage meter, which we were able to watch while riding and determine when our heated gear was drawing too much power. In stop-and-go traffic, there’s less available voltage and having the heated gear cranked could prevent the battery from charging properly. With the meter in place, we could keep an eye on our voltage and turn down the grips/jacket as needed to keep our batteries happy. http://www.corporaterunaways.com/wp-.../4632_1a_3.jpg |
Day 3 - Big Push, Big Cold
With all the delays of the past couple of days, we were both getting a bit discouraged by our lack of progress and apprehensive about what might happen next. Our big goal has always been to get further south where it gets warm, but we just haven’t been able to make the miles we’d expected. We’d planned to be much further along, but we made a big push today - from Aberdeen, MD to Burlington, NC - 384 miles.
Today’s big note was cold. It was 17 degrees when we started loading up the bikes, and they were covered in frost. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5282/...f9bfeea4ff.jpg Frosty Morning Horse didn’t want to start - took a little extra throttle - and both bikes were a bit demanding until they warmed up. We felt the same way. We ran into traffic fairly steadily from just north of Baltimore until we got south of Washington, D.C., so it took us 2.5 hours to get south of D.C. By then, I really needed a bathroom break and decided it would make the most sense to combine with lunch to avoid excessive down time. We got off I-95 at Woodbridge, and when we spotted a Denny’s, we both jumped on it. Kay ordered 6 eggs sunny side up, bacon, toast and hot tea, and I contented myself with an American slam and coffee. Neither of us felt particularly hungry when we stopped, but as soon as we went inside, we started shivering. We didn’t realize how cold we were until we got off the bikes and went into a warm building. We lingered over lunch with warm drinks for nearly an hour, until we got our core body temperatures up. The break made a huge difference. It’s always nice to get off the bike and stretch every few hours, but warming up made a dramatic difference in the cold. We both felt warmer after lunch, and we were downright cheerful and energetic when we hit the road and it turned out the outside temperature had warmed up, too. We felt like we could keep going all day at that point, and we had a very pleasant couple of hours. We celebrated when Kay’s temperature gauge hit 15.8 degrees Celsius (mine indicated around 44 degrees Fahrenheit), singing about it in the helmets and dancing on the bikes. It was awesome to feel warm. Sadly, when we hit I-85 and turned further inland, the temperature started dropping dramatically. As we made our way west across North Carolina, it got colder and colder. We started seeing snow left over from a storm they had over the weekend, and our spirits dropped with the return of the cold. By 3PM, we were riding on sheer will alone - neither of us felt like being on the bikes in the cold anymore but we both wanted to get more miles under our belts. By the time we arrived at the hotel where we’re staying in Burlington, we were chilled to the core. We took a few minutes to take things off the bike and then straight into a hot shower, when we discovered that Kay’s Aerostich Kanetsu heated vest had left red burn marks in his back. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5166/...1773cef560.jpg Aerostich Kanetsu Burns We first saw the marks at least 10 minutes after turning off the heated gear, and two hours later, the marks have faded somewhat but are still burned into Kay’s back. Today’s lesson? Don’t buy the Aerostich Kanetsu heated vest. And we’ve discovered that we can do a long day even in the cold, but even being a few degrees warmer makes a dramatic difference. |
Sounds like an ambitious trip, Just wanted to say good luck and be safe out there. Buy extra O rings for your Optimus stove while you're in US, they WILL break and you can never have enough O rings. Buy at least 20 in all sizes and take them with you. I don't see spare tires on your bikes, you know that tires are out of this world expensive down here, don't ya? Take two rear tires with you and buy new ones in Colombia. (the cheapest). a typical tire for your bike in Ushuaia will cost you $400 IF you can find it.
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We were hoping to pick up tires in major cities as needed on the way down. Weren't expecting to be able to get any in Ushuaia in particular.
How much should we expect to pay for tires in Colombia? |
Day 4 - In Which More Things Break
Today got off to a slow start. Trouble sleeping last night, and dreading the cold this morning, we didn’t get out of the hotel till 10AM. When we came out we discovered two things: one it was wonderfully warm “We could ride all day in this!” and then that Kay’s rear tire was flat. We thought maybe we’d be able to make it to the gas station for air, which was located at the end of the block, but it quickly became apparent that the bike wasn’t going anywhere until we aired it up. Dealing would have been painful if not for the nearly 40 degrees of warmth.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5081/...2013d1c112.jpg The tire of flatness Luckily, we’re prepared. We dug out the Cycle Pump from where we’d stowed it and filled the tire. After we’d inflated the tire, Kay removed the Cycle Pump nozzle and we heard air hissing from the valve itself. It seemed like a problem with the core. We’ve got some spare cores, although neither of us is quite sure where they are, but Kay decided to try to tighten the core with our core tool that came with the Bead Breakr. Success! The core was tightened and tire fully inflated to spec. Checked the other tires and we were off. Got on the interstate and noticed pretty quickly that my Gerbing’s heated jacket wasn’t working. It was somewhat warm and I decided to try riding without it heating me for a bit, but I started getting colder and colder at interstate speeds. I agreed to stop if we came across a rest area to check the connection, but I didn’t want to actually exit the interstate because I felt that would take too much time out. It was already after 11AM when we hit the road and I didn’t want to delay us any further. After about 20 minutes of riding, the jacket magically came on. I was warm! And less than 5 minutes later, the jacket turned off again. A few minutes later, when I was just about to ask if we could pull over at a gas station, we hit a rest area and pulled off. I jiggled the connections a bit (pushed up from underneath, where they were connected) and the jacket started nice and warm again. It was lovely. Off we went to Charlotte, NC to pick up our Corporate Runaways stickers! http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5245/...1229f4a558.jpg Stickered! by CorporateRunaways, on Flickr Stickers were surprisingly fast (walked in and saw them sitting on a table waiting for us) and we stopped for lunch at a nearby Mexican restaurant that was advertising a cheap lunch special. You know it’s a good Mexican restaurant when 90% of the clientele are Mexican and the TV is on a Spanish channel. This restaurant even had trash cans next to each toilet. And anyone who’s read about travel in Mexico knows what those are for. While we were there, Kay revealed that the right arm of his glasses were coming apart again where he’d JB Welded them. An ongoing debate started about whether the glasses were functional enough (Kay maintained that they were, while I said it was silly to go further without more functional glasses). The debate got even more heated when Kay went to pull the glasses off later and the JB Welded arm fell off. Two lenses, one arm. Not a pair of glasses, I maintain. Kay still wants to wait till we get to a border town in Mexico where he thinks he can get glasses cheap. This has become a point of contention now. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5089/...b339666167.jpg Entropy and glasses by CorporateRunaways, on Flickr Went back to the bikes after lunch and turned on our Sena SMH-10 headsets for our typical headset check, and I couldn’t hear Kay’s microphone. I could hear them connect and it sounded like I should be able to hear Kay, but nothing from the mic. We’ve had two microphone/clamp units fail on us already, so we were exasperated. We tried swapping the headset transmitters and when Kay’s transmitter was on my helmet and mine on his, I could hear him. The problem seems to be with one of the pin connections. Unfortunately, since the GPS is synced with Kay’s transmitter, it meant I had to take the GPS for the rest of the afternoon. Am concerned about the longevity of the Sena headsets at this point, since we’ve had so many problems with them. If any headset manufacturers out there want to show up Sena by sponsoring a trip across the Americas we’re all ears and easily FedExable until we leave the US. Taking off after lunch, I noticed quickly that my heated jacket wasn’t warm again. Pulled over at a gas station before we got on the interstate and pushed up on the connecting wires again and the jacket was magically warm. Started to get worried about the jacket at this point, because I was pretty sure it wasn’t user error. At this point it was getting late (after 3PM) and we still had a lot of miles to make it to our “early stop” hotel. Hopped on the interstate and determined that we had just enough gas in the tank to make it to the hotel. Unfortunately, at around 130 miles (after roughly 2 hours on the interstate) my Gerbing’s jacket cut out again. Out of nowhere, the heat just turned off. I tried pushing on the wires. I tried wiggling around, standing up, leaning forward, backward, sideways - everything I could think of to reconnect whatever wires weren’t connected. Nothing. We still had around 30 miles to go, but it was getting dark and I was getting more and more convinced that the problem is with the jacket itself, so I decided to push on without it. By the time we arrived at our hotel for the night, I was half frozen. Was also annoyed to realize that the “non-smoking” room smells like smoke (and has an ash tray), and that the Wi-Fi doesn’t actually enable me to load a web page (we can ping and do dns lookups). Saw on the iPhone that I had an email from a client, so I had to get back on the bike half-frozen and ride down the street to McDonalds to get a working Wi-Fi connection. Now I’ve gotta get some work done for a client and go back to McDonalds in the AM to send it off. This has been a day full of ups and downs. We were happy to find warmer weather, and to solve the flat tire problem so easily. Less happy because Kay’s glasses are officially broken (although he still insists on wearing them), we may have a problem with the Sena headsets, and my heated jacket may be broken. And instead of dealing with any of that, I have to get some work done for a client. Today’s tally was only 279 miles, with the late start, the effing around in the middle of the day and the early sunset. We made it from Burlington, NC to Lavonia, GA. Tomorrow we’ll push on - trying to get to Baton Rouge, LA to pick up some tires for my bike. We’ll probably end up putting them on in the parking lot because we don’t feel like paying them $80 an hour to do it for us. Looks like we’ll be in Baton Rouge early in the am on Monday, and the bike shop isn’t open until Tuesday, so haven’t figured out what to do about that yet. Logistics in the US are proving surprisingly difficult. Looking forward to leaving the country so there are fewer plans and more fun riding. Side note: Kay is totally running around the hotel room stickering everything he can find to sticker. Several stickers on the panniers, stickers on the laptops, stickers on the helmet even - and stickers on the bike tomorrow when it’s light out. Want a sticker? We’ll send stickers to the first 10 people who ask - we’ve got plenty. Just send me a PM with your mailing address! (Anyone who donates can also get a sticker - just send an email via our website with your mailing address and we’ll send stickers either before we leave the U.S. or when we get home in April, depending on logistics.) Kay’s addition: Dachary’s convinced my glasses are going to implode at any moment. I contend that one arm is more comfortable in the helmet than two, and when they’re not in the helmet they stay on most of the time. I’m seriously concerned about her Gerbing. We still need the electrics for two or three more days I think... Stupid cold spell. I’m somewhat afraid of my Kanetsu now and keeping it dialed as low as I can, but despite it’s pain in the ass SAE connectors and 1970’s tech, it works. Also, I thoroughly enjoyed getting to ride in back while she dealt with the GPS, but I am pissed about the Senas. We love the design and the usability, but three hardware failures in under six months?! |
Quote:
I traveled with no tire and when things go wrong, they charge double just because you need it. Take a spare with you. it won't weigh much and if you need it, you'll have it. Trust me on that. |
Day 5 - Temps Warm Up, Heated Jacket Dies
Got another late start today, but this time it’s because I had to get some work done for a client this morning and then go to McDonalds to use their wifi to send it, since the stupid hotel didn’t have WiFi that worked. We also had an email from our iPad app developer (we’re planning to do an iPad magazine from the road, and our app is in the final stages) and we had to download and review his most recent revisions and send him bug notes. By the time we finished doing this and futzing around via McDonalds’ painfully slow WiFi connection, it was noon when we hit the road.
I tried reversing the connection on my Gerbing’s heated jacket liner this morning at Kay’s suggestion, because the electric still wouldn’t stay on consistently. It looked like that did the trick. We rode from Lavonia, GA to Lawrenceville, GA, where Cobia235 on ADVRider suggested we hit Cycle World to pick up some Guardian Angel Bells. (We did.) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5283/...607f118320.jpg Guardian Angel Bell While we were en route to Cycle World, we remembered that we’d wanted to stop at the Unclaimed Baggage store, and that it was somewhere in Georgia or Alabama. We looked it up when we stopped, and discovered that it was in Scottsboro, Alabama - which would take us back north again. It was 200 miles from where we were, but we figured we could get there before they closed and we had time to kill before I can pick up my tires in Baton Rouge on Tuesday, anyway. So we grabbed lunch at a nearby Subway and planned to saddle up, but I checked the weather while we were stopped and we had a nasty surprise. The weather in Scottsboro, Alabama was scheduled to be downright unpleasant. If we rode north, we’d be riding right into a near-freezing thunderstorm. It was supposed to continue to be bad overnight, and maybe turn into a rain/snow mix then with a potential for flurries tomorrow. We can’t ride in snow, and with my Gerbing’s jacket being unreliable yesterday, Kay didn’t think it would be safe to risk riding back into the cold with it. So we nixed the plan to ride to the Unclaimed Baggage store and headed along our original route, which took us past Montgomery, Alabama to Greenville, Alabama. At some point during this trip, my Gerbing’s jacket cut out again. It was actually a bit warmer today (near 60 degrees, at one point) so it was bearable without the heated liner, but my arms were still chilly and I kept getting the shivers. Periodically I’d start shivering uncontrollably, and I’d have to focus on a part of me that was warm and think warm thoughts and after a few minutes of this, the shivers would go away. This happened 4 or 5 times on today’s ride, but I didn’t mention it to Kay because I knew he’d make us pull over and I wanted to push on. We stopped for gas and I tried to fix the liner, but no amount of wiggling, connecting and jiggling could get it to stay on. We still had 162 miles to go at that point and I had to do it all without a heated liner. If we’d been further north, we simply wouldn’t have been able to go on. As it was, on the interstate going 70+ MPH, I was chilled, but it was bearable. Made it to Greenville at around 5:30 local time, but it was well after dark. We gained an extra hour crossing into the Central time zone, but the sun still set at around the same time so effectively the sun set an hour earlier. We still did 316 miles today even with the late start and early sunset, though. We’re trying to figure out what to do for the next couple of days as it’s only going to take us one day to get to Baton Rouge, and we’ve got two days and two nights to kill. We can’t camp because it’s going to be too cold. I’m lobbying for staying in a cheap-ish hotel I found south of Baton Rouge, which would enable me to get some work done and keep us out of the cold. Kay is unhappy with this idea because it’s spending money for no forward travel. I’m also concerned because the high temp one of these days is 42 degrees - hopefully it’ll be when we’re not riding, since my heated liner has died. Now I wish I had my thermal liner from the Rev’It Sand Jacket - would have been a better insulator than the Gerbing’s is without the heat. |
Gerbing heat trollers are notoriously unreliable .Try replacing it with a Warm'n'Safe heat troller .
Did Kay wear the heated vest next to his skin ?- always wear one layer between you and the heating elements in the vest. It's very easy to underestimate the wind chill on your front and crank up the heat , your back will cook .Try to wear an extra windproof layer on your front . Best of luck on your trip ,it looks like a good'un . |
Day 6 - Practice for Patagonia
The weather reports at the end of day five were pretty conclusive. Get out of town now! The only problem was that the temperature had dropped and Dachary's electric liner was still on the fritz, but the choice was either get stuck in town for days because of the crap weather or take a chance today. So, we took a chance and I made her promise to request we pull over if the jacket failed again and she was feeling particularly chilled.
We're happy to report though, that a careful insertion, and application of duct tape kept it working all day. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5204/...3fa09d1f7e.jpg Solving the Gerbing's problem Of course, Dachary literally didn't move from her saddle for 300 miles for fear that it would cut out again. When we finally did pull over for food (about 30 miles from our destination) we were both feeling cold even though everyone was walking around with t-shirts. Towards the end of our break Dachary had an attack of uncontrollable full-body shivers. We went back out to the bike because at least there she could plug in. Getting to the break though… that was work. Winds of 30+ with gusts over 40 interspersed with "Mother ****ing Bridges" where it was even worse. We are at a loss regarding Mississippi and Luisiana's obsession with huge arching streams of concrete. There's a huge bridge going to New Orleans that both of us had been looking forward too. It's five minutes of concrete suspended above water. And today it was a bit of a rush… It was also kind of like being pummeled. We've got some video, that we'll cut a few seconds of into todays video diary when we get it up, but our heads are being battered around so much that it's makes you kind of sick to watch more than that. In other news Expedia and Howard Johnson's decided to both bill us for our stay here in Louisiana while we wait for the motorcycle shop to open on Tuesday so that we can pick up the tires. I'm just crossing my fingers that they've actually got the ones for tube tires and not tubeless. I realize we *can* run tubes in tubeless tires but I'm not convinced it's something you *should* do unless you have to. In the equipment department: That 5 Function Meter we were praising the other day? Yeah, absolutely not designed for motorcycles. It got wet when it rained last night, water got in between the plastic / crystal layers froze, and generally bored it. Her voltmeter is reading too high in the afternoon, my temperature read 18:8.8 E for most of the day, and her clock lost 15 minutes. My opinion of Aerostich is dropping by the day. Also, I melted a bit of the extra webbing that was flapping around on the Wolfman Dry Duffel on the muffler yesterday, and I've discovered that my new helmet cam is mounted at too low of an angle. I have one more shot to get it right tomorrow, but if that's not right… http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5241/...5763874732.jpg Getting frisky with the muffler Started today in Greenville, Alabama and ended the day in Houma, Louisiana where we'll be staying till Tuesday AM. 344 miles today. Could have gone further because there was plenty of sunlight left, but we have to wait near Baton Rouge for the tires. Now that we're stopped for the day, though, we're drooping by the second. Fighting with those winds all day was so tiring... |
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Regarding the front/back thing. My front doesn't actually tend to feel particularly cold as I can usually keep a good air gap between me and the front of the coat, but I get chilly overall and as the only place where I can really feel the heat is against my back, I was pushing back against it to get as much as I can, which is what burned me. The Aerostich does a poor job of distributing the heat beyond the wires, so you end up dealing with them feeling too hot in hopes of getting more heat in the places in between the wires. Relative to the Gerbing, It's entirely possible that the wiring has broken at the end of the cable just before it goes into the plug that you insert into the jacket. At least, that's what today's experiment implies to me. We don't think it's the controller itself, although maybe Gerbing makes crap wires coming out of their controllers... |
A few years in Canada's winters has taught me that fleeces and synthetics do not keep you warm at very low temps . An air gap doesn't really insulate either .You need to have lot's of small air gaps .Fur and wool have worked for thousands of years .
Try a long sleeved cotton T shirt between you and the wires ,it might work better . Check that the front heating is actually working in your vest , one circuit may have become detached . I see that you are wearing a Rallye jacket , do you wear a wind stopper over it ? That might help too . |
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Ive been reading your trip report today and am so envious (even with the challenges) and wish you guys all the luck and a safe trip and yes you took off right when this cold front hit but looks like it will be getting warmer starting tomorrow. I assume you are going west on I-10 on in to and thru Houston and it shows to be in the 70's there tomorrow. Now for the Corporate Runaways thing that sounds great so should you be working (Dachary ?) ha ha But just have fun and enjoy
Steve |
Looks like your going to have a great trip.
And you'll be ready for some fun in the sun!:palm: FYI the bead rider is installed the wrong way on the black bike. The narrow end should face forward. Not sure if it makes any difference on a bench seat like that. |
Day 8 - Houma, LA to Sea Rim State Park, TX - 316 miles
Day 8 got off to another late start, as we had an email from our magazine app developer with a new build that we needed to check out. Took a while to futz around with that, and it was 10:30AM by the time we hit the road. Arrived in Baton Rouge just after noon, where we picked up my new Anakee 2 tires at Hebert Cycles.
The shop offered to mount them for us, but they were going to charge me an hour of shop service to mount them and we didn't feel like spending $88 to do something we could do ourselves. So we threw the tires on the back of the bikes and headed toward our destination - Sea Rim State Park in Texas. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5042/...a6e8eaa911.jpg Are we real adventure riders now? Along the way, we ran into an oil refinery. Literally rode through the middle of it. I've never seen anything like it. It's a massive complex - miles and miles of strange looking towers and industrial things and tons of piping everywhere; crossing the street, running along side the street. It was insane. Amusingly, we also ran into houses on stilts. It's the first time I've ever seen houses on stilts. It was just like something out of Dr. Seuss - I was waiting for the houses to get up and start walking around. Real life isn't that entertaining, though. Alas, we were racing the sunset (it still gets dark so early!) and it was dark by the time we arrived. We're literally camping on the beach, though - in the sand and everything. This was our first time riding in the sand - and Kay dropped his bike. We were trying to park and Kay pulled forward to do a loop in a less-packed dune-y section of the sand, and the bike went over. Dragged his foot back and smashed it under the pannier - between the pannier and the ground. Luckily, Kay has good boots that have malleous protectors so he just got a bit bruised. Alas, this first drop of the trip was in the dark so it was impossible to photo document. I suspect we'll have more, though. (Perhaps even in the morning as we try to get our bikes out of here.) And, we would be remiss if we didn't include this little gem: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5090/...13f5dd7407.jpg Muggles at Hooters -------------- Kay: The oil refinery was… I don't even have words for it. It was so massive. They were literally bringing workers in by the busload. It was something of a turning point for me. It really helped put the cost of using fossil fuels into perspective. All of this… this huge monstrosity of pipes and power and entire shiploads of oil just so that we can buy gas to drive around with one person in an SUV that seats seven… Wait… there's a sea-bird, squeaking on the beach while I type. My ears are filled with the sound of ocean. I'm about to sleep on the beach for the first time in my life, and some tiny squeaky sea bird is just outside our tent. We've been brought here by these incredible machines, and yet… there are literally miles of oil refinery maybe twenty miles down the road. It's glow lights up the horizon behind us. I feel incredibly fortunate, and a little bit guilty. I want to do this ride while we still can, before we humans have ****ed up every place out there with our litter and lack of concern, and before we run out of gas. I don't know what comes next, but I feel there's going to be a time where gas is outrageously expensive, and there will be a period of years where there simply won't be an alternative that'll allow us to take a journey like this. We have to take this chance at adventure while we can. |
Day 9 - Sabine Pass, TX to Lake City, TX - 339 Miles
Woke up today to sunrise on the beach. We got to watch the sun come up over the Gulf of Mexico, and it was beautiful. We were camped maybe 100 feet from the water, in what seemed like it would be a glorious, picturesque paradise. Instead, we woke to find a fine spray of sea water all over everything.
The air felt moist, and yet, within minutes there was a film of salty sea spray on both bikes, the panniers, the spare tires, the dry sacks - anything we left outside. By the morning the tent fly was soaked in salt spray, and there was no chance of drying it because salt would continue to spray as we sat around trying to dry it. Somehow the water even seeped up from the sand, through the footprint, the tent floor and our foam sleeping pads to cover the bottom of our sleeping bags in a wet, slurry mess. We're at a loss to explain it. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5049/...d6e24027e9.jpg Our first evening's camp spot http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5050/...3c8d8133cf.jpg Invisible horizon http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5285/...1b0efb4198.jpg Beach Reflections http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5043/...46c5a9d51e.jpg Boots Sunrise on the beach was glorious, but not quite glorious enough to make up for sea water over everything. Our original plan had been to camp at Mustang Island State Park tonight, which is another beach, but after last night's sea water fiasco, we decided to source other camping. So today's destination became Lake Corpus Christi State Park, near Corpus Christi, TX. The mornings riding revealed a wonderful thing. Somehow, overnight, it had become warm! Yesterday, I was still using the electrics on low on the interstate. Today, after riding for an hour to find breakfast, we packed our electrics away in the panniers. And our rain liners. We switched to summer gloves. And Kay even opened the jacket vents, which prompted me to do the same. It was glorious. On the downside, today also dawned windy, and got more so as the day wore on. We were bent over at an angle until the very end of the day, and there was nothing we could do about it. Today was the first day I experienced the phenomena of leaning left to compensate for the wind while turning right. It really is a mind-**** to be leaning the wrong way while turning. To negate the winds, we took a mid-afternoon stop at Buc-ee's. We'd been seeing signs for Buc-ee's for what felt like a hundred miles. They promised free jerky samples, beaver nuggets, awesome food and other extraordinary delights. Surprisingly, Buc-ee's delivered. We were awed by the selection of jerky options. There were nearly a dozen flavors (and of course we bought some). They also had fudge, Dippin' Dots - everything a hungry traveler could want for a long car ride. The bathrooms were extraordinarily lush. In all, it really was a traveler's paradise. The only downside of Buc-ee's was the dirty looks we kept garnering from conservatively-dressed, middle-aged, cowboy-hat-wearing Texas men. I don't know what they have against motorcyclists dressed in full gear, but Kay and I both got a plethora of dirty looks from these gents. It was quite odd. The greeter asked us if we were sky divers, and later we ran into a guy at a gas station who said we looked like "those guys who fly up in the sky… you know". Apparently they don't see a lot of people in full gear around here. We ended the day at Lake Corpus Christi State Park. We got into the park just around dusk, and we were racing the sunlight to find a spot and set up camp. First we dodged deer and tried the wooded area. The ground was too lumpy to find a good spot for a tent. Then we tried next to the lake. The lake was too windy, and we didn't want a repeat of last night. Finally, we settled on a spot further from the lake, sheltered from the wind by some trees. It was just right. Except for the burrs. Apparently here in Texas, they don't have normal burrs like we have up North. Here in Texas, the burrs are painful mother****ing burrs that will CUT YOU if you're not careful. And they stick to everything. (Although our motorcycle gear seems to be somewhat impervious - yay, cordura!) Availed ourselves of the lovely shower facilities, and now we and our underwear are clean. Huzzah! We're only about 150 miles from the border, but we're thinking that tomorrow we're going to move to a state park closer to the border, and mount my new tires so we've got less to carry. We're also going to examine our luggage and hopefully prune something because Kay's bike is very top heavy - you could probably push it over its kickstand with a couple of fingers. Not exaggerating. You really could. As of now, we're planning to spend the night near the border and get up early in the AM on Friday and cross it. Mexico, here we come! |
Day 10 - Mathis, TX to McAllen, TX - 201 miles
I think the biggest rule of adventuring is that things won't go according to plan. Today was a good example of that. We took showers last night and washed our underwear, which we (being the urban sophisticates that we are) left drying on our bikes along with the towels. We we work up the entire park was in a deep fog and everything was covered with a thick layer of dew.
I (Kay) tried rearranging the tires on my bike because of how ridiculously top-heavy it is with them on it, but that ended up going nowhere. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5010/...29eb659a1b.jpg Top-Heavy Bike So, we packed up our tent with its wet fly-sheet, our damp towels and underwear, and set off, agreeing to stop at the first interesting place we saw for food, which turned out to be Michael and Mom's. A woman on the phone in there told the person on the other end that she was at "The Restaurant" because it literally was *the* restaurant. This was a one light town. But the food was great. Between us we had excellent home made biscuits, sausage, gravy, and delicious pancakes the size of your head. Neither of us could finish our plates, although we definitely tried. I'm carrying around far more stickers than we need and the plan has been to drop them off at a post office, but the one we passed this morning we weren't ready for, and the ones we told the GPS to find for us either didn't exist, or had their employees out to lunch (literally). During this search, we found ourselves on Route 666… incidentally, this plays an important part in the rest of the day. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5249/...c0149fbc53.jpg Route 666 We made our way to some Bentsen-Rio Grande State park, and were thoroughly disheartened when we got there. It was RVs as far as the eye could see. So, with sunset on our heels we turned around to grab food at the nearest place (a Jack-In-the-box… bleh) then came back, only to find out that the entryway beside the endless RVs wasn't actually the entrance to the park even though the GPS said it was right there, and there was a sign for some butterfly place on that road. No. it was the road at that intersection that had the large "Road Closed" signs across it. Under normal circumstances we'd have turned around and taken one of the nearby dirt roads and found some little hideaway place to stick the tent, but the Border Patrol isn't just vigilant here, they're ****ing omnipresent. Every back road we went down or passed seemed to have a Border Patrol SUV on it, and they're specifically out looking for people being a lot sneakier than we could be with a 3 person tent, so there was no way we'd be able to hideycamp without getting hassled. (Did I mention this park is just a few miles from the border? No wonder border patrol is everywhere.) The next nearest state park was 50 miles away, and searching for "campground" would have yielded 500 RV parks and probably no tent campgrounds. It was time for an alternate plan. But, I've left out one important detail. Not long after our failed Post Office hunt Dachary had me pull over to tweak my tires. (On the infamous Route 666, I must point out.) After tweaking I got back on the bike and realized I didn't have my gloves, so I leaned the bike over onto the kickstand only to discover that I'd already lifted the kick stand, and down it went. "Hmm." I thought. "It's not all the way down since it's leaning on that little hill. I can probably lift it myself without issue." At which point I proceeded to lift with my back, and not with my knees. I got it up, but the right sight of my back paid a pretty hefty price. It hurt a bit initially, but it wasn't too bad, and there wasn't much I could do anyway, so off we rode and I mostly forgot about it until we got to the Jack-In-The-Box. When I got off the bike there I started walking around tilted to the right like I had scoliosis and in a bunch of pain. Apparently the only position that doesn't hurt my back, besides laying down, is hunched over like I'm riding a motorcycle. And that, plus the Road Closed sign, and the sun that had already set, is how we find ourself in a Quality Inn tonight. Dachary's threatening to stay another day if my back is still hurting but I really want to get out of this city. The room is nice but it's another $50+ a night and McAllen Texas just depresses me. I hate this massive urban sprawl. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5164/...2920bfe157.jpg Unloading in Style by CorporateRunaways, on Flickr (Dachary's Note: What Kay doesn't mention is that he's seriously in a lot of pain. Every little thing, from rolling over to sneezing, elicits an "ouch." Short of a miraculous recovery overnight, I don't even see how he'll get out of bed tomorrow - let alone ride. Add to that the stress of our first border crossing, and having a top-heavy bike since we didn't get to mount my new tires tonight - and I'm leaning toward it probably not happening. But we'll see in the AM.) |
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Enjoying this read! Keep the updates coming! Send me a sticker and i'll advertise for you guys :D |
Where are you guys now ? Looking forward to your progress reports !
Steve |
I haven't been on a long trip yet although I am hoping to some time in the future. I just wanted to say I'm really enjoying your journal. Have a safe and happy time.
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Get some robaxacet patinum. It will help some.
Bill |
Day 14 - Chapulhuecan to Tula - 149 Miles
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pannier_fail by CorporateRunaways, on Flickr The riding was slow up until 2-3PM, when we finally got into Ixmiquilipan. Today's destination was going to be an archaeological site at Tula whose name I keep forgetting. It's supposed to have these large head-totem things that are quite impressive. (Can you tell that Kay researched these spots for us? I have no idea what we're going to see, but there are signs for it!) Unfortunately, because of the slow riding, we didn't get to this site at Tula until 4:56PM. There was still plenty of sunlight, but the place was closing and the guy wouldn't let us in. So we turned around and headed into Tula in search of a hotel. Unfortunately, we've gotten into really populated areas near Mexico City. It wouldn't have been possible for us to hidey-camp today, so we were stuck in yet another motel. And contrary to what people keep telling us about hotels being cheaper the farther you go, we paid the most we've paid for a hotel yet - $450 MEX, or around $40 US. The parking for our bikes is quite secure - we're inside a courtyard, and they've let us pull the bikes up right into the open-air hall in front of our room - behind a wall and not even visible from the courtyard parking lot. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5202/...e92f992e7d.jpg bikes_in_front_of_room by CorporateRunaways, on Flickr Unfortunately, at this price, I'm not a fan of this hotel. There may be wi-fi, but the signal is so weak we can't use it. (Plus, it's password-protected and they didn't give us the password.) The room has a slightly run-down quality, the bathroom is tiny (you can't even open the door all the way because it bangs into the counter) and the beds are uncomfortable. Someone was either watching TV quite loudly until around 1:30AM, or carrying on a loud conversation, because it kept waking me up and around 1:30 I decided to give up on sleeping and get up. There's a smell like rotten eggs coming from the bathroom, and every time someone flushes, we hear it in our plumbing. This is the most we've paid for a hotel, and it's the least nice hotel we've stayed at. (It's still not dirty and seems to be more-or-less bug-free, so it could be a lot worse… but for $450 pesos, I've come to expect more.) We walked down the street to where we'd passed a movie theater with the thought of grabbing a bite to eat and seeing a movie. Kay thinks it would be a novel experience to catch a movie in a foreign country. We were surprised to see that most of the titles were American. The price for general admission was just over $4 US ($49 pesos) and a 3D movie was around $6.50 US ($79 pesos). Unfortunately, by the time we got around to checking out the movies, we were both getting tired - and were worried about the state of our colons because we'd drunk fountain soda from a nearby Burger King. (Yes, we ate dinner at a Burger King. Because it was late in the day, it was one of the few things still open. The BK menu was almost exclusively in English, and with the exception of the hamburger meat tasting different, it was almost exactly the same as eating BK in the US.) Having drunk the fountain soda, it occurred to us to wonder if the soda machines were hooked up to a local water supply or how they mixed their soda. If it was local water, we wanted to be near the comfort of the toilet in our hotel room just in case it had negative effects. Luckily, so far so good. We're planning to still see the archaeological site in the morning, but sadly we've got to head into Mexico City after that. We made an unfortunate discovery today - Kay's fork seals seem to be going. The left fork is weeping fork oil, and as much as we'd prefer to avoid driving in Mexico City, we'd rather get it taken care of at a BMW dealer than wait until we get further south and hope the seals don't give way completely. We'll also try to get the oil changed in both bikes there, and pick up a new rear tube for the bikes since we used one of our spares on mine. Hopefully the BMW dealer can get us in and out fairly quickly, but I'm still expecting we'll have to spend at least another night in a hotel either in Mexico City proper, or just outside of the city. I don't think we'll get very far today. |
Day 13 - Ciudad Valles to Chapulhuecan - 109 miles
(sorry this one is out of order)
We got on the road today at around 10AM. Took time out this morning to do a Pimsleur Spanish before we left, and we hope to do another one tonight. We're putting ourselves on a two-a-day schedule in an effort to become a bit more proficient. We do seem to be doing fine on the extremely rudimentary Spanish we have, though - we've been able to buy things and book hotels and ask for directions. We just can't carry on a conversation. Riding today out of Ciudad Valles toward Xilitla was much nicer than the riding we've been doing. We were riding along lush roadways with nice plantations and ranches - not the soulless, corporate mega-farms we'd seen closer to the border. You still get a sense that most of the people in this part of Mexico are poor, too, but they seem to have more pride. Things seem better cared-for. Many of the buildings are brightly painted or cleaner than the ones we'd seen in the past couple of days. Everything here seems a bit more human. Today we saw Las Pozas De James - the place that Edward James had built. It was really surreal (although not in the way people have apparently compared it with surrealist art, which was in many of the descriptions that Kay read for the place.) It was these massive, oddly-shaped stone structures integrated with the jungle. Jungle grew in some of the structures. In other areas, the structures took advantage of the natural landscape, incorporating waterfalls and pools of water. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5004/...de2594a4b5.jpg las_pozas_1 by CorporateRunaways, on Flickr We bought a map for $25 MEX (a little over $2 US) but it didn't help much - we kept getting lost amidst the criss-crossing staircases and multiple, unclear pathways between parts of the place. It was really interesting and definitely worth exploring, in spite of the fact that many parts of it triggered my fear of heights and I wasn't able to enjoy it as much as I think I would have otherwise. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5045/...9e2feb1011.jpg las_pozas_8 by CorporateRunaways, on Flickr http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5007/...2db886363d.jpg las_pozas_5 by CorporateRunaways, on Flickr Las Pozas also highlighted the fact that many of the things we've seen here simply wouldn't be accepted in the United States. At Las Pozas, for example, there are tons of staircases with no railings, high platforms with no rails or protection to prevent people from falling, and even a tricky waterfall crossing on a ledge approximately 18 inches wide, with a pool of water on the right and a sheer fall down a cliff on the left. The fact that Las Pozas can exist in its natural state is a testament to the fact that in Mexico, a lot more things are acceptable. In some ways, this is refreshing from the liability-aware, ever-fearful-of-a-lawsuit United States. The riding to and from Xilitla was also amazing. We took route 85 south from Ciudad Valles, toward route 120 to Xilitla. It was only 14 kilometers on 120, but it was mountainous, twisty and beautiful. In the end, we went back down 120 to hook up with 85 again, thinking it would be faster to get south toward our next waypoint. Unfortunately, 85 through here also goes through mountains and around these amazing twisties, so we only managed to cover 109 miles in the roughly 4 hours of riding we did today. Around 5PM, the sun was setting (as it does early in the mountains) and we had no hope of getting to the next town along our map, which was 175 kilometers. We just happened into Chapulhuecan. We knew we had no chance of hidey-camping tonight, because the road was sheer cliff on one side and sheer drop-off on the other. No place to pitch a tent, and not even any side-roads to go down to try to find a place to camp. Luckily, Chapulhuecan had a hotel, and we wisely decided not to try to go any further. Otherwise, we'd probably still be puttering along in the dark. Today's hotel appears to be a family-run establishment - i.e. it's a very large house that this family has turned into a hotel. There's a common area with a television where they sit and watch the news after dinner, and the wife clearly does most of the running of the place. The rooms have a feminine touch, with cute rugs and curtains that aren't the typical nondescript curtains you find in a large, impersonal hotel. There was a minor snafu with our booking process - Kay went in to get us a room and apparently at one point, the woman asked "Two hombres? In one bed?" Kay wasn't thinking and said yes, that would be fine - and then realized when he came out that they probably thought we were both guys. He asked me to say hi when we went in, so she'd know I was a woman, so I did one better and unzipped my jacket - I was wearing a girly shirt with a floral print and a feminine cut today. When I went inside with my stuff and greeted the woman, she smiled warmly, and then asked if we wanted a bigger room. We declined because we already had most of our stuff in the room she'd originally given us. Kay and I think she gave us a bit of a crappy room because she thought we were two guys sharing a bed - we'll be more careful about this perception in the future. Kay asked about secure parking for the bikes, and they told us to wheel the bikes right up onto the front porch. They were literally in front of the doors to the hotel, under the covered porch/sitting area. We locked the tires between the bikes and locked the bikes together, and anyone who wanted to make off with them would have had a hard time. After unloading our stuff, we went out in search of food. We've found that in most of these small towns (and even the bigger ones like Ciudad Valles where we stayed last night) restaurants tend to close early. A pizza joint where we ate last night closed at 8PM - unheard of in the U.S. It was after 6PM when we went searching for food, and we walked up and down the town and finally settled on the only place that seemed open - a literal hole in the wall with signs for hamburguesas. When we walked up, there was a woman and her two daughters sitting around a table that protruded out into the sidewalk. We asked about hamburguesas, and they shot into action - turning on lights and firing up a grill. While we were standing there, we saw a sign for types of hamburguesas and prices on the wall, and saw a sign for a "doble hamburguesa" that was only $3 MEX more than the regular one. We asked to amend our orders to that, not sure what we'd get, and we ended up with these delicious hamburgers with lettuce, onion, cheese, thin-sliced and fried ham (think Canadian Bacon), jalapenos and some sort of mayo. They were DELICIOUS. Two of these beauties for $46 MEX, or just under $4 US. It was a good note to end the night. Today's lesson: don't think you can get very far in the mountains, because you can't. Geez. 40KPH all day long and that was the right speed, based on the roads and curves. Not much forward motion, but a beautiful day on the bikes. |
Day 15 - Tula, Mexico to Mexico City, Mexico
Kay here...
We got out of our room and around the corner to Atlantes de Tula shortly after it opened, which turned out to be perfect because the three shanty towns of vendors along the one kilometer path from the entrance to the actual pyramids were not yet staffed. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5207/...0257b90d31.jpg atlantes_de_tula_dudes We learned a few things during this visit: 1) it doesn't matter if it's only 55 deg F out. Don't bring your riding jacket. They may throw in a 1k hike in a rising sun just for the hell of it. 2) My hat was made by idiots. It's waterproof and *freaking hot*. If my head was cold i'd put on a cold weather hat. I plan on taking my leatherman to the lining. 3) Mexicans have an odd way of preserving archeological finds that seems to frequently involve adding concrete. 4) Atlantes de Tula is absolutely not worth the drive. If you're nearby it's not bad. The museum had hardly anything in it and hardly any of that was actually *from* the site. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5243/...dbdae25a4f.jpg jacket_pack We put our headsets back on our helmets when we went to leave, only to have the tab on Dachary's break off on the baseplate. The Sena SMH-10 has a tab at the bottom, and a clip type thing at the top. Put in the tap, pivot, and snap at the top. The tab at the bottom keeps the pins on the headset module against the connection plates on the baseplate. Without the tab there's nothing to keep the connection. We got it kinda-sorta working with duct tape, but by the end of the day that had completely failed and Dachary could only hear me, or talk, if she held it just so, which was, of course, not possible when dealing with the stop-and-go traffic that we encountered on our way to Motohaus BMW in Mexico City. She could only get it to work when she literally held it against her helmet, which she couldn't do when she was using the clutch - an almost constant thing during our 5-hour drive. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5047/...52dc58dd8f.jpg taped_sena Having intended to totally avoid Mexico City, we had no detailed maps of it either in the GPS or on paper. The SmellyBiker GPS maps we're running under didn't have the details. (There may be a more detailed version that has the details, but we didn't have it loaded.) So, we took the only road the map had which took us through the center of Mexico City which, unsurprisingly, took forever. It's like driving through Manhattan during rush hour, only slower. I'm still pretty impressed with Mexican drivers, although Dachary was a bit unnerved by the cars squeezing into nonexistent lanes. Dachary's thermometer on her dash read 115 F and mine on my handlebars read 35.6 C. Both were probably getting some heat from the engine but you could definitely see heat waves rising above the cars ahead of us and the exhaust fumes from all those stationary cars were pretty intense without any breeze. But, eventually we made our way, after Dachary nearly wet herself trying to hold all the water from the CamelBak she'd drunk during traffic while we tried to find somewhere with a bathroom. And, of course, there were multiple stops to ask policemen, and pizza delivery men where the address was… We had kept going without stop for anything but gas and bathroom since we left Tula, and it was a huge relief to finally spot the BMW rondel on the side of the road. We pulled up to the large metal gates at about 4:30pm and thought, "oh shit. They're closed." , but they looked out and saw a couple of BMW bikes pulled up out front and, like magic, the gates parted and we were ushered into the land of Awesome. "Habla Inglais?" "Sure" *Jaws drop* We were in a bay with probably 30 BMW bikes, ten of which seemed to be black F650GSs like Dachary's and Robert and Eduardo proceeded to absolutely take care of us. They didn't have the fork seals in stock, but they'd get them tomorrow (Wednesday), and while they had a bay full of bikes needing service, they'd still fix my fork seals, and get us out of there at some point mid-day Thursday. Oh, you need a hotel? We'll find you one. How much are you looking to pay? Here, let us take you and all your stuff there. No no, you don't need to take a taxi. Oh, and those headsets you were asking about? Here's a hand-drawn map to the guy downtown who distributes Cardo headsets for Mexico. Note regarding BMWs: yes, they cost more than some cheaper bikes. And yes, BMW service by an actual BMW service shop is almost always more expensive than you could get by going to a perfectly competent, non-affiliated mechanic. But with BMW rondel comes a level of service that you don't get elsewhere. The guys at Motohaus BMW were more than just willing to take care of us, they were practically compelled to do so. They offered us water while we waited. They looked up hotels for us and drove us to one that some of their regular visitors use when they come. The hand-drawn map to the Cardo dealer was phenomenal, as BMW offers a bike-to-bike communication system but he said "it's expensive" and was willing to recommend this other guy. They're making room for us in their workload and I have no doubt that they wouldn't have hesitated to help us with anything else. (In fact, Robert told us to let him know if there's anything else we need while we're in Mexico City and he'll help us figure it out, etc.) So yes, our bikes weren't dirt cheap (although we both got good deals on buying them used, although Kay's "good deal" is turning out to be less and less good) but what comes along with the BMW brand has value that people often don't consider with the cost. The Hotel was $400 pesos a night and is totally swank. We're so outclassed by it. Sadly, the neighborhood has very little to offer, but we found a cart with stools and wonderful Hamburgesas with cheese, ham, mayo, and pineapple. We we given a little plate of Piquante (sliced Jalapeno with seeds) to add as we desired. We also ordered a Tortas which came on toasted bread with eggs, tomato, mayo and chorizo. It was also delicious, but we could barely finish one, and got the second to go for later. We got four meals for $130 pesos (about $10 US). We were grinning ear-to-ear the entire meal. As an aside we have no clue where we are and there's no way we'll be able to find our way back to the Motohaus without a Taxi (not that we could carry all our crap anyway). Also, we're pretty sure that the Cardo seller is too far to walk in this heat without having a clue where we are. We may attempt to walk back to our hotel afterwards, or we may take a taxi. Honestly we're not sure what it'll cost. Which brings me to the headsets. In the US they're about $300 for a pair, we think, and while we really don't want to spend the money, like Dachary's boots. We consider the headsets a necessity. Being able to talk to each other as we ride radically alters the journey. Without them you're riding in solitude with your thoughts all day, and then comparing notes at the end. With them, It's saying "Are those cows on that incredibly steep hill above us?! How do they lay down without rolling off?" or "Oh my God. Look to the right!" It's riding in silence for twenty minutes and then saying "I love you" because you're thinking of how grateful you are to be on the road with them. It's saying "I've got to pee….NO. I've got to pee NOW." or "I'm getting hungry, how about we stop at the next place that looks decent?" or "There it is! The thing we've been driving all day trying to find! You just passed it! Turn around!" I realize that friends and lovers have been doing journeys like this since before Dachary or I were born without headsets, but it doesn't change the fact that having them adds another dimension to the trip. It makes it much more of a shared experience, and while we'd probably continue without them it wouldn't be nearly as enjoyable. Gear Notes: * BMW Rallye Pro 2 Jacket held up spectacularly in the heat. Yes, it was hot. Yes I was sweating. I would have been even in a 100% mesh suit. But, I didn't feel like i was going to keel over from heat stroke. Drinking regularly helped. * Sena SMH-10 is officially getting a "Won't recommend" from us. We love the usability and the sound quality, but we have gone through 3 bases and now broken a main module. For days we've been putting them on and then running though a sound check… Yes i can hear you. No you can't hear me. Pull down on the module because the pins barely line up with their connector plates. * BMW F650GSs held up great in ****ing hot stop and go traffic for over five hours. Our temperature warnings never came on. |
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Sena SMH-10 Debacle
I don't want to sidetrack this thread with headset comparisons and discussions, but, as we've mentioned. The Sena SMH-10 has totally failed us, and we've just gone off to purchase a pair of Cardo Scala Rider G4s (at an inflated price here in Mexico City). Fixing the Sena's last failure wasn't a real option, and we can't stand the lack of reliability we've experienced.
We've got the full details on the failures (plural) and our thoughts here in our blog and anyone pondering getting the Sena SMH-10 should definitely read it. ALSO... for those wondering where we are we've got a spot tracker and I've added it to our sig block. Today we've been wandering around Mexico City by foot and Taxi so I haven't had it on, but tomorrow, hopefully... |
Day 17 - Mexico City to Apizaco
Day Seventeen - Mexico City to Apizaco
It's two days before Christmas and today has been filled with ups and downs. It started with us going down to the lobby of the hotel to look up directions to quickly escape the grasp of Mexico City, a task which we have since learned is impossible. And then we spent an hour re-evaluating the latest version of the iPad magazine app we're having built because the guy doesn't believe that he hasn't squashed all the bugs. We confirmed that no, there were still plenty left. After that we packed up and had the hotel call us a cab to take us and our piles of crap to Motohaus BMW, where we expected to drop off our stuff and go hunt down food while they finished our bikes. But that was not to be. They were simply too efficient. I blame the German influence. Our bikes were done, cleaned, and standing ready to be loaded up by the time we'd finished paying the bill. We're still a little unclear about why it cost the same for both bikes when, theoretically, I had more done, but it was a totally reasonable price so we paid it, and decided to decipher the bill later. Unfortunately we were starving. Dachary felt it best to flee the city than stop and attempt to find food. So we did, or, we attempted to. One of the important intersections Google maps wanted us to turn at simply wasn't there, and we found ourselves in the old historic part of town. It was incredible. I wish we had video for you, but my camera mount has been removed from the helmet (long story, will replace it shortly) and Dachary was simply too stressed by the excessive merging and lane-hopping to deal with taking a hand off the bike to turn on the camera. Eventually we turned onto Eje 1 as the Eje's seem to be important cross streets. Unfortunately Eje 1, where we were, was about one mile of vendors lining each side of the street with tons of people, and vendors, spilling out into the road. We both agreed it would have been great to explore on foot, but sucked on the bikes. And then, it all disappeared. Dense hardly moving traffic evaporated and we were zooming down the road without interference from anything except traffic lights. A little help from the GPS and we were slowly shirking the grasp of Mexico City. We rejoiced when we saw the sign thanking us for visiting Mexico City, but it had been ages in traffic, and we'd been up for at least five hours at that point without anything in our bellies but water. We kept going. Something would come up, just as soon as we got past the dense edge of the city. And eventually it did. We have dubbed it the Restaurante California, because while we got in easily enough we had the most incompetent waiter of my days. After clearing away our plates he disappeared. It was at least 15 minutes before he even looked our way and we were able to summon him and suggest that maybe getting us a bill would be a good thing. He then disappeared for another ten minutes. The meal was uninspiring and way overpriced, but it was like a restaurant at any highway pull-off. They had a captive audience and could charge pretty much whatever they wanted. There was one good thing there. A map. Actually, an atlas, of Mexico, Guatemala, and Belize! $210 pesos ( just under $20 US ) and it was mine. We debated if we really needed it, but I was unsure of the location of the border crossing with Guatemala, and after the insanity of the city, I wanted the reassurance of knowing that we had a good detailed map that we could use to extricate ourself from wherever we ended up. There are a lot of towns that aren't on our big map, and there are a lot of roads in Mexico with no names. And while, overall, the signage is pretty damn good. Sometimes it doesn't exist when you really need it. At one point we followed the signs to Apizaco and found ourself in this beautiful little town that looked like someone had taken all the fancy boutique stores from a major city and tastefully laid them out side by side, block after block. (After consulting the map, we can confirm that Tlaxcala is the name of the town.) Many of the streets were even lined with stone instead of asphalt. Another great shopping place. It was only a little after four at this point and both of us we feeling tired. The time spent in the heat of Mexico City's stop and go traffic combined with the poor meal and we were ready to call it a day. We had planned to camp that night at a campground not far away, but Dachary had checked the weather and it claimed an evening temperature in the low thirties, and while we can survive that in our sleeping bags, we know from experience that it's not pleasant… at all. A little farther and Dachary's seriously starting to fade. We stopped in one hotel but realize it's a kiss-no-tell motel, and we don't want to pay for sixteen hours. They're usually sold in blocks of four, and 4 PM to 8 AM would be just as much as a normal hotel, plus the stress of a running clock and the complications of figuring out how to indicate our needs through a hidden window dealie… we turned around and continued down the road. The Hotel de Angels* ( I think ) appeared next with a normal nightly rate af $1222 pesos ($100 US) but he offered us a Christmas discount of only $750 pesos which I declined. As we exited that one I spotted another down the road. I don't remember the name but the woman offered us a room fro $250 pesos (just over $20 US) and suggested we could pull our motorcycles into their gated (and locked) tunnel of a driveway. So we did. We took off our helmets and I grabbed my tank bag and followed the girl up to the room… on the 4th floor. Incapable of asking for something on a lower floor I went with it, came down and said "Ok. New strategy. We're on the fourth floor. So, we grab the valuables out of the panniers and leave them locked up on the bikes. " At this point Dachary lost it and pretty much just sat down and started crying, and eventually sobbing. She'd severely sugar crashed a while ago and just kept holding it in until we found a place to stop and the prospect of hauling our stuff up four flights of stairs or leaving the panniers behind was simply too much. And, she desperately needed to eat. And, having her period on top of all that probably didn't help. She got it in her head that the place, and the parking was insecure, and bad in some indescribable way, but agreed that in her current state trying to get a refund, getting back on the bikes, and continuing our search for a hotel simply wasn't going to happen. Also, I don't think either of us could do a very good job of asking for a refund. So, unwilling to leave the panniers on the bikes, she put her helmet back on, grabbed her tank bag, and both her panniers, and proceeded to carry them all up at once, stopping frequently and not letting me help. "Stubborn" is a word that comes to mind. She felt that she couldn't deal with the stairs at all, but if she must she was only going to do it once, even if it was far more difficult that way. I made a couple more trips for the rest of the stuff, and to lock the tires to the bike and found her undressed in her sleeping bag (with liner), under the covers instructing me to wake her when it was time to leave in the morning and that no, she wanted nothing to do with the idea of dinner. http://www.corporaterunaways.com/wp-...n1-500x375.jpg (Dachary Cocoon) I decided that the presence of warm food might change that perception and went out to find some. I wish she had of come, because what I found was so sweet. The first restaurant was this green walled fluorescent soulless looking space with one person eating alone at a table. The next ( Restaurante Blanco i think) had a Christmas tree in the corner, with blinking snowmen, and lights. The family that owned the place was gathered around a table with the matriarch at the head, a fuzzy TV showing a dubbed US movie by the tree, and a child's car game on it. The tables were nicely adorned with tablecloths and the woman was wonderfully patient with my horrid spanish, and got me something along the lines of what I asked for. Grilled meat. :) I asked her specifically what the name of it was before leaving, but forgot it 2 minutes later. It was some sort of thinly sliced grilled pork with lemony flavor, french fries (probably home made), some refried pinto beans, some avocado and a little tomato on the side. I swung by the OXXO (the largest convenience store chain in Mexico) and grabbed some soda and some cookies (good source of fast sugar while the food digested), brought it back to our room, and startled Dachary out of sleep even though i'd been talking to her since before i opened the door. It took some convincing to get her out of her cocoon ("It's cold." she claimed) but the food was delicious. The avocado went brilliantly with the fries, and I politely ordered her to eat some cookies when she finished. Within ten minutes she was a new woman. And now, she's laughing and reading her novel beside me. So yeah. Today had some ups and downs. Tomorrow we should make it to El Tajin. Some very impressive ruins. I don't know if we'll make it in before dark, or if they're going to be open on Christmas, but we'll see. There's a campground right next to it that's well recommended (actually, there are a few) but it's pretty cool in our room right now, and probably cold outside and the weather report didn't look like it was going to warm up much for Christmas. So, it's likely we'll end up in another hotel. Gear Notes: Cardo Scala G4 seems to be working well overall, but we're not 100% thrilled. When the environment is quiet (like when stopped at a gas station) they are almost imperceptibly quiet if you've got earplugs in. We find that they occasionally need to be rebooted while riding. Not a hard thing, but an annoying one. The audio becomes incredibly distorted and you can only barely make out what the other person is saying to you. When you reboot a module it requires both people to initiate the connection again but seems to fix the problem. The noise filtering is impressive though. While the Sena is far louder we didn't realize just how much wind noise it was transmitting. Riding at speed today was practically relaxing it was so quiet. The G4 emits sound exclusively when someone is talking. Sometimes it's too aggressive about this, chopping off the beginning of the first word, and monosyllabic words like "yup" and "yes" frequently disappear into the ether. As the outside noise increases so does the volume, and I believe the G4 performed quite well. It was still hard to hear at highway speeds with wind but no harder than the Sena. It was just a different form of hard. The buttons on the side are difficult to find with a glove, and would probably be very difficult with winter gloves. Oxford Spanish / English dictionary. I'm seriously beginning to dislike this thing. It's nicely sized, and laid out, and the colored letter blocks on the edge of the pages make it easy to find the section you need but when you get there there's an 85% chance that the word you're looking for isn't there. It doesn't matter if you're looking in the Spanish or English half. --- * There is no way in hell the Hotel de Angels at $1222 pesos could hold a candle to the the $970 peso Hotel Villes in Ciduaded de Villes. When I went in to check the rate there people were walking through the wonderfully decorated main hall in incredibly nice dresses and suits that pretty much told me there was no way in hell I would be spending the night there before I even found the clerk. I really regretted not being Charlie and Ewen that night. To be able to stumble across some totally swank digs and not worry about the price? That would have been excellent. |
Day 18 - Apizaco to Papantla
Woke up this morning and neither of us was particularly well-rested. I'd climbed into my sleeping bag and liner last night because our hotel room was so cold, and halfway through the night, Kay had to give in and grab his sleeping bag, too. It was ridiculous. When we woke up this morning, neither of us wanted to shower (too cold) so we packed our stuff and hit the road. This was perhaps our earliest start yet - we were out of the hotel at 8AM and on the road by 8:20.
Today's goal was to get to El Tajin to check out the ruins. We figured we'd probably have to drive here today, and then check out the ruins tomorrow - IF they're open on Christmas. Early in the day, it looked like we'd gotten an early enough start that we might actually be able to check out El Tajin this afternoon. But that changed when we started having road trouble. We were traveling north on 119, and shortly after leaving Zacatlan, we ran into our first honest-to-goodness Mexican detour. 119 was completely closed - there was an ambulance parked across the road blocking it, and a guy with the obligatory machine gun waving people to a nearby dirt road. Some guys were putting up signs at the start to tell people how to detour, which didn't really help, but luckily Kay caught sight of a truck driving around a curve that looked like it terminated at a random person's house, but actually went on past into a cornfield. This was the beginning of our 30-40 minute detour. We found ourselves riding along a red dusty dirt road through cornfields and a small village in the middle of nowhere. A young guy (I say kid, although he was probably in his late teens) was spraying down the road into the village with a hose - I presume to keep dust down. Unfortunately, this had the effect of turning the red dust to a muddy slime, which made me nervous, because I've had some bad encounters with mud. (Read: Acadia/Pachaug in Rhode Island - my bike still has some mud on it from that trip.) A large section of the road had been watered down actually, and neither of us could figure out where it all came from. For a dirt road, it was actually pretty good. There were a few ditches and bumps that were easily avoided on our nimble motorcycles. We were amused to discover, however, that even the dirt roads in the middle of nowhere have topes. This is such a Mexican thing. It quickly became apparent that nobody really knew where the detour was supposed to go. We followed a line of cars that was following a line of traffic eventually terminated in several parked vehicles. There was a guy standing in front of the parked vehicles waving people to the left, so we went that way. A few twists and houses later, we found ourselves in the middle of some fields and the lead car in our caravan encountered a car coming from the other direction, which essentially told us to turn back. So now we had to turn around and find a different dirt road that would lead back to the main road. We discovered that all roads led to the blockage. What we'd thought were parked vehicles before were actually a bunch of cars waiting to pass through a section of the detour. It looked to me like there was two-way traffic on the dirt road, but it wasn't large enough to accommodate the two-way traffic, so some of the vehicles were moving and others were backing up. As soon as the blockage appeared to clear, though, a guy with a horse trailer full of horses turned out of the line and parked across the road, completely blocking it. WTF? Kay rode up to where the horse trailer was blocking the road to try to figure out what was going on. He found that beyond the horse trailer, a semi-truck had tried coming up a steep grade and then backing down it again. The trailer went askew and the truck was effectively stuck on the slope, blocking traffic in both directions. Kay figured that we could scoot around behind the horse trailer in a ditch, between the horse trailer and the truck in front of him, and past the semi blocking the slope. Kay was right. Around the horse trailer we went. Between the trailer and truck, with plenty of room for our panniers. Down the slope next to the semi (although I went VERY slow because it was a somewhat steep grade, and Kay's bike slipped on a rock halfway down and wobbled a bit, making me nervous). At the bottom of the grade was a very shallow stream across the road (like 2 or 3 inches of water) - our first river crossing of the trip! Then we had to go around another bus that was parked in the road (again, plenty of room for our motos although cars couldn't pass) and past the long line of blocked traffic back to the main road. Success! Left to my own devices, I probably would have sat there a lot longer, waiting for the blockage to clear. I still think of myself as being a vehicle just like any other car or truck on the road - I think of myself as taking up the same amount of space, but really there are a lot of places we can go that cars can't. Today was a prime example of that. And it was FUN! We left the rest of the cars sitting there and resumed our trip toward El Tajin. Within a few miles, though, we ran into another problem - there was a sign for the town we were trying to reach next on the route, and then the signs for the town disappeared. All we could see was a pay road to Mexico City, or a pay road to a town much further north from El Tajin. The free road to the intermediary town was nowhere to be found. We went a way down the free road toward Mexico City, and quickly discovered that it went in the wrong direction. Kay spotted a row of stands along the side of the road and we decide that we should turn around there - and while we were at it, we'd grab lunch. This turned out to be a great call. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5285/...a8c65cd163.jpg Our Lunch Stop We got enchiladas from one of the women making things fresh, made-to-order while we waited. We sat at some picnic tables on wooden benches next to a lake under a shady canopy and waited while our food cooked, smelling the wonderful smells of fresh foods and being occasionally accosted by women trying to sell us wooden spoons. If you ever need wooden spoons (that have probably been hand-made) - this is apparently the spot in Mexico to get them. We kept trying to explain that we were on motos and there wasn't room, but they kept trying to sell them. At one point, a woman came by selling folding wooden chairs. I was half-tempted to buy one just to have the fun of trying to find a place to carry it. The enchiladas had a surprise component that looked slightly like a green pepper that had been grilled (while Kay thought it was avocado) but turned out to be cactus! Kay figured it out, and we looked at mine and it was definitely cactus. I really liked the flavor - it was like a much more intense, brighter green pepper with a hint of something almost vinegary. Kay wasn't a fan, and tried unloading his cactus on me. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5289/...c0dafa55fe.jpg Cactus and grilled meat! After lunch, we tried again to find the road to the next town on our route (Huauchinago). We found a tiny, pitted road leading past a cornfield that Kay is convinced was the right one, but neither of us wanted to spend all day traveling it, so we opted for the Cuota (paid road) to Tuxpan. Saw another sign where the paid road terminated for Huauchinago, and tried getting onto it - only to discover that the road was closed for construction. It was like being back in New England, in Maine - "Can't get theah from heah." Luckily, though, we spotted a sign for a town further down our route and got back on the correct road. The rest of the afternoon went by smoothly, although we found ourselves back on slower, twisty roads over the mountains. At one point Kay looked at the GPS and found that we'd descended over a mile from the elevation we were at when we left Mexico City, and it was getting WARM! (It was quite cool in Mexico City, with lows in the 30s at night - too cold for camping.) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5283/...27c89c726d.jpg Zacatlan... we think Sometime during this stretch, Kay was in the middle of a sentence and then I couldn't hear the rest of what he was saying. My headset disconnected. I tried re-connecting it, but it wasn't responding at all - it seemed to have turned itself off. I rebooted it, and after a bit of fussing, was able to reconnect to Kay again. But almost immediately it turned itself off. I assumed at this point that the battery was dying, so I tried reconnecting to tell Kay that, but didn't get a chance. We pulled over at a gas station to reconnoiter and figured out that it was, indeed, dead. Dunno why his was still good (and his lasted until the end of the day - a couple of hours later - without dying). Unfortunately, after our dirt road detour in the afternoon, and the misleading signs after that, it was a little after 4PM when we rolled into Poza Rica, the big town on our route to El Tajin. We figured that El Tajin probably closed at 5PM, so it was time to find a place to spend the night and try to hit the ruins in the morning. Kay had found us an actual honest-to-goodness Mexican camping ground, so we could avoid paying for a hotel tonight… and after a little poking around, we managed to find it. However, it was a depressing gray gravel yard surrounded by a thick stone wall, directly adjacent to a main road. No grass, no peaceful camping sounds - just dreary gray stone and traffic noises. Which was somewhat surprising as it was an adjunct to a high end hotel ($1220 Mex / $100 US). I used my veto power to say no ("this seems like a really depressing way to spend Christmas Eve") and Kay was nice enough to humor me. (I think he was afraid of another meltdown like last night.) At this point, it was nearing 5PM, the sun would be going down and I hadn't had a chance to check the 'net and was waiting to hear back from some clients… so we had the task of finding a hotel with internet for the night. Kay suggested we drive out of Poza Rica where we might find a cheaper hotel along the road, and we stopped at pretty much the first hotel we saw coming into Papantla, the next town down (and the one that is pretty much adjacent to El Tajin). The hotel had internet and seemed nice - was a bit pricey at just over $40 but it was getting dark and Kay didn't want to put either of us through the stress of running around town pricing hotels, so we took it. It's not the nicest hotel we've stayed in (and, in fact, is more expensive than the really swank one we stayed in while we were waiting for Kay's bike in Mexico City) but Kay says it "has character." Our bikes are parked right in front of our room, literally, in a gated courtyard, and it was cake to unload our stuff into the room. Then began our nightly ritual of trying to find food. We asked the proprietress where we could find a restaurant, and she sent us into Papantla centre. Papantla is another one of the endless colorful Mexican towns we've passed through today, but as it was around 5:30 at this point, practically everything was closed. Kay and I took turns driving around the city, looking for likely prospects, but we only found a few small spots and none of them had parking. This, is a walking town. We were switching back to my turn to lead and pick a direction when we rounded the corner to the smell of cooking meat, and a guy with a big grill in the street cooking chicken. We backed our bikes into a parking spot on the corner (motos win again for squeezing into a spot that cars couldn't occupy!) and the grill-man brought his little daughter over to see our fancy bikes. We followed him back to the grill, and Kay pointed and said "un pollo, por favor!" The guy asked us how we'd like to have it prepared, basically asking if we wanted some sort of spicy finish on it (I didn't catch that part, but Kay did, and let me choose… to which I almost invariably reply "sure" because I think it'll be interesting, so we had spicy chicken.) Between the two of us, we managed to polish off an entire spicy chicken (sans one wing) with rice and tortillas. Kay discovered that if you combine the spicy chicken with some rice in a tortilla, it was the perfect blend of flavors and really elevated each of the individual components. Plus, then it wasn't so spicy and we could actually eat more of it. While we were nomming the chicken, I noticed a sign for "choco-flan" - and being a girl, and craving chocolate at this particular time of the month, I asked for it. It turned out to be a piece of moist chocolate cake with a slightly odd flavor, and a flan-like custardy-icing-topping. Totally hit the spot. Dinner was a complete success. Tomorrow's plan is to get up early and try to hit El Tajin early before it gets too full of tourists and Mexicans trying to sell us things. I was skeptical as to whether they'd be open on Christmas, but Kay asked the proprietress of the hotel and she seemed to think it was dumb for us to have asked. "Yeah. Duh." (Not literally, but that was what we got from it.) Hopefully we won't have anymore headset problems, and then we can start heading south. So for us, it'll be Christmas in El Tajin! A Merry Christmas to all of you folks who are reading, wherever you are. |
Hi Dachary & Kay,
Just wanted you to know that I enjoy reading your adventures and I wish you both a very nice Christmas. Greetings from the Netherlands. |
Wishing you both a very happy Christmas. Make it one you'll never forget.
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Day 19 - Christmas - Papantla to Altotongo via El Tajin - 100 miles
(Kay this time)
Today was Christmas in every meaning of the word… well, excluding the fact that Christ was born in June or July….but that's not the point. Today was Christmas. The past two days had eaten away at us, me especially. Dachary may have had that hard sugar crashy day, but last night I lay in bed lamenting the recent days. I was frustrated about our inability to just ride somewhere without constantly having to slow or stop for teeny towns and their topes, or the fact that you simply can't go ten minutes down the road without encountering more people, topes, towns, hovels, topes, dogs, and more topes. Our hotel room last night had gone from having "character" to smelling like a cesspool, and as we were finishing packing the bikes I was wondering if maybe this whole adventure motorcycling through foreign countries thing wasn't for me. Maybe I should have just done the Trans-America-Trail, or explore some of the Canadian wilderness in the summer. But I had forgotten the power of Christmas. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5203/...8fb8e53a20.jpg Dachary keeps my bike from falling over to the left while I run to the ATM We got to El Tajin around 9:30 after a quick trip to the ATM which we'd found while looking for food last night. We weren't able to find food beforehand because, so far, it seems that Mexicans simply don't open for business that early. But there is a minor sea of restaurants just outside the entrance to El Tajin and we went with the one whose waitress didn't attack us with a menu before even getting our helmets off. Surprise Christmas Breakfast. El Tajin was spectacular. We have over 400 photos to go through. It was everything you hope an ancient ruin site to be, with the exception that you're not allowed on any of the structures. We really wish they'd erect a stairway up the side of one… somewhere that didn't really affect the view of it, but would let you get a feel for what it was like up there. But we had a blast. Only note for future visitors is they don't allow video cameras for some reason. So, we said "No. No bideo," and casually didn't open the side pockets of our tank bags with our helmet cams. We use the still camera for our video anyway, but still no point in dealing with going back to the bikes or coat-checking them or whatever. I've uploaded about 20 of the El Tajin Picture Set on Flickr so far and will add more as time and bandwidth allow, but here are some for your immediate gratification. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5249/...ffd65ef1fd.jpg El Tajin http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5130/...cc1a5c817b.jpg Kay at El Tajin http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5123/...174534ae8a.jpg El Tajin And one for the guys at Revzilla (use, or not, as you see fit Revzilla) : http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5042/...7f3b752b92.jpg Dachary at El Tajin We hit the road, and because we were generally just concerned with heading southeast, and not how, we went that way found ourselves on the best road yet. Miles and miles of riding. Almost no houses, almost no topes, hardly any towns… Eventually the skies started to darken and when the hills in front of us started getting hazy and white we pulled over at an unfinished work-site and put our rain liners in our pants behind the building (such a pain) and set out again. Approximately forty-eight seconds later we hit the rain. Having just donned our rain gear neither of us really wanted to get off and eat, but we knew we needed to soon. No more sugar-crashy Dacharys! So, after passing a number of people selling delicious smelling roast corn (and nothing else) we pulled in at the first place with carne (meat) on the sign. We haven't had great luck with restaurant food so far, but this was pretty, and decent, but I didn't find it particularly inspiring. However, when we pulled up the people there started to move the tables so that we could pull our bikes under the porch overhang. Being drenched already we waved them off and assured them it was ok. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5164/...73bd234e8b.jpg The bikes get wet while we eat lunch Christmas Kindness #1 We rode on, through a cute town and over the mountains gaining over 3000 feet in altitude through gorgeous curvy roads with beautiful misty sights. If only the curves weren't all wet. We came to a turn and followed the GPS, then decided, no, lets go back the other way and see if we can find a hotel. Little town, twist, turn. hmmm… Oh look, a cop. Pull over on a dinky street in front of her. "Donde esta el hotel." confused looks…then eventually the light went off. "Hotel?" "Si" "Turn around take a left, go three blocks, left again and you'll find Hotel ??? it's good and cheap. " (only in Spanish) "Bueno! Gracias!" Christmas Kindness #2 Find the hotel. $180 pesos! (about $15 US) And somehow manage to convey to the 17 year old proprietor that we would really like somewhere to park the bikes other than on the skinny street. Phone Phone… Another 17 year old comes over. Follow him. So we do. Up, down over, around, stop. Run across the street, unlock, and open big metal doors. "In here"… But, we can't carry our stuff back… hell, I'm not even sure where the hotel IS. "No worries. I'll take you back. " "Our panniers too?" "Sure sure." (again, all in Spanish) Open, remove, Open remove. Unlatch Unlatch. He hauls each one to the truck as soon as we set them down. Then we climb into the tiny cab, find I need to practically sit *on* dachary for him to get it in reverse, then laugh, and giggle all the way back to the hotel. Christmas Kindness #3 The guys carry the panniers in, we thank them, and we set off for food. "Oh look, a pastry shop. We should stop in before they close." We grab a pizza pan and tongs and start picking tasty looking things when in comes a man and his two foot high daughter who stares at us in awe as we're still in full gear because we're already wet and it's still misting and dripping out. "Hello." I say to her. Stare, mouth agape. Her father, hearing Dachary and I chatting to each other, starts talking in English. I try "Hola" to her but she just stares. "She can't even say hello." He says with a smirk, and helps explain what one of the things I've picked up is, and then with the price. I seem to have a really hard time with any price that involves a 9. Basically, if I can't understand the number I can be relatively certain there was a 9 in it somewhere. Christmas Kindness #4 We thank him, and as we're about to leave I have an idea. I turn back. "Can you recommend somewhere around here to eat?" "Sure. I'll take you there." And he does. Alex leads us down a narrow alleyway that we would have missed entirely were we wandering around on our own. It leads into a maze of vendors stalls packed within a tiny space, and barely two feet between them to walk past. You must duck under some pinatas while going down some stairs; dodge around a rack of clothes protruding out into the aisles; weave past a display case that has been pushed too far out for the other to simply get into the tiny stall. Like everything else in Mexico, it was colorful and full of people; a mishmash of chaotic sights and sounds and smells; of people speaking Spanish and watching us gringos with curiosity as we venture into "their" place. It was a window onto another world we hadn't seen yet in Mexico, and there's nothing like it in the United States. And sadly, we had left our hotel without a camera. Things were closing for the day, so there wasn't a chance to go back for pictures. Never leave the hotel without a camera! Alex leads us through a hallway sized alley, past butchers with hanging pig parts. To a place with tasty quesadillas that has run out of food. Then on through more teeny alleys to a place with half a pig's head on a warming stove. There's a cutting board made from a solid foot of tree trunk, with a curve in it that matches the blade of the knife that's hacked away at it for years. He tells us to sit down at the short wooden stools, stands his daughter on the next one, and proceeds to help us order. Six little servings of two tiny tortillas, diced piggy, cilantro, red spoo, and something else. One plate each. Then, because he thought we might want more, and we showed interest, and suggested we'd eat anything, another plate of the same, only with piggy cabesa (head). He made sure we knew how much the total would be and took off. We had no cards with us to give him. We had no camera with us to take a picture of the delicious food, the wonderful alleys, or Alex, and his daughter Katherine. He spent two years working in New York, then came back to his family in this small town. Christmas, thy name is Alex. The piggy cabesa by the way? Unbelievably good. |
Day 20 Altotonga to Oaxaca
(Kay again)
You know, we kind of liked our cheap little room I think. Except that the toilet paper roll was directly under a pipe which got condensation and dripped on it. It was cold, of course, because few of the hotels seem to have heat, but there were plenty of thick blankets that Dachary stole and kept me pressed against her all night. We slept in till 8 (normally we wake before seven) and continued our way south. The room felt cold, but when we went outside, we discovered that the room was actually quite warm… it was COLD outside! When we went to pick up the bikes, we found a thick fog (pea soup comes to mind) that stuck to everything and made everything damp and visibility crap. I've never seen visibility this poor, in fact - you literally couldn't see more than 20 feet away. It made driving a bit of an adventure as we couldn't see cars coming when we tried to turn out from the parking lot or turn onto the main road. Within a few miles of leaving the town, though, the fog had dissipated somewhat and visibility was a bit better - which is good, because we were entering wet twisty roads through the mountains. (Kay maintains that it wasn't fog, at all, but a low-lying cloud, since we were up quite high in the mountains at that point.) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5001/...66b71a5777.jpg We stumbled into a caldera Rode for about 30 minutes and it was getting colder… so we decided to stop at the next Pemex we found and grab some munchies and… pull out the heated gear! Yes, that's right - it was so cold this morning that we broke out the heated gear. It was in the high 30 degree range when we set out this morning. By noon, we'd gotten to a place where it was around 60 degrees and put our heated gear away… but Kay pulled his out again when we were crossing through some mountains just to have the extra layer - not for the heat. It was chilly riding today. Eventually we had to decide… toll road, or free road? Sick of tiny towns slowing us down and wishing we were farther along in the journey than we were, we went for the toll road and it was awesome. Cost us about $140 Mex each when you added up all the toll booths but it was beautiful. Sadly, just before the toll road there were a handful of stands with chicken on spits that looked delicious, but it wasn't quite lunch time so we pressed on. There were similar stands on the last toll road, we figured there would be on this one too. Wrong. I think there was only one place to eat on the entire road and it was a restaurant by a Pemex. As noted before we don't have great luck with restaurants, but food was required so we went in, had something with chicken green sauce, black bean paste, fries, and rice. The fries were cold. The chicken pretty tasteless by itself, but when you combined chicken, rice, and green sauce into the tortillas it was pretty tasty… until we hit the last three tortillas that were hard and probably left over from the last batch. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5045/...9440a61d6a.jpg Testing the Smile Detection on Dachary's camera New rule: if you see meat on a spit or barbecue and it's remotely close to meal time. Eat. Even if you're not really hungry yet. In the parking lot we had a surprisingly successful conversation with a guy who turned out to have ridden from Alaska (we think… i forgot where exactly) to Guatemala. He's got a BMW, a Hayabusa, and a Harley, but said that in Mexico he almost exclusively rides the BMW. He suggested that he was too mucho for a 650 like ours and had a 1200. Back on the road was more beautiful Nevada-like landscape with beautiful green mountains. The cuota (pay road) to Oaxaca was surprisingly picturesque. The mountains were on both sides of us for much of the day, with some wide, sweeping turns through them at points. We actually got to go around 110 KPH (around 65 MPH) for hours! And we passed people. Loads of people. This was quite novel as it's usually us getting passed for adhering to the speed limit. It was a bit of a boost to our riding spirits. We'd decided to get a hotel again because it's still getting down into the thirties at night in central Mexico, and after some miscommunications and frustrations between ourselves we eventually grabbed one, but my dictionary failed me, and it seems that whenever i say the word for heat they think i mean color tv. So we ended up with an overpriced (but nice) room with color tv, no heat, and barely adequate blankets (when we stole the blanket from the second bed). New rule from yesterday: When it's cold in Mexico and you're getting a hotel room always get one with two beds even if one bed would be fine. The logic being that you can then steal the blankets from the second bed. |
Day 21 - Oaxaca to El Camon - 89 Miles
The plan today was to get up early and visit the ruins of Monte Alban. Unfortunately, the hotel last night had internet and we ended up screwing around on the Web longer than we intended. By the time we got to Monte Alban, it was around 10:30AM, and we still hadn't eaten breakfast. We hadn't had dinner last night, so it was imperative to feed me - I was extremely crashy and would have been no good at all for the ruins. We ate breakfast at the cafe at the Monte Alban site (mine was surprisingly tasty), so it was close to 11:30 by the time we entered the ruins themselves.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5001/...7d02b1c468.jpg Monte Alban Ruins http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5207/...3a1a89a88c.jpg Kay at Monte Alban Ruins http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5127/...5d7c88985e.jpg You gotta get the shot... http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5201/...2e19babdcf.jpg Dachary at Monte Alban Ruins What to say about the Monte Alban ruins? It's a UNESCO World Heritage site, and a pretty substantial one. The site consists of a large complex - I'm pretty sure it's larger than the site at El Tajin. The setting was also quite impressive. It's situated on a plateau surrounded by a valley, and there's mountains all around. The ruins themselves are pretty well preserved, and you can actually climb some of the temples/climb to higher levels of the complex, which is one of the things we lamented that you couldn't do at El Tajin. But honestly? I can speak for both of us when we say that we appreciated El Tajin more. We arrived at Monte Alban late, and it was absolutely littered with people. You couldn't get a good shot of the place without people in it. There were people coming by the busload. That's a turn-off. On the one hand, it's totally great that people appreciate the site. But on the other hand, all the people make it more difficult to appreciate the site. Kay kept noting the silence when we found ourselves away from the groups for a moment, and contends that while it's not as enjoyable with the people, even without them Monte Alban just fails to spark our interest. Kay said at one point that the site just didn't capture his imagination the way El Tajin did, and I have to agree. There were plaques around Monte Alban with information about fauna and how environment played such an important role in the lives of the Monte Albans, but I just didn't seem to see that in the way the site was built. Or at least the way it's maintained today. The plateau where Monte Alban is situated is surrounded by cities (Oaxaca on three sides) - littered with structures and people everywhere. You can't look at the horizon and see it as the people of Monte Alban did, and it's virtually impossible to imagine it uncluttered. Technically both peoples were war-like, but the carvings at the Monte Alban site were well-preserved and images of subjugation - carvings of castrated rulers that the Monte Albans conquered and executed, images representing the cities and cultures that the Monte Alban people subjugated and ruled. El Tajin had some similar carvings, but there was also beauty at the site. At one part of the site, they have a straw roof erected to protect some colored paint that had survived intact. As far as I could tell, the scenes from the painted depictions were ornamental and scenes of every-day life - not the war-like scenes that dominated Monte Alban. Maybe there was paint like this in Monte Alban, too, once upon a time… and maybe I've romanticized El Tajin because I didn't read as much there about the "war-like culture" but I just didn't get the same feel from both sites. Regardless of my perceptions versus the reality of the sites, Monte Alban was still an impressive site. I just think Kay and I didn't appreciate it as much as El Tajin. We'd 100% recommend anyone who is thinking of seeing ruins like this to check out El Tajin. Monte Alban? It's significant enough that it probably shouldn't be skipped, but we simply didn't enjoy it as much. Oh yeah. Did I mention that we both got sunburned today? I have suntan lotion in my tank bag, which we carried around all day, and at one point I even thought of it… but then dismissed the thought. That was a mistake. Both of our faces are sunburned. Kay's arms are sunburned… mine might be, too, but it's too early to tell. (My arms are tanned to begin with.) The back of my neck is sunburned… I'd forgotten what it's like to have hair this short. And Kay insists that his eyebrows got bleached. We'll blame it on the anti-Malarial pills, which we started today (although technically we should have started it two days ago - woops!) - we chose Doxycycline, which has the side effect of making users more sensitive to sun, as opposed to the pills which make you paranoid. Yeah. Let's just chalk this one up to the pills instead of our own idiocy. Also? Parking at Monte Alban isn't big-bike friendly. The road up to Monte Alban is great, up until toward very top - where it turns into essentially a wide single lane or very narrow two-lane road. Even that's not bad for a motorcycle, though… until you get to the top. The top of the hill is steeply angled, and the parking lot itself is dirt. The dirt has been tracked back onto the pavement leading into the parking lot. I tried braking at the top of the paved road while waiting for another car to go into the parking lot and it didn't work - my bike started sliding backwards. There was nothing I could do about it - couldn't go forward and there was a car behind me so I just had to wait for it to stop slipping. I think it did actually hit the car behind me but they didn't seem to care so I didn't make any attempt to investigate. Beyond that, though, the guy in the parking lot directed us with our large, heavy, overloaded motorcycles to park in the "bicycle" parking area. Basically it's a hill on an incline, covered with sparse grass and dirt, with some bike parking racks. He motioned us with our motos to park up there. Kay went first, and had to let his bike back into the wall and rest there on a pannier, because the incline was too steep and his overburdened bike would have gone over if it hadn't been resting on the wall. I did similar, but didn't have to park it against the wall. I was freaking out as I tried to ride it up in the dirt on the incline, though. I tried to ride it a bit further and park it at a more favorable angle on the incline, but when I tried to stop, it just started sliding backward in the dirt and there wasn't anything I could do about it. The bike didn't go over, but I was extremely unnerved and left it parked badly there, annoyed that the parking lot attendant wouldn't let us park in the relatively flat dirt area used by the cars. When we came out, I asked Kay to back my bike out and set it up for me because I didn't feel confident that I wouldn't just drop it with the dirt and the slipping and it being so heavy. Kay was obliging, and it was relatively easy to back mine out from the angle where we'd parked it (although Kay's left foot kept slipping in the dirt from the weight of the bike, but he managed to keep it upright). Unfortunately, the incline was so steep that we couldn't park it on the side stand once we got the bike back to the road. Kay had to hold it while I geared up, and then I had to mount the bike to hold it there while Kay got his bike. His bike, on the other hand, wasn't so easy. The angle he'd parked at (so his pannier could lean against the wall, preventing his bike from falling over while parked) wasn't as favorable for backing it out and turning it around. He pulled it forward a bit and tried backing it out, but it was closer to the wall than mine had been and at one point he was stepping on the bike racks, using them for leverage to keep his foot from slipping in the dirt like mine had. Unfortunately, the proximity to the wall didn't give him room to get a nice angle with the weight of the bike, and before he could back it all the way past the wall, the bike overbalanced and tipped with him under it. He says it was one of those really slow falls that you totally see coming but you know there's nothing you can do about it. He and the bike were too close to the bike rack for him to get enough leverage to keep it upright, so he went down with the bike tented over him. While I was pondering whether to drop mine to go to his aid, two of the parking attendants who had been sitting on the wall and watching, smirking, while Kay pulled my bike out, ran to help. They got the bike upright and off of Kay, and helped him balance it the rest of the way out. I'm kinda glad they ended up helping with his bike - they got to see how heavy the bikes really are. It wasn't just that I'm a chick that I had Kay back my bike out… it's that these bikes are motha-effing HEAVY and I didn't think I could do it in the dirt without dropping it. So yeah. Kay's bike got to take another dirt nap. And I was stuck sitting on my bike holding it up so I couldn't either run to help him, or photo-document it. Aside from that, the day was pretty mundane. It took us forever to get out of Oaxaca, as we had to stop for gas and grab lunch (it was 3PM when we started to actually get out of the city). However, as we were leaving Oaxaca, Kay spotted chickens on a spit on the side of the road, which invoked our new rule of "If it's remotely close to time to eat, and you see food roasting on a spit on the side of the road, stop and eat." So we had to stop and eat chicken la carbon. An entire chicken, by the way? A bit too much for the two of us to eat. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5241/...4cab9b9f51.jpg Chicken on a Spit We only made it a total of 89 miles before we had to stop for the day. The sun was starting to set and we were both just feeling drained. I'd checked the weather last night while we had internet access, and had discovered that there was only one very narrow area where it would actually be warm enough for us to camp. Otherwise, we'd be crossing mountains (which takes forever, by the way, but has lots of great twisties) and the temperatures would be too cold (sub 40-degrees) for us to comfortably camp. Unsurprisingly, we didn't make it to the area where it would be warm enough for us to camp. We were stuck riding in the mountains* and thought we'd have to push through and ride them after dark to the next major city, but just happened upon a hotel on the side of the road at a town that we passed through in two minutes of riding. The room is tiny but clean (although it lacks a toilet seat) and we've actually taken the time to watch some TV on the iPad. For a little over $13 US, we won't complain. (Cheapest hotel yet, by the way!) Unfortunately, as we've been sitting here, we've discovered a couple of unfortunate companions sharing the room… first an ant, which prompted me to take our snacky foods far from the bed… and then an insect that Kay has dubbed a "Thing that Must Be Killed." And proceeded to kill it with one of our boots. This has led me to examine the mysterious stains on the wall next to the bed, which appear upon closer inspection to be squashed bugs. Ick. Hopefully they don't carry us away in our sleep. (Maybe I'll try sleeping with the light on? Or would that make it worse?) * poor us, stuck riding beautiful twisties with the setting sun behind us. |
Day 22 - El Camon to Cintalpa - 226 Miles
The morning started on a positive note: neither us nor our belongings were carried off by bugs in the night. However, we'd gotten rather cold at one point and with only sheets on the bed, Kay grabbed his BMW jacket and put it over his legs. The bed was also quite possibly the cheapest bed I've ever slept in - no matter how I rolled over or tried to get out of the way, I ended up rolling into Kay. We spent the night in a lump in the middle of the bed. Listening to one of our neighbors watch Spanish TV LOUDLY, whilst another (possibly the same) made loud banging sounds.
We got up and out rather quickly this morning, and were just packing up the bikes around 8AM… when Kay suddenly started feeling queasy. He went to sit on a pile of rocks nearby while I chatted with some folks who were originally from Washington (the state, not DC) but had moved to Monterrey. They had two dogs traveling with them, and one of them kept bringing me a rock to throw. That's right. She fetched ROCKS. The couple was friendly and were giving us tons of tips and asking about our trip, while Kay was getting worse and worse. By the time I walked over to check on him, he was ready to go lean over a trash can and start hurling. After Kay was violently ill for probably 5-10 minutes, he walked over to sit on the steps of the hotel in the shade and I went hunting some drink to settle his stomach. All I could find was Sprite. He sipped it and waited for his stomach to decide what it was doing. By around 9AM, he was feeling recovered enough to head out on the bikes, although he professed to be repulsed by the idea of food. We hadn't had breakfast and I wanted Kay to try to eat something, so we rode for a bit with me leading and waiting for Kay's stomach to settle further. After about 40 minutes of riding, we ran across a random roadside food stand with a bunch of locals sitting around a table, and smoke coming off what appeared to be a big grill. We walked up, and I asked the girl cooking what she was making. "Quesadillas," she said. After consulting with Kay, I ordered one for each of us, thinking that should be relatively easy on his stomach. It was just a humble cheese quesadilla, but it was SURPRISINGLY tasty. Seriously good. She cooked it on a large, cast-iron convex sheet - like a big, thick, very shallow cast iron bowl. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5045/...55e458c6a6.jpg wood fired quesadillas by CorporateRunaways, on Flickr We quickly polished off our quesadillas, and asked for two more. I was happy Kay felt like eating more and happy to polish off another tasty quesadilla. One of the guys there spoke some English and asked if we wanted some hot sauce, and laughed at us when we declined. This seems to be a recurring theme in Mexico. "Look at the gringos - they don't like hot sauce!" Kay seemed much revived after the food, so we hit the road again. It was another morning of beautiful riding. We rode down 180 from El Camon to Jalapa, and it was lots more nice twisty roads. I've been constantly amazed by how beautiful the riding can be in Mexico. I wasn't expecting this many mountains and beautiful roads. Nearing Jalapa on 190, Kay pointed out that his GPS thought there was a BIG honking lake off to our left. I looked at my map and confirmed it on the paper map, but we couldn't see the lake. Kay said that one of the dirt roads we passed on the left would probably lead that way, so we took one of them off in that direction. It started heading down toward the lake… but pretty quickly turned off to the right. And led to a big yard with a couple of structures and a fence on it, and a guy standing in the middle burning things ( as Mexicans are want to do ). He seemed unhappy that we'd come down the road, and signaled very firmly for us to turn around and go back out. We both felt a little tension after that, as it was the first hostility we'd really encountered and it certainly made the idea of taking another dirt road less appealing. After Jalapa, things started getting a bit more boring (but warmer)… and at Tehuantepec, we took a side trip into town to look for an ATM to grab some more cash. That took longer than expected, and the riding after we left Tehuantepec toward the north (to Juchitan, and then La Ventosa) went from boring to downright unpleasant. Almost as soon as we left Tehuantepec, we noticed the wind picking up. And up. We'd basically entered a big open plain, and the scrubby trees weren't doing a lot to break up the wind. The wind was blowing us all over the road and as we approached La Ventosa, we saw that at least the locals were doing something about it… we entered a ginormous wind farm. There were dozens of large, industrial windmills (maybe even hundreds, as they were spread out over a wide area) and we kept passing a hill and then encountering more of them. From just before La Ventosa until around Niltepec (give or take…) there were tons of windmills. But as soon as we entered the hills again for good, the wind died down and the riding became more enjoyable again. At this point, Kay commented that the terrain we were passing through resembled an African savannah. The trees were similar to what we've seen in video and photography from Africa, albeit more dense than we'd expect to see there. The temperatures, too, were HOT - the thermometer on my bike read 103 in the shade (one of the thermometers said 113) but both could have been off a bit from engine heat… but it was still hot. So we'd started the day in the mountains in the mid-50s, and by around 3PM, we'd reached a toasty African savannah. By around 4PM, we were getting close to leaving the lowlands and Kay was pondering whether to stop early and try to hidey-camp. We knew that once we hit Tepanatenec and started heading toward Centalpa, we'd get into the mountains again and it would be borderline (or actually) too cold to camp, depending on where we started. Kay kept his eyes out for good hidey-camp roads, but eventually he reported that he was feeling uneasy about hidey-camping down there. I posited that perhaps it had something to do with our unpleasant encounter with the local on the dirt road earlier, and Kay agreed that might have played a role. Whatever it was, we didn't find a road that seemed good to us until we started heading up into the mountains, and when Kay tried to communicate that he'd found a good road, I couldn't understand because the headsets were acting up. Kay was all of a sudden too distorted for me to understand. We both rebooted our headsets multiple times, but it took probably 5 to 10 minutes for us to get the headsets happily rebooted so that we could both hear one another. The Cardo Scala Rider G4s definitely still have some bugs to work out. By then, it had been miles since the hidey-camp roads and we opted to keep going rather than turn around and start trying to explore them. So we rode through the mountains again, and eventually came out onto a plateau. We'd gone up to about 800 meters at one point, and plateaued at a little over 600 meters (we'd been at around 77 meters before we started into the mountains) and the world suddenly took on a whole new look and feel. The riding was beautiful again. The colors seemed more vibrant. There were mountains off to the left, and some off to the right, too. It was cooler. And we both felt immensely more positive about the riding and the vibes from the place. We both agreed that we'd have felt comfortable hidey-camping on practically any of the roads we encountered on the highland plateau, and it was a stark contrast to how we'd felt in the lowlands. No idea why we felt hostility in the lowlands and why we felt positive energy in the highlands, but we did. Sadly, it was going to be too cold to camp up here, so we rode on to Cintalapa and rode around town for a few minutes until we found a hotel that didn't seem as shady (kay: skeezy / sketchy / icky) as the ones on the edge of town. Don't think there are any bugs here, and Internet is available (for a fee) but doesn't seem to be Wi-Fi. We'll figure that out in a minute. It was a little under $30 US (more than the $13 US we paid last night) but for the peace of mind, it didn't seem too bad. We've loaded some more Dr. Who onto the iPad for our viewing pleasure, and I think I'll do some laundry and let it dry while we watch TV. The day had its ups and downs, but seems to be ending on a positive note. (Also, I'm happy to report that Kay seems to be feeling much better now - no more tummy badness, although we're both feeling a bit tired and run-down.) |
Day 23 - Cintalpa to San Cristobal De Las Casas
Today's goal was to reach San Cristobal de Las Casas, where we were planning to meet up with Stephen who is riding from Chicago to Central or South America. Stephen and a couple of other riders (Eric and Sabrina) are currently hanging out in San Cristobal - Stephen is waiting for a part to fix his bike, and Eric and Sabrina are taking Spanish classes at a language school here.
We headed out around 9:30AM (we got a slightly late start because Kay started feeling nauseous again today… we think the problem is when you take the anti-malaria pills first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, and then exert yourself, so Kay spent a fair amount of time resting between loading up the bike and generally taking it easy, and didn't actually hurl). Finding breakfast in the mornings has been difficult for us on the road, because we've had trouble finding places that are open, so we have been settling for convenience store food (Oxxo hot dogs are the latest favorite) to keep us going until we can grab food on a spit around lunch time. We saw a convenience store that wasn't an Oxxo, but we thought we'd stop, because there was a coffee sign… and walked in to see that next to the convenience store was a restaurant. With real breakfast. And a surprise mochaccino, which made me very happy! http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5165/...8d5f698868.jpg Surprise Mochachino The plan was to meet up with Stephen and maybe grab a bite and trade stories/tips/info. However, passing through Tuxtla Gutierrez threw a bit of a wrench into our plans. We ran into a lot of construction, and traffic was worse going through there on 190 than it was in Mexico City. It took us well over an hour to get through the city (which probably would have only taken about 10 minutes under normal circumstances) and we didn't make as good time as we'd hoped. The road conditions were poor in places (i.e. go into a twisty through the mountains to find sand in the road, or giant potholes, or even entire sections where the road has dropped away and they've got it blocked off, but it's suddenly one lane) and I wasn't riding as fast as we had in the morning. At one point, we stopped because the tires that Kay is carrying were starting to sag and needed to be addressed, and discovered that we'd parked next to a town in the mountains with a lake that seemed to have flooded the town. It was interesting, but odd… we didn't figure out exactly why the proportions seemed wrong until we looked at the photos we'd downloaded from the camera and zoomed way in. But yes, that's water in those streets. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5165/...566348d33e.jpg The Flooded Town The delays and my slow riding conspired to delay us getting to San Cristobal until around 3PM. At that point, there wasn't much chance of us hanging out for very long and getting much further in the day, so we opted to spend the night here. Luckily, the school where these guys are staying also has rooms for travelers, and we were able to get a room at the school. Stephen, Eric and Sabrina were very cool to hang out with. They took us down into the city on foot, which is a totally different experience than walking through, and we wandered around for a bit and met up with one of their friends here. Eric bought a hat, but Kay hasn't found just the right hat to replace the floppy one he thinks he left in Mexico City, so the hat quest continues. The crew grabbed food to bring back and prepare at the school, where there is a convenient kitchen, and we had an awesome meal of delicious meat, tortillas, a lovely salad that Sabrina prepared and some nice salsa and cilantro/onion mix. Kay and I have been traveling fairly quickly. We've been making decent mileage every day, riding from around 9AM until dark most days (except when we're seeing ruins). We haven't really had a chance to just hang out with people since we started the trip. It was really nice to just sit around a table and chat, and then later sit around a fire on the roof deck with a beautiful nighttime view of San Cristobal. We chatted about gear, traveling, bikes, kit - all the stuff you'd expect adventure riders to talk about when they're gathered in one spot. They gave us lots of info about places they've been and things they've seen, and I'm kind of envious that they're taking the trip at a much slower pace. Kay and I are on a timeframe that requires us to keep moving, and I feel like we've missed out on some of the great experiences that these guys have had by standing still for more than a night. We haven't really immersed ourselves in the culture - we've just been passing through. These guys know so much more about the area because they've spent time here - they know the stories and the cool spots and have had these interesting experiences. Because of our timeframe, the trip we're taking is different. We're getting more really brief windows into the lives of the people we pass, instead of immersion in the culture of the places we travel through. Part of me wishes we could afford to sit here for a month and learn Spanish in this school and hang out in this town and really get to know the people. But if we did, we'd have no chance of reaching our ultimate goal - Ushuaia. The traveling was really our goal in taking this trip. We wanted to see and experience other cultures, but we've also been interested in the roads, the great places to see and the "passing through" aspect of this trip. I'm beginning to wonder now if this wouldn't be much better done in a different sort of way, but our finances and our timeframe simply wouldn't support that right now. I do think, though, that for the next trip, we're going to want to take a lot more time and have a more open-ended plan so we can afford to stay for a week or a month and really get to know the people and places we pass through. When Stephen, Eric and Sabrina asked if we'd like to stick around longer, apparently my face lit up (Kay says I got a huge smile) and so we've decided to stick around San Cristobal for another day. We'll hang out, maybe see some sites and chill with other like-minded folk. This will be the first rest day we've taken because we've wanted to stay for a day - the other two days we haven't traveled, we stayed because of bike-related stuff. I'm looking forward to a chill day where we're just hanging out because we want to. |
Day 24 - San Cristobal de Las Casas
Today we decided to hang out in San Cristobal de Las Casas with some other adventure riders - Stephen, who's currently tooling around Mexico on his KLR (or waiting for parts for his KLR to be repaired, more accurately) and Eric and Sabrina, who are riding 2-up on a BMW F650 Dakar. They've been in San Cristobal for a while and know some great spots, from delicious food to interesting and humbling sites to see. Today, we puttered around while Eric and Sabrina spent the morning taking their Spanish classes at the language school here, and then we went over to San Juan Chamula, an independent Mayan state about 10 KM from San Cristobal.
They had all been there before, and knew a bit about the history of the place, but Stephen, Kay and I hadn't been yet. We opted to take one of the 'combi' busses over to Chamula; on the ride over, we managed to cram 21 people into the bus designed to seat 15. It was impressive. Coming back, we were 10 people in a VW bus designed for 8, so it wasn't quite so crowded. Just to get to the buses was an adventure. We walked down one of the main streets of San Cristobal where tons of artisans are located. Parts of this boulevard are pedestrian-only walkways, and filled with people. It's got a great energy and vibe. Then we went through the market, down narrow corridors surrounded by stalls upon stalls of handmade wares; sheltered from the sun by wafting white tents. It's an amazing place. It reminded me of the alleys that Alex took us through in Altotongo; we never would have found our way through without Eric, Sabrina and Stephen to lead us. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5206/...2cfc812c26.jpg Market Stalls Off to the chicken buses, where we paid 10 pesos (less than $1 US) to ride across to Chamula. When we arrived, we proceeded pretty much immediately to the church of San Juan. Eric had told us some interesting history about the church; that when the old church had burned down, the new church was built, but the parishioners (or priests? not sure) "punished" the statues of the saints for letting the old one burn down by turning them to face the wall, and removing some of their hands. The saints have since been turned back around, but some of them are still hand-less. The church itself is an amazing place. There are no pews; instead, it's got a bare floor covered with pine needles. Candles are everywhere; in front of saints that the parishioners are praying to, directly in front of the alter (which, incidentally, is currently decorated with lots of balloons and flashing lights - not at all what you'd find in a traditional Catholic church) or even in the middle of the floors. Priests wear white (sheepskin?) and lead chants from time to time, or assist in rituals. Eric tells us that live chickens are sacrificed from time to time, although we didn't see any while we were there today. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5005/...e56366bdae.jpg The New Church As much as it sounded like a spectacle, Kay and I were really impressed by the honest belief and faith we saw there. The tourists seemed out of place wandering around, gaping at the Mayan natives who were lighting candles and praying genuine and heartfelt prayers. We saw several people actually crying as they prayed, they were so fervent in their belief (and I assume, the contents of their prayer - most of them pray in Tzotzil, so even the semi-Spanish-speaking people in our party couldn't understand what they were praying about). It was a humbling experience, in spite of the flashing lights at the alter, the wooden effigies of the saints in their glass display cases, and the tourists wandering around. The natives who went to the church went there for a *reason*. They were there because they had faith in their beliefs and they felt that their prayers would be heard. In spite of the rather unorthodox way the church is presented, the belief felt far more genuine than many of the religions we know here in the United States. One of the things that turns me off about a lot of religion in America is the lack of genuine belief and faith - the fact that for many people, it's just lip service, or something they do only on Sundays - not an active part of their lives. For the Mayans in this church, it was different. Faith was something that they carried with them every day; something that sustained them. Something that moved them to come to this smoky church and light candles and pray to the saints or to God for the every-day trials of their lives. For these people, religion seemed to be an integral part of their daily life, and it was almost as though we as tourists were trespassing on their sacred place. It was humbling to see true faith. It isn't something we see very often, and it hits home when you see people praying with all of their hearts for something they need or something they believe. Alas, the Mayans have very strong rules against photography in the church. You can be ejected from the state (or possibly imprisoned) if you take pictures within the church. It was really great to see, and we very much wanted to take pictures, but we couldn't. And part of me is kind of glad, because I'd really hate to see such a private ceremony turned into even more of a spectacle. It seems almost disrespectful to me to be taking pictures in such a place. Entering the church was 20 pesos each (slightly less than $2 US) for tourists, although I gather it was free for the locals. After coming out again, we were surrounded by Mayan children begging for pesos. Neither Kay nor I are inclined to give pesos (we live in Boston, so we're used to begging) so we shrugged them off, and went to go sit in the shade of a gazebo where we could watch the plaza for a bit and take some pictures of the people there. One of the children had come up to Kay with an obviously practiced look on his face; a child's idea of pouting and looking pitiful. While we were sitting, a woman came through who had pesos and tried to give a few to one child, I think… and the kids swarmed her. It was like I imagine a piranha attack would be. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5248/...fc11cc7809.jpg Poverty There were one or two kids near her initially, but almost before you could blink, there were 10 or 15 kids surrounding her, reaching for her outstretched hand. It apparently got rough and you could see them pulling on her and her arm and hand - it was obvious that she was wishing she'd never started this. And then a fight broke out among the kids - one of them had apparently elbowed or hit another one in the face (maybe accidentally, reaching aggressively for the pesos, or maybe on purpose) and the kid who got hit started screaming and crying. Immediately the kids split into two groups. One group gathered around the kid who got hit, while he related his side of the tale. Another group (smaller) gathered around the kid who'd apparently done the hitting, and it looked like he was ready to take on anyone who would try to dispute him for the pesos. After a few minutes, the kid who'd done the hitting vanished, and the kid who'd gotten hit in the face continued to mope around the plaza, crying occasionally and looking pitiful. His face started swelling almost immediately, and after 10 or 15 minutes you could see he'd gotten hit pretty bad. It was a harsh reminder of the reality of this place, and the difficulty of life here. After sitting in the plaza for a bit, we wandered over to the ruins of the old church that had burned down. I'm not sure why they didn't just rebuild the new church at the ruins, but it's on the other side of town. The old church, however, still contains a massive cemetery and the graves of many Mayans. It was a sober place, and the bodies were packed so closely together that you couldn't even get to the church without walking on the grave mounds. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5286/...940b5f1391.jpg The Old Church We poked around the ruins for a while, and then headed back to the 'combi' bus that would take us back to San Cristobal. We were tired at this point, and the VW bug bus made us feel a little sick from the fumes, etc. so we grabbed the stuff to cook dinner and then sat around for a bit, chilling. Had another lovely dinner (chicken this time) prepared by Eric, Sabrina and Stephen, and sat around chatting and later chilling around the campfire. I've really enjoyed hanging out here with these guys. Sabrina and I both agree that it's a shame we're not leaving at the same time, because it could be fun to travel together to Palenque (where we're both heading next) but they won't be leaving for a few days and we're on a tight timeframe. It's been great to meet these guys and I wish we could meet up with them again down the road, but that's unlikely, as we'll all be traveling at a different pace. If we had more time, I'd be happy to stay with Sabrina and Eric longer (alas, Stephen is still stuck here waiting for a package to arrive, and then is going to be hanging out in Mexico longer, I think). But this part of the trip is, I think, going to be one of my favorite memories. |
Day 25 - San Cristobal de Las Casas to Palenque - 159 Miles
Got off to a slightly late start after uploading things to the web while we had Internet, and saying goodbye to Stephen, Eric and Sabrina. We weren't too concerned, though, as Eric had told us that one of his teachers said it was 5 hours to Palenque, and we'd be passing 300 topes. 300! That was such a high (and precise) number that Kay decided to count them.
Guess what? There are more than 300 topes between San Cristobal and Palenque. We lost count at around 330 with 50 km to go. In other words, it was a LOT (2.2 per mile average). The roads were twisty leaving San Cristobal because we were leaving the mountains, and we passed through a ton of tiny towns. It was slow going, and it felt like it. We did run across the thing that the guy we met near El Camon warned us about - kids on the road to Palenque stretching a rope across the road to create an impromptu road block. The first time, it was a knotted grass rope and we weren't worried about it. The kids had already stopped and were swarming a combi bus, anyway, so they weren't interested in us and let the rope down so we could pass. The second time, it was a real, thick rope. We were behind a couple of cars, and the kids let the cars pass - and it looked like they were trying to decide whether to block us or let us pass. Kay was in front and just kept going, though, so they decided to just drop the rope. It looks like they'll let you pass if you look like you mean business, so while the strategy may not be to "gun it" - it looks like it works to just keep riding like you have no intention of stopping. There was evidence of other thin knotted grass ropes as we continued. Aside from that, the trip was relatively uneventful. We stopped for lunch near Ocosingo, which is the only sizable town between San Cristobal and Palenque. We kept being indecisive about where to stop, and got stuck at a restaurant on the edge of town because we'd already driven past all of the food stands and didn't want to go back. We were the only ones there… aside from like 13 people sitting at a long table and speaking to one another with an English accent. Our Spanish may suck, but 12 of the people at the table didn't speak Spanish at all, and you could tell that the waiter was getting frustrated by trying to take their order, etc. I felt bad for him. Continued on our way after lunch, and got about 10 kilometers from Palenque (according to a road sign we'd passed) when we encountered a line of stopped cars. We had no idea why they'd stopped, and there weren't any cars coming from the other direction, either, which has been the case when the road is down to one lane for construction and our lane is stopped. After a few minutes, people started getting out of the cars in front of us to walk up and see what was going on, and Kay and I pulled our bikes out of line and rode up to the front to see what was happening. We found that a semi had driven off one of the twisty roads - it had gone too wide to the right on a left-hand twisty and had gotten off the road into the brush and small incline on the side of the road. Luckily, this was an area with only a very short incline so I don't think the driver was hurt, but the semi couldn't get back up onto the roadway on its own. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5241/...fd41e39b9d.jpg Motocicletas for the win! When we rode to the front of the line, two tow-trucks were there trying to get the semi back to the road, and traffic was blocked in both directions. Kay got off the bike to walk up and take pictures with his big fancy camera (along with all of the other gringos going to take pictures with their big, fancy cameras) and came back to report that it looked like there was a couple of feet behind the tow truck that was working on the semi, and we could probably scoot by. He got on the bike and started it up, and I waited to see if the flagger was going to try to stop us, but he just let us ride on by. When we got to the tow truck, a police officer was standing there supervising, but he didn't make any move to stop us. Kay scooted around at the left edge of the road, and I did, too, and we were free! Yet another case where the smaller motos could get by while the poor cars and trucks were stuck waiting for the wreck to get cleared. We stopped about half-way down the line of cars so that Kay could convey the news to the people who didn't know why they were stopped. We arrived in Palenque around 4:30, and proceeded to find an ATM (which we were luckily able to do almost immediately), a bathroom for me at a nearby Pemex, and surprise donut holes from a street-urchin, then headed into town to grab some meat for cooking up. It was finally going to be warm enough to camp, and Palenque has actual campgrounds, so we'd finally get to camp! We passed a carniceria, where Kay sent me in to grab half a kilo of carne for our dinner. I thought that the half a kilo was surprisingly big, but we ended up eating it all! Then we headed off to our campground - Maya Bell Campground, which Kay found in his book on Mexican campgrounds. The book promised that howler monkeys would "serenade" us in our sleep. Instead, we got a loud, but good, band and New Years Eve celebration serenading us to sleep. The campground actually did a big thing for it (it's also a hotel, and a restaurant, with fairly nice facilities) and everyone who was staying there seemed to be celebrating. When we pulled in earlier, we were told to just go find a spot and someone would be around to collect our money. We rode off to the camping spots and saw a couple of motorcycles kitted out for adventure riding next to a tent! Of course we parked next to them, and started chatting as we took off our gear and started prepping the site. It turns out that they were Frank and Simone from Germany ( Startseite - Krad-Vagabunden.de ) , and they're in the middle of an around-the-world trip that started in Alaska. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5165/...02442c2808.jpg German Adventure Riders We had a nice initial round of chatter, and then started setting up our tent and I started getting the food ready. It's the first time we've actually used the cutting board and knife at a campsite (only 25 days into the trip!) and I found that it actually worked quite well for me to put the cutting board on the SW-Motech Top Case Alu-Rack and cut there. It's almost the perfect height, and it's a decently flat surface. I cut up the carne into little bite-size pieces and proceeded to fry them in our little pan over our little stove while Kay loaded everything into our tent and got it all nice. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5049/...d4c70f6fdb.jpg The cutting of meat The carne cooked up deliciously (kay: OMG NOM) with just a little salt and pepper - it had a really nice flavor for such a simple preparation. Unfortunately, toward the end of cooking the carne, the stove started sputtering a bit and died. We put more gas into it, thinking it was just low on gas, and that seemed to fix the problem immediately. We started the water for the box of macaroni we've been carrying around since we left Texas, but before the water came to a boil, the stove sputtered and died. I re-lit it, and it worked for a few minutes, but then it sputtered and died. And died. And died. By this point, I was getting annoyed and asked Kay to take over. Whilst we were futzing with the stove, Frank came over to say that they were cooking, also, and would like it if we'd like to join them to eat when we were done cooking. We said we'd like that, and Kay decided to dump the macaroni into the steaming water while we continued to futz with the stove, thinking that warm water should cook it, albeit slower, until we could get the water boiling. Unfortunately, the stove just kept dying, no matter what we tried, so the water just stayed warm - it never actually boiled. Eventually we tasted the pasta to see how far it had to cook, and discovered what happens if you cook pasta at too low of a heat… it turns into unappetizing, starchy pieces that turn to a gross paste when you eat them. Before throwing it out entirely, we decided to add the cheese just to see if it would be able to salvage the gooey macaroni paste. Cheese made it slightly better, and we took our macaroni-pastey-cheese-glue and delicious carne chunks over to where Frank, Simone and another German biker they'd met (Ingolf?) were just about to start eating their dinner. We had a really good time hanging out with them over dinner, and then chatting afterwards. We talked about riding, and traveling, and info they'd gleaned about Mexico, and routes for the rest of the trip - all of the things you'd expect adventure riders to chat about in the middle of a trip. They were welcoming, and I really enjoyed chatting with them. We hung out until close to 10PM, when we finally bowed out to wash our dishes, and I was positively drooping. We were doing dishes and getting stuff ready for bed when Frank brought us over some stickers that had a link to his website. Very cool. We'll have to clean some of the dust and grime off our panniers so we can stick them. I felt bad about it, but I was completely wiped by 10:15PM on New Years Eve. There was no chance I'd make it staying awake until midnight, and we planned to get up at 6AM so we could shower and be at Palenque when they opened at 8. Staying awake just wasn't an option. The campground was celebrating quite loudly - there was music, and people chatting loudly and all of the stuff you'd expect at a normal New Years Eve party. And I managed to pass out and sleep right through it, I was that tired. I did wake up as they were counting down - I heard "Ocho, Siete, Seis, Cinco, Cuatro, Tres, Dos, Uno…" and general celebration. I had the vague thought that I should roll over and kiss Kay, since it was new years, but I never actually woke up enough to do it. I fell back asleep to fireworks and I'm sure they continued to party for hours afterwards but I slept through it. Kay's note: it was great meeting Frank and Simone. Compared to them I feel like an utter newb when it comes to adventure riding (which I totally am). They have been all over Europe, and western Asia I think and have the perfect attitude for this type of journey. |
Day 26 - Palenque to Tenosique - 61 miles
Today went according to plan, but not design.
Woke up with the tent fly drenched. Not a surprise, we slept in a freaking jungle. I am happy to report that everything inside the tent was condensation-free. Yay REI Quarter-Dome. I asked Frank ( Startseite - Krad-Vagabunden.de ) about breakfast possibilities and he suggested running out to the supermarket quickly before they started charging tolls to get back down the road to the ruins (and the campground). Neither of us were thrilled with that idea since we were still breaking camp and simply didn't want to deal. Instead we decided to hit the park on sugary treats and grab food there if we could. Yeah, not a brilliant idea, but the ruins were only 3k away. Side note: I'll add details about tickets, etc. at the end. They thought we were silly for taking our bikes there since it was so close and our stuff would be safer at the campground, but as we weren't staying another night it seemed wrong to leave our stuff there until sometime after noon. Plus it was hot, muggy, and we didn't want to walk 3k there and 3k back. Got there early enough (8:30) to get one of the 20 or so actual parking spots. No, really… thousands of visitors a day; roughly 20 parking spots. With no food stalls in sight we grabbed tickets and a bottle of water and hit the entrance. We'd love to just walk around these places with our CamelBaks but we wear our Wolfman Ranier tank bags as backpacks (you can get backpack straps for it) because we're not about to leave them on the bike. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5046/...09fb0d2fb0.jpg Palenque As soon as we went up the first steps it became pretty clear to us why the folks we met from Monterrey said it was more impressive to them than the Great Pyramids. It's simply impressive. The temples rise dramatically from the jungle floor. The main ones are in really good shape, considering they're ancient structures in the middle of a jungle. And, the place is huge. There are plenty to walk up the steps of to the point that Dachary said something to the effect of "tell me we don't have to go up that one too." It wasn't that we were going up every one. It was that it was 92 degrees F in the shade and the humidity was way up there. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5244/...05a43e86e9.jpg Palenque Yup, even the ruins are sweating... Going through them became work, but not a "lets do these so we can go" (Dachary) work like Monte Alban. It was more of a difficult task that is guaranteed to give you something good at the end. The difficult task was compounded by the steps. Holy crap the steps. Steps everywhere. The Mayans who lived here must have had incredible calves. Unfortunately, Palenque is hard to photograph and do it any sort of justice. It's even harder to photograph when all you want to do is sit in the shade and drink more water. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5010/...5872492cb8.jpg Palenque My only lament about Palenque is the lack of visible carvings or other artistic details. There are some, but it's essentially all wonder of the architectural variety. However, we both agree that Palenque is totally worth doing. We enjoyed El Tajin, were disappointed by Monte Alban and Palenque was a whole new scale of awesome. If you're on the edge about seeing it, see it. It's worth it. I think that if we could only have seen one ruin in Mexico, Palenque would be the one we'd want to see. As we made our way back to the entrance Dachary noted that she'd seen a restaurant and suggested that even if it was stupid park prices we should go there, sit for a while, and refuel before taking off. I agreed heartily, and once we sat I swear it took at least half an hour, one Coke, one Fresca, and 3/4 of liter of water to get our core temperatures back to something resembling normal. Neither of us wanted to touch the bikes, but eventually we had to, and we knew that we'd be cutting the day short in Tenosique (sixty miles away) because it's the last place with a hotel between here and Guatemala, and it'll take a full day to make it the 200 miles from there, across the border, and on to Flores Guatemala (the next place with gas) and while it's definitely warm enough to camp, neither of us were feeling it. Thirty miles later and I was fighting to stay awake. There were sneaky potholes and unmarked topes combined with a 80kph speed limit. Dachary confirmed that she was feeling it too. Just wiped out. The heat was doing us in. So, when we got stopped at a police checkpoint at the edge of Tenosique I asked the cops where I could find an "economical" hotel. They pointed to the sign for the California Auto Hotel right beside them and suggested that it was the best one around. Giving comments (partially in mime) about the alternatives. There was of course, the obligatory air guitar from one of the cops at the mention of the Hotel California. :) So far, Mexican cops have been pretty cool. Side note: They're just writing down names and plates of everyone. It's probably something to do with the border crossing having opened up at El Ceibo. We pulled in. $450 pesos… pricy, but neither of us was doing well and I deemed it more important to get naked and into a cold shower than to find a better price. We were very happliy surprised to find it had Air Conditioning!!! Wi-fi with decent download speeds! And actual Hot Water… not that we used much of that. Did I mention we were wiped out? Absolutely wiped. The temperatures were hot today, it was humid and the 60 miles from Palenque to Tenosique were the hardest 60 miles of the trip so far. The visit to Palenque probably started the dehydration and overheating, and I don't think we really recovered from that fully before setting out on the road. It's the only real explanation for why this day was so much harder than any of the other days we've done, when we only rode for a few hours and didn't cover much ground. Feeling headachy and beat, we tried getting room service but that was not to be (again willing to pay extra to not have to move), so we suited up (in still disgustingly sweaty things) and went for the bikes, but the hotel lady caught us and told us that there was a place to eat just outside the entrance. We went back, took off icky gear and had a great dinner at a nameless place made excellent by the big woman with a huge smile who runs the place. You could not ask for someone more accommodating to people with a crap grasp of the language. Dachary ordered empanadas, but we were still hungry, so I ordered carne asada. The former was simple and decent, the latter was simple and excellent. Just beef, salt, pepper, some time over flames, and a lime to squeeze on it. That, plus a heavy dose of ibuprofen, and air conditioning was exactly what the doctor ordered. So, now, naked, showered, and now with pretty much every article of clothing we own washed and hung to dry somewhere in the room I write to you. Palenque Notes: * a few more pics on our Flickr Photostream * Tickets are $51 pesos (+45 more if you want to do video) * Tour guides are trivial to find by the ticket booth. * bring water. * You can't beat the tourists to Palenque, but you can get a head start on the sun. They open at 8. * No, more water. * Bring your umbrella. Really. To block the sun. * When you find the Baños go left, then down the really steep stairs to the right of the temple. If you go right at them you'll end up having to come up the really steep stairs. * maybe buy some Gatorade by the entrance. * Do not rush it. It is huge and the heat is oppressive. Stop regularly in the shade. |
Day 27 Tenosique to Flores.
The hotel didn't work out so well. The guy next door had the TV on loudly all night (we could almost drown it out with the Air Conditioner) and turned it off less than five minutes after we got up. Dachary's got what looks suspiciously like bedbug bites too. So skip the California Auto Hotel.
There's a thread on Horizons Unlimited with details on the road from Palenque to the El Ceibo border crossing and on to Flores which we were following. Unfortunately the directions were… less than perfect, but we figured it out, and I've added lots of details there if you're interested. Before we got to the border we stopped for breakfast (location in the border crossing thread) as it was going to be a long day and finally managed to convey that we'd take whatever the guy recommended (we've been saying the right words to people but our pronunciation is apparently crap). As a result we got a tasty fried fish (the entire thing fried) the name of which we've both forgotten and some really tasty chicken fingers. The fish was actually better than the fingers and we were first offered crawfish which we weren't interested in for breakfast. In the end we both liked the fish but figured it would have been much better for any meal other than breakfast. I guess we'd not do well in Japan. We loved the road to El Ceibo and have both decided that we really like Mexican police. They've all be really nice, and we frequently get a laugh out of them at the checkpoints. The Mexican border was only notable in how inept we were at finding the right building to start in. We were hampered by the fact that the buildings and roads are set up in the reverse order you need them because they're for people coming in not going out. Also, wonderfully air conditioned buildings… although there didn't seem to be any running water in the nice clean bathrooms. Guatemala was our first real crossing in my book. There was never a real question about Mexico. Guatemala though had many of the hallmarks of an adventurous crossing. A building in a truck. A Tuk Tuk ride to get copies of the stamp they just gave you. No electricity for the copy machine when you get there. Generators needing starting in order to turn on the computers to pay for your customs sticker. It was great. The ride into Guatemala though… that was incredible. The phrase "rolling hills" was obviously coined here. It's like God reached down and made rounded mounds of earth in endless sizes and combinations. It's beautiful. We don't have any good pictures of this incredible beauty though because we're idiots. Dachary has some video, though, which we'll upload someday when we have a good fast Internet connection. Along the way we saw a boy riding a horse whose head was three times taller than his, many people on bicycles, villages of wooden shacks with half-naked (or entirely naked) children playing in the communal spigot whilst the adults sat nearby, and a number of bicycles with miles to go… http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5087/...271f5e493e.jpg Traffic Food turned out to be surprisingly tricksy to find, because most everything that looked like it sold food was actually just a convenience store, and the places where people were gathering frequently didn't appear to sell food, although there were a number of them with pool tables on the covered porch. We passed by a couple possible food places because we didn't feel like turning around after noticing them and eventually stopped at a Taco stand in San Diego. The tacos were meh, but the kids were great http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5209/...5ea9ab90cf.jpg The lunch crew http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5165/...71fb7cbee1.jpg Smiling boy The motos though... We so weren't prepared for that. There are motorcycles everywhere in Guatemala, but it's not like Mexico at all. In Mexico it felt as if people had motos because they couldn't afford a car so they all had cheap red Italika bikes, or a Chinese knock-off motorcycle or scooter. In Guatemala there are some cheap red things and Chinese scooters, but there are also lots of Yamahas and Hondas that were obviously purchased because the owner thought they looked cool and wanted to look awesome on a bike rather than just getting cheap transport. In San Benito we also encountered our first real moto traffic. Swarms of motos and Tuk Tuks and what seemed to be three quarters of the city was making their way into the graveyard at the same time for someone's funeral. Some wrong turns, directions, blocked roads, a U-turn with a wave from a soldier, and an stop to look for Lithium batteries for our Spot tracker with an semi-hidden Mall and we eventually found our way to Isla de Flores. (Btw, no lithium batteries. These are a surprising bitch to find.) You see, we got to thinking after Palenque. We don't want to have another miserable day of overheated riding. Plus, Tikal appears to be like 30km from Flores. So, getting up crazy early to attempt to beat crowds and sun, riding 30km, walking a huge ruin in the jungle for a couple hours in our motorcycle pants and boots, and then setting out again when much of the sunlight had already been burned… It just didn't sound a great idea. No, a hotel… That was a great idea. Drop our crap in a hotel with some safe place for the bikes, take a bus to Tikal and back (maybe read some on the way), then relax again in the evening. That was the way to do it. Only one catch. There's only one hotel in Flores with anywhere to park. The Gran Hotel De La Isla. It's the snazziest place on the island I think, but it has locked gates in front of the garage, and a steel door behind that. You can't see the bikes and you can't get to them. Also, an armed guard at the front door. Oh, and fast internet uploads, air conditioning… there was even one of those floor towels that go outside of the shower and a hair dryer *gasp in disbelief*. We're paying through the nose for it (we think… we're still not sure what it works out to in US dollars), but we don't like the idea of leaving the bikes unattended for a day in a place that doesn't really have secure parking and the sun had set by the time we got here so we weren't up for going back to icky San Benito and looking through those which were far less likely to have a safe place for unattended bikes. But the getting of the room was even better. I go in in my gear, long hair out and held back by a Buff and ask how much for a room for two people. It's pricey but… I ask if I can see the room. "One bed or two?" "One please." He grabs a key… no, he grabs a different key, and he leads me there with a little swing in his hips. Nice room, on the side with a view of the lake. I'll take it. He makes sure I notice his long manicured nails while filling in the form, tells me my hair looks "bonito" in my Buff. "Gracias" I reply. If there's one thing I've learned is that when a good looking gay man compliments your looks you say "thank you" regardless of your gender. It's about the best compliment you can get on them. I realize, of course, that we probably got the room with the view because he assumed that, being on bikes, both of the people in the single bed would be male. Dachary and I both felt bad about disabusing him of this impression when we had to stop by the desk and ask for the internet password before heading out for food. Alas… Flores, it turns out, is a small tourist town, so the secure parking is even more important, as people don't feel nearly as guilty about ripping off "rich tourists" I think. But, it also means that it's a nice place to walk around when hunting for food. There was a heavy American cant to the menu offerings, and I hate to admit it, but the idea of Pizza sounded great to me. I love the flat cows and flat pigs we've been getting recently but a little honest-to-goodness pizza sounded lovely, and I was betting that in a tourist town I might find something resembling the pizzas back home, and I was right! Tasty Hawaiian pizza to the sound of a vibraphone and drum band, and afterwards an interminable wait in line next door for a Banana Split. I never thought I would ever be in a situation where I couldn't wait to escape the sound of a Vibraphone. Normally I love the sound, but at the end they were playing a carribean sounding some that suspiciously resembled "this is the song that never ends… it just goes on and on my friend…" not in its tune, but in that it played the same 8 bars over and over and never effing ended! We finally got our Split and split to eat it by the edge of the lake before returning to our room. Dachary is passed out beside me and I'm about to join her. |
Day 28 - Tikal
We planned to see Tikal today, and given our experience at Palenque (getting all hot, sweaty and overheated at the ruins and then absolutely drooping on the ride afterwards) we decided to establish a base of operations at nearby Flores and spend two nights, instead. That way we could leave the bikes at the hotel, ride up to Tikal in a bus and wear our walking around shoes and pants instead of our motorcycle pants. Afterwards, we could catch a ride back to Flores and shower and chill in the hotel, instead of trying to ride somewhere with the rest of the day.
This turned out to be absolutely the right call. The only hotel in Flores with secure parking (or parking at all?) was the Gran Hotel De La Isla. It was more than our typical budget, but we've been staying in cheap hotels that always end up smelling like cesspools for a while. We decided to splurge on this place - partially because by paying with cash, we got a 10% discount and breakfast included. We rationalized that it helped to offset the cost somewhat and stayed here. Breakfast was surprisingly important today. We were up late last night (going out to dinner after a full day of riding makes everything run late) so the earliest we could drag ourselves from bed today was 7AM. There's a sunrise in Tikal thing that sounded vaguely neat but neither of us wanted to get up that early. So we got up at 7, grabbed breakfast at around 7:30 and took a tuk-tuk to a place where we could catch a 9AM bus to Tikal. Ran around for a few minutes looking for water to fill our Camelbaks, which we wisely brought with us, and got on the bus to Tikal. Surprisingly, we really enjoyed the break of riding a bus somewhere. We both agree that we wouldn't want to do it regularly, but it was nice to just sit back and look at the scenery and let someone else take care of the driving. The bus ride up to Tikal took around an hour (turns out it was 60km away not 30), and a surprising amount of that was through the Tikal National Park. Almost as soon as we entered the park, the jungle encroached right up to the road, and we were passing constant "Animal Crossing" signs for a wide range of animals. We saw animal crossing signs for a big cat (jaguar?), snake, turkey, and something we think might be a tapir but we're not sure. Bus dropped us off at Tikal shortly after 10AM, and we got our tickets (150 quetzals each! At the slightly different rate, that's the equivalent of 450 pesos for the two of us, where the ruins we visited in Mexico were all 102 pesos for each of us… so Guatemala is over 4 times the price? It was expensive!) We started heading into the park, and saw a sign just after "ticket control" (where they check your ticket and punch a hole in it to validate it) saying that it was a 25 minute walk to the Great Plaza… http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5046/...4403e88a04.jpg 25 minutes to the first thing... Yikes! We'd read that Tikal was large, but we had no idea the scale of the place. It was probably a 20 minute walk from the ticket booth to the central plaza, which had a lot of impressive stuff; two temples (but you could only climb one of them), an acropolis and some other impressive structures that apparently used to be residential in nature. This main collection of structures was quite impressive in and of itself. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5243/...cf027c0d13.jpg Temple 1 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5048/...710206cc75.jpg Temple 1 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5082/...8d6fda6b9b.jpg IMG_1414 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5086/...25ebd1d706.jpg in the Grand Plaza Then we started wandering toward the outlying structures. Kay had gotten a "Central America on a Budget" book (Rough Guide, I think?) that happened to have a map of Tikal in it, and we needed it. Tikal is huge. Unfortunately, the scale on the map is a bit misleading… it makes structures look closer together than they actually are. Also, the jungle is quite dense, so you could be walking right past a structure at times and miss it. (We missed a few buildings, we later realized, when we went back to look at the map.) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5126/...6a171cd50c.jpg Starting to realize the size of things Tikal is great, though. In spite of all of the walking around, we just found it really impressive. In fact, the walking around through the jungle on un-manicured paths full of tree roots, vines and rocks just waiting to trip the unwary… that's half of Tikal's charm. We really enjoyed walking through the jungle and not seeing another person, and then emerging at a structure and suddenly there are people. At one point, Kay said "How are all of these people *getting* to the structures? We're not seeing them walking through the jungle. Do they just spontaneously appear wherever you find a structure?" We also enjoyed the quiet of Tikal. Yes, tons of people visit it. But the site is spread out over such a large area that the people aren't all concentrated in one place. And the jungle is so dense that as soon as you walk away from a collection of structures, you can't hear the people anymore. It's quite peaceful and awesome. At one point, later in the day, we'd walked to a group of outlying buildings and the path looked like people rarely came there. We were just commenting on that when I noticed a monkey in the canopy, and we started snapping shots. These guys were just hanging out, and they were the first monkeys we'd seen, in spite of the warning when we entered the park. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5049/...ca5cee91f6.jpg Yes, that's the path... http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5282/...29e6104517.jpg Monkey In all, we spent five and a half hours wandering around Tikal, and we missed stuff. There was more to see. We were getting really tired at that point, since it was around 3:30PM and we hadn't eaten anything except Doritos since breakfast, and the last bus was at 5PM but we were hoping to catch the 4pm "just in case" - so we headed out. But we both agreed that we were still interested in Tikal at that point… it wasn't like Monte Alban where we were just like "Yeah, yeah, let's go see it so we can leave." If we'd had the time and the energy we would have happily kept exploring. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5167/...28f3fa6b44.jpg Temples rising from the jungle I don't think words or photos can do it justice, honestly. Tikal is amazing. It's the entire experience - walking through the jungle, surrounded by wildlife, and stumbling unexpectedly across these really impressive ruins. We climbed 4 of the 5 temples (one isn't climbable) and a number of smaller structures, and it wore us out. But I have no doubt that if there'd been more tall things to climb, we would have tried, because we were really enjoying it. I think it's our favorite ruin so far, and I worry that nothing else is going to compare to it. So yeah. If you're going to be in Guatemala, see Tikal. Even though it is 150 quetzals and takes a while - make the time for it. It's really impressive. Our early quote of the day was going to be "Tikal - It's Pretty Kick-Ass." But later we had to amend that to "awesome" or "impressive" - I don't think we ever decided, but it's a little bit of all of the above. When the time came to catch the 4PM bus back to Flores, we were happy to be on the bus. We were physically tired and hadn't eaten, and the idea of trying to ride a bike back at that point would have been daunting. Also, it was so late in the day that if we *had* planned to try to make forward progress after Tikal, we hardly would have gotten anywhere - maybe not even back to our starting point. So taking an extra day at the hotel and leaving the bikes here so we could explore on foot was absolutely the right call. After we got back to Flores, we stopped at the first restaurant we saw to grab dinner and were surprised with a lovely "soup of the day" with our orders - chicken consomme. It was basically chicken and rice soup, and while neither of us had been particularly craving soup, it was exactly what the doctor ordered. It was delicious and wonderful. Unfortunately, the entrees that we ordered were basically gringo food, and we found it surprisingly disappointing. So far, the food in Mexico has trumped the food in Guatemala by a big margin. It was luxurious to wander back to our hotel afterwards, and play on the internet. We're planning to watch a little TV and otherwise unwind. Staying here in Flores for two nights was a splurge, but we've really enjoyed it. As usual, you'll find additional photos on Flickr, and we've made a set for Tikal. |
Guatemala… Sweet, beautiful Guatemala.
I loved Guatemala. She was so beautiful, and the riding was so wonderful. Miles and miles between settlements with nice roads and even nicer people. Oh my gods the level of kindness and generosity we encountered here was incredible. The 3 kids on a moto who drove us out of the squirrely, complicated, town of La Union, then the woman in La Union who helped us with directions, then drove us back through town to the hotel, and helped pick up Dacharys bike when we dropped it (twice). The hotel clerk who walked us to the parking, helped carry a pannier back, then wouldn't be content with sending me up the street to get food. No, he led me there, helped get the process of ordering stared, and then waited while the food was cooked.
Mexico landscapes were more dramatic, but that was because we kept going back and forth across the mountains. But the people we encountered seemed no more, or less, kind than those in the US (with the exception of the great folks at Motohaus BMW). People were along every foot of almost every road it seemed, like a cancerous growth spreading along the veins. You had to work hard it seemed to find the country without the constant onslaught of humanity. In the Guatemala we saw the people live in towns. Actual towns, some teeny, some not so teeny; with beautiful space spread out in-between. I even enjoyed going through most of the towns. It was just a wonderful feeling riding there. We didn't see much of it, but I can't recommend it highly enough. |
Day 29 - Flores, Guatemala to La Union, Guatemala
Today started off bright and sunny in Flores, and we were well-rested and happy to be on the bikes. The plan was to ride down CA-13 until it intersected with CA-9, and then cut across on a little red road on the map from Gualan to where it intersected with CA-11 not terribly far from El Florido, the border crossing into Honduras. We figured we'd get halfway today, find a place to stay and then ride the rest of the way and cross into Honduras tomorrow.
The riding was easy but beautiful. The parts of Guatemala that we've seen are just beautiful landscape. Mexico was varied and lovely, presenting you with a wide range of landscapes… but the roads in Guatemala so far have been much less challenging, but the landscape lush, verdant and green. We saw more of the rolling hills that Kay mentioned riding in a couple of days ago, and we also saw a beautiful lowlands valley; watched rain falling on a mountain range off in a distance and just had an absolutely beautiful day of riding. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5242/...3656711dbe.jpg Guatemala At one point, we ran across a man on a bicycle towing a small bicycle trailer. He was obviously traveling long-distance, and Kay waved and asked through the headsets "Do you want to stop and talk to him?" "Sure!" We pulled onto the shoulder (but still practically in the road) a few feet ahead of him and he rode up beside Kay and started chatting. It turns out, his name is Jeff and he's a bicyclist from Montreal. He's ridden over five thousand kilometers (miles?) in Europe, including the Alps, and is currently riding from Cancun to Costa Rica and then back to Cancun, or possibly elsewhere in Mexico. He was a really cool guy and we had a nice chat with him. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5203/...f52a6ba48f.jpg Jeff While we were chatting with Jeff, a very nice, but compact, RV pulled up behind us. Out stepped a friendly Frenchman, and Jeff (who had pulled up and was chatting with me at this point) explained that he'd met this couple at a campground. Francoise introduced himself, and gave Kay a post-card for himself and his wife Dominique. They're on a two-year trip, but I think Jeff said they were revising it to a one-year trip. Francoise came up and started chatting with Jeff, and Jeff translated for us - telling Francoise that we were headed to Patagonia. It was a lovely chance meeting, and Kay and I were very amused that while we were chatting with one traveller, another one came along. We've met some really great people on this trip so far, and these are the encounters I want to remember. Lunch was great. We stopped at a random commodore in Chacalte, and generally had a good, easy day. The scale on the map we have is a bit misleading, and we made it much farther than we'd anticipated. By around 4:20PM, we'd made it to Gualan, and the road forward seemed just fine, so we thought we might actually make it to the border before it closed, find a hotel in Copan and be ready to see the ruins in the morning. What we failed to consider was that there was a minor mountain range between here and there. Even then, we made good progress; in about 40 minutes, we had crossed 2/3 of the stretch between Gualan and where it crossed CA-11 toward El Florido. The sun was setting, but we thought another 20 minutes should see us to the major road, so we'd just head that way and try to grab a hotel. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5050/...0850bdb9ae.jpg Sunset in Guatemala La Union thwarted us, though. At first glance, this is a cute little mountain town. It was by far the biggest town on the route between here and there, and we were heartened to see it. The road through the town wasn't obvious, so we just started going where most of the traffic seemed to be going; typically a good strategy for getting through the town. We quickly discovered that this town was a bit more challenging than pretty much every road we've encountered in Guatemala; steep, paved grades covered in a layer of dirt that makes it impossible to stop our heavy bikes. I was quickly stressed out trying to maneuver the bike here. We made it halfway through town and were apparently looking out of place, so another moto stopped to ask where we were going. Kay conveyed that we were looking for the frontier to Honduras, and one of the moto riders mimed going back the way we had come. Apparently he could tell that we weren't sure about the route, so he actually turned around and led us through town. Back to the road we'd come in on. He indicated that we needed to go down this road, and take a left at some point, and then go around. We started heading that way, and it was dusk… just minutes to full dark. The problem was, neither of us could remember a left turn for a long time. In fact, it seemed to us that the only route that was remotely close to what the kid was trying to indicate was to go all the way back to the major road we'd left (CA-9), take it over to CA-10 a bit further down, and connect with CA-11 that way. Thus ensued some debate about what to do. The map showed a road going through, but the guy on the moto seemed to think we needed to go back the way we came. Neither of us was keen on backtracking through this road after dark, as it was full of potholes and slippery dirt sections. Kay posited that the map had a road going through the dot at La Union, and it seemed better to try that way again and make some forward progress for tomorrow. I bailed completely on this decision as the town had stressed me out due to the challenging riding, and I wouldn't voluntarily say "let's go back there" unless Kay thought it was the right thing to do. Either road seemed equally perilous at this point and as we stopped to double check the map Kay's low beam died. The high beams work, but the regular setting is so dim as to be practically non-existent. So when Kay said that the lesser of two evils seemed to be trying the town again, I was ready to go along with that. So, now Kay has high beams, and the Denali lights, which are even brighter. We made it through the town fairly quickly this time, and Kay stopped at a gas station on what we thought was the way out of town to ask if we were headed toward the next town on the map. The gent at the gas station didn't seem to understand, which we chalked up to our horrible accents. So Kay tried to point to the map, but it was a bit dark to read. The man went into the gas station and brought out a flashlight. A quick glance at the map and he realized he'd need someone who could read, so he called out his wife who started pondering the map and asking Kay about where we were going. Unfortunately, the next town on the map (Lelá Obraje) simply doesn't exist. Or possibly doesn't exist anywhere on the road near here. That much she was certain of. The border town, El Floride, she was familiar with, but uncertain as to how to get to. She was confident in how to get us to the nearby town of Chagüitón though. Sadly, that appears to be along a dead-end road that wouldn't actually get us anywhere. Routa 11 she didn't know how to get to. And Kay didn't realize that Copan was not just the name of the town, but the name of the Honduran state just over the border. So, us saying we were headed for Copan wasn't particularly useful. More debate ensued and with it now being full dark we all came to the agreement that it was Mucho Peligrosa and that we ought to get a hotel in town, and the lovely woman offered to drive over there and show us how to find it. So she got in her pick-up truck and started driving back through the town center toward the hotel. As Murphy would have it, we got to a bit of road where a truck was trying to come down a steep hill and turn left, and she was trying to turn right up the hill - and there wasn't room for both of us. The truck clearly wasn't going to move for her, and the drivers started yelling to her to pull forward and let them by. Eventually she pulled forward into another road, and I thought we were just trying an alternate route, and followed her. But she just pulled far enough forward to get herself out of the road and then stop. I tried to follow and got as close to her as I could so the truck could get by, and then there was a long line of traffic following. Eventually the traffic got through, and I started to back my bike up and around so she could back out into the intersection and go the way we were trying to go. That's where things started to go south. The pavement was covered with a layer of dirt and the bike was just too heavy on the incline - I lost it. Me and the bike went down for the first time on this trip; the bike on the left pannier, and me flying off down the hill on my left shoulder and hip. I popped up quickly and waited for Kay to come help me right the bike, which was in the middle of the road, but the incline was too steep for Kay to safely park his bike so I had to go help him lever his bike upright and pull it forward to a place where he could park, so he could get off his bike and come help me. In the meantime, the nice little lady from the pick-up truck had hopped out, was asking if I was ok and was ready to try to help us lift the bike. I tried to convey that we didn't need help, but she was insistent about helping us get the bike up. We did right it, and I asked Kay to move it to a place that would be safer for me to mount it, so we held it steady while Kay got on and pulled it forward in front of his bike. It was one of those squirrely up-hill wiggles which went fine until he tried to park it at which point it went over on the left pannier *again*. We righted it again, and I mounted up and started following the woman - successfully. We got to the hotel (on a relatively flat road, thank god) and Kay and the woman went in to book us a room. The woman helped to convey to the hotel proprietor that we needed a place to park our bikes - "No, no, big motos!" she had to convey, because I think they were just suggesting we stick them somewhere in a lobby or hallway thinking they were small bikes, so a guy came out and offered to lead us to a secure place where we could park the bikes. We turned around and followed him back up the relatively flat road… and onto another steep incline of doom. This one had a mud wallow at the bottom that I got stuck in at first, but I was determined not to drop the bike again so I took it slow and easy and after a couple of tries, I got up the mud wallow and started up the street. Sometime during this point, Kay tried to stop his bike on the incline and the incline was so steep and the bikes so heavy that the brakes simply wouldn't hold - the bike started sliding down the hill in the dirt and went over on its side. I managed to stop on a slightly less steep section of the incline and hold my bike in place using both brakes, but there was no way I could go help Kay get his bike up without laying mine down, because it was just too steep for me to get off the bike. Luckily, the guy who was leading us to the parking ran back to help Kay, and after some failure to communicate, they got the bike upright and the guy ran ahead to the parking. He opened the gate, and I tried stopping so Kay could turn in and then I could go in, but I had the same problem - the bike was simply too heavy and started sliding backwards in the dirt, and went down on the right this time. Luckily it went down against a wall so it didn't go down all the way, and it was relatively easy to get it upright again and have Kay mount it and ride it into the parking area. The problem, of course, was that we had been following a man walking up a hill. The bikes simply couldn't surmount the hill at that low of a speed. Given a little oomph towards the end when we knew where we were going and they roared up it happily. With both bikes safely parked, only 4 drops later. I dropped my bike twice, Kay dropped my bike once and he dropped his bike once. All because the bikes are so heavy and simply don't have traction trying to stop on steep inclines in the dirt, or dirt covered concrete. Gravity and heavy bikes are not our friend. I insisted on bringing both panniers all the way back to the hotel, even though it was down the steep hill and a bit of a ways down the relatively flat road, because I'd seen that my left pannier was borked. Kay had carried his heavy panniers a long way to parking once already and was smart enough to just grab a few essentials from his panniers and leave the rest on his bike in the parking lot. Final tally of damage for today: my right wrist is sore for some reason, even though I fell on the left, in a similar place to where I broke something in my wrist on our excursion in August. Dunno if I aggravated the injury lifting the bikes or what. My left pannier is partially destroyed; the plastic corner on the front left side of the pannier has bent forward and out, and the SW-Motech TraX cases don't have metal inside the plastic cover. So now there are things poking out the plastic from inside of my pannier. It didn't crumple like a piece of paper, and the stuff inside the pannier is fine, but the pannier itself is definitely no-longer watertight and is going to need a metal worker at some point to address the corner. For now, we're hoping duct tape is going to hold it. Tomorrow's plan? Go back to the main road 32 KM away and take the long way around on "big" roads. We've had several independent sources confirm that "You can't get there from here" and I've had enough adventure in this town to admit defeat and try a bigger road. |
Day 30 - La Unión, Guatemala to Copan Ruinas, Honduras
Or, why you should always bring a book.
*This post co-written by both Kay and Dachary - Kay writing some as Dachary worked for clients, and Dachary writing some as Kay effs with his ContourHD in an attempt to reclaim the USB port.* We backtracked our way out of La Unión without fanfare. It was however our quickest morning ever. We had nothing to pack, really, and whilst we were very grateful for the bed, you could feel each spring pressing into you. It was as if there was nothing but the bed-sheet between you and them. I've slept on pieces of hard dirt and asphalt that were more comfortable. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5288/...c3ec755ba5.jpg She's smokin' baby Dachary - In the semi-rested light of morning, we examined the damage to my pannier. The plastic cap on the front left corner of the pannier was torn and pulled away from the pannier. Since there's no metal under the pannier, there's effectively a hole there - I could see some of the contents of my pannier through the opening. It didn't look like there was a lot we could do about it immediately, so Kay suggested that we clean it off a bit and duct-tape it until we could find an aluminum welder to fix it. But then he had the brilliant idea of using Corporate Runaways stickers to cover the hole, instead of duct tape, because we had a ton and it's just a fun idea. So yeah. We totally bodged my pannier with Corporate Runaways stickers, and it's working for now! - Dachary http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5243/...cd1154d9e2.jpg Who said the stickers were a waste of time? Repairs complete, we set off back to Gualan, where we got breakfast. Sadly, it was Carné Asada… again. We chose the wrong place: grissely, and without utensils to cut the meat, we were left to fend with Guatemalan tortillas (Mexican Tortillas are FAR tastier) and our fingers. Neither of us finished it despite our hunger. So we rode on to the border, giving a huge wave to some anonymous couple riding the opposite direction two-up on an adventure bike. Sadly, the baseplate on my Cardo Scala G4 packed it in this morning. Leaving me able to hear Dachary but unable to respond until magically, hours later, it started working without intervention. The prior four hundred restarts and swaps of units had had no effect. We have no idea whose unit is synced with the GPS at this point since we haven't had it talking to us for weeks. Nearing the border, we passed a couple on touring bicycles going up the small mountains. We wanted to stop and chat with them, too, like we'd chatted with Jeff, but they looked like they were working hard to ride up the mountains and there wasn't a good place to stop. We decided that if we ran into them later, we'd chat, but otherwise wandered aloud about their gear, and whether the four soft panniers (two front, and two rear) that they had on each bike were better or worse than Jeff's trailer with his single dry-sack duffle. Checking out of Guatemalan immigration was easy. So easy we accidentally checked into Honduras without realizing it. We even accidentally got a copy of the form Guatemalan customs needed a copy of to check the bikes out of Guatemala. For some reason everyone around there will answer yes when you ask them if they're customs. When we finally stumbled into the real customs building they were out to lunch. So, we went and got lunch ourselves, illegally loitering on Guatemalan soil. (At this point, we didn't realize we were checked into Honduras… we still thought we were just checked out of Guatemala.) It was a surprisingly different, and tasty meal. A potato salad Dachary nommed with delight, some fried chicken, and tasty rice with bell peppers. Dachary ate almost every bit of hers, but I just couldn't bring myself to for some reason, even if it was tasty, and needed nutrition. The bathrooms however, were nasty. The Guatemalan Customs folks got back from lunch a little earlier than expected, but when they went to check our bikes out of the country the computers were non-compliant. The girl apologized and explained that while she could use the system, it wasn't allowing her to check vehicles out of the country. Something about permissions. "Maybe in a couple hours?" she suggested. So, we grabbed our books, and sat in the shade, until Dachary was unceremoniously savaged by a spider and then the verbal wranglings of a man with shoe-polish. Amusingly, while we were waiting for the customs system to come back up, the couple on touring bicycles made it to the border. We saw them resting in the shade and wandered over to chat. Apparently they're from Switzerland, and are touring from Mexico to Patagonia - almost the same trip we're taking. But they're taking a year to do it. They were nice and willing to chat, but we didn't have the same good time as we did chatting with Jeff… and we didn't even bother to get their names. We were still glad we'd gone to chat, though, as meeting other travelers on the road has been one of the highlights of the adventure so far. After about an hour and a half, the computers started doing their thing and our bikes were free to leave Guatemala. While we were waiting, we encountered an American who said that while he normally made this crossing in 15 minutes, he'd spent the last two days trying to get into Guatemala, mostly because the "new guy in Honduras is slow, but don't tell him I said that." So, we ventured forth into Honduras, tank bags in hand. "Ooh, a fancy new building!… No, wait. That's not finished. Maybe one of the other rooms… no.. hmm.." "Go back over there" they said, and so we headed back to Guatemala, only to find they were telling us to go to a window we'd already been to. "Oh, it's the Honduras immigration. Does that mean?… Yup, we'd unknowingly immigrated into Honduras without our bikes checked out of Guatemala for hours now." In an odd moment of international co-operation Honduras and Guatemala share the same building for immigration. Back to Honduras… "Where the hell is the Customs office…. Surely not… No… not that piece of shit thing with tin roofing on the side painted white…." Yes, that building. In the first door, "Is this customs?" "Yes." "We have two bikes…" "No not here! Next door…" So next door we went. You know how people joke about getting forms in triplicate? Yeah, not in Honduras. Triplicate copies of your passport, the signed and stamped form checking you out of Guatemalan customs, your license, your registration, and after they're done with that they'll stamp your passport for the bike, and then require triplicate copies of the stamp next to your tax receipt, the import permit they just handed you, and the form the bank signs saying that you've paid to import it. Oh, and the Bank. Yeah, it's across the street, down a path, and barely visible behind the trees. But if you're really nice, and possibly female, they may make the copies for you, because the copy machine in the custom office? Yeah, you can't use that. Four hours after we started the process we were finally, legally, in Honduras. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5166/...a72eefcb49.jpg Obligatory Devil Horns Dachary - From there, it was a quick ride to Copan Ruinas. We'd read about a hotel in the Central America on a Budget book called Via Via that we both agreed sounded like a good spot, and after a quick circuit of the town, we stopped to consult the book and a guy walked up to us and started chatting. Turns out he's a backpacker, and he was really nice. I totally forget where he and his girlfriend are from and where they're going. But after chatting for a few minutes, I asked him if he knew where Via Via was, and he directed us there. We arrived at Via Via to find out that they were full up, but while Kay was consulting Via Via, the proprietor of another hotel across the street was chatting with me by the bikes. He was trying to convince us to stay with him, and it sounded like a good deal - Wi-Fi, hot water, a kitchen, a roof deck - everything we could want. And he'd give us a couple of options for parking the bikes. When Kay came back to tell me that Via Via was fully booked, I suggested we stay here, and booked the room for us. (Turns out that the Wi-Fi connection is painfully slow… but it's still net.) When we were unloading our stuff into the hotel, we ran into the Swiss couple with the bicycles again! They'd made it through the border in about 20 minutes, and had beaten us the 10KM to Copan Ruinas while we were stuck in customs. And they're staying in the same hotel. In the room next to ours. We later ended up eating at the same restaurant at the table next to theirs. It was amusing… in an accidental stalker kind of way. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5201/...e862a3304c.jpg PimpTrix We also met Stephen, aka PimpTrix, while we were standing with the bikes in front of the hotel. He walked up and started chatting with me while I was waiting for Kay to hit the ATM, and I quickly discovered that he's from Canada and has been riding around here on his KLR. We commiserated on the SPOT battery dilemma, and he gave us a tip that San Salvador might have lithium batteries, as it's like being back in America, with all the same stuff to buy and the shopping centers, commercialized stuff, etc. When he left to meet his friends at the Via Via restaurant, we gave him our card - and he came back a minute later saying "Hey! I didn't realize you guys are the Corporate Runaways! I've seen your thread on ADVRider!" Totally random, chance meeting with another ADV inmate. It was awesome. Unloaded the bikes, showered and headed out for dinner and a photo with PimpTrix. We did a circuit of the town, poking our heads into random convenience stores in an attempt to find the red Chokies I'd developed a passion for in Mexico (turns out, you can't get them after you leave Mexico - Guatemala and now Honduras have only had the blue Chokies and the brown Chokies) and half-hazardly hunting for lithium batteries. No success on either front, and we decided to have dinner at a pizzeria again because Kay is getting tired of carne. We popped into the pizza restaurant that didn't look empty and sad, and amusingly ran into the Swiss bicycling couple AGAIN. They must think we're stalking them. Hopefully they're not going to the Copan Ruins tomorrow or they really will think we're stalking them. I wonder what Honduras would do about a reported case of stalking? - Dachary Lessons learned: * Always bring a book. * Never deal with the currency guys until AFTER you've checked out of a country. Leaving Mexico was free. Leaving Guatemala was not. * Relax. You'll get there eventually - it's not like you've got some pressing errand you need to do in an hour anyway. I was scoping out possible places to set up the tent in no-mans land if the computers didn't get back online since we'd already emigrated out of Guatemala but the bikes were still stuck there. * Bring plenty of photocopies of your license, passport, and registration. You'll need them. We've found it best to put the passport and license together on one photocopy. There's nothing you can do in advance about the photocopies of papers and stamps produced on the spot. |
Day 31 - Copán Ruinas, Honduras
Day 31 was not a happy day my friends. I can't even claim that it "started out well" because it didn't. A little before eight AM I heard someone futzing with the lock whilst I was sitting around getting ready.. I spoke up but suspected the worst. Someone trying to sneak into the room and get our stuff. The lock fidgeting stopped.
About half an hour later we attempted to head to the ruins. I say "attempted" because it turns out we were locked in our room. Dachary couldn't find the keys anywhere and it was a dual bolt deadbolt. The top one controlled by the key outside. The bottom one controlled from the inside or by closing the door. We continued the search for the key, gave up, and eventually I looked up the Spanish word for help (ayudar) and pulled the bunk bed away from the wall so that we could open the window behind it into the common hall. I then began calmly, but repeatedly, calling for help in Spanish and English. In typical fashion one of the American backpackers down the hall told us to "Shut up". Fortunately there were two european backpackers whom we'd met yesterday who came out to investigate. "No No. Over here" I called. She turned and looked at me. "Is there a key in the door?" "Yes" "Can you unlock it please. Someone has locked us in." Fiddle Fiddle. "Welcome to your new freedom." she said with a smile and went back to her room. We should have stayed in bed. We stopped in the first place that advertised breakfast, where a grumpy waitress brought us both Tea even though we specifically asked for Coffee for Dachary. By the end of the meal we were convinced she'd done it on purpose. When we asked for the bill she charged us for two of Dachary's order (the most expensive of the two) instead of one of hers and one of mine. We politely suggested that no, that wasn't what we'd gotten. She didn't even apologize. So, if in Copan Ruinas don't eat at Restaurante Elisa's. The grumpy woman you have to deal with is a bitch, even if the woman in the kitchen has a kind face and a big smile. The Tuk Tuk ride to the ruins... It was totally walkable but we weren't quite sure where, nor were we in the mood to begin a day at the ruins by hiking an extra mile. Sadly, it was 20 Limpera, or one US dollar per person. The ruins themselves were great, once we escaped the tour guides. They really do stand apart from all the others with the incredible carvings that have long since worn away at the others. The museum is also very well done and totally worth the money. The tunnels we're not sure about. They're an additional $15 US, one is only like 30 feet long, but the other was more extensive. They were created by the archaeologists as they attempted to dig through the layers of building from successive rulers building over each others. It was good because there's no way to convey what building over other buildings is like via pictures or video, but on the other hand, it's a fair amount of money for not much. $37 US for everything, $15 for the site, $15 for the tunnels, and $7 for the museum. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5204/...ac9d123723.jpg Dachary and Kay at Copan http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5127/...29b82bcb63.jpg crocodile http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5001/...90a96d4440.jpg the old man http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5288/...9d51c2fa44.jpg When Kay had hair Afterwards we went to the on-site restaurant figuring that the prices there wouldn't be any worse than in Copan Ruinas (total tourist trap) and they weren't. I decided that I would eschew being a complete Americana by ordering the chalupa instead of the hamburger. Alas, the chalupa was teeny and a hamburger had to be ordered for me anyway. Another overpriced Tuk Tuk ride back to town and it was decided we should finally get me a haircut whilst we were in a town and had time. I swung by the bike on the way since I'd left one pannier on it and it was the one with the Berloitz Passport to Spanish book which I remembered having a section on getting haircuts. When we got there we discovered that someone had stolen the MSR bottle for our stove, and the fire extinguisher off of it. Great. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5287/...d59e74de05.jpg Something's missing... Nothing to do about it after the fact. I got my book, found the section on haircuts totally useless, and looked up how to say "everywhere" about 8 times because I was too frustrated to focus and went down the street to the barber. "5 centimeters everywhere" I said, and confirmed the price (40 L) and that yes, I wanted him to chop off about a foot off the back, and restating the 5 cm with fingers spread to the appropriate distance, and noting that in two days it'd be all curly. He then set to work, giving me sides and back about 5mm long, and a top about 3 cm, emphasizing the tall skinny nature of my skull and making me look like a total dork. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5123/...47cd158d06.jpg My instructions weren't that bad... It would have been something to laugh about if i wasn't already pissed about the theft. Dachary decided that maybe Ice Cream would make things better, for her at least, and with nothing better to do, we set off. The ice cream store was out of every flavor except vanilla, neopolitan, and cappuccino. Cappuccino it was. We sat in the shade of the central square while she ate it. We saw four people and a huge bag of something that was about the size of eighty pounds of dog food ( and appeared to weigh as much) climb into the back of a Tuk Tuk. We also saw an American hippy wearing MC Hammer pants made out of something cottony with hippy embroidery. I'd be willing to bet $5 that it was made of hemp. We made our way back to the hotel, where we discovered that in the time we'd been gone someone had attempted to steal our tires. Fortunately they were locked to the bikes. We removed the remaining pannier, and the tires, and the gas cans (probably would have been stolen if not also locked to the bikes) and brought them up to the room. When we got back to the room Dachary declared that I was stinky and needed a shower. I was in no position to argue so I disrobed, entered the shower, turned on the water, and began to wonder what I was doing wrong. There was only one knob. How hard could getting some slightly warm water be. We had it last night. Today though, we have scalding hot water. Scalding hot. Or cold. Eventually Dachary, who had decided to join me, and had prior experience with the device, climbed in and took over. Scalding hot, or cold. We went with cold. It's 3:40 PM. We're thoroughly annoyed by Copan Ruinas. I'm not sure if it's locals or tourists who stole my shit. I'm leaning towards touristas, because why would you steal an MSR bottle and a mini fire extinguisher if you didn't know what they were? MSR bottles don't have a lot of uses and who but campers needs a tiny bottle of gas? This of course means that our stove and kitchen supplies are all just wasted space in Dachary's panniers at the moment. We're crossing our fingers that we'll find something in San Salvador, but even if a camping store exists, it's a big franking city and we'll be unlikely to find it. Oh, and for those who don't remember, the last time we used the stove it wasn't very cooperative and after cooking up some tasty meat, decided it didn't want to burn hot enough to boil water. So, even if we do find a bottle it may not be particularly useful. Also, we can't find the Honduras map, and last night we attempted to dismantle my video camera to retrieve the USB socket that fell inwards, but didn't succeed in getting the metal tube off. So, that's in pieces, but as it wasn't useful before it's not really any worse off now. Any inmates in San Salvador that can give us a hand looking for an MSR bottle and some Lithium batteries? … While, overall, today has a crappy feel, we must note that we really did love the ruins. They have a much more human feel to them than any of the others. They're approachable, and the artwork that remains really help to transform it from ancient architectural pieces to a place where people actually used to live. Hours later… Neither of us wants to be here. We just want to go. The theft has left us…. unhappy with this town. We're camping out in our hotel room watching Doctor Who hoping the hours will pass quickly. We're not afraid to go out, we just don't want to. We left to meander around and find food (once again I should have just gotten what Dachary did). But, we just don't want to be in a place where people seem to want to steal from us, and we keep expecting to walk out and find the bikes gone too. I've been grumpy ever since the theft and it's annoying both of us. The hippies (yes, literal hippies) who've been banging their drums outside our hotel aren't helping. And, before anyone says it, yes, we know. It's our own damn fault the things got stolen. We could have prevented it, but our own innocence, and inexperience, led us to thinking they'd be left alone. Now we know better. I'm just grateful it wasn't something more important or valuable. P.S. A colony of very tiny ants seems to have set up residence in my laptop and they scurry out for squishing every time I open it. P.P.S. As usual, a few more photos on our Flickr Stream. |
ooo..too bad about the theft guys, ahh well. You are having a once in a life time experience! It might not seem like it now, but all the crap that goes worng is the stuff you laugh and tell stories about down the road :D
safe travels and keep up the great updates! Noah M |
Day 32 - Copan Ruinas, Honduras to La Palma, El Salvador
Today started out with the both of us still in a bad mood from yesterday's theft. Neither of us slept very well - hippie drummers in front of the hotel kept us up half the night, and the AC did a decent job of drowning them out… until someone came by and turned off the circuit that the AC and everything else in our room was running on during the night. So no more AC. Roosters started crowing effing early (well before a hint of sun on the horizon - like around 3:30AM, I think, and sunrise was after 6AM) and it just wasn't very restful.
Combine that with both of us having tummy problems when we woke up this morning, and just wanting to get out of this town, and we were both not feeling well and simultaneously eager to hit the road. (We forgot to take the anti-malaria pills last night before bed, and I woke up around 5-something AM and remembered we needed to take them, so we did… but Kay woke up feeling nauseous after 7AM, and was very sick for a while… and we were both having tummy problems, possibly from dinner last night. No bueno. But we have figured out that if we remember to take the anti-malaria pills before bed, we're fine in the morning.) We got everything packed up in the panniers and the tummies had calmed enough to seek breakfast shortly after 8AM. We were walking out through the hotel lobby when Kay happened to look to the right and noticed the missing MSR bottle and fire extinguisher bottle sitting on top of the cabinet that held the room keys! For some reason, they'd been removed from Kay's pannier and taken to the hotel lobby, and apparently no-one thought to tell us. So we were simultaneously relieved that they hadn't been stolen after all, and annoyed that we spent yesterday evening all upset about the theft when there was no theft at all. We have no idea who thought it would be a good idea to bring the bottles in or why they were taken off the bike at all. It remains a mystery, but at least we have our stuff back. One less thing to try hunting in San Salvador. We decided to see if Via Via across the street served breakfast, and were happy to find that they did. The Central America book that we have recommends Via Via highly, and I think it says that the owner is Belgium and speaks excellent English. Either way, we were thrilled to see a menu with familiar foodstuffs, including fresh bread! Baked on the premises! We haven't seen a whole lot of bread since leaving the US; there's the occasional store with a bread section, or pastry/bread store, but mostly everything has been tortilla-based. And we're definitely missing the Mexican tortillas - the tortillas we've encountered in Central America have been thicker and kinda lame, even if they are individually made by hand. So when we saw actual bread in a place owned by a Belgium man who probably does bread in a way we'd like it, we were happy. Alas, Kay has been violating the rule of "order whatever Dachary orders" and got french toast for breakfast, and was disappointed. I, on the other hand, had a spectacular meal (bacon, eggs, toast, fresh fruit and DELICIOUS coffee) and was thoroughly pleased. So my day was getting off to a really good start, and Kay was at least favorably disposed toward Via Via on my behalf. Went back to the bikes to pack up and I noticed a note on my bike saying that there might be a place for us to park the bikes and set up shop if/when we got to Panama. I stuck the note in my tank bag and we started loading the bikes… and as we were loading up, a guy walked up and introduced himself - he was Shaun, who'd left us the note. It turns out that he and his business partner are on the way to Panama to set up a guest house and eventually a resource center for ADV tourers. We had a nice chat about ADV riding, trip-planning, etc. and I'm curious to see his eventual setup. At one point, he says "Oh, you guys are Corporate Runaways? We're Expedition Portal" and hands us a sticker. What they're doing sounds neat, and I'm sure a good spot and resource center for ADV travelers who are doing the Americas will be a welcome resource for travelers. While we're chatting, another gent came up and asked to get a picture, as he has a friend who is a biker (and if you happen to see this, I'm sorry we didn't get your name!) and joined the chat. While we were with the bikes in Copan Ruinas, we had a ton of people stop by to chat - more than we've encountered anywhere else. So while it was a totally touristy town, a lot of travelers do come through there and many of them seemed interested in us and the bikes. It's always nice to meet other travelers, so we enjoyed chatting. After all the chatting and adventures in international calling from my cell phone to wish a Happy Birthday to a good friend, it was after 10:15AM when we finally hit the road. Traveling from Copan Ruinas to La Entratada, we discovered the shit roads that seem to be the norm in Honduras. You can be riding along on perfectly good pavement when suddenly the road is just gone, and it's rocky dirt for like 10 or 20 feet. And then it's paved again. There are also ginormous potholes (and by ginormous, I mean in terms of stretching across the road - the deepest one we saw was probably 6" to 10" - we mostly tried to avoid them). So sometimes you're slaloming around potholes, and sometimes you're transitioning from pavement to rocky dirt to pavement repeatedly. And sometimes the road has just dropped away entirely on the side, and you have to swerve into the other lane to keep from falling down a hill or off the side of a mountain. Also? As in the other countries south of the US, Honduran drivers are deathly afraid of potholes and irregular road surfaces. They'll slow WAY down for dirt stretches - even when it's perfectly good dirt and there's no reason to slow at all. They'll also swerve WAY wide (like into the other lane, wide) - even when there are people coming - to avoid the potholes. It's really crazy. You have to be alert driving in Honduras. The roads weren't actually that bad aside from the potholes and occasional dirt stretches - as long as you pay attention you can cruise along at 60-80 KPH. Between Copan Ruinas and La Entrada, we were going up a hill when we encountered a couple of touring bicycles. Kay suggested that we pull over and chat, and it turns out that they're in the middle of a huge bicycle tour. (Again, stupidly, we did not get their names - if you guys happen to read this, sorry! And drop us a note with your names!) The gent was touring from Ireland, and had ridden his bicycle down through Africa, over to Buenos Aires, took a bus to Tierra Del Fuego, and now is in the midst of riding his bicycle from Buenos Aires up. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5046/...8ddd6b166a.jpg A real adventure rider In Bolivia, he met the girl who's traveling with him now, and she's along for the rest of the ride. They now plan to head up through Canada, through Vancouver, and then through Asia - probably starting in China. It sounds like an epic trip - and on bicycles! We're really impressed with long-distance bicycle tourers, as it's way more work than riding a motorcycle, and these two are on a truly epic journey. Our figurative hats off to you! http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5244/...f7d732d504.jpg It must be love... That's been one of the greatest things about Mexico/Central America, so far - meeting other travelers. Everyone we've met has been great, and it's amazing and wonderful and awesome to know there's this global community of people who don't just stay where they're put, but instead want to get out and see the world. Stopped for lunch at La Entrada, and looked for a nice-ish looking restaurant as I was still having tummy troubles and wanted a decent bano. The restaurant we spotted was a bit pricey, but we had surprise shrimp (I thought I was ordering something else, and Kay has finally decided to stick with his rule of "get whatever Dachary gets") and while neither of us would normally order shrimp, it was quite tasty. I think we were both a bit depleted of salt, as we've been drinking a lot of fluid lately and I'm not sure our bodies were retaining enough, so the salty shrimp breading and french fries we got were spectacularly tasty. At around 1PM, we headed south from La Entrada toward Santa Rosa de Copan, which was our route to the El Salvador border. We made surprisingly good progress, and didn't get off the bikes again until 4PM - when we hit the border with El Salvador. We weren't sure how far we'd get today or how far it actually was to El Salvador, and while we hadn't planned to cross the border today, we thought we might actually have enough time. We might have been even quicker had we noticed a tiny red squiggle on the map that, if it exists, would have saved many miles. Checking out of Honduras, we had to deal with aduana for the bikes first. Because we're planning to re-enter Honduras (you have to go through Honduras to get further south) we didn't have them check us out entirely, but they could only give the bikes 3 days in El Salvador. Otherwise we would have had to check out entirely and do a new vehicle import permit when we cross through the little bit of Honduras between El Salvador and Nicaragua. We're not opposed to that, but it takes more time to check out and we feared El Salvador's side might close soon and we'd be stuck in no-man's land for the night. Next we headed down the street to immigration, which it turns out is surprisingly far down and right in front of the gate to the El Salvador border. Immigration is in a non-obvious building on the right. I think we got a little over two weeks for us to leave Honduras and return, but the bikes only have 3 days… damn. Took slightly less than 30 minutes to check out of Honduras on a return ticket, some of which was spent trying to figure out where to go. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5289/...ec44312c8c.jpg Migracion de Honduras Crossing through the gate to El Salvador, a man hands Kay forms we'll need to fill out for the bikes and take to aduana (customs) for the vehicle import. But 50 meters down the road, there's an immigration control booth, and the woman took our passports and started asking a bunch of questions about our trip to El Salvador. Eventually she sent us to the immigration office, which took all of 5 minutes to get our stamps, and then we went back to the bikes to try to fill out the form that the guy gave us to give to customs re: the bike import. But as we were standing next to our bikes, a security guard comes up and tells us "No, no, you must go to customs." When a man with a big gun tells you to go to customs, you go to customs. When we get there, he opens the door and a customs guy comes out and takes our forms for us. But then he sees that they're not filled out, and orders us to stand at a counter nearby to fill them out. Which we would have done before going over there if the guard hadn't told us to go to customs immediately. Luckily, the customs guy stood there and helped us figure out how to fill out the form, as a lot of the words were non-obvious to us - he didn't speak English but he was able to get his meaning across. So he helped us fill out our forms, and then asked for copies of some of our paperwork (registration and passport) and seemed surprised when we said "Yes, we have copies. Here you go!" and pulled them out. Back to the office to process the paperwork. After a few minutes of reviewing things, he tells us to go around outside of the customs building and to one of the windows there. A woman there is going to process the bike importation permits. But it turns out she was only processing one of them - Kay's. She tries to convey something to us and seems frustrated by our lack of understanding, but eventually we realize she's telling me to go to a window further down. Apparently someone else is processing my import permit. Alas, the someone else must have been new. It took the woman less than 10 minutes, I'd say, to process Kay's permit. The guy who was doing mine took over an hour, and at one point he had three other people helping him input it into the system. So Kay was done with the border crossing around 5-5:15PM, but I wasn't done until after 6PM. At this point the sun had set, it was getting dark, and we'd just crossed into a country we didn't know. Kay still has no headlights (although his high-beams work and he has the Denali driving lights) and there are mountains between the border and San Salvador - our next destination. At first, we think we'll just ride for a few minutes and then try to find a hotel. Then we think we don't want to stay so close to the border, so maybe we'll try riding all the way to San Salvador in the dark - around 40 miles. The road seemed ok, but riding over the mountains is time-consuming in the best of times, and after all of the roads in Honduras where the roadway just falls away and a lane is missing entirely, neither of us was too keen to carry on after dark. So when we hit a little town that has a few hotels, one of which seemed to have secure parking, we decide to turn around and check out the hotel. And the spot where Kay stops to turn around has a hotel right there. Instead of riding back to the hotel we've passed, Kay suggests checking this hotel. Which has parking well out of sight of the road, and a restaurant in the hotel complex. "It was a sign" he said. So here we are, at Hotel La Palma in La Palma, El Salvador. The wifi is WAY faster than the last place, and our dinner was really tasty. Unexpected border crossing, which took us into the night - but we've found a place to sleep and we can head off to San Salvador bright and early in the morning. On the to-do list for tomorrow: try to find some lithium batteries for the friggin Spot. |
Day 33 - La Palmas, El Salvador to San Salvador, El Salvador
Or, the day the Rough Guide led us horribly astray.
It all started well. A good breakfast at La Palmas, and a leisurely packing up since we had such a short ride to San Salvador after repacking. The land, we were told, where you could "buy anything". We were going there for the mythical Latin American stash of Lithium AAA batteries. There was a little time spent grabbing the Cycle Pump and putting some air back in my rear tire, but it went quickly and our mood was good. I didn't know where exactly we were going in San Salvador, but the prior night we'd looked up the address of a couple of hotels that sounded decent in what sounded like the historical district. Dear gods was it wrong. As is our modus operandi, we circled our way to the coordinates, checking the map until we finally found it. We were overheated, drenched in sweat, and hungry when we arrived. Dachary had been out of water for about half an hour at that point too. Unfortunately, the promised hotel, was not there. There was, however, *a* hotel. A tiny tiled driveway between two buildings led to a locked gate. I made an executive decision to give it a try despite the fact that neither of us actually wanted to stay anywhere near this place. We pulled in. The bedrooms looked cheap… very cheap. The bathrooms were all varying degrees of nasty. Neither of us wanted it, and while we both had some vague notion that things got better somewhere west of here, all we knew for sure was that San Salvador was large and that we didn't actually know where, west of here, any hotels were. And the prospect of spending the next hour, or two, trying to find something in this heat… we decided, unhappily, with much grumbling, to take it. We then proceeded to spend as much time as possible as far away from the hotel as possible. And, following LoLita's instructions we began our journey with a stop at a place that served Papusas, which happened to be on the corner. We're still undecided about them. We like the idea, and the fillings were good, but the surrounding bread was very doughy. We're not sure if that's the norm or just how this place does it, but we think we'd like them a bit more thoroughly cooked. The hotel bordered the market area, which was good as it was where we thought we'd have luck looking for batteries. We were wrong. But, if you need any clothes we know just where to look. DVDs too. I even saw Tron Legacy even though it isn't even in the theaters in El Salvador yet. While there we learned an important fact. Denizens of San Salvador are all mostly deaf. There's no other way they could survive the sheer volume of the place day in, and day out. Whilst walking through the market Dachary remembered that we had two tasks here. One was to find the mythical batteries. The other was to get me a new headlight for the bike since my low beam only technically emits light. If you look at it, you see light, but if you try and use it, you see none. It's all Schrodingery like that. We'd set out from the hotel with such haste that I'd neglected to bring my Moleskine with the address of the BMW Dealership, and we needed to get there before they closed. So, back we went, grabbed it, and promptly hailed a cab from next to the Papusa place. Seven dollars later (they use US currency here. So freaking weird) we were standing in the BMW Dealership being told by the security guard at the desk that no, there wasn't actually ANYONE at work there and that no, there wouldn't be tomorrow either. But if we were to come back on Monday we might have better luck. It seems that Excel Automotriz isn't particularly interested in selling any of the luxury vehicles and motorcycles it has on the floor. I'm not convinced they actually have a service area either. But, the security guard was happy to point us to the nearby ATM, which happened to be in the mallish thing that abutted the shiny glass BMW dealership. The ATM was next to a supermarket in which we discovered AA Lithium batteries! They had no AAA, but it at least made us believe that our quest was not entirely in vain. (And btw, if you have a first generation SPOT tracker and need just AA lithium batteries, you can get them at the Super-something grocery store in the mall-ish area next to Excel Automotriz BMW dealer here in San Salvador, El Salvador. And buy those motha-effers out because we haven't seen them ANYWHERE else.) We backtracked down the street to the nearby actual mall, and discovered that it contained a Radio Shack! I was positively vibrating with hope. But no, dear friends, it was not to be. Radio Shack in San Salvador sells only their own brand of batteries, which are all alkaline. ****ers. They did, however have grounded three prong to ungrounded two prong adapters that we could use for our power strip, and a Y adapter for headphones, so that we can both watch Dr Who even with an air conditioner on, or hippie drummers outside the window. That at least made us a bit happier. We stopped by the Apple store, just because we could (teeny), and wandered the mall looking for other places that might have batteries. This mall happened to have a theater, and I was convinced that seeing a movie was our best option for avoiding the hotel. Dachary agreed, but wasn't willing to give up the quest. She pulled out the Rough Guide, and tracked down the names of the other malls in the area that she remembered seeing there. One of them was apparently the largest in Central America it claimed. So, we grabbed a cab, and five dollars US we were there. It was big, sprawly, easy to get lost in, and possessed two food courts, two Wendy's, a Sherwin Williams, a Payless Shoe Source, Two mister Donuts (they sell actual meals here and appear to be quite popular), and lots and lots of other stores. We meandered, and meandered, and meandered, and then found a camera store, which we wandered into fully bereft of hope. But just when things seem their darkest… AAA Lithium batteries!!!! We squealed. We high-fived each other. We waited for the girl who worked there. "tres A lithium batteries!" we said and pointed. "Qanto?" "DIez." This confused her, but she pulled one off the rack. "Mas! Mas!" she pulled. "Mas! en todo!" I'm not sure if that means, all, or everything, or anything even close to ether but our frantic waving conveyed the desire. "Mas mas!" she pulled them all. We bounced. We laughed. She counted. "nueve?" "Si!" We'd miscounted. We didn't care. We laughed more. Five dollars, twenty cents for two batteries my friend, and we bought every single one they had. It should *just* be enough to keep the Spot running for the rest of the trip. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5248/...22729f6dc0.jpg Lithium Baby... All Lithium Food next. We went to Wendy's. I forget why exactly, but I have to say that I was disgusted with the Anglo centric Bullshit from Wendy's HQ that we found within. There were exactly two sentences in Spanish in the entire establishment, and one was in the bathroom telling employees to wash their hands. The entire menu was in English. Even the "choose a side". It's as if they didn't give even the slightest thought to the people who work there or the people who eat there. Afterwards we made our way to the Cinema in this mall and found that everything had just started, but the new animated Repunzel flick had started not too long ago and was probably only barely past the trailers. Fine, we'll go for it. Go in and find out it's been dubbed. Damn. **** that. I'm not going to go see a movie that I've probably missed the start of and definitely won't catch most of. The The Tourist (El Tourista) was subtitled though…. Debate ensued. Kill almost two hours meandering around the mall in order to watch a film for the sole purpose of avoiding the hotel room, or go back to the hotel room. Ultimately, we decided that while the prospect of spending more time meandering anywhere wasn't particularly what we wanted to do, it would probably be better to the hotel. So we meandered, and gradually got more worn out. But finally it was time, and into the ticket line we got. "This ticket ordering process seems to take a very long time." I mused, and then realized something… they were looking at the screens. They were… they were choosing seats! When it was out turn, we did too, right in the middle of the theatre. Row J, seats 5 and 6. It cost us $3.90 US dollars each. I shit you not. We started laughing in line when we saw the price. Last time we went to a movie it was probably $14 each. We got a soda, a bottle of water, and a large popcorn (not the ****ing Gigantor one thank you) for about $6 and spent a very enjoyable hour and a half, or more, watching The Tourist. Neither of us had seen the original, but I was aware of its pedigree, so I had high hopes. I am happy to say, it met them. We both left with spirits lifted. Until, that is, the taxi ($5) dropped us off at the hotel. Food needed to be acquired, and the area was even more nasty looking than in the daylight. This is definitely not a part of town that tourists should be meandering around at night. This way? no closed. That way? no, that's not food. That way? No those stands all sell alcohol. ****… Back to the one place on the corner (across from the Papusa place) that had a bunch of people and meat on a grill. It was more Carne Asada, but there was ground churiso, some tasty salsa(ish) and some very tasty tortillas. While we waited in the smoke filled tent (from the grill) we were assaulted by the "music" from the Las Vegas strip club around the corner from the Papusa place. We wondered if deaf patrons tipped strippers better, but declined to investigate. The food was tasty, but half way through it I suddenly felt like I'd come over with a fever. Dachary finished off hers and we headed back to the hotel… quickly, with a stop in the Papusa place (it's the center of our world) for a couple sodas before they finished closing up shop. "For here?" "No, to go" She smiles happliy and goes to get some bags. "Oh how nice, she's getting us bags for our soda." Not worth trying to explain that we don't need bags, we let her continue. "Ah, yes, thank you for the straws. Oh, she's… she's opened one… both of them for us. Maybe she thinks we might not have bottle openers. Oh, now she's… what's she doing with the… Oh no…" She then proceeds to tip each bottle into a bag and hand us the bag. She wanted to keep the bottles for the return. This explains the people walking around with drinks in plastic baggies with straws we'd seen. It is also, we believe, the origin of the phrase "left holding the bag" because you can't actually do anything until you've finished your drink. I'm not sure how Dachary managed to pay her but… We walked past four homeless people bedded down for the night and into the hotel's driveway thing. And, as we did, oh happy day, the assault from the strip club started to lessen. Yes! Around the corner into our hall. Even quieter. Yes! There's some other music we can hear but it's not bad…. Unlock the padlock. ( Some of the rooms have no locks. Some have locks that don't work. This one had a lock that didn't work but they gave us a padlock to put through the two eye-bolts they'd conveniently installed…) Open the door. Flick the switch. Wait. Flickr. Wait. Flickr. Wait….. The fluorescent blinks into life. I think that light is making my headache worse… Dachary thinks that it'll probably give her one. So, we get out our laptops and power cords, plug the headsets in to recharge, and are using our headlamps (on our heads) instead of the overhead whilst I type this to you, and she does some work for a client. We suspect the worst from these beds, and will be very pleasantly surprised if we survive without bedbug bites, and actually obtaining sleep. Also, while we can't hear the strip club, there's obviously some other club nearby because we can hear the bass from it's music vibrating the walls. We are not at all happy with San Salvador. And, with that, I'm going to hand the laptop to Dachary for review whilst I give myself a Baby-wipe bath, because I'm not going to touch the shower. Remember, lithium batteries means SPOT tracking is back on tomorrow! :) |
Day 34 - San Salvador to San Miguel, El Salvador - 84 Miles
Neither of us was particularly eager to stay in the shitty San Salvador hotel longer than we needed to, so we were on the road pretty quick after we woke up - by 7:45AM (possibly our earliest start of the trip?)
How shitty was the hotel? This was the shower… http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5289/...989b49bc06.jpg How bad was the room in San Salvador? And our door lock? A padlock... from a different room. So yeah. We wanted to leave the hotel and the city quickly, so we didn't even bother trying to find breakfast. First order of business was getting away. Sadly, leaving the city involved getting on the Pan American Highway (for the first time on our trip!) and we didn't realize how difficult it would be to find breakfast after we left. We passed very few commodores or restaurants, and the ones we did pass seemed to be all closed. We attributed this partially to being a Sunday, and partially to being early. While the people in the hotels where we stay all seem to rise early, Latin America, in general, doesn't seem to get a particularly early start on the work day. Eventually we spotted a big enclosed area with several rows of tables, lots of semi trucks stopped, and even a military truck full of armed men stopped. It was a row of commodores. A quick (legal!) U-turn later and we were pulling up in front of a couple of women with a grill who immediately started brandishing meat on a stick at Kay. This was a good start, we felt. We had a bit of trouble ordering, as our Spanish is still quite bad (non-existent, save for a few important phrases we use often). The woman kept trying to ask us to make decisions - i.e. do we want meat done this way, or that way? Or this type of meat, or that type of meat? Or these sides? Neither of us could really pick up on what she was saying - I think she got a little frustrated but she was good natured about it and eventually put down in front of us some stick-meat, some tortillas, and something else that neither of us can remember. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5289/...1e35cc9060.jpg She gave us delicious stick meat. The stick meat, as it turns out, was surprisingly delicious. And I mean delicious. Really effing tasty. We only got two pieces of stick meat each and I think we were both wishing we'd gotten a third piece. While we were nomming our meat (sans forks - food stands in El Salvador don't seem to believe in forks), Kay noticed that the large woman was making something that looked like pupusas. We were still interested in trying another one, after the recommendation that lilolita made, so Kay went and asked for two pupusas. They didn't ask us what we wanted in them - I assume because we had such a hard time ordering before that they assumed our Spanish wasn't up to the task - so when she brought the pupusas to the table, we discovered we'd gotten bean-filled pupusas. I was mightily amused by this as Kay is getting tired of beans with every meal - particularly breakfast - and while we'd escaped the main part of breakfast without beans, here they were, haunting him. The pupusas were tastier than the ones we had in San Salvador, except for the bean filling. I think if we'd had the filling from San Salvador in the pupusas from this street-side stand, it would have been a home run. A short, easy ride later, we arrived in San Miguel. The plan was to ride a short day and chill in the hotel in San Miguel. We weren't sure if the border crossing offices would be open on a Sunday, so we didn't want to chance it, and neither of us was feeling particularly well-rested after our night in the crap hotel in San Salvador. Also, we didn't really feel we'd really experienced whatever it was people kept telling us was so awesome about El Salvador. We gave the Rough Guide another chance and let it guide us to Posada Real, which turned out to be pretty nice. We had air conditioning, a clean bathroom, and only a handful of ants to plague us throughout the night. (The air conditioning was awesome - after only about an hour and a half of riding, we were both DRENCHED in sweat. It was around 95 degrees, or a bit more, in San Miguel. In the shade.) After a quick shower to rinse off the sweat, we headed out into the city. We were only a couple of blocks from the giant street market, and we wanted to check it out. We happily started wandering, idly looking for more lithium batteries but not on a real mission, and spent probably a half hour poking around the street fair. Then we popped into a super mercado (supermarket) for some supplies, and when we came back out, we started looking for lunch. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5122/...80684cec61.jpg San Miguel, El Salvador http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5046/...ed4b10ce0d.jpg Dried fishy things in San Miguel We quickly discovered that the street market was shutting down… we thought maybe they were closing early because it was Sunday, and looked at the clock, only to realize that it wasn't even 1PM yet and the thing was rapidly becoming deserted even as we wandered through it. Kay found a man who had hot dogs, and we wandered a bit longer looking for something for me, but even the commodores that we'd seen earlier had shut down since we'd been poking around. We tried going back to the hot dog man for me, but by the time we arrived, he was gone, too. No problem, we thought - just try for a regular restaurant or commodore. We walked out of the big street market and realized that EVERYTHING was deserted. The entire town was shuttered. We consulted the Rough Guide again, hoping for guidance, and followed its directions to a street where everything was shuttered and the restaurant that was supposed to be there didn't exist. Luckily, the search took us around the corner to a Pizza Hut. Don't get me wrong - neither of us particularly wants to eat like gringos. We really enjoy the local fare when we get the chance - street food, in particular. But Pizza Hut was literally the ONLY thing open at this point - around 1:30 on a Sunday afternoon other than the Pollo Campanero. We opted for Pizza Hut, and had a somewhat lame, but actually quite satisfying, meal. (Pizza Hut in San Miguel, by the way, must employ at least a third of the population. At one point, Kay counted something like a dozen people just standing around while another eight were on break. It was crazy.) Went back to the hotel at around 2:30 and Kay decided to nap for a bit while I read my book. It was total luxury. Kay hasn't gotten a nap since we hit the road, and he enjoys naps. I read for about 40 minutes before I had to give in and sleep, too. We ended up napping for a couple of hours, and it was total luxury. We loved it. I could have kept right on napping, but Kay pointed out that we should try to find dinner - particularly as things had seemed all closed earlier and dinner might be a more difficult prospect. So we headed out again, following the Rough Guide's directions to yet another restaurant. Which also either didn't exist, or was hidden behind a closed shutter. We covered probably 10 blocks and only found three things open - a restaurant/bar, the Pollo Campanero, and Pizza Hut. Neither of us was in the mood for the ambience of a restaurant/bar (that looked more bar from the windows) so we opted for the Pollo Campanero. Which turned out to be surprisingly tasty. Seriously. We both nommed our food with gusto and wanted more. And felt lame about enjoying chain fast food… but enjoyed it anyway. I was craving Coke (most of Mexico was Coca Cola country, but it turns out that El Salvador is Pepsi dominated. You have to look to find Coke.) and the temperature had dropped a bit with the arrival of dark so we decided to wander around for a bit and try to find an open tienda where I could grab a soda. When we left the hotel, we both commented that we felt surprisingly safe. Trying to find the major road where we might find a tienda, though - that feeling of safety quickly dissipated as we walked down dark, deserted streets - two gringo touristas who were clearly out of place. We both agreed that we didn't feel safe anymore, and hoofed it to the major street only to find that we couldn't see a tienda anywhere. We did, however, see a Burger King, another Pizza Hut, another Pollo Campanero, and a bunch of other chain-type restaurants that were open - so apparently the whole town didn't shut down. Just the town center. Whilst walking back up the main drag to head back to our hotel, we ran into a street food festival. It was a bunch of tents with banners that looked like they represented several of the restaurants in the area. The food smelled tasty and everyone looked like they were really enjoying it, and we wished we'd ran into this unexpected gem before we'd had dinner at the Pollo place. Alas. Headed quickly back to the hotel room, walking faster now that we'd realized we didn't feel so safe wandering around after dark, and closeted ourselves with the A/C and a two-part season finale for Dr. Who. All in all, not a bad way to spend an afternoon/evening, although we probably would have enjoyed San Miguel a lot more if everything hadn't closed down before 1PM. |
Day 35 - San Miguel, El Salvador to ?, Honduras
Ahh Honduras, you bureaucratic ass wipe…
A little before 5 AM Dachary wakes up and realizes we haven't taken the Malaria pills. ****. We do. I then stress over the effects of taking the pill near the morning. Which gets me all stomach acidy, which gets me stressed, which makes my stomach tense and acidy, which makes me stress… I don't really sleep much between then and 7 when the alarm goes off. The air conditioning (luxury I know) which was controllable by degree, was such that at the 25 deg c setting we froze, and at 26 deg c we were covered with a sticky patina of quasi-sweat. This didn't help. When 7 o'clock comes I'm somewhat nauseous, as I start getting ready I'm even more so. Eventually, I slowly, get up, get dressed, get packed and we start to deal with loading the bikes. We were drenched in sweat before we're half-way done. Breakfast was acquired at a Burger King we'd noticed the night before, based on the assumption that since they had breakfast in the US they were likely to here. This assumption proved correct. The large room with the kiddy play area was filled with people studying to be good Burger King employees, with test papers and slides being projected. The ride to the border was only notable in that in our attempt to find the shorter route we drove ten miles further trying to find the turn-off. The border at El Amatillo, El Salvador though… El Salvador customs was as trivial going out as in, except that the customs office is 4 kilometers from the immigration and if it weren't for the somewhat aggressive helper we'd have gone the wrong way to the thing that looked like a border but apparently wasn't (ignore it, go left). El Salvador customs requires 2 copies of the form they gave you with a sticker when you entered. So make copies before you get to the border if you can. They'll stamp the copies and sign them. You only need one of them as far as I can tell, but hey, I'll take a spare… When we made it to the El Salvador customs all the helper had done was show me where to make copies (at the tiny building that says copies about 100 meters before the customs gate). Dachary wasn't in favor of accepting any more help and then providing the obligatory tip, but I went with it, and ultimately, am quite thankful I did. He pointed us to the El Salvador immigration window (trivially easy). And then led us to the bridge (show them the papers the guy at customs signed I think) and then to the other side of the bridge where another customs guy takes your passport, your license, and your registration and meanders off to the totally unmarked customs office while you find somewhere to park. You could just follow slowly behind him, but the helper and his new friend who spoke English (you'll find plenty of them at the El Salvador Immigration building) showed us somewhere to park a little farther down the road as there are only four spaces in front of the customs building. Now, there IS a large blue building that says Aduana on it, but that's not the building you want. You go in there for your immigration stamp which takes about one minute and costs $3. But, if you're facing the blue Aduana look to your right for the dirty brown building with three square columns and zero signage. That's the customs building. The official you gave your passport to has disappeared in there. You, however, can not. You must wait outside until someone emerges and calls your name. It's air conditioned, but it's unlikely you'll see the inside for more than a few seconds. Dachary waited with the bikes. I waited with the helper. I was called, but we'd gone to immigration. Fortunately a Canadian we'd chatted with told them to wait a moment and ran and grabbed us. We ran back, words were exchanged, more waiting commenced. The man emerged, words were exchanged. More waiting commenced. Repeat. Oh wait. Now it's time for lunch. More waiting. Lunch passes. man emerges, words are exchanged. Title is requested. **** that. Registration. Grumbles. Discussion over transit vs tourist visa because no title. We didn't need a title to get in before, and theoretically we're not fully out since when we left Honduras we told them we wanted to come back and they said fine, but we had to bring the bikes back in three days. Today was the third day. More discussion. Man disappears, reemerges, discusses, repeats. Eventually… helper says they say I have to go back to Guatemala to get a new exit stamp from there before I can get into Honduras. What?! WTF does Guatemala have to do with it? I'm leaving El Salvador. I left Guatemala before I came to Honduras the first time. More discussion. Eventually I make it into the secret room. The woman in yellow is unmoved. "No. You must go back to Guatemala." More discussion. I explain that we are returning from El Salvador. "Why did you go to El Salvador?" "We wanted to visit San Salvador." This doesn't seem to have any effect. "No. You have to go to Guatemala and get an exit stamp." This made zero sense to me at the time, but pissing off a customs agent is never a good plan, so we made our way out. Long story short. El Salvador is trivial to get in and out of, but part of the reason for that is that they put zero stamps in your passport. So, as far as anyone can tell from our passport, we never went there. (Except that we have copies of our bike's import permits that have been canceled with an official stamp from El Salvador, but nothing in our passport for us.) Now, obviously the Honduras customs woman knows this (it is the El Salvador border she works at), and I have the exit stamp on the paperwork from El Salvador but if you look at the passport it says that we entered and then left Guatemala, entered Honduras, left honduras, and now, without having gone anywhere, are asking to come back to Honduras. That simply won't do my friends. You can't re-enter without having gone somewhere in your passport, and we did not. The english speaking helper (Jordan) asked if it would work if we could get El Salvador to stamp something in the passport. She shrugged. It was worth a try. So, we trotted back to El Salvador. A guard at the bridge checked my passport, and seemed perfectly happy to let me into El Salvador even though I was checked into Honduras. Back at the El Salvador immigration he looked at the passport and, because they don't stamp passports, was unable to help at all. Back to Honduras, back to the lady…. brick wall. Come, lets go wait. We go back to the bikes. "She isn't going to give it to you." says Jordan, "but she will go home tonight and the border is open 24 hours. Maybe we can get the next guy to do it." Along the way there have been various suggestions that money would make this all go away. I was not prepared, at this point, to start handing out $150 per bike to get the stamp. So, we waited. Jordan disappeared, then came back suggesting that for only $20 I could get one of the officials to stamp us out to go back to El Salvador. I told him I wasn't about to bribe anyone to go in the wrong direction, and that while I didn't intend to bribe anyone, if i WAS going to bribe someone it would be to go towards Nicaragua not back into El Salvador and Guatemala. Alas, more waiting. Eventually there was more discussion about the shift change. Dachary missed the part where it was stated that 10pm would be the appropriate time to retry and Jordan said he'd return in 2hrs. I made a total newb move and let him walk off with the papers. They were all copies, but one of each set had the official stamp from the guy at El Salvador customs. I had a spare, so i could go it alone without him, but it still irked me that I let him. Of course, two hours came and went. Around three hours later I saw the original helper ( I never got his name ) down the road and tracked him down. It was now about four PM and we'd arrived around eleven AM. Yes, he said Jordan was around, somewhere (El Salvador I think) and yes, he had the paperwork, and yes he would be back. "When?" …."neuve" (9 PM). Great…. Dachary was stressed before this, and upon hearing the news was… very stressed. She'd been sitting by the bikes being hit upon by various men (often drunk) who failed to grasp the concept of someone who doesn't speak their language not being able to carry on a conversation with them. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5283/...5f0bb6268f.jpg Waiting at El Amatillo Not long after sunset the original helper reappeared. Come… we make this happen. Jordan had been replaced with a plump interpreter with a desire for dollars. Basically, for something like $75 a bike we could get it all taken care of. Coming in legally it had been like $36, but we didn't have an exit stamp from Guatemala, and getting a stamp into Honduras without having gone anywhere required a little… grease. Now, I'm generally opposed to bribes, and am stubborn enough to say **** that and drive back to Guatemala, as I was fairly confident that I could get back over the border in that direction without bribing anyone, but by this point, Dachary was near tears. Stressed from a generally unpleasant experience since leaving Copan (and that one tainted by the perceived theft) and really really not happy about the prospect of spending another night in another shitty hotel like the one beside us at the border, and not having anywhere to set up a tent in this no-mans land (total shit hole of a border crossing), and not wanting to ride at night, especially with me having no real low beam and the officials on the impending stretch of road being well known for wanting to pull you over to get bribes…. she was left without any options that didn't add more stress. So, I made an executive decision. It was time to bribe. Now, we had about $30 in US currency left (not expecting to need it) and more than enough Limperas to pay the official fees to get back in, even though we were expecting them to be less since, in theory, the bikes were only kind-of checked out, but as the US dollars weren't enough to cover the fees and the bribe I needed to pay in Limperas and they wanted 3,000. I told them no. I only had 2000. Much discussion and verbal discussion of numbers ensued. They were trying to figure out how much that left them after the bribe and fees. Not enough apparently. I held fast but it was not to be. I've got maybe $20 US I tell them. Discussion, discussion. No. 2,000 L and $30 US was what it was going to take. Oh wait… I really don't have 3,000 L. Shit, I don't even have 2,000 L. I've got just over 1,700…. "Can you go to the ATM? There's one about 5K back?" No way. No how. I am not giving you guys a blank ****ing checque. Back to Dachary to have her extract some more US from the pannier. Not something we wanted to do with a helper looking over our shoulder but… She extracted $60. I managed to hide $20 of it. Ok …So, 1,700L + $60 US. Yes, that was probably more than the 3000L but at this point I honestly didn't give a shit. I wanted this done. Yes, that was enough. Hand over the passports because, of course, there's no way the official will do it in front of me. **** it. I hand them over. They disappear into the customs building. At this point there a three helpers and a guy who seems to be just hanging around for the hell of it, it's pitch black out. Dachary is back at the bikes being proposition by multiple men in various states of inebriation… Helpers emerge. Helpers enter. Helpers emerge. One likes to bitch about something annoying about the customs official. At this point I'm wondering if they're just totally scamming me and it was something that I could have actually done myself with the new person... Enter, emerge, bitch, repeat. Eventually they emerge with passports… but no, we're not done yet. Honduras needs three copies of everything, even their illegal passport stamps. They run the passports across the road. I could follow, but I can see the shack he's running to, and honestly I don't give a ****. I'm not worried that he's going to run off with them. Copies are made. Copies are delivered. Passports emerge. Oops. One of them has us needing to leave on the 11th of January (tomorrow) and one of them has us needing to leave on the 11th of October. The October one goes back for a doctoring. No new photocopies are required. Time passes. Official papers emerge. Copies are made. This time the copies are for us. We need them to give to the guy at the gate a little ways down the road. At no point did any official check our bikes, which confirms what I had suspected. That we really were bribing an official and not just lining the pockets of helpers. The topic of fumigation had come up earlier in the day, even though the border by Copan had none, and we'd seen no-one fumigating anything here. I was dubious. I suspect Jordan was trying to get more money in an earlier attempt at getting me to bribe someone. Fumigation was not mentioned during the actual bribery, and as far as I can tell, there is none. I believe that two or three taxes were actually paid as part of the bribe. Total cost approximately $171 US to get into Honduras a second time, for one day. Now, many of you are stubborn, like me, and would have said **** it and gone back to Guatemala for an exit stamp. But you have to consider that it'll take you a day to cross El Salvador, you'll have to pay to enter Guatemala, you'll have to pay to exit Guatemala, and you'll have to pay to enter Honduras again. Plus, you'll need to sleep a few times dung all of this so add in few nights in hotels and food, and gas…. $171 US is starting to sound like a good deal financially, plus a ****load less annoyance. Add on top of that the sanity of the woman you love and it's a ****ing bargain. Helper #1 came back to the bikes, made sure each of us had the fancy paper and the photocopy for the gate man, and then, even though it was specifically stated that he was getting paid from the bribery and didn't need a tip, asked for a tip. This was not at all unexpected. He was rather insistent. I was rather broke, and also rather motivated to get the **** out of there. I started pulling out 20 Limpera notes (I had 2) and wasn't going to give him my ones, five, and a ten, but he managed to convey that that was a shit tip (it was) and he deserved more (probably not). **** it. I said again. There's no point in arguing over what is essentially $2 US worth of notes that can't buy me anything. I handed them over. Oh wait… Dachary needed to go to the bathroom. I didn't know, and the bathroom costs 5L… We drive. The plan is to stop at the first ATM or gas station as we have no money, and the gas stations in Honduras have, to date, not charged anything for the bathroom. No bank. Whilst waiting in the dark for corrupt dealings to conclude I had a rather good idea. There's not any significant difference between a low beam and a high beam other than the direction they're pointed in. Why then, do my Denali LED lights have to be high beams. As we suited up to leave I turned them on, and repointed them to have a minimal spread and point not far beyond the bike… voilla! Instant low beam. Turning off my high beam and leaving just the Denalis seemed to please the truckers who would flash you if you didn't turn down your highs… We continued driving, past two police checkpoints. Getting stopped at one. Eventually street lights appeared (gasp) and a town full of lights…. and then "Hey, there's a hotel." says Dachary. "Where?" "We just passed it." We turn around, pull in, and it's swank. It's expensive too, but it's nice, and Dachary has had a particularly stressful day and zero desire to deal with another shit place. **** it. Lets go for it. It's nice, it requires zero more driving in the dark and the odds of finding another non-shit hotel along the way, in the dark, are pretty slim. Also they have internet and, it turns out, secure parking. Best yet, they take visa. No ATM required for Limpera, no digging hidden dollars off of the bike, but I asked, and yes they take them too. We go in. Oh, the restaurant? Yeah, that's open for another hour and a half. Holy shit! We eat. It's not bad. We can't find internet. Oh, it's only in the lobby… We get our laptops and go to the lobby as Dachary suspects she has work materials from a client. Oh… the password doesn't work. "Did I get this right?" "Yup, that's it." says the receptionist. "Are you sure, because it's not working?" she reads what I've typed carefully "Yup, that's it." ****…. back to the room. Oh the hot water on the spigot sticker? Yeah, it's just on the sticker…. ****… Well, at least the bed is nice, and the room is nice, and the air conditioning isn't evil. [Dachary's Note] I've never felt being a woman at a border crossing so acutely as I did today. When the helpers extracted Kay around 11:30AM to do the paperwork for us, I didn't think too much of it. One of us should clearly stay with the bikes as this was a very busy border crossing - much bigger than the ones we've used before and the bikes weren't really close to where we'd be doing the paperwork. It wasn't until they'd been gone for almost two hours that I started to think that if someone tried to actually do something to the bikes (or take something) there's not much I could do about it. I think my presence was merely a deterrent. During the first part of the day, only one guy really bothered me. He'd been hit in the face pretty bad as the area around his right side was swollen, and his lip was split and swollen, too. He started chatting with me, pointing to his wounds and then off toward the Aduana building. I didn't know what he wanted from me but I tried the "No habla Espanol" trick, which didn't really seem to do anything. He kept trying to talk to me. A lot of "no entiendo"s later, I got up to get the book from my tank bag and as long as I had my nose in the book, he didn't bother me. But he hung around the entire time Kay was off dealing with paperwork. Eventually I really had to pee and I was also getting quite hungry, so I locked as much as I could down to the bike and went looking for Kay to get an update. I stayed where I could see the bikes, for the most part, but I saw no sign of Kay or the helper people so I eventually had to wander out of sight of the bikes and through the blue Aduana building. No Kay, and no helpers. I turned around to come back, and saw Kay sitting at the bikes with the helper. Apparently I'd just missed them. We sat around together until around 6PM, and no-one really bothered me with Kay there. We had a couple of people try to chat with us - one guy spoke a little bit of English and between his English and our little bit of Spanish we had a nice little chat with him and his Spanish-speaking friend. But for the most part, people just left us alone, with the occasional smile or nod. But around 6PM, one of the helpers came to fetch Kay, and then came back a minute later with a guy who said it would be $35 US each to take the bikes. Yay! That's exactly what we wanted. That was the official fee. I was thrilled, and began to be optimistic about getting out of here. And they went away again. And it got dark. During this point, a drunk (or maybe just slightly crazy) guy came over and started playing with the dog that had been hanging around the tienda where we were sitting. The dog reminded me a bit of my dog from home, and I was missing him, so I watched the guy playing with the dog and smiled. Alas, this was apparently the wrong thing to do. The guy saw me paying attention and started really hamming it up, indicating "See! Just a minute, look what I do with this dog!" The dog started going crazy and the guy just kept saying "my friend. He's my friend" and doing more silly things, apparently for my benefit, because he kept looking to see that I was watching and gesturing for me while playing with the dog. At some point during this, Kay comes back for something else (Lempiras, I think.) I get up to get stuff for Kay, and when I sit back down, the crazy/drunk guy was gone. Kay walks off with the helper again, and a few minutes later, the drunk guy is back with a can of beer. He opens it and takes a big swig, makes a happy sound, and then offers me a drink. "No, gracias," I tell him. He tries offering me a drink a few more times and I decline, and then he pulls out his wallet and starts taking Lempiras out of it, and indicates that if I want a beer they sell them over there and here's some money. "No, gracias." Then he starts trying to talk to me in far more than my meager Spanish can comprehend. I tell him I don't understand, and that I only speak very little Spanish, and he switches over to a combination of mime and intermittent Spanish and starts telling me his life story. From the mime and Spanish, I get that he went to California, became a lumberjack, and his true love left him, and he cried for two years… at some point he may have worked as a truck driver or may have driven a very odd moto… I really had no friggin clue what he was saying but it was very dark by now so there was no chance of pulling my book out and trying to ignore him again. I just kept praying for Kay to come back, but the paperwork was taking forever. At one point, a cab driver in a Tuk-Tuk walks up to the tienda and starts trying to chat with me about the bikes. I give him my "no entiendo" routine and he sort of smiles and nods and goes into the store. The drunk guy continues to pester me, and when the cabbie comes back out, he sees my predicament and before he gets within site of the drunk guy, he makes the "he's crazy" hand gesture. I nod and smile a bit, agreeing with the cabbie. The cabbie comes out and right in front of the drunk guy waves his hand in front of his nose like the guy stinks. (He does stink, in fact.) The drunk guy gets offended by this. At this point I've gotten up and am standing next to Kay's bike because I'm sick of sitting and I want to put a little distance between me and the drunk guy. The drunk guy and the cabbie start having a verbal exchange, which I gather was essentially "Come back here and say that to my face!" or some other equally stupid, macho thing, and the cabbie just waves it off and walks away. The drunk guy then starts trying to get me to sit down next to him again, but I try conveying that I'm tired of sitting and that standing is bueno. Then he waves off toward the direction the cabbie went, and makes a dismissive gesture, and I just shrug. He starts miming that he's sad I won't sit down next to him again, and I continue the "no entiendo" and that I don't want to sit down again. Apparently he thinks that the cabbie has turned me against him, and he sadly gets up and starts to walk away, continuing to gesture to me from time to time. Eventually he waves and wanders off, and I see him a few minutes later standing about 100 feet away watching me to see if I notice he's gone. Dear God. This was painful. So ladies - it may or may not be ok to sit around with bikes during the day. But after dark - beware of the men who will try to proposition you/buy you beers/grab or kiss you as you walk away. Kay asks me to point out that had I been the one with the helper guys in the beginning, the woman at the window may have taken pity on me and not tried to send me all the way back to Guatemala. Personally, I think if I'd been there I would have gotten annoyed and done something that would have pissed her off and we'd still be sitting at the border. --- Afterthoughts: Would I recommend using a helper at this border crossing? Absolutely. Had we not made the mistake of going into El Salvador after Honduras they would have seriously expedited the process and only cost a tip of $5-10 US. But, hold out on getting one until you reach the El Salvador immigration. Then you can choose from a number of them who speak good English. Even if you spanish is good I'd still lean towards getting one because $5 isn't a bad price for being led directly to all the windows, told which papers to hand to what people, and when to make how many copies of what. Because there's no getting into Honduras without a plethora of copies. Not counting the copies made during the bribery we needed the three copies of the license, registration, passport, and i think two copies of the copies stamped by the El Salvador customs man. Would I recommend using this crossing? Absolutely not. Use it if you must, but considering the number of bribery options I was presented during the day there are obviously a lot of corrupt people working on the Honduras side of it. I believe there are some border crossings along El Salvador's northern border near the eastern end. Try those instead. The biggest piece of advice I can give future travelers though is to simply not go from Honduras to El Salvador to Honduras. If you want to visit El Salvador you should enter it from Guatemala. That way your passport has a Guatemala exit stamp that Honduras can counter with their entry stamp. Also, before you leave El Salvador make two copies of the paper they gave you with the stamp. |
Day 36 - ? Honduras to Esteli, Nicaragua
After yesterday's trouble at the El Salvador/Honduras border, neither of us was looking forward to dealing with the Honduras/Nicaragua border. I think we were both kind of dreading it, but we faced the day with as much optimism as we could muster, and grabbed breakfast at the hotel restaurant because we still didn't have any lempiras and they would take our dollars. Luckily, they gave us change for our dollars in lempiras so we had enough to buy some bottled water at a gas station along the way (we'd left the stuff on the bikes last night which meant we didn't have the stuff to pump water).
Riding across Honduras took us nearly three hours. We ran into two police checkpoints last night (both of which wanted to look at our paperwork) and 5 or 6 checkpoints in total today. A few waved us through, a few wanted to stop and look at our paperwork… and one, near a cute little town in the mountains, tried extracting a bribe from us. Yep. Not only did we get taken for far too much money in bribes at the Honduran border last night - one of the checkpoint cops tried to get a bribe from us. He took our paperwork (the guy who took my license asked me if it was a copy, which it was, but I played dumb) and the main cop who was questioning Kay started poking at his panniers. He started running his hands along the retro-reflective tape on the side of the panniers and was trying to indicate that it was a problem. Kay said he'd take it off if it was a problem (in English) and the guy didn't seem to get it or care. "No. Sixty dollars." and eventually "Fourty dollars" Then he came to my panniers, which also had retro-reflective (but in black, to match my panniers) and started pointing to it like it was a problem. We've read about the attempt to extract bribes, and did our best "dumb gringo" routine. "No entiendo. No entiendo." The big cop apparently decided I was the weaker target and stood next to my bike with his hand on my handlebars jabbering away in Spanish, to which I kept replying "no entiendo" - and then he started spouting numbers in English. "16 dollars. 15 dollars. 20 dollars. 20 dollars. Dollars, dollars, dollars." To emphasize his point, he made the international symbol for cash practically in my face. "No entiendo." Then he went back to Kay's bike and started naming numbers at Kay. At one point Kay just started saying "Why?" (in English) every time the cop named a number (and always different numbers) - either the cop didn't understand the word "why" or had no reason, because he made no attempt to explain, just named numbers. The other guy pulled out a little book of traffic offenses and showed a section of it to Kay, but Kay replied with "No entiendo" and we both stood there staring at each other across the bikes. We did our best dumb gringo and surprisingly it worked, after only about 10 minutes. The second police guy who'd originally taken my paperwork gave it back to Kay, and gave my license back to me, and they waved us on. We were both upset that he'd tried so blatantly to get a bribe from us, and surprised that they'd let us go so easily. It left a very sour taste in our mouths, after the corruption at the Honduras border. We pulled over a few minutes down the road so Kay could give my paperwork back to me, in case we got stopped again and the corrupt cops tried to find some other reason to complain at us. The worst thing about this was that for the first time since Copan I'd been enjoying the riding and for the rest of the day whenever either of us remembered the riding earlier, it was followed with the sour taint of attempted bribery. Rendered it somewhat less enjoyable. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5124/...ce247aef9d.jpg pan_american_view Luckily, not long after this, we arrived at the border. Neither of us realized quite how close we were and it sorta snuck up on us. The Honduras border exit place was literally a little shack on the side of the road. Kay went into it, and came back a few minutes later saying that the border official was complaining that his registration wasn't the original. (Annoyingly, Massachusetts gives you these plain 8.5x11 piece of paper registrations that LOOKS like a copy to begin with, and we made a bunch of copies for borders, so I'm really not sure anymore which one is the original - but border officials don't seem to like that even the original looks like a copy.) Kay went off to the shack again, and came back 20-30 minutes later saying that the border official had complained that we didn't have the correct receipts or something from the paperwork at the other Honduran border, so Kay had to bribe this one, too. He demanded a $40 to cross the border, but Kay managed to convince him he could only afford $20. (At this point we still had virtually no lempiras, but he wanted US dollars, anyway.) Unfortunately, because the other Honduran border was so effed up, and we had to bribe that one to let us across - we weren't actually confident that we did have all the paperwork that the guy wanted, so Kay gave in and bribed him. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5001/...c5292e785f.jpg Bribing our way out of Honduras - Kay I could have totally stood there longer and possibly waited them out like I did the cops wanting the bribe, but the problem was I didn't know if we were really missing receipts or not because we'd bribed our way back into Honduras because the last border was also ****ing corrupt. Upon reflection I have realized that I could have just pointed out that he only really had two options. Stamp me out, or stamp me back in, because we had no more days left on the passport. If i had of had any confidence in the official documents we were carrying I would have, but I didn't, so a caved kind of quickly. Afterwards the guy who did the running around getting the passports stamped brought them back, showed me the stamps, and returned them to me on the way to the bikes. Then, of course, he requested a tip. I told him "No. You got part of the $20." "Yeah but… tip." he says. "No. You got part of the $20" and I proceed to suit up and climb on the bike while Dachary does the same. - Kay Down the road just a bit and we arrive at the Nicaraguan border offices, and are swarmed by 5 or 6 "helpers." They all start talking at once, some of them have official-looking badges, and they all want our money. Kay and I decide that I should try this border and see if they give a woman trouble, etc. and I decided that my first order of business was to get rid of the helpers. I was sick of people who wanted our money and wanted them all to just eff off. One of them took some extra initiative and brought us a couple of "forms" we had to fill out (which looked exactly like the forms we had to fill out at the Guatemalan border so it seemed plausible) but one of the other guys said we didn't need to fill them out and that the guy who gave them to us was "false." At this point I'd had enough. I said quite forcefully "No, we don't want your help, go away!" and waved them away. They didn't seem to believe me, so I got even more annoyed - I channeled a little of the inner bitch that has been simmering away since the Honduran border crossing fiasco - and told them all to get away and leave us alone. I might have yelled a bit. This time they listened. I walked over and got in the line that said "Nicaragua Entrada" (although one of the guys tried to wave me over to the "Salida" window, again to which I shook my head and stayed in line). There was a couple in front of me with big backpacks, watching this in quasi-amusement/horror. The woman spoke to me - they were French and backpacking around Central America and South America. And she said they never got swarmed by helpers like that. I had to conclude it was the motos that draw all this attention, and I'm starting to think that BMWs, while great bikes, aren't the right bikes for a trip through the Americas. The 650s, while wonderful, are big, heavy, unwieldy and clunky when fully loaded. And their power has been mostly wasted since we left the US. Most places we're going between 30-55MPH and we don't really get to use the power of these bikes. And they say to everybody who sees us: "Look! Expensive BMW motorcycles! Rich tourists! Scam them for some cash!" So I'm really starting to second-guess bringing these bikes, although I do love my bike and it's wicked comfortable to ride all day, even after more than a month on the road. So while I'm waiting in the "entrada" line, the official guy waves me over to the other window - there were fewer people in the "salida" line and I guess they can both serve both functions. I asked Kay to come over and stand with me at this point, as the bikes were in plain view and he's better with understanding the numbers than I am. So Kay stands with me and we hand the guy our passports and wait for him to process us in. He doesn't ask for the little paper that one of the helper guys tried to have us fill out - just our passports. We ask how much, and he tells us $24 per person (in dollars). Luckily we'd taken more money out of our emergency stash, so we had $60, and Kay handed the $60 to the guy for both of us. Paperwork, paperwork - processing, etc. He makes out two individual receipts and one combined receipt for us, and hands us back $6. We can't figure out any way that makes the math work for $6, so we stand around looking at each other, wondering how to ask for more change back. Apparently the official guy gets the gist and hands us one of our twenties back. Now we're even more confused because he told us $24 each, which should have been $48, and we got $26 back in change? (I've just now looked at the receipts as I've been typing this up because it occurs to me the cost might be on the receipt… and it was supposed to be $24 TOTAL - $10 per person and $4 for the other receipt thing we got. So the bastard scammed us out of an extra $10, and would have kept the other twenty we'd erroneously given him if we hadn't kept standing around waiting for more change. Next was the bikes. I asked the official where aduana was for the motos, and he motioned around the building. One of the guys I'd shooed off at the beginning was selling insurance, which he said was obligatory, and Kay and I couldn't remember if it actually was, so I tried asking the official guy if he knew if insurance was obligatory. He said "yes, yes" and motioned me again to the aduana building. So that didn't really answer my question - I'm not sure if he actually got what I was trying to ask. We go back to the motos and the helper guys try to swarm us again, and again I wave them off. I forget what I said, but apparently my look this time was enough to keep them at a distance. Kay and I debated about whether to leave the bikes where they were or move them around the building nearer to the aduana office, and while we were discussing it, the helper guys got one of the security guards involved to tell us that now we needed to take the bikes to aduana on the other side of the building (the building is round) and that one of the helper guys could help us. We thanked the security guy and said help wasn't necessary, and wheeled the bikes around to the other side of the building - half to just get away from the stupid helpers who were still loitering around. I went in the other side of the building armed with our originals and copies and my very poor Spanish, and left Kay watching over the bikes. Helper guys tried one more time and again I waved them off, and found the correct line to stand in for vehicle importation. One of the helper guys stood nearby, and another insurance guy approached me (and I told him, no, it wasn't necessary, I'll do what the official tells me) and the first insurance guy who had approached us came in and told the guy that he'd already talked to me - I gather they were fighting over the commission. I waited while the customs guy dealt with the guy in front of me, and then I knelt down at his window because it was glass from about waist high to the ceiling, with only a few inches to slide things through and no talking-hole-thing. So I had a hard time hearing anything he said, and my Spanish is bad to begin with, so I was kneeling in front of the window with my head at roughly desk level just so I could hear the guy. I'm answering his questions fairly well, I think, when the insurance-salesman guy pipes in on one side, and the other helper guy who is hanging around on my right pipes in on the other, and I stand up and start to tell off the insurance guy and realize he's selling insurance - he isn't even a helper. But the look on my face backed him off, and other helper got a sort of smile on his face and said "Ahh, no molesto." And started spouting some stuff in Spanish. I spoke with him a little, but couldn't understand a lot of what he was saying, but it was clear that he understood that I wasn't going to accept a helper and he was somewhat amused/respectful of my fierceness. So I had no more trouble with him, although he stood nearby a bit longer and did offer me some helpful info later. So I go back to waiting for the customs guy, who eventually hands me some paperwork and manages to convey that he needs a copy of the permit he's handing me, a copy of the registration and a copy of the passport/license. That's pretty standard and normally we've been carrying extra copies of the registration and the passport and license, but we used ALL of those copies crossing into Honduras twice so I had to go pay the lady nearby to make copies. While I'm standing in line for copies, the helper guy is in front of me and he indicates that I need to sign the permit I'm about to copy before I copy it. I thank him, and when I hand the copy to the lady, I tell her I need one copy and the helper guy interrupts and says "no, you need two copies". I ignore him and repeat one copy, because the official guy told me one copy, and I figure I can always come back and make more. (It's just a few feet away from the customs window.) Copy, copy. Back to the customs guy. "No, you need an inspection." At this point, the first insurance guy is standing nearby again, and he manages to convey to me that the bikes need an inspection. So he leads me off (and says he's not going to charge me anything to help me find an inspector) and we go looking for an inspector. The two guys we find say that the inspector guy is back at the customs building, so the insurance guy leads me back across to the customs building and we find the inspector. He comes to look at the bikes and checks the license plate but not the VIN number, and then indicates to me that he needs a second copy of the other vehicle import permit (which the aduana guy hadn't stamped, so I hadn't made a copy of it.) So the insurance guy hands it back to the customs guy to sign and stamp, and I go make a second copy of that permit (which turns out to be Kay's permit) and bring it back to the inspector guy, and he signs off on both inspections. Which I then take back to the aduana guy, who tells me he needs another copy of the paperwork I've just copied. So I go make more copies, and make a few extra copies of our passport and license just because I'm there (the girl at the copy place must have been getting sick of me by then) and take all of the copies back to the inspector. And apparently that's it - I'm all done. What did it cost for the bikes to get into Nicaragua? Nothing. And what did the people on the Honduras side of the border tell us it would cost to get the bikes into Nicaragua? $60 per moto, at least. And some of the helpy guys said similarly. I'm now convinced that everybody at a border is a liar, except the officials - and they lie sometimes, too. So we buy insurance from the insurance guy who helped me with the inspection bit, since he wasn't as pushy and was actually helpful, and we've confirmed with a couple of other people at the border that you do, indeed, need the insurance. So he takes our permits and makes us out some nice insurance papers, and staples them to the permits, and hands them to us - just another $24 ($12 per moto). But I didn't feel as bad about that money, as he seemed pretty above-board and didn't ask for money for helping me with the inspection, etc. Yay! At this point it's 3:30 and we're officially signed into Nicaragua. We have no Nicaraguan money (the money-changers at the border weren't giving me what I felt was a good enough rate, based on the "official" current exchange rate) and we haven't had lunch. We've pulled out the Nicaragua map but we haven't really driven on it yet so we don't know the scale (but I've become the official map-carrier, because apparently I'm better at reading them while riding and retaining the information) and we decide to ride to the first town, which is 20km from the border, and look for an ATM. The ATM turns out to be surprisingly difficult to find. We stop and ask for directions 4 times but it's a maze of one-way streets. Eventually we find it, though, and Kay gets out some cash. I look at the map in the meantime, and decide we can probably get to Esteli if we skip lunch altogether (at this point it's around 4:15) so we decide to go for it. I have to pee soon thereafter as I haven't had a bathroom since we stopped to buy water at around 11:00AM, and have to do the side of a road drop-trow - and alas, a pick-up truck full of guys (like probably 10-15 guys, because a bunch of them were standing in the bed) drove by just as I was pulling up my underwear. They all turned their heads to stare because it was obvious what I was doing. It's so awesome sometimes to be a woman on a road trip like this. We get into Esteli just as the sun is setting, and we stop at another gas station so I can use a real bathroom this time while Kay consults the Rough Guide to try to find us a hotel in Esteli. We find a place that sounds like it might have net (which I still need, since last night's swanky hotel didn't have a functional net connection and I have work to do for a client) and look at the Rough Guide map to get into town. And start driving… only to discover that the roads coming off the Pan Americana aren't labeled at all. Eventually we pass one with a number, but we don't know if it's north or south of the hotel, so we have to stop to pull over again to consult the Rough Guide in the rapidly growing dusk. It's too far south, so we turn around and start heading north, and eventually thread our way into the city. Only about 1 in 3 or 4 roads is visibly labeled, but I manage to catch enough cross-street signs to figure out where we are in relation to the hotel, and we get there fairly easily once we get into town. Kay runs in to ask about the cost, the 'net and where we can park our bikes. He comes back with favorable answers, and goes back to look at the room. Room looks nice enough so we decide to take it. There's a catch - we need to unload our stuff and then drive our bikes to the parking lot that is four blocks away. At least this time we have warning, so we haul our stuff into the room and drive the bikes to the parking lot. Return to Casa Hotel Nicarao, drop off our helmets, and immediately go looking for food, as stuff is starting to shut down as usual. Kay suggests changing into street clothes, but I stink too much to want to put on clean street clothes, so we head out in our motorcycle pants and boots. We find a Hamburguesa place that also has pollo hamburgers, and looks kind interesting, but turns out to be rather crap pre-frozen patties. Lame. But it was food - and as the first food since breakfast (it's now 7PM) we clean our plates. Back the hotel where we try to get the password for the internet and hot water for the shower. I work on the shower while Kay tracks down the password. Neither of us is successful. The shower has a hot water heater attachment thing on the end, which we've found to be fairly common south of Mexico, but it doesn't seem to actually produce hot water. Cold showers for us. (Quite cold, in fact… now that we're up around 900 meters above sea level the temperatures aren't quite as hot, and cold water is COLD.) Kay gets the internet password, but discovers that there's no actual network. Apparently someone down the street did something to a cable or something, and the net is down. It should be up again tomorrow. Which is, of course, too late for me, with work that is now two days overdue for a client. On the bright side, the hotel sold us a bottle of Coca Cola (I was dying for some Coke, as Pepsi seems to be the bigger drink down here) and there's a nice little courtyard where you can sit and chill, and hang out with a duck that squeaks cute little birdie squeaks from time to time. No 'net, which I needed, and no hot water, which we both wanted… but otherwise this place seems to be a step up from where we've been staying, and it's a decent stopover on our run to Grenada, where we intend to spend a few days and unwind a bit. -Kay I'm going to have to agree with Dachary about helpers at the Nicaraguan border crossing. This particular one was really easy, just watch the numbers on the receipts so that they don't take more money than they need. Also, **** honduras's corrupt officials. The real people of the country have been quite nice, but the people at two out of three border crossings have screwed us in one way or another. The first time we exited we were told we'd have no problem coming back as long as it was in three days…. liars. Then again, maybe it should have been fine, and everyone afterwards was just corrupt and looking for a bribe. |
Dachary and Kay
When I left Honduras to Nic. at Los Manos they asked if I would be returning to Honduras and I said yes in 2 or 3 weeks. so what they do is hold your bike permit for you in the office and when you enter back in they give it back to you and there is no cost to re enter Honduras! and best of all it then only takes 15 minutes to re enter! When they said there would be no problem coming back into Honduras maybe they thought you would come back in at the same border crossing and were saving your permits on file at that crossing? That information is easy to miss if your spanish is not up to par, but they do stamp your passport saying that the permits are being held. Great report!!!! Saludos Cal |
I am laughing up here as I read the Honduras crossing. I got stung for $ 270. at the Elsalvador Honduras crossing on the pan am. The cargo building is where it cost big for me. You are not alone in your misery.
Bill |
Day 37 Esteli Nicaragua, to Granada Nicaragua
Nicaragua, I'm kinda digging you… except for your corrupt border officials and police.
We woke up in Esteli Nicaragua and promptly hit snooze. Neither of us were doing well. We haven't really mentioned it, but in addition to my being queazy in the mornings both of us have had diarrhea since Copan Ruinas. Not "OMG MUST GO NOW" bad, but when we sit, it ain't coming out like it's supposed to. Dachary's had started to clear up, but we suspect that the shit meal we had at Hamburlooca last night did us in. Neither of us slept well last night even though there was nothing wrong with the hotel room (besides the hot water thing on the spigot not working), and it was relatively quiet, but before the alarm had even gone off both of us had made unhappy trips to the bathroom. The queazy stayed away for most of the morning for me, but there were a few minutes of required inactivity on the bed before proceeding with packing up our stuff. Not feeling well the five block walk to the bikes seemed much longer than it had returning from them the night before. We brought them back, loaded them up, and set off but for the first time, probably in my life, setting out on the bike didn't make everything feel better. Normally it doesn't matter how stressed I am, how badly I've slept, or what the previous day was like; setting out for a ride makes things better. But today, we rode down the Panamerican through beautiful Nicaraguan countryside and I just couldn't get excited about it. It wasn't Nicaragua's fault though. My intestines just weren't particularly happy, and I was just feeling exhausted. It was worse for Dachary though. As we rode she started getting queazy. The water in her Camelbak started disagreeing with her. It was water we'd filtered, so it was clean, but going through two Dromedaries* and into a Camelbak does tend to leave a somewhat plasticy taste. (Dachary's note - something tasted "off" about the water. And it was the same taste I had in the coffee I ordered at breakfast, that turned out to contain something disgusting. So not only was the flavor off, but it put me in mind of the queasy-making coffee and it wasn't pleasant.) She requested we pull over at the first gas station we saw with a mini-mart. I thought she needed to pee, but no, she really needed some water that wouldn't disagree with her. While there she grabbed some PowerAid (since we're both dehydrated from the diarrhea) but wasn't able to stomach that either. And then, it was an emergency trip to the bathroom for her. Honestly I didn't want to move. The mini-mart had tables and air conditioning, outside it was probably over a hundred degrees, and I was just tired. But, the sooner we made it to Granada the sooner we could flop in a hotel room with easy access to a bathroom, and a nap sounded so good…. So we threw on our coats and headed out…. then turned around when Dachary deduced that the unmarked road the gas station was on was also the road to Granada. Along the way there was a typically slow chicken bus pulling away from one of its myriad stops which we passed, like everyone else, even though it was a solid yellow. Unfortunately, Dachary was behind me and by the time she made it around we were in sight of some cops, who pulled us over. He explained to me that my woman had crossed the line illegally. "Ahh" I said, and he asked to see her license. To which I attempted to convey that she had it. This did not work. Eventually, I had to get off the bike and go over to Dachary myself to get her license, because the cop just couldn't grasp that the woman would be carrying her own license. No, I must have it. He explained that there was a fine of 400 Cordobas and that I'd need to go pay it at the bank. He even started writing out an honest to goodness ticket, double checked the price with his cohort and changed it to 300, still not asking for anything here. We'd have to pay it at the bank, and her license would stay here until we came back. He asked where we were going "Costa Rica" we said, since we've found that it's much easier to say somewhere a country or two on than to say Argentina. Argentina is simply too far away for people to get their head around. But one or two countries down the road… That's an easily graspable distance. Anyway, he pondered for a minute, and then stopped writing and handed me her license. Conveyed that he wasn't going to bother then went back to Dachary, asked me how much spanish she spoke, and then proceeded to explain to her what she'd done wrong, and how she should only pass on the white lines. Personally, I don't think he was trying for a bribe. He was too quick to say pay at the bank, explain where the bank was, and he was filling out what appeared to be a real ticket. We set off, and not five minutes later had a biker tailing us with actual gear on… well, except for the flip-flops. We pulled over to see what was up, and it turned out to be an adventure rider who'd left Alaska in September and was staying in Granada. He confirmed that it was a nice town to spend some days in, we gave him a card, took a picture, and parted ways. if he drops us an email we may get together for a beer. Assuming we can get free of the bathroom. (Hi, Mike, and safe travels, if we didn't get to meet up with you!) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5005/...fe90a5e503.jpg Mike So, on we rode, until the road T'd. We pulled up to the T, stopped completely, and waited until there was a nice large break, because on the far side were police. Alas, we weren't good enough. They pulled us over and asked for my license. I showed him the one in my wallet. No no, he wanted it out. They seem reticent to touch a wallet, which I like, and is one of the reasons I leave it in the clear pocket in the wallet. There's never much money in the wallet anyway… I pull it out and he's all "original?" I'm all "yes". Of course, it isn't. It's a nice color photocopy that I've laminated. We both have one, and we make sure than we never hand over the originals except at border crossings when we're also handing over the much more important passport. Anyway, he hands it off to another guy and asks him if it's a copy. The other guy confirms it's a copy and asks me if it's the original. I stick to my story. "Yes." he asks again. I confirm again. We repeat this. I look confused. "Is copy?" "no." "This is copy. It's a problem." Not sure if I should pull out the original or not at this point Dachary, whom they're ignoring, pipes in over the headset "Hand him the international driver's license." I know good advice when I hear it. So I do. This seems to placate him. Why, I can't say. But, now he starts to explain in somewhat passable English that I have stopped passed the white stop line. I act confused. He draws a map. I say I stopped before it, then had to pull forwards. He says there's a fine of 800 Cordoba. I say "Ok. I pay at bank." He says no. I pay here, or my license (which he's holding) will go to Managua, and I can pick it up in 20 days. "I can't do that. I don't have 20 days on my visa." I claim. I'm pretty sure I do, but that's not the point. "I pay at bank. I bring you receipt." "No. You pay here. If you pay at the bank license goes to Managua." "I don't have that much." I'm going to Granada to meet a friend, Nathan Postman. I get money from him. I go Granada. Get money. Pay at bank." At some point he suggests that we'd have to go to Costa Rica (he'd asked where we were headed) in one day. His English is poor and I intentionally misunderstand him. "No. Four or five days I think. We go Granada next." The whole series repeats for a bit (managua, bank, costa rica) until he walks off, hands the fake and international license to another guy, who hands them back, at which point we start our engines and prepare to take off. I figure we're probably ok to go, but if not, they'll probably trundle back over when we turn on the engines. They don't. We go. Advice to future Runaways. 1) fake licenses are your friend. 2) get multiple copies of your international drivers license. They only cost us like $7 US. The reason, of course, is that no matter what bullshit they pull you can always ride off and not give a shit about the documents you've left behind. We only have one International Drivers License each, but in the Americas you really don't need one and I wouldn't care if I had to abandon it. We proceed carefully to Granada, trying to not break any more laws, and find the place recommended by the book. Nope they're full, so I ask who they recommend that would have space for the bikes. We follow the directions and find that with tax, it's over $80 US per night. A bit too much, especially since we want to stay in town for three nights because we need a break. While I'm checking on the price Dachary has taken off her coat and is sitting on the curb. She's really not feeling hot…. well she is feeling hot, but she's not feeling well. I'm about to take off hunting down one of the places in the book while Dachary waits there, when the receptionist comes out to us and mentions that they have a cheaper room in an annex, but the bathroom is just outside of the room. At $60 a night it's still more than we want to pay, but I ask her if she can recommend a cheaper place with parking for the bikes. She ponders, runs in and grabs a tourist map, comes back and tells me how to get to Hotel del Sol. Yay. She goes back in, and a bee decides to land on Dachary's leg and investigate it. She calls me over to remove it, which I do, and claims that she's not staying with the bee. She'll come find the place with me. So we head out, find the place, and the lady from the previous hotel has called ahead, and, I suspect, told them we're looking for something cheaper, and are concerned about parking the bikes. So the girl at Hotel del Sol offers me $40 per night ($13 less than normal) and lets me park the bikes in the foyer. The room is sweet. It's really well done, has huge windows that open up and let in a breeze, AC, decent internet speed, and has an honest to goodness table we can use our laptops on. We didn't realize what a luxury that was. (Also, a kitchen with a gas stove, a refrigerator, a sink and dishes… we could even cook if we felt like it. Unfortunately, we have to change rooms tomorrow because they didn't have 3 nights together in the same room… but we've been told that the other room is only "slightly smaller.") We started photos uploading, posted past posts, started things downloading, then took glorious showers. The water, of course, was not hot. It wasn't cold, and Dachary manage to get something resembling luke warm, which we've decided is exceptional for Central America. We think the last time we had a hot shower was in Mexico. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5287/...c9560181f0.jpg He has his own ideas... http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5204/...161ec9d901.jpg A pedestrian only street in Granada http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5288/...872ec30171.jpg Pondering Granada http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5162/...e739c6cb53.jpg Tired but happy Showered and starving, we set out for dinner, find something that didn't work for Dachary but did for me, then head to a book store we saw that had an English sign, and may actually have English books as I've finished mine, and Dachary is almost done with her three (she reads about as fast as she types it seems…). The book store shuttered up for the night, we decide to walk to the lake that's about a kilometer to the east, at which point i suddenly feel feverish and we decide to head to the hotel. On the way back over those four or five blocks I start feeling queazy and needing to explode in the bathroom again. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5205/...2f297042d9.jpg Coupula in Granada http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5244/...a59da88b5a.jpg Street Art We make it back, I collapse on the bed, and wait for my intestines to give me the signal to go make an offering to the Porcelan God. It doesn't take too long. Dachary reads on the bed, and I let things settle then the lights go out. The whole city's lights go out! We venture outside to confirm this and notice how beautiful the moon and stars are. We venture out onto the streets. The cathedral has lights in its steeple. It's only about five blocks away so we figure we'll investigate. Three quarters of the way there I stop to give my tummy a rest from the exercise and the lights come back on. "aww…" We turn around to head back and my intestines inform me that they need to make another offering We come back. I make the offering, and then start writing this. I've made a couple more offerings during the course of writing this. Yes, I'm sure you wanted to know. Dachary's intestines felt left out so she's made a couple too. I've decided that this has gone too far and have just started a course of antibiotics. Technically it says to take when there's blood in the stool or fever, and while the fever isn't constant, it's definitely making an appearance. So yeah. Granada. It's not bad. It's no San Cristobal de la Casa, but it'll do for relaxing for a few days. --- Side note: all the Hotels in Nicaragua want US dollars. They'll take Cordobas, but their go-to currency is Dollars. Also, all the ATMs dispense Dollars and Cordobas. It's very strange. "Nathan Postman" may ring a bell for some of you. You see, Nathan the Postman is a bit of a hero to us and we decided after the bribe attempt from the Honduran cops that we should claim that the reason we can't afford the bribe but were still able to ride was that we we going to meet a friend in the next major city. "What friend?" we said… "hmm… Nathan! What's his last name." "Hmmm… I dunno." "Nathan Postman!" So yes, wherever we are now, we're broke, but on our way to meet Nathan Postman in the next major city. We'll be getting money from him. We think he'll get a kick out of the idea. * Regarding the two MSR Dromedaries and a Camelbak: First we fill the 5L Dromedary from a tap. This is the "dirty" bag. We then pump from it into the 10L "clean" dromedary because the pump has a nalgene bottle size end and so does the Dromedary. Then we pour from one of the smaller openings on the Dromedary lid into each of the Camelbaks. It's easy, but it's an annoying routine to have to go through every day. Some days we just say "**** it" and buy bottled water, which hasn't been particularly expensive most of the time. It also has the benefit of being refrigerated. Because while there seems to be almost no hot water in Central America there's also no water that's particularly cold. Remember the guy we met bicycling from Ireland? Well, his name is Julian, and her name is Ellie. He's raising money for young homeless people in Dublin and you can check out their adventures at The Slow Way Home |
Quote:
|
Kay
I had a look at my passport and.... I had no El Salvador stamps but did have the Tourist Card which was stamped and the bike import papers. As for Nic.stamps I had them both ways north and south for entrance and exit. My passport was stamped for leaving Honduras with the following..... Se Retiene temporalmente la forma******** Por salida a Nicaragua aduana Las Manos...... and was given, after I asked, 90 days. It is all a bit confusing but part of the adventure!! |
Quote:
We have no "Se retiene temporalmenta laforma...." in our passports from Honduras even though with our limited spanish it was still very clear during the discussion that we would be returning to Honduras and that we were ok with the 72 hour limit. we also have nothing in our passports from Nicaragua We have a bunch of paperwork and receipts from immigration (and customs), but no stamp in the passport. Honestly I find it bewildering that a country would bother with the formalities of immigration but not stamp the passport. |
Day 38 - Granada, Nicaragua
The plan was to unwind for a few days in Granada. We've been pushing hard for a while and our tummies have been having trouble recently so it seemed to make sense to set up base somewhere and relax and recover. The Rough Guide made Granada seem like a good spot to do that, and our initial impressions of the town agreed. The buildings are pretty and there are plenty of amenities for tourists here, as we seem to be the reason the town has been restored in the first place. It was a bit of a challenge to find a hotel with parking for the bikes, and we paid a bit more than we normally would for the room when we did find one, but we've deemed a bit of R&R worth the cost.
The initial room at Hotel De La Sol was lovely. It was on the second floor and had large windows (two of them) that opened to let in the breeze. It got great light, was quiet at night, and the bed was super comfy. Even better (and quite a luxury, we determined) the room had a table and chairs which we could use our laptops at, and even a kitchen with a refrigerator, a sink with dishes and a gas stove. The only catch when we took the room? We wanted to stay for three nights to give us two full days here, and they had a lot of bookings for the next day (today) so they didn't have one room that had three nights together. We'd have to move today to a different room, which we couldn't see yesterday because someone was in it, but it was only slightly smaller than the huge, lovely room that we really liked. Based on the original room, we figured it wouldn't be a problem and booked our three nights. Had a lovely sleep last night, although my tummy was still having trouble this morning so I was up before 6AM spending far too much time in the bathroom, and finally started taking antibiotics, too. But I figured it wouldn't be a big deal because we'd still have tomorrow to sleep in, and if I wanted to take a nap today, I could - so I enjoyed the luxury of knowing that today and tomorrow we wouldn't be moving on. We had a nice leisurely morning. We went down to the courtyard (where there's a small kitchen with a cook, one waitress and three tables) to have some breakfast. I ordered an omelette, which came with toast and marmalade, and was delightful. Kay ordered pancakes, which were some of the most tasty pancakes either of us has had in years. We joked when we first started eating about ordering a second plate each since neither of us has been able to hang onto any food for the past few days and we were starving, but Kay decided he couldn't eat an entire omelette (which he would have ordered next) and I didn't want to be the token fat chick ordering a second breakfast alone, so we declined. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5201/...54f3cee47c.jpg Hotel de la Sol Headed back to the room and poked around on the net, generally goofing off. We were waiting for them to move us, and then we planned to do laundry (I was SO looking forward to clean clothes, because we've been getting so sweaty and nasty lately that the sink-washing hasn't been cutting it) and maybe go out and explore the city a bit. Shortly after 11AM, the hotel guy comes up and tells us it's time to move, and helps us carry our stuff to the "slightly smaller" room downstairs. That was mildly inaccurate. The room is more than slightly smaller. Still, by our standards, a very nice room - but there's only half a window instead of two full windows to open for ventilation, and it looks out on the pool instead of having the lovely view over the rooftops that the upstairs room had. No light and no fresh air from the half window. Which might not have been that bad, had the room not smelled strongly of cigarette smoke and cleaning supplies. I did a circuit of the room and saw that to counteract the smoke smell, they'd stuck a toilet bowl cleaner into the back of the bar which separates the table and the bed, which you couldn't see coming into the room. Yes. They're using a toilet bowl cleaner as an air freshener. It doesn't sound that bad until you've ever smelled a toilet bowl cleaner in a small enclosed space - it's quite potent and rather unpleasant. The combination of toilet bowl cleaner and smoke made it nearly impossible for me to breathe in this room (I have problems with smoke) and I knew right away this room was going to be a problem for me. After seeing how unhappy I was, Kay went to go find out if they had another room we could switch to, but they're fully booked for today so we're stuck with smokey, toilet-bowl cleaner room. The room itself is totally decent (even nice) compared to a lot of the rooms we've been staying in. But it was a significant downgrade from the room we'd had upstairs (the one that convinced us to book this hotel in the first place) and I was angry - I felt they'd bait-and-switched us, and the room we have now simply ISN'T worth the same price as the room we'd had upstairs. Which is more than we'd normally pay for a room, anyway, but we thought we'd treat ourselves because we needed some R&R. Combine that with the smoke/toilet bowl smell, and I didn't want to stay here anymore. I asked Kay to go find out if they'd refund our money if we left early, and tried to take a nap in the bed to calm down a bit. I quickly discovered that the smell was too potent for me to breathe properly and had to get dressed and get out of the hotel. I was so upset/angry/uncomfortable that I didn't even wait for Kay - just booked it out of the hotel with no wallet and no room key and no way for Kay to find me. I walked over to Lago Nicaragua, thinking I could get some fresh air there, and apparently Kay went looking for me but didn't know where to find me because I'd left in such a huff and hadn't told him where I was going. Took some time to calm down and breathe the (relatively) fresh air of the lake, and then walked back to the hotel to apologize to Kay for storming out that way and being all dramatic, which isn't like me at all. The stress is really starting to take its toll on me - the corrupt cops, the border crossings - I feel like *everyone* is out to get our money. And we don't have that much of it to begin with, so I've been taking it more personally than I probably should. We're *not* rich touristas, although I know we seem that way to the people in the countries we're passing through - we're doing this by the skin of our teeth and we might not have enough money left at the end to get back home. So I talked with Kay a bit about this - we agreed yesterday that while we're here in Granada we should take a look at our finances and see if we could really afford to cross the gap, do South America, fly home at the end, and still keep our apartment (since we've got house-sitters living there watching our dogs - we can't let the apartment lapse). We've apparently both been aware for a while that there might not be enough money to do SA, but we haven't really been talking about it and I think we were both waiting until we got to Panama to figure it out. But we're close enough now that it was time to do the math and evaluate our options. We checked out our finances and decided to give SA a go. We'll be squeaking by to do it, but we should have enough, assuming something doesn't go horribly awry. The first part of our trip showed us that things can definitely go horribly awry, so if something really bad (financially) does happen, we'll just have to figure it out. In the back of my head has always been the thought that I can always stop and work for a while along the road if we need more cash, because the beauty of my job is that I can work from anywhere. But I don't know how realistic or viable that really is because I'd need to have a reliable 'net connection for multiple days, and that seems to be a challenge to find. (For example, the perfectly good net connection we had in this hotel last night and today has now lapsed to completely non-functional - I assume because the hotel is now full and too many people are using the net.) We were both happy and relieved to discover that we could do SA after all, but then we started looking at costs for getting around the Gap again and I started to stress all over again. (We'd done the math before and we knew what it would cost but I'm apparently super stress today.) We've decided that we both really need a couple of days off, still, to unwind and relax a bit from all of the corrupt officials and border crossings that are starting to get to us, and this hotel in Granada isn't giving us that. I don't want to stay in this room longer paying what I feel is too high of a price - I would have gladly paid what they're asking for the other room, but I simply don't feel that this smaller, fewer-amenities, smoky room is worth staying in at this price. We could have two nights at another hotel for the same price, but not here in Granada because things are more expensive as this is a big tourist town. So now the plan is to leave in the morning (there goes my chance to sleep in!) and move on to Costa Rica and try to find a place to hang out for a few days there. Except that researching that made me more stressy because it's a big tourist destination and one of the most expensive countries (or maybe the most expensive country?) in Central America, and now I'm being all money-conscious until we get around the Gap. Net result for our single day off in Granada? Spent more than we would have otherwise on a hotel, didn't get any R&R (I spent most of the day stressing and was exhausted by 6PM - dunno how late I'll be able to stay up). My tires aren't mounted and aren't going to be before Costa Rica, and maybe not until Panama. (I do, however, insist on getting them mounted or mounting them myself before we try getting around the Gap somehow because I am sick and effing tired of carrying around the tires.) We didn't have time to do laundry today, or to get more copies of our documents, which we'd planned to do before another border crossing. So all in all, we've wasted a day in Granada without getting any real benefit from it. My tummy was fine for most of the day after taking the antibiotics and generic-brand-Immodium this morning, but whilst writing this post I've had a flare-up of badness. With actual symptoms that require the antibiotics, so it's just as well I started taking them this morning. Just took another dose of antibiotics and Immodium and hopefully that'll help settle things. Kay has been fine most of the day although neither of us trust our intestines to stay put, and I'm not looking forward to moving on while we're still having these problems that may demand we find a restroom quickly. That was part of our reason for staying in Granada. In all, an annoying, stressful day. Much of it was my own doing, I realize, and we did have some positive results (i.e. we finally did the math and decided we're definitely moving on to SA, which neither of us has been sure about) but there was also a lot of tiring emotional upheaval. I don't feel fit to deal with corrupt cops, demands for bribes and another border crossing tomorrow, but it needs to be done. It's either get moving or find another hotel here, and neither prospect seems very appealing at the moment. The day started out with such promise, too. Not every day of a trip like this is glorious, kiddies. Some days are tiring and emotionally fraught (especially with a woman along - as much as I hate playing into that stereotype, hormones *do* play a role in our emotional states) and it's just not fun. You want to sit on your couch watching your nice TV with your SO and dogs and just chill. But there are good days, too, when you feel lucky to be alive and on the bike on a trip like this… so the trick is to hang on until those days come back. |
Day 40 - Granada… again
We weren't sure when we got up if we would be taking off or not. The desire, was definitely to take off, but as breakfast finished, Dachary was feeling weak, and a bit woozy and that's no state to be in when trying to muscle around a heavy bike in hundred degree weather and standing around baking at borders. So we paid for another night.
Dachary had been improving, and was getting better by the hour, still not 100% but getting there, and by noon she was chomping at the bit to leave the room. Maybe a tour? Something, Anything! But all the tours around here require hiking or other non-trivial physical activity, except the tour of Granada, which we'd pretty much already given ourselves at this point on foot. So, we wandered, slowly, and with occasional breaks in the shade. An unnotable lunch, and walk back to the hotel followed by a minor moment of rejoicing upon entering the air conditioned domain, quickly followed by a "hot" shower, which is to say… not. Dr. Who, more Dr. Who, a little concern about running out of Dr. Who, and an excursion for food. It was to be pizza tonight. We thought, falsely, that we might actually get a full meal out of it. You see, the problem with Granada is that, as far as we can tell, there is only one restaurant where you are actually served enough to fill you up. Sadly, this includes the pizza places, because while we've only had a couple, it is our impression that since leaving Mexico no-one offers pizzas in various sizes. There is only the one size, and it's not enough. At home Dachary and I order one large (US version of large) pizza each eat half and are usually pretty full from that. Tonight's pizza was pretty typical for a Granada meal. It was not nearly enough and it wasn't particularly tasty. So we wandered off, for second dinner. I shit you not. After days of not having enough to eat we gave in and had a second dinner. We went back to the place that actually gives you enough to eat. Dachary, surprisingly, ate all of hers. I, surprisingly, ate about 3/4 of mine. But, we were both full. On a related note: our hotel does really good breakfast (wonderful pancakes, and pretty good omelets) and we've taken to ordering three breakfasts each morning. Two omelets and one pancake. The pancake breakfast comes with two which we split. During first diner the fireworks started. I use that in the most technical sense as it was a repeated use of the kind that makes a loud bang, shoots something about fifty feet into the air which then makes a load bang. So BANG…BANG. Initially it was once every three minutes or so. During second dinner the pace increased, and with it, the sales of cigarettes and chicklets, ceramics, cigarettes and chicklets, painted wood, cigarettes and chicklets, hammocks, cigarettes and chicklets, ocarina type birds that only have two notes, and cigarettes and chicklets. And of course there was the requisite small child who walks right up to your table, reaches over and points at something he wants (a drink, a piece of food), points to his mouth and makes some annoying sound with a practiced pouty face. When one person says no, he then moves on to the next one at the table and repeats the process until there are no more people. As dinner completed the explosions had increased their pace to once a minute, and now that we're back at the hotel they're about 4 per minute and while I understand that it's just part of life around here I am desperately wishing that someone would invest in some other kind of firework. Dachary suggested that these were probably the cheapest. I countered with the suggestion of bottle rockets and posited that they made a nice loud fweeeeeee! She countered that fweeeeeee! wasn't nearly manly enough. A concussive bang was required to demonstrate the sheer enormity of ones testicles. You're probably wondering what happened to day 39. We are too. Obviously it wasn't much, but I'm pretty sure that it involved more Dr. Who and more unpleasant pooping which I'm happy to report has been absent today. Hooray for Antibiotics! ---- One of the silly little games we play as we travel through these countries is trying to come up with tag-lines for each place we visit. For Granada it's "Granada leaves you wanting…more food" |
Day 41 - Granada Nicaragua to Playa Tamarindo Costa Rica
This morning Dachary woke up angry. I blame it on a combination of mosquito bites and her having her period. She was angry / grumpy and determined and nothing was going to get in her way. Especially her hair God Damn It! The Hair dies now!
It had gotten long enough that the front was starting to dangle into her eyes. She demanded the scissors from the first aid kit. She was going to do something about it. I pointed out that they were crappy scissors for hair, and we could just go to a hair place, but knew better than to push the issue. Scissors were procured. I hoped she was going to just do the bangs, but my fears were realized when it took more than five minutes and I went in to find her standing next to a pile of hair with shoulders covered in it. At breakfast I decided the best strategy was to simply avoid pissing her off. It worked and we made it to the border around lunch time, which I don't think is a good thing, but is typical for us. Leaving Nicaragua seemed quite easy. Unfortunately that was because we unknowingly skipped immigration. We went to a window where the guy claimed to be immigration, looked at our passports, and gave use some official stamps on some paper for two dollars each… actually, two per bike for one dollar each. It wasn't a scam, I'm just not sure what exactly we were paying for. It didn't surprise me that he didn't stamp the passport though, because they didn't stamp it when we came in. They just gave us each a piece of paper that said "Tourist Card" which they stamped. Customs was pretty easy once we found it, and then it was off to Costa Rica, where I stood in a long snaking line for and hour and three quarters (listening to Harry Potter Audio Books read by Stephen Fry), where, upon reaching the terminus, I was told I needed to go back to Nicaragua to get a stamp out in my passport. The officially stamped pieces of paper didn't seem to count for anything. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5246/...89a4438c46.jpg Kay In Line ****. I went back to the bike and found the "Tourist Card" papers which I hadn't showed him, skipped the line as per instructions from the guy after convincing the man with the large gun that I really had already done the line and I was returning. He didn't get what I was trying to say, but he gave up and let me through. So, I count that as a win, but the "Tourist Card" didn't work either… Yup, I had to walk the 1K back to Nicaragua because our bikes were already checked out, but apparently we weren't. I saw an immigration table along the way that we hadn't visited, but that turned out to be a pre-immigration immigration table for Costa Rica. You have to go to Nicaraguan Immigration…. I then wandered from building to building asking if the current building was immigration and where immigration was until I finally found it (details on where everything is at the end of the post) got in a short line. Was handed the standard form for your name and info that they all have, but don't need since they have RFID readers for the new US passports. Filled those out, was shunted to another line, paid 2 dollars per passport for a stamp, and was officially checked out of Nicaragua. Back to the pre-immigration immigration table. Yup, you've got stamps… proceed. Back to the head of the line… no wait, there's a nun. The line is short. I'll get behind her. I'm not even Catholic…. Hooray the stamps work. Off to customs. "Go get insurance." Off to Insurance. ($14 US per bike). Make copies of insurance next to some stamp in the passport. Back to customs. Fill out forms. Have vin checked. "Now you need to go to customs." Take a right. Go to the end of the road. Get a permit for 30 days. I do. I did. We're free… ish. Go to the stop sign. show your papers. Hand over a receipt saying the bike had really been inspected. and we're free! …no really. We're free. Off to Costa Rica. No bribes. No scams, and a grand total of $4 to officials and $28 to insurance. We were planning on staying in Liberia, but figured we might just make it to Playa Tamarindo before dark, so we pushed on. We didn't make it of course, but we found a hotel, next to a nice restaurant. I can't really comment on the town so far. But we came here for the turtles to see them come up on the beach and lay their eggs. We spoke with a local and he says there's a better than average chance to see it this year, but there's no guarantee. We'll take a tour tomorrow night I think. The room's meh, and the guy at the office warned us there was no hot water. My first reaction was "oh that's not good. " But, my second reaction was "Oh wait, even when they claim they have hot water it isn't. " We gave it a try. The water was actual some of the warmest we've encountered. So that was good. Initial thoughts on Costa Rica? Holy ****ing shit this place is beautiful. Good vibes. Can't wait to ride through more of it. -- Penas Blancas Border details from Nicaragua to Costa Rica When you arrive you'll see a small official looking blue building next to a gate with a single lane next to it that cars and trucks take turns going into and coming out of. That's Nicaraguan Customs stage one. To the right of that, next to a restaurant / tienda thing is a yellow building with a metal grill over the windows and a small hole to feed documents through. Feed your passports in there with $2 US each. Get back on your bike and take it to the far side of the little blue Nicaraguan customs building at the gate. Hand them the papers Nicaragua gave you for the bikes when you came into the country. They'll glance at the bikes and sign the paperwork. Drive forwards taking a left at the road just past the large official looking building. Drive until the road T's. In front of you is a budget rent-a-car. All the way to the right before the road turns is a piece of shit looking blue building. That's customs. But first go all the way left to the pale blue building next to the pale blue water tower. That's immigration. Fill out the standard who are you border forms, $2 per passport, get a receipt, make sure they stamp the passport and you're out. Head over to the piece of shit looking customs building. Hand them passports, and the paper the initial customs building signed. They'll stamp it, pass it one seat to the right to the police, who will stamp it and you're free of Nicaragua. Get back on the bikes, continue on the road past the customs building you just left to the end, go left, and keep an eye out for a covered table on the left with police looking dudes at it. That's Costa Rican Immigration stage one. They just check to see if you've got the stamp out of Nicaragua as far as I can tell. Continue down the road until you get to the Costa Rican buildings. You can't miss them. The big building is immigration. There is parking to the right of it. Which is what you want because there's a small yellow building next to a sign about luggage inspection. That's the Aduana. Get in line at customs. Bring a book. You'll be there a while. It goes in spurts. Whenever the room at the end empties they fill it with more people. Repeat. Eventually you get in. Hand them your passport. Get a stamp. No cost. Leave that room and take a right to a small unmarked room next to it with photocopiers. That's where you get your insurance. Hand over the passports and your bike's registration. Pay $14 per bike or 6,736,00 of whatever the currency is here. I can't count that high in Spanish so I paid the $14. Get a copy of your new insurance next to your passport stamp. The guy at the machines will do it for you. You'll also need a copy of your passport main page, your drivers license, and your registration. Take all of these, plus the new insurance paper across the street to the yellow customs / Aduana building. Get a form from them where you fill in all the info about your bike. It's written in an "I ___ do swear to ____ for ____ …" type format. Fill it in. Hand it to them with the paperwork and passports. Man comes out and checks your Vin. They give you a small square of paper that they sign saying that it's been inspected (probably before they come out to inspect it) and they'll staple all the paperwork together. No cost. Then get back on the bikes. Just past the aduana you'll see what appears to be a large parking area for trucks with a road between two lines of trucks. Go down the road between the trucks until you get to the end. There you'll find a small building on the right with a sign for copies. You don't want that building. Get off your bike and go up the human sized concrete ramp onto the loading dock. There you'll find windows. Hand them all the bike paperwork. They'll give you back the insurance and the proof of inspection. They'll also give you a certificate saying you can temporarily import the bikes. No cost. Ride away into Costa Rica, going around any stopped vehicles (even if stopped in the road seemingly legitimately) until you hit a stop sign at a gate. Hand them the proof of inspection stamp. Drive away. You're now in Costa Rica. Welcome to some sweet scenery. |
Day 42 - Playa Tamarindo Costa Rica to La Fortuna Costa Rica
Day 42 Playa Tamarindo Costa Rica to La Fortuna Costa Rica
Last night we met a local in the next-door restaurant who told us that he'd been on one of the turtle tours where they take you to watch sea turtles coming to the beach to lay their eggs. Unfortunately when he did they sat around until 11 pm playing dominoes without a turtle in sight. That was a few years ago, and he said that this year they've been coming back in significantly greater numbers, which is good for the turtles, but at $40 per person plus the cost of a hotel close enough that we wouldn't have to ride the bikes to the pick-up and then deal with hiking the beach in gear… we debated the value of the attempt. Decided we'd rather just save the money and go directly to the Arenal Volcano. And we did, after a return trip to the local restaurant where we discovered that the young woman who'd been serving us the other night wasn't just a surfer girl down from Seattle for a while. No, she was the owner, along with her equally young husband / cook. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5050/...4d709d2609.jpg Roco and family They're in the process of changing the name of the restaurant, so I can't tell you what it's called, but it's just before the Hotel Tamarindo Inn (easy to spot sign) as you're coming into town from the east. She says they're famous for their cubans (sandwiches not cigars) and they have something called a No Name which is definitely worth a taste. While we were waiting for breakfast I noticed that there was a good shot available of my bent kickstand foot for you to see what I'm talking about. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5046/...b0de784ac3.jpg It's somewhat bent Almost every place we stop i gouge a small pit in the ground. Plus, I frequently have to tip the bike far to the right to get it out. The plan is to find a welder, remove this, and have him weld on a piece of steel to replace it, after first welding the big hole in Dachary's pannier. We made our way forward until we found a great view of the western end of Lago Arenal which was beautiful, but somewhat covered in clouds. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5209/...51b2b99756.jpg Lago Arenal (Also, along the way, we stopped at a Super Mercado for Dachary to use the bathroom, since the gas stations we passed were lacking… and she found tampons! They've been nearly impossible to find so she grabbed a couple of boxes, along with a pack of toilet paper to replace our stash that we'd depleted with the bad tummies in Grenada (including Dachary dropping half a roll in the toilet), and stuffed it all in her expandable Wolfman Rainier tank bag. These things are awesome.) We had set out with blue skies and high temps. What we failed to grasp was that we'd ridden to the edge of a rain forest, and as we made our way closer to Arenal it turned from mist, to rain. Neither of us bothered with our rain liners because we were so warm, so we got rather drenched. It wasn't really a bother though. We were drenched with sweat from earlier in the day, so we we figured it would be somewhat cleansing for our gear if nothing else. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5006/...a40948d7ee.jpg Lago Arenal http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5285/...ca8298cf91.jpg Dachary at Lago Arenal We never saw Arenal volcano. The GPS claimed it was just off to the right. A bicycle tour guide (and ex motorcyclist) we ended up speaking with said "it's right there" and pointed to a cloud. The driving though…. absolutely incredible. We loved the ride around the northern side of Lago Arenal. It was beautiful lush vegetation, with intermittent glimpses of incredible cloud covered lake, which we would have taken pictures of for you except it was raining, there was nowhere to pull over, and the few places that looked wide enough to get off the road on had deep wheel ruts in the mud. This is definitely a must-ride motorcycle road, though, if you're ever in the area. There are areas of the roads that are just swamped with potholes, and some of them are quite deep, but as a motorcycle, you have no problem getting around them. Slalom, slalom, lean, lean - and you're through, while the cars and 4x4s are still swerving around crazily to avoid them. Don't do it at night, though, because there are many sections where the lake-side lane is simply missing, or has simply fallen away, and instead of repairing it, they tell you to cede the right of way and deal with it being a one-lane stretch. We drove on to La Fortuna which was renamed after the initial explosion of Arenal because they were the fortunate ones on the side that didn't blow up whereas the two towns on the far side were wiped out. We stopped at one hotel, then pulled over near the central park and I started to wander around looking for alternatives (it's a *very* small town). While we were parking near the town center, a guy came out of a tourist info center and asked if we spoke English. We started chatting, and it turns out he's a Canadian gent who is hanging out in Costa Rica right now, but he and his buddies are interested in doing a big motorcycle trip and have been debating bikes/gear. We gave him what was probably far too much info about bikes, gear, panniers, etc. - I feel bad because we sorta brain-dumped on him, but he seemed genuinely interested and kept asking questions. (If you make it here, we'd love for you to leave us a comment, and we'd love to hear about your own trip when you take it!) I checked another hotel on our list and then saw Hotel El Volcan just down the street. It had Wi-Fi, AC, and let us stick our bikes just in front of the office door and was only $35 which is an awesome price in this tourist town. The room is cheap but clean… except for a single ginormous cockroach we discovered in a corner being hog-tied by a spider. I left the spider to its business. But, it has actual, honest to goodness hot water. We ignore all claims about "hot water" these days and were amazed to find it actually had water hot enough to require the addition of cold. It was luxurious. After we showered off the disgusting layers of sweat we went into town, had a somewhat crappy dinner, and checked the prices at the many places offering tours of the volcano. The thing about the volcano is, when you read about Arenal, there are mentions of "on a clear day" and "when the clouds break" but what you don't realize is just how thick and pervasive the cloud cover is. We'd ridden right past the volcano and not seen it, so we made sure to find a tour that spent time going through the nearby forest and talking about the wildlife as we were unlikely to actually see the volcano even on a tour. We ended up going with the most expensive ($45 US each) one because they seemed to offer the best combination of things. We had to choose this night because we'd heard tale that the best time to go was first thing in the morning, both because of the likelihood of seeing fauna, and of seeing the volcano. Off to find second dinner (pizza) then back to the room to devour it (until we found out it wasn't good pizza) Dr. Who, and bed… Dachary's Note: This day of riding in Costa Rica was awesome. It started out a bit boring coming from Tamarindo, but it got prettier and prettier as we went along and it was one of those really glorious days to be on a bike on a trip like this. Costa Rica may be friggin' expensive and a big tourist trap, but it's also a really beautiful place and so far a great pleasure to ride. |
Day 43 - The Volcano (La Fortuna Costa Rica)
The tour of Arenal Volcano was scheduled to pick us up at our hotel at 7:50 and would involve three hours of hiking so we took off in search of breakfast a bit late (as per usual) headed for the Burger King because it was barely 7 and Central America doesn't really do well with the getting up early thing. Unfortunately, the Burger King was at the far end of town (a tiny town but still) and was closed (****ers), but the restaurant next door was open and we powered our way through breakfast and hurried back to the hotel, where, three blocks away, we saw a tour van pulling down our street. "oh shit. Want me to run?" … I did. It was our van, and i caught them before they left without us. They were ten minutes early, we ran into the room, grabbed cameras, forgot deodorant and hat (me) and Off (Dachary) and hopped in the van.
Four pick-ups later (one very long as people took time checking out of their hotel) and we were on the way to the volcano. We'd resigned ourselves to not actually seeing the volcano and during this time the tour guide made a couple comments that illuminated the reality of the situation. He mentioned he hadn't seen it in two months, and that he was so excited last night when the sky was clear because he hoped we'd have a chance to see it, but of course it was cloudy again when he woke up this morning. Just as we entered the national park though, the clouds broke, and the volcano was revealed in all of its glory before us. It was such a significant event that he had the driver pull over the van so that we could climb out and take pictures right then because it might just go right back into the clouds. I'm happy to report, that it did not. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5248/...dabf1b51b5.jpg Volcan Arenal Normally the clouds are down as low as the tree in the middle of that photo. No exaggeration. We really had no clue what we had driven past the day before, and over the next couple hours she began to re-sheath herself in clouds. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5084/...da47abc5c9.jpg Volcan Arenal Panorama We hiked. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5121/...b5dbfee11c.jpg In the forest at the base of Arenal We saw Lago Arenal from the Eastern end. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5209/...586bb3187c.jpg Lago Arenal We took pictures. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5003/...4c3e3a34d5.jpg Kay and the Orchid We saw birds, both common, and rare. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5168/...dd70fca0be.jpg Condor And three kilometers of beautiful rain forest, that was only hindered by our constant need to watch our footing. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5007/...784486e24f.jpg In the forest at the base of Arenal http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5204/...81a59668c0.jpg In the forest at the base of Arenal Our tour guide was great. He picked out lots of birds we'd never have noticed, a viper that was nearly invisible, and really knew what he was talking about. Plus, we didn't have to hike around for hours in our gear, and we got to meet a cool couple who used to live just down the road from us in Cambridge, MA. Sadly, we neglected to give them a card so we'll probably never encounter them again, but along the way we had great discussions upon how best to prepare the local wildlife. The tarantula preparation discussion was quite involved and eventually we decided that they should be deep fried with a thin batter, pepper, and lemon (served rather ala calimari). We figured that a tarantula hair plucking machine (akin to a automatic chicken plucker) would be a great idea that would make you a millionaire if only you could convince people to partake of the deep fried delicacy. In the meantime, they should be served with hairs intact under the batter. If you want to do Volcan Arenal yourself it's definitely possible. It's $10 US entrance fee for the national park (easy to find), and there are bathrooms and a place to park your bikes just before the trail heads. I think they hand out photocopied maps of the trails too if you don't have a guide. But, for us, the guide and the ability to hike in pants and normal shoes was worth it. Also, we found out that the lava you see in all the pictures really isn't lava. It's glowing rocks expelled during eruptions which fall down and break apart into a stream of tiny glowing rocks, that from a distance look like lava. If you want to see it it's recommended that you don't bother with a tour. Just wait for a clear night when it happens to be erupting, hop on your bikes and ride to the observation bridge / deck thing, and watch for free, because that's all the "lava" tours do. It turns out that many of them simply park you next to the bridge we crossed coming around Lake Arenal - we'd already seen the observation point. We pondered heading out there tonight to see if we could spot any glowing rocks, but alas, she has clouded over again and it's impossible to tell there's a volcano there anymore. We were back in our hotel by 12:30 and had the rest of the day to chill (literally… in the AC) find food, write up posts, do a little work, find more food and ponder sleep. |
Day 44 - La Fortuna to San Jose, Costa Rica
Woke up today with the intention of going to San Jose to the BMW dealer there to try to get a new headlight for Kay's bike. We spent some time this morning researching hotels in San Jose, because most of the ones we saw were either friggin' expensive or far from the BMW dealer, and ended up spending far more time than we'd planned poking the internet. We also wanted to look up a rough translation for the parts we wanted in case no-one spoke English, and that took time, too, as we kept changing our minds.
In the end, it was after 8:30 before we left the hotel looking for breakfast, and it was nearly 10:30 by the time we got the bikes loaded and hit the road. I was annoyed about this because I wanted to get to San Jose early and figure out whether the BMW dealer would be able to help us, and sort out the logistics (i.e. hotel, etc.) Ended up snarking at Kay over I don't even remember what, and it was tense when we set out, but as always - a few minutes on the bike set everything right and as we were riding away down the beautiful twisty roads near Arenal, all was forgiven and forgotten. Google Maps said it was a little over 120km from La Fortuna to the BMW dealer in San Jose, and it was another day of beautiful riding. The area around La Fortuna is really pretty, with lots of little hills and lovely twisties and was just really pleasant to ride through. After a little over an hour of riding, we were at the foot of a tallish mountain type thing and it looked like we'd be ascending. Kept getting stuck behind slow trucks, but one good thing about the 650s - they've got power and more to spare, so we kept zipping around them and back to zooming up the mountain until we'd get stuck behind another painfully slow truck. At around 900 meters in elevation, we literally started riding into clouds. One minute, it was sunny with blue skies and a few puffy clouds - and a few minutes later, visibility was just a few car-lengths ahead of us. It looked and felt like fog, but every once in a while you'd get to a spot where you could see the sheer drop off to your side and see the sunshine peaking out in the valley below - under the clouds! You could occasionally see the clouds roiling below. It was really spectacular riding, although visibility got so limited at one point that Kay (who was in front) literally watched a bus two cars ahead of us vanish into the cloud. It just dissolved into nothingness like a brilliant illusion. Visibility was that low. Kept riding and eventually we came out above the cloud, at around 1700 meters in elevation. It was really surreal, because you could look off to the right and see the clouds adjacent to us - or even below us! We were literally above the clouds. We've been higher at several points in Mexico, but we didn't encounter such low clouds there. It was truly spectacular riding. Got into San Jose around 2PM, I think, and made our way toward the BMW dealer with really very little trouble given our normal track record for cities. There was one stretch that didn't match what Kay had seen on the Google Map this AM, but luckily a guy on a BMW F800GS rode up beside me and I was able to ask him if he knew where the BMW dealer was. He told us it was on the road we were on, only in the other direction - so we popped a U at the next intersection and headed the right way, and found it with very little trouble after that thanks to a rather uniquely shaped intersection Kay remembered from the map. As in Mexico City, today was another day where we walked into the BMW dealer and were VERY glad we ride BMWs. Asked the receptionist for service, and she led us to Adolfo, whose card indicates that he is the "Asesor de Servicio" - which Google translates to "Service Advisor." He indicated that he spoke a little English, so instead of trying to use our probably very bad Spanish translation of what we needed, we just gave him the run-down in English. He had no problems getting it all and said he'd go check with his service team to see how long it would take, etc. He returned a few minutes later and said they could have the bikes done tomorrow afternoon, and went out with us to get some info off our bikes and have us pull them around to the service area. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5289/...6e01020047.jpg Floppy Blinker While we were with the bikes getting data, the director of the BMW dealership here, Norval Garnier, came out and started chatting with us in very good English. After we pulled the bikes around to the service area, Norval took us in hand, offering us water, coffee, bathrooms, air conditioned waiting areas, and went to get us a map of San Jose and inquire about potential hotels for us. Within a few minutes, we were sitting on a shaded patio table with a nice breeze, and Norval was going over the map with us and pointing out places in Costa Rica we might still see, and advising us of potential route options for heading toward Panama. All the while, Adolfo was prepping the work order for us, and Norval was asking the other employees about hotel options as the one they normally used had upped their rates unexpectedly. He went back to highlighting the map for us in great detail, and telling us about other travelers who have been through here, and the relative size of other BMW dealers here in Central America, and all the while, people were coming up to him with things to sign - he'd sign and never miss a beat and then go back to telling us about the country, or the map, or hotel options. He spent quite a while with us chatting over the map, trips, routes, etc. I was really impressed and flattered that he was clearly taking time away from running his rather successful and demanding business to chat with us - just a couple of motorcycle travelers who dropped in completely unexpectedly. In the end, he found a hotel for us, grabbed one of his employees to drive us and our panniers there (with instructions to wait and take us to a second hotel if the first one didn't meet with our approval) and sat with us until we reviewed and signed off on the work orders to make sure everything was ok, etc. I have no doubt that if we had any more questions or needed anything else, he would have gone out of his way to make sure we had what we needed. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5246/...9c9dd85bb7.jpg Norval and Dachary Once again, the BMW rondel really comes through for us. I think we've landed very fortunately here at the BMW dealer in San Jose. The thought was in the back of our minds that we could always go through and try the BMW dealer in Panama City, but we don't like cities and figured that navigating Panama City would be by far the bigger evil - San Jose seemed smaller and more manageable to us. And now I think we're very fortunate to have come here instead, as Norval advises us that the Panama City dealer is much smaller and isn't likely to have the parts we need. He was super helpful and genuinely interested, too, and that goes a very long way with us. We're staying in a B&B a few kilometers from the hotel (and just down from the U.S. Embassy, apparently, should we want to go there for some reason). The bedroom is goodly sized, with a double bed and a twin bed, but the bathroom is ENORMOUS. I mean really. Really. Enormous. Like you could probably fit the whole bedroom in the bathroom. And the bathroom has a mini-fridge. There are also microwaves available for us to use, and computers in the lobby if we should want them - and the guy at the front desk is apparently studying English, and speaks it very well. Once again, we've landed very well and we owe a lot to a great BMW dealer. Just this morning, Kay and I were envying the tiny motos their maneuverability. We were walking back from breakfast in La Fortuna watching the tiny motos flit here and there with their lightweight bikes and no heavy crap weighing them down, and thinking "man, those guys have the right idea. Riding like that is awesome!" But now, this afternoon, reminded us of why we love BMW. We really do love our bikes. They're big for this trip, but they've been reliable and comfortable and the level of service we've encountered at the dealers along the way has been phenomenal. I can't speak highly enough of Motohaus BMW in Mexico City, and now Motocicletas Bavarian, S.A. here in San Jose. A BMW may be a big heavy bike for a trip like this, but what comes with the rondel has a lot of value we hadn't anticipated when we left home. |
Day 45 - San Jose to Fraijanes, Costa Rica
Slept late this morning (but neither of us slept particularly well - the B&B room was nice enough but the bed was really uncomfortable) and went out to the dining room for breakfast, which was a luxury. Fresh-made rice and beans, eggs, and toast. Poked around the internet for a bit to find out about potential destinations and decided to visit Volcan Poás tomorrow morning. The plan was to go hang out at the BMW dealer until our bikes were ready, and then ride up to a hotel very close to the park and spend the night, ready to go check it out early in the AM and then ride on.
Waiting at the BMW dealer was plush. We hung out on a nice, comfy couch on a shaded porch and watched Dr. Who and Top Gear on Kay's iPad chilling while we waited. I had brought along a soda to sip and we enjoyed the breeze and nice day, and watching them wheel bikes around. Clearly a very busy BMW dealer. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5168/...4312e986e9.jpg Chillin at BMW San Jose The bikes were ready around 1PM, and we loaded up to leave San Jose and head to Volcan Poás. They'd washed the bikes while they had them, and cleaned the chain, and done all of the lovely things a BMW dealer does for a bike while it's in for service. We had them change the oil, mount my tires, check the brake pads (I thought for sure they'd change mine because they're still the stock brake pads - they've got 11k on them!) and fix Kay's floppy turn signal. They said my break pads looked almost new. It ended up costing more than we'd expected, and now I'm annoyed that we didn't just mount the tires ourselves - it was almost double the cost of our service in Mexico City where they changed Kay's fork seals and changed our oil, etc. Headed out of the city stuck in crap traffic for almost 40 minutes because there was construction on the Pan Americana. My temperature gauge on my bike was reading 111 degrees F, and Kay's was around 42 degrees C - both agree that it was friggin HOT on the bikes stuck in traffic. But eventually we were moving again, and headed to the volcano with fairly little trouble - lots of signage. Stopped briefly at a Taco Bell because we wanted a fast, cheap lunch - and they serve french fries at Taco Bell here (although they call them Fiesta Fries). We agree that this is wrong. But we ran into a local who rides a DR650 who came over to chat with us about our trip, so that was cool. Heading up into the mountains toward the volcano, Kay's temperature light came on the dash. We heaved a collective "uh oh" because we'd just gotten the bike back from service and an oil change and the first thought was that the dealer had somehow screwed something up. We pulled off to the side of the road (there wasn't an actual place to pull off, so we looked for a relatively straight stretch where people could at least see the bikes sitting there) and waited for the bikes to cool a bit. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5088/...5aa8c982b6.jpg Waiting for the engine to cool... again 10 minutes later, Kay checked the bike and the temp light was off, so we started back up the mountain. The hotel was maybe ten kilometers away at this point. Just a few kilometers down the road, the light came back on. This time we found a drive to pull into in front of a wood carver's shop and waited again. Pulled out later, and in a few more kilometers, the light came back on. This time we were in a really twisty stretch with no businesses and there literally wasn't a place for us to pull over. Kay said "sorry engine!" and right after that, we saw a steep dirt drive on the left side of the road that was relatively flat at the top, so we pulled off there. Kay went to put the bike on the side stand, and as I was watching, I saw liquid spewing out the left side of the bike. He looked down and it was the coolant boiling out of the top of the coolant release nipple thing. He quickly put it back on the center stand, and we realized we had to take the fairing off to check the fluid levels and see if we could figure out what was going on. Coolant boiling over is a Very Bad Thing, ™, so we weren't willing to push it even until we got to the hotel. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5042/...a6929f2a14.jpg Cheking the coolant Dismantled the fairing fairly quickly (Kay muttering all the while about what a crap design it is that you have to unscrew 6 screws, take the seat off, and take the turn signal off just to check the coolant level) and immediately saw that the BMW dealer had drastically overfilled the coolant. It was well over an inch past the "max" line on the coolant reservoir. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5003/...aee6dc6cbe.jpg Too much? We decided that was a problem and literally tipped the bike over to dump the coolant. We didn't have a siphon, and wouldn't have had a container to siphon the coolant into anyway, so we laid the bike on the pannier, tipped it over until the coolant started running out, and then had to jiggle the whole bike to get enough of the coolant out. It's still slightly over the max line, but we figured the coolant had expanded because of the heat so it would probably be ok. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5210/...42e4b31e2d.jpg Draining the coolant The oil was reading between half and three-quarters full in the sight glass, but the oil reservoir was still quite hot when we put the fairing back on and I was afraid that hadn't fixed the problem. Still, at this point, we'd been stopped for like 45 minutes to check and empty the coolant, and we thought that should have at least cooled the oil enough to get to the hotel. Put the bike back together and headed up the volcano to the hotel. Found the hotel right near the top (and there was a ton of cloud cover up at the top, and some drizzling rain) only to discover that there were no vacancies. Back down the mountain to the hotel we'd passed 7KM and three stops ago. Heading back down the mountain - you guessed it, the temperature light came on again. We pulled over in a shop parking lot to let it sit, and wondered how far it was to the hotel. Amusingly, we discovered when we got going again that the sign we could see from the shop parking lot where we'd been sitting was actually the hotel - we just didn't realize it. So we pulled in and Kay checked it out, and we decided to stop here for the night. There's internet in the restaurant so we could research the overheating problem, and the room itself is actually a cabin - kind of cute, kind of rustic, and relatively cheap. (But no internet in the cabin, so we have to come to the restaurant to check the Web.) Grabbed dinner in the restaurant and poked the internet to see what we could find on the F650 FAQ about overheating, etc. We're hoping that they simply didn't put in enough oil at the BMW dealer and that's why it got too hot, but we're afraid it might be a problem with the fan, too. Kay doesn't remember if the fan came on when it was overheating. We did discover that we were completely wrong about draining the extra coolant. The internet seems to agree that, in general, too much coolant simply isn't a problem. Maybe when the bike's cooled we'll find that it just expands and contracts dramatically. Personally, I'd like to say that the BMW dealer overlooked something, because that's going to be the easiest thing to correct. But I fear it's something that went wrong later, and just happened to fail on a day when we'd had service. I don't see how the bike could have sat in the stupid traffic for 40 minutes in temperatures approaching 100 degrees without overheating then. So to me, I fear that maybe the fan died after that at some point. Kay has worked out an explanation whereby it might simply be that the BMW dealer didn't put in enough oil and as we exerted the bikes more climbing the mountain, it started to overheat. I'll keep my fingers crossed for that but I fear we may have to head back to San Jose tomorrow to revisit the dealer. We're waiting for the bike to cool now to check the oil levels, and then I think we'll fire it up and see if the fan comes on. Wish us luck! |
Day 46 - Fraijane to San Hose, Costa Rica (Again)
(Kay)
So, yes. The bike was overheating. After dinner and Googling (the only net access was in the restaurant) we went back out to the bike checked the oil level and then ran the bike until the overheating light came on to see if the fan would kick in. It didn't. So, we went back to the cabin (tiny one all to ourself. Rustic and cute) and I pulled out the iPad to check my downloaded copy of the F650.com FAQ (damn I love this device) while Dachary checked the Haynes manual. The Haynes manual had better pictures and, seemingly clearer instructions. My back was sore at this point. I suspect I used too much back and too little leg when we were lifting the bike after draining some of the coolant. I tend to do that without thinking. Dachary had a splitting headache. So, hoping against hope, that I'd be able to do something that would be able to make the fan come on even if I had to manually wire it up to the battery. The goal being to be able to see the volcano in the morning that we were barely 10k down the hill from before returning to BMW in San Jose. I followed the instructions and removed the fairing, then looked for the circular doohickey with a tube and the fan switch that was pictured in the manual and in the F650.com FAQ. There wasn't one. I checked under the left fairing. It wasn't there either. I went back in to recheck the manual. Yup. Circular doohickey. I brought the manual out. I sat down beside the bike with my headlamp and reread it. Staring back and forth between pictures and bike. Eventually I realized that the text was ambiguous and the FAQ had mislead me. It was the OTHER picture i was supposed to be looking at. "Oh THAT thing… how do I get it off?" There was a nut. I grabbed a wrench. I undid the nut. I got antifreeze on my hands…. electrical switches, in my experience, don't tend to live in fluid. I examined what I'd just removed. A copper rod that lived in antifreeze. Hmm. That must be the business end of the temperature gauge. I thought it sensed the oil temp, but whatever. I examined the wired up lipstick tube it was attached to. Hmm… little clips. Would have been nice if the manual mentioned those. I screwed it back into the engine. I pried at the clips and out popped a thingy with four sockets (two just empty plastic and two with metal connectors for two of the four pins that shoved into it). Some instructions said to try shorting it and seeing if the fan came on. I grabbed the handy piece of wire in the tool kit and did so. No good. Next it suggested taking a 12 volt battery (got one of those in the bike) and running leads with the "appropriate connectors" i think the phrase was, directly to the fan. It should be noted that the only people on the planet who might have something with the "appropriate connectors" happen to be standing in a BMW mechanic's workshop. At this point I noticed a large half pit-bull mutt standing in front of my bike wagging so hard it almost made its rear end hop every time. It desperately wanted petting. I obliged it with my right hand whilst attempting to roll up the tool kit and move the *stomp* The Haynes Manual's page on troubleshooting the fan now has a large dirty brown footprint in it. More petting was administered until he was satiated enough to let me get back to work. I went the brute force route to wire up the fan and disconnected the 12 gauge leads from my battery to my Fuzeblock (you should totally get one by the way) bent some of the extra wiring out of the way until each was small enough to fit in the socket and shoved them in. Nothing…. "are these things even live???" I touched them together… no spark. Shouldn't there be a spark? I've gone through all the suggestions at this point. Simon says it's a dead fan. I don't have a spare one of those. But I'm not 100% confident in my tests, so it could also be a dead switch. I don't have a spare one of those. Or a ****ed temperature sensor. I don't have a spare one of those either. I put the fairing back on (six screws and the blinker), thoroughly annoyed that the manual was wrong and there was zero need to remove the thing. Put the seat back on. Put the stupid door behind the seat back on. Rolled up the tools and went back in. At this point the back pain is not an issue when in the correct position, but when not (upright, walking, moving) It's a problem. I've started walking like I have scoliosis, but it's not too bad. I just can't stand up straight. I also can't lean over to reach my tank bag to put my Leatherman away without involuntary yelps…. not good. I go to bed. That should help. It doesn't. We set the alarm for 7:30. I wake up around 6:30 I think, and read for half an hour before Dachary wakes up and officially starts the day. The plan is to make it as far as we can towards San Jose. We'll call for a tow if we need one, but we suspect we can make it there… eventually….with lots of stops. Time to load the bikes…. shit. I can't lift my pannier. "Um… Dachary?" I decide I can at least take my Camelback and my tank bag. I grab them, and make for the door. I get to the first stair (of maybe 8) and drop the Camelbak. "Shit." I put the tank bag in my right hand and hold tight to the railing with my left. I go, very, very, slow, and almost fall to a squat a couple times from the pain. I barely hold myself up and make it down. Slowly. I go slowly, to the bike. I fall to my knees half way there. I breathe… I get up. I keep going. I make it to the bike. Dachary has moved it out for me. I stay at the bike. I can't do anything else. I *should* be able to ride, because sitting is ok. I just hope it doesn't start to lean to far one way or the other when stopped because i'm dubious of my ability to keep it from going over. Dachary brings out the panniers and puts on the first pannier. It's pointing on a slight downhill and the kickstand starts to slide back. I barely hold it, but only because it's barely trying to roll down the hill. She comes around, takes the bike from me, hands me the helmet, and walks it down to some flatter ground twenty feet away. I follow. Or, rather… I attempt to follow. After about six feet I fall down. The pain in the lower back was simply too much to remain upright. I try and sit up straight. That hurts more… laying down… laying down is good. Dachary sets the bike up and walks over to me, questioning, dubiously, my ability to actually ride five hundred pounds or so of bike. I question this too. "Help me up?" she tries. It doesn't work. "Pull hard." That hurts… hmm. "I think I'll crawl up." I roll onto my hands and knees and get up from there. "Why don't you go to the restaurant. I'll take care of the rest. Can you make it?" I think I can, and I do. I wait. She finishes loading the bikes up and comes in. I'm fully expecting her to declare that we're staying here another day, but she doesn't. Neither of us want to stay. We order breakfast, and while I was starving when I woke, I can barely finish mine. She barely starts hers, and uncharacteristically, declares she can't eat it. We order her something else, and i force myself to eat. She does the same with the ginormous cheese pupusaish thing that her first plate is replaced with. Neither of us finishes, but the waiter was totally attentive and helpful, so we tip him well. The ibuprofen I took at the start of breakfast seems to have done some good, or maybe it was just the sitting. Either way, I can walk to the bike, and miracle of miracles, I can get it up off the kick stand. I go down the volcano in neutral 90% of the way trying to keep as much air flowing over the radiator as possible, and a few revs on the engine. I'm convinced we'll have to pull over in less than three kilometers before the light comes on, but we make it almost all the way, until Just before the bottom a truck is inching out into traffic and I stop for him. Dachary expected me to just go around, speeds up to follow me, notices I'm not going around, slams on the brakes, the ABS kicks in, she's leaning a little to the left, and has now stopped so quickly that she doesn't have time to get upright before she's lost her momentum and down she goes. She's fine, but I'm in the middle of the road and there's a truck blocking me from getting to the side. It moves. I move. I hop off, and by the time I've made it to her bike (ten feet behind me) three motorcyclists have appeared, are at her bike, and by the time i start to touch it are already lifting it. Before either of us get a chance to really say "Thank you." they've disappeared in a puff of smoke. Ok, the smoke's an exaggeration. A white guy on a bike appears out of nowhere and starts chatting. Mentions how he got screwed by a local honda dealer when he did a shite repair job on his bigger bike that ended up screwing it over worse than when it went in. I'm thankful for my BMW Roundel. We continue through town to a McDonalds just up the road from the Pan American. They have net. Maybe we can figure out what the deal is with making phone calls in Costa Rica. We attempted this morning, but kept getting some spanish error message we couldn't understand. They have net. It doesn't help. We can't call Costa Rican or even US numbers from Dachary's phone. After an hour of letting the bike chill and giving ADVRider.com a quick update, we set out again. We figure the volume of air over the radiator that we'd get from highway speeds should keep it cool. We're wrong, and just as we hit the permanent traffic jam caused by the bridge construction, the light comes on. "Shit." This road has no shoulder. But there's a bus stop on the right. We pull in. We let it cool, and while we do I notice a tiny turn-off just after the stop. I absolutely do not want to continue on a highway with no shoulder and a right lane that is exclusively for buses, so we take the turn off. I don't care if it's slower. I don't care if the motorcycle overheats more times between here and the dealership (about 10 k away) so long as there's somewhere safe to pull over when it does. We go. It overheats. We pull over. We go. It overheats. We pull over. We get off and give it a longer rest. "Wait… do you smell cookies?" Dachary wanders off to find a bathroom at the Office Depot we see across the intersection, and eventually returns a liter lighter and in possession of more lithium AAA batteries! Not that we needed them, but now we have two extra sets. (They also had AA lithium batteries, so if you need some for your SPOT tracker, try the Office Depot in San Jose. They had a ton. Dachary didn't have enough money on her to buy them all so there are still plenty left.) We set off. We make it to maybe one K away from the BMW dealer when the light comes on. We pull in a gas station and practice our sweating techniques for ten minutes. We take off and YES! the Dealer! We pull in to the bike area and before we've got our helmets off Adolfo has appeared. "You're back. How are you?" We say we're good, and I explain that "mi moto es enferma. el ventilator es muerte y le "antifreeze" est pfft pffft pfft out the side" "It's overheating?" he says. "Yes. Let me show you what I've tried." I do, and he says "so the fan is dead." I shrug. "I think so." Dachary asks him if that's a part that he has in stock. "Let me check." We pull the panniers and bag off the bike expecting to be told it'll be a day or two. He comes out, grabs the bike, and wheels it into the belly of the shop, then returns and says "we'll examine it now. You can sit here or over there." he says pointing to the couches by their accessories shop on which we watched Dr. Who just yesterday… I'm somewhat awestruck. I was NOT expecting to have them tackle it immediately. We go over to the couch after a moment of cooling in the breeze so they don't feel we're hovering. We watch more Dr. Who until someone rides up on a F800GS, kitted out for adventure. We're intrigued. Someone tells him to move his bike over by where we're sitting, and as soon as he gets his helmet off we pounce with the questions. "Who? Where? How long?" It's Cory (Oso Blanco on ADVRider.com) who, we quickly discovered, is way more badass than us, and we had a great time chatting him up. We felt a little bad because at one point Norval (the Director) came over and totally wanted to chat too but we were completely monopolizing Corey. Norval's a good guy, and like most real motorcyclists, loves encountering an adventure rider. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5086/...071eb3277e.jpg Bike folks Somewhere in there Norval brought out the dead fan / motor, and had me feel the resistance it was putting up when you tried to turn it. There was barely any, but i surmise that there's supposed to be none. Regardless, it was dead and there was a new one being put in, and eventually, it was done and ready to be set free with a swipe of the magic card. I go in. They hand me the bill…. "so many digits!"… she converts it to dollars. "Such BIG digits!" I hand over the card, because what else can I do. The bike doesn't work without a fan… a fan that cost 189,158.63 cordobas or approximately $378 US! I shit you not. I am totally regretting not having taken a picture of the dead fan because it is a simple sealed electric motor with a cord coming out one end and a rod with a fan blade coming out the other. The motor fits in the palm of your hand, and nowhere in our wildest expectations, did we think it would be more than $100 US. I just checked BikeBandit and it's $237.83 there… but, add in Costa Rican customs costs, and some dealer markup and they didn't screw us. It's just another case of BMW screwing people for some random part. Now, some of you would argue for ordering it online and having it shipped in, but when you add in the days of expensive San Jose hotels, plus customs fees, plus taxis / hassle getting to FedEx, or wherever, to pay the customs… It's actually cheaper. Plus, they didn't charge us jack shit for the labor. Eight hours of it (two guys for four hours I assume) and it was such a negligible part of the bill it may as well have been free. So, once again the guys at a BMW dealership have done the best they can for us, and as we set off (after many pictures with us and Cory) they were walking Cory off to see a list of local hostels they'd pulled up for him since the sun was about to set. We made our way back to the hotel we stayed at last time, grabbed dinner, diagnosed why nothing coming out of my Fuzeblock was working (because I'd blown the fuse when I'd crossed the wires last night - a new fuse put it right), and settled in for some relaxation, oh, and some laundry. Poor Dachary's back is now killing her from leaning over the sink and scrubbing so long. Doing laundry in a sink takes FAR longer (and takes far more work) than you expect. …. I love the incredible service and support we've received from that BMW Roundel, but sometimes it comes with a price…literally. I consider it a case of getting what you pay for. Unrelated: ask Cory about the mods to his bike. This is my favorite one, but he's got a bunch of nifty little tweaks that he's made. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5085/...3ce0c35e50.jpg My favorite mod |
Day 47 - San Jose to San Vito Costa Rica
Norval, at the BMW dealership, suggested San Vito as a possible destination to us. Take route 2 (the Pan American) south and hang a left on 237 to San Vito. "Should take you about 5 hours with a break for lunch, and it's really beautiful." he suggested. Plus, it's only an hour from the border and has some decent hotels.
So, we take our time getting going because it's only going to be a five hour day and leave at 10. It takes us an hour to get out of San Jose because we're not locals and don't know the fast way. Also, we have to stop for gas, which always seems to take more time than you expect. After a little bit we see a hill, maybe a thousand feet high before us. "Oh nice. We get to go over a little hill." And we do, and then there's another hill behind it, and behind that, and, and, and, and eventually we're at 3,317 meters. Just over two miles above sea level. The ride has been gorgeous. Lush, green, and involving a few minutes riding through the middle of clouds. We finally find a good place to pull over that looks like it may have a view, but no luck. All we can see is clouds and …. oh my… http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5284/...c8b75d6deb.jpg Something's missing.... That's not right…. Dachary's got the SW-Motech pannier frames. They've got this nifty quick-release mechanism that lets you take the whole thing off the bike when you want to ride around without a metal pannier rack poking out the side of your bike. Only problem is the bolt that holds the removable part on has a tendency to destroy itself and then jump ship without telling you. It wasn't intentional, but the carabiner that's keeping her dry sack from jumping ship ended up keeping the pannier from doing the same. So, yay for backup / dual-purpose restraints. We had a bag of bolts from a BMW dealer in Louisiana - they didn't know what size the sub-frame bolts were so they just chucked an assortment in a bag for us. Actually, they'd never heard of the sub-frame bolts shearing which tells you a lot about their knowledge and clientele… Anyway, we dug in the bag and found a bolt we could use to shove in there and keep the thing attached, but we had no nuts, so we grabbed a piece of wire from the tool kit (a must have piece of kit) that we wrapped around the threads on the underside to form an impromptu nut, then wrapped duct-tape around the whole thing to keep it from pulling out if the "nut" fails. As we did this an Austrian man stopped by to try and take some pics, but he finds, as we did, that all you can see is clouds. He tells us that he was here a couple days ago and could see the Pacific, and when the clouds are gone on the other side you can see the Atlantic too. I raised my arms and shouted "Adventure!" when all was said and done. We'd accidentally stopped at the highest point of the road, the highest point of the Panamerican in Costa Rica, and on part of the continental divide, and accidentally discovered a serious problem, and fixed it. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5163/...72b02c1f4e.jpg The high-point of the day http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5086/...a95fea4540.jpg Dachary We drove on… just a few yards from where we'd pulled over was a dirt road going up into a national preserve, but we'd been stopped long enough and didn't feel like wandering through a random bunch of trees on top of a hill. Instead we drove into a cloud. Not any cloud. A rain cloud. A huge, thick, dense, rain cloud. Almost instantly, visibility went to practically nil. You could see maybe 30 feet in front of us - at times, you'd lose the taillights of the car in front of you. Our visors misted up. Dachary made the mistake of opening hers and from that point on was unable to close it without it fogging up, so had to ride with it open. It misted. The mist condensed on my visor and Dachary's face. Then it started to rain. I know it's obvious when you think about it, but it had never occurred to me that it rains in the middle of a rain cloud. Clouds are just collections of vapor and rain comes out the bottom… NOT. We rode on. I wiped. Dachary blinked. We were glad we'd already closed our vents due to the chill air at altitude, but it wasn't long before the shells of our jackets reached the saturation point. Shortly thereafter Dachary called for us to pull over because she'd been blinking out so much water that her contact lens was starting to blink out too. I took the opportunity to grab the rain liner out of my butt pocket. And rejoiced in the knowledge that my arms wouldn't be drenched. It was… awesome. Literally. It was beautiful. It was a little scary, and it was totally out of our realm of previous experiences. Insane people passed us around blind curves with visibility of maybe thirty feet. The fact that busses would appear out of nowhere and zoom up the hill in the other lane didn't seem to be a deterrent. I was, once again, very thankful for my Denali headlights. They didn't help me see anything, because it was nearly noon at this point and even the sun couldn't make it through, but they gave me a huge amount of confidence that people would see me. Sure, I could see oncoming headlights, but I've only got one, and the Denali's are about four times brighter. We continued on, blinking, wiping, and enjoying the whole thing…. well, except the getting wet part. Eventually, we had dropped about a mile and passed out of the bottom of the cloud, and not long after that we found a road-side restaurant with a little collection of plastic Harley-Davidsons on the wall. The owner clearly wanted to talk to us about the bikes, but he was disheartened by our bad Spanish, and didn't do much more than mime some things after we did such a poor job of ordering lunch. We don't have the vocabulary to start up a conversation, but when someone attempts to talk to us we can usually get a fair amount communicated. Like the other day when a BMW guy stopped by our table and started chatting us up, and saying that they were great bikes for our trip and that we'd have no problems, which I countered by explaining that the fan was dead and that we had to head back to the dealer. At least lunch turned out to be very tasty, and Dachary and I are both developing an affinity for the Avocado when you mix it with things. I think of it as a more refreshing form of butter. After lunch, though, we both put our jackets back on and cringed at the wet shells. It's just no fun putting on a cold, wet jacket after it's rained! But it was, once again, too warm to keep the liner in and Dachary had never put hers in to begin with. We rode on, through tons of Del Monte pineapple fields, which took us a while, and some signage to figure out. Neither of us realized they grew underground! And eventually past a small street-sign sized sign that said "Volcan 3Km" and pointed down a long red dirt road. I was so tempted, but Dachary pointed out that the hill it led up to went up into a cloud so A) we'd get wet again B) we wouldn't see jack shit and C) it was probably ****ing muddy since the part in the sun near us didn't look particularly dry either. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5004/...0a7a504310.jpg Emergency Pit stop http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5124/...0d9b98d545.jpg Pineapple field. We rode on. I wish it hadn't been cloudy though, because it's a sight that I suspect hardly any Americans ever visit. If you're interested it's on the Panamerican just a few minutes west of Buenos Aires Costa Rica. We arrived in San Vito just after 5 PM; seven hours after heading out. We pulled over in a gas station to find Dachary a bathroom and a guy on a Honda with panniers pulled up almost immediately. He didn't speak any English, but it didn't matter. He was an adventure rider too. He'd been up to Guatemala, and he and his friends had shipped their bikes to Peru and ridden back home to Costa Rica. We asked him where the ATM was since we were so low on Colones we couldn't even buy gas, and he pointed us the way, and informed us that he worked at that one, and that there was another one just around the corner beyond it. And, the hotel El Ceibo was very nice and good for the bikes. We thanked him for the info, gave him a card (that won't do him much good as our site's in English) and let out a sigh of relief. We had rather low expectations of what kind of hotel we'd find in San VIto and it was good to hear there was somewhere good, and that we'd be able to get an ATM to afford gas, and food tomorrow. All the hotels in Costa Rica will happily take US Dollars, but food and gas need Colones. So, we went up the hill, stopped at the bank, and pulled into the hotel, which turned out to be very nice although lacking any rooms with anything other than twin beds. And was, in typical Costa Rican fashion, way more than we wanted to pay. Our tag line for Costa Rica? "I love Costa Rica. I just can't *afford* Costa Rica." The sunset, was brilliant though: http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5127/...2d7a2f6273.jpg Sunset It turns out there's a Hotel Rino(?) just down the street that looks much cheaper… which could be a mixed blessing. El Ceibo is quite nice, except for the "giant bugs" Dachary keeps seeing. Two huge ants which neither of us are particularly bothered by but don't want crawling on us, and a huge freaking jumping spider that Dachary was totally freaked about and I couldn't decide how to handle. I went with tupperware, as I hate killing spiders and the idea of leaving a ginormous bug splat on the wall was also rather rude. The spider and the ants have all been chucked out the door, hopefully without injury. If you visit San Vito be sure to eat at the Pizzaria just up the hill from El Ceibo. It's the best pizza we've had since the US. Also, check out the little supermarket just down the hill from El Ceibo. It has everything: bungies, sewing supplies, cooking, cleaning, hardware, household food… Sounds like a giant Wal-Mart back in the states, but no, this is maybe a quarter of the size of a standard US supermarket. We got a pair of bungies, five safety pins, and some liquid refreshment. Speaking of liquid refreshment. Neither of us has had a drop of alcohol since the start of the trip. I don't mention this as an accomplishment for us, but as it seems to be so atypical for a trip like this. That and we're not really trying to avoid it, we just haven't been particularly interested. |
Day 48 - San Vito, Costa Rica to Santiago, Panama
Did some digging around regarding border crossings last night and found Rio Sereno, which was just a handful of kilometers away from San Vito where we stayed last night. Everyone who's used it says that Rio Sereno is teeny but very fast and has none of the hassle of the Pan American crossing at Paso Canoas - in part, because the road leading to it isn't paved. And also, there's no customs on the Costa Rica side, although the Panama side has both immigration and customs. This means that you can cross out of Costa Rica but you can't check your moto out, and you can't cross into Costa Rica with a moto at this crossing.
After reading more about Paso Canoas and our prior experiences with the Pan Americana border crossings, we decided to say "eff it" to checking out the bikes from Costa Rica and just head into Panama at Rio Sereno. Hopefully that doesn't bite us in the butt later somehow, but we decided to risk it. Slight misadventure to start the day, though - I was reaching up from the bed to grab the cord to turn off the fan, and I reached up with my right arm while leaning back on my left arm and turning my head *just* so - and managed to pull something. I immediately had to lie back down and take a bunch of Ibuprofin to attempt to reduce some of the muscle pain, and had to take it very easy this morning. Was a bit apprehensive about doing dirt with a bad shoulder/neck. In the end, it hurt to move my arm a certain way, and it hurt to turn my head too far to the right, so riding presented some challenges. But neither of us wanted to stay in Costa Rica anymore because it's just so expensive - it was time to move forward. So we set out looking for Rio Sereno, which isn't marked, but we found some decent instructions on Horizons Unlimited. Except they weren't as good as we thought. We got as far as Sabalito, Costa Rica, where we were supposed to pick up the dirt, except the instructions were a bit ambiguous and we missed the turn we were supposed to take. Kay stopped and asked a guy if we were going the right way to the Panama Fronteira, and he indicated that we go forward and then take a left. Followed those directions but still didn't find the dirt we were supposed to be riding, so Kay asked again and got an affirmative that we were on the right road. Went a bit longer and still no dirt, so I suggested that instead of asking for the frontiera, Kay ask specifically for Rio Sereno - and the woman he asked first indicated the road we were on, but when Kay said "Rio Sereno," the woman told us to turn around and take a right at the cafe. So we had missed the turn. Went back to the road I thought might have been the right one originally, when we drove by it, and we stopped at the top of the road looking for someone to ask. A guy on an ATV pulled up next to us and confirmed that this was the dirt road we were looking for that led to the frontiera. Yay! Turned down it and had a nice little ride on the dirt. The road itself was in good shape, although there were a lot of rocks in the road that made it quite bumpy. The dirt was hard-packed, and there were a few muddy tire tracks but you could pretty easily avoid them by riding between the tracks and it was dry and had good traction. The Horizons Unlimited directions were fairly good once we hit the dirt, and 5km of decent dirt later, we'd arrived at the frontier! The directions did say that Costa Rica immigrations was on the left before you get to the Panama compound, but we missed the building anyway - it was a bit further back than we were expecting. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5005/...0ba6fe4abf.jpg Look for this to find the Costa Rican Immigration Building Kay did the border stuff, even though it was my turn, because my shoulder was bothering me - all of the bouncing around on the rocky dirt road really didn't help it. Costa Rica immigrations took 5 minutes - they stamped us out in the passport and after confirming that we weren't planning to return, kept our moto permit. Panama immigrations took another 5 minutes. Then off to customs for the bikes. Kay went off to do the bike paperwork while I stood with the bikes. Based on how quickly they processed immigration for us, and how few people were using the crossing, I was thinking maybe we could get across in 30-45 minutes. So I stood next to the bikes, waiting for Kay. A large truck moved its position and I had to move the bikes so people could get by - gave me a few moments of concern because of my shoulder and the slant of the rocky dirt road, but I got them moved without dropping either one. (I'd dropped my bike when we first parked here because the road was slanted too far to the right and the kickstand was too long - it wouldn't lean far enough to the left because of the slant of the road and gravity took it to the right instead.) But when I thought the bikes should be moved, I went looking for Kay to ask for help in case I dropped them, and couldn't find him. He wasn't in the customs building and I couldn't see where he might have gone. So I went and did the bikes, and waited. And waited. And waited. After Kay had been gone for about 45 minutes, I started to get worried. This is a teeny border crossing and there aren't many places he could have been so I didn't know what was delaying him. I thought maybe he had to go somewhere to get copies made and things were just taking a while, but by the time an hour had passed, my mind started making up more and more horrific scenarios. Maybe he had to walk 10 kilometers into the next town to get copies because the copy place was closed on Sunday. Or maybe he took a cab or tuk-tuk somewhere and couldn't get back, and had to walk back. Or maybe someone saw him wandering around and decided to rob and beat up the gringo, and he was laying somewhere in pain. I shouldn't be left alone without explanation, clearly. I kept walking back and forth between the bikes and where I could see down the road, looking for him. Eventually I sat down on a concrete wall where I could easily look for him, and started trying to read a book on my iPhone just to distract myself from my imaginings. (Normally I wouldn't bring out any electronics at a border crossing but this was dire.) After like an hour and a half, I hear a "Hi Dachary!" and look up and Kay is waving to me. WTF?! I walk over to find out where he's been and it turns out that this entire time, he's been sitting in the office with the insurance kid around the corner waiting for him to fill out our insurance forms. Twice, people from Costa Rica walked in to get insurance and he stopped filling out our forms to process them. That's why it took so long, apparently. When Kay finally got the insurance forms and brought them back to customs, it took a grand total of roughly 20 minutes to make out the paperwork, inspect the bikes, fumigate them and send us on our way. So the border crossing itself took 2 hours, but 1.5 hours of that was waiting for the insurance guy to fill out our two forms. Still, this was by far the best, easiest border crossing we've encountered in all of Central America. No hassle, no helpers, no money changers - just a teeny border and friendly, helpful people. If you're crossing from Costa Rica to Panama, I highly recommend this crossing. The only costs were $1 per bike for fumigation and $15 per bike for insurance. Even better? The road after the crossing. The road on the Panama side of the crossing is fabulous. It's winding, twisty, up-and-down on perfectly paved roads for well over an hour. Some of the reports we read about this border crossing described this road as reminding the riders of Switzerland, and while we've never imagined palm trees in Switzerland, it did have a sort of "Sound of Music" feel in parts. But either way, it was simply beautiful, and a joy to ride. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5089/...9efc0b917f.jpg A nice sitting spot http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5049/...f18c9020d5.jpg Taking a drink Kay and I agreed that yesterday in Costa Rica and this stretch of the road in Panama today have been some of the best riding of the trip. Would gladly do again. And we agree that 42 from Rio Sereno to Volcan is a must-ride road for anyone who's riding across Central America. After Volcan, it turns into 41 and it's not as nice… but the stretch from Volcan to Rio Sereno is simply spectacular. After we met up with the Pan Americana, things got slightly less interesting. A guy in the hotel we stayed in at Granada recommended a hotel for us in David, but we didn't see it from the Pan Americana and neither of us was impressed enough with David to want to get off the main road and go hunting for it. The whole area around there was kinda… meh. It made us feel like the ride across Panama would be just a grind. A bit further along the Pan American, though, things got prettier again and we didn't regret our decision to continue further, even though we were both tired and my shoulder was bothering me. There are mountains off to the left for much of the stretch from David to Santiago, and it's really pretty in places. Not at all like we'd expected the Pan Americana would be. Rode into Santiago just at sunset and tried a couple of hotels until we found a *relatively* cheap place. Honestly, things have been *very* expensive since we arrived in Costa Rica. I miss the hotels in Guatemala, Honduras and Mexico. (i.e. we've been paying as much or more for hotels here in Costa Rica/Panama as we did in the States.) Our dinner choices without saddling back up on the bikes, which neither of us felt inclined to do, consisted of KFC or McDonalds. So sad. We chose KFC as the lesser of two evils, and I've gotta say - after all of the delicious chicken we've had here in Central America, KFC was just wrong. I don't know what they do to the chicken to make it taste like that but give us back the food from Mexico. We agree that the Mexican food was the best, and we miss it. And Mexica tortillas - OMG. Seriously so good. We made very good time today, so it looks like we'll be hitting Panama City tomorrow. Then it's time to figure out the logistics of getting the bikes to Girag and flying over the Darien to start our SA adventure! We won't fly out of Panama City ourselves until we're sure the bikes have gone, because we don't want to get to Columbia only to find that they're stuck here, so we're not sure how long we'll have to be in the city (i.e. when our bikes will go out.) But we're *this* close to South America now, and this is where the adventure enters a whole new phase! Hopefully the time in Panama City will be enough for my shoulder to heal, Kay's back to fully heal (it's still stiff and sore) and the new sunburn I've acquired today to fade a bit. Maybe we'll even get to wash our stinky, nasty motorcycle gear! And there's some work I should get done for a client before we wander off into "maybe not have internet for long time" land. We're here in Panama, and we've made it through Central America! Now South America awaits! |
Day 49 - Santiago, Panama to Bogota, Columbia
The day started out innocently enough. We got up. Researched places to stay in Panama City. Ate breakfast at the McDonalds next to our hotel and loaded up the bikes. We set off a bit later than we'd planned - didn't get on the road until 10:20AM. But we weren't that far from Panama City, so we knew we could make the city today and we thought we might be able to get to Girag to confirm what we needed to do to ship the bikes and find out what day they'd go out.
The ride to Panama City wasn't bad. It was friggin hot, though. It was in the 80s when we left Santiago at 10 am and my temperature gauge read over 100 at speed riding into Panama City. When we stopped in traffic, my gauge maxed out. Speeds on the road were decent - a lot of 60/80KPH, and even a few 100KPH stretches, which is around 60MPH. Funny thing about the riding we've been doing - the speeds have been so slow through Central America that we've gotten used to going slow. So when we get a 60MPH speed limit, it feels like we're going FAST and it actually takes work to maintain that speed. Stopped for a bathroom at McDonalds again around lunch time, and decided that while we were there we should eat food, since it was lunch time. While we were pondering what to order, a couple approached us and started asking about where we were from and about the bikes and our trip. It turns out they're from Oregon but own a place on the beach near David. We had a nice little chat with them over lunch, and told them about some of the places we plan to see in South America, and I got excited about it all over again because we're THIS CLOSE to South America! We're in Panama! Back on the road and into Panama City shortly after 2pm. Alas, we have no routable GPS maps of Panama City, and we only had a vague idea of where the airport was (northeast of the city) so it took a few false starts, but eventually we found a road leading toward a suburb that was in the direction of the airport. Once we were on that road, we started seeing signs for the airport. Yay! It took us over 2 hours just to find the road to the airport, and by the time we did, the gas lights had come on in the bikes. We were trying to run the bikes quite low on gasoline so we wouldn't have to drain them when we got to the airport, and I was all in favor of going on with the gas lights on, but Kay wanted to put a little bit of gas in so we wouldn't run out en route. He got his way and we put slightly less than half a gallon in each bike ($3 total). Once we started seeing signs for the airport, it was fairly easy to navigate there. Except the cargo stuff isn't in the main terminal, but is someplace away from the main space. Kay had researched this last night and had a map of where we needed to go for Girag, so we followed the signs and slowly made our way around the airport - only to run into a detour. The road around the airport was blocked, so we had to detour into a residential neighborhood along with about a bazillion cars and buses and taxis, everyone going a different way to try to get around the blockage. It was insane. We took a lot of turns and one U-turn and eventually found our way back out of the neighborhood and onto the road around the airport. And rode. And rode. The airport in Panama City is surprisingly big, and you have to drive around three quarters of it to get to the cargo area. But eventually we found that, too (sorta stumbled into it, in fact) and checked in with the police and then made our way to Girag. At this point it was around 4:45PM and we were both thinking they'd be closed, and neither of us felt like dealing with going back into the city to find one of the hostels we'd looked up this morning, so we were prepared to suck it up and pay the outrageous fees for a room near the airport just so we could try again early in the morning. But surprise! Girag was open, and Madeline told us the bikes would go out tonight. TONIGHT! What? We were totally unprepared for that. We were expecting to spend several days hanging out in Panama City, waiting for the bikes to ship. We planned to do laundry, and maybe wash our motorcycle gear, and I needed to get some work done, and we were going to wander around a bit and meet up with some ADV folks who are in Panama City. But if the bikes were going out tonight, could we go out tonight? Madeline nodded, and Kay borrowed the computer while the guy was filling out our airbills and confirmed that there were flights out of Panama City to Bogota tonight! So we hastily threw some things from the panniers into Kay's Wolfman Dry Duffle (laptops, my sleeping bag, toiletries, cords for charging stuff, clothes for tomorrow) and removed the mirrors from our bikes, per Madeline's request. She also asked us to take off the windscreens, and Kay told her it was a PITA so she said don't worry about it. Now I'm just hoping I don't wind up with a broken windscreen. We paid Madeline ($901.28 for each bike) and she made us out receipts, and then told us they'd do the airbills in the other office and left us. So we went out and waited by the bikes, thinking of things we should do or secure or grab before shipping them. Whilst we were loitering and waiting for the airbills, a guy came over and asked us about the gasoline in the motos. We confirmed "solo un pequito" - just very little gasoline - in the motos. He looked skeptical. Kay confirmed and told him that the gas light was on. He wanted to see. Kay turned the key but explained that our motos have no gas gauge so we couldn't show him. He mimed that the bikes could explode if there's too much gas in them. In the end, he walked off, shaking his head, as though he didn't believe us. The airbills were taking forever and we still had to check the bikes out with customs, so Kay went to check on the airbills and I waited with the bikes. And waited. And waited some more. Eventually Kay came out with the airbills and saddled up on my bike to take the paperwork to customs, and two of the Girag guys came over and told us we also needed to disconnect the batteries on the bikes. Bummer. The design on the F650 is a PITA to disconnect the batteries - you have to remove the seats, remove 6 screws, and remove a piece of the fairing just to access the battery (and you have to remove more screws and all the fairing to do anything complicated with the battery). So Kay took the paperwork to customs while I disconnected the battery on his bike. He returned just as I was buttoning his bike back up, so I let him finish while I disconnected the battery on mine. Batteries disconnected, the guy from Girag came over and asked us to sign paperwork saying that they'd received the bikes, and put stickers on the bikes - I assume denoting the location, etc. He confirmed that this was all and we were done, and Kay asked him to call us a cab. It was then 6:45PM, and we thought we might be able to make the 8:20PM flight to Bogota, so we had the taxi take us to the airport. Arrived at the passenger terminal at about 7:10PM and found the line for "All Flights". It was surprisingly difficult to convey to the guy at the counter that we needed to *buy* tickets. "Do you have your reservation?" he asked. And when we said no reservation, he got a supervisor to try to look us up, and the supervisor apparently couldn't find us in the system. "No, that's because we need to buy tickets" we tried to explain. The supervisor got it and showed the guy how to sell us tickets. Apparently they don't get a lot of people wandering up to the airport these days to buy tickets. He didn't seem to know how to process the transaction. 50 minutes later, we had tickets, boarding passes, we had checked Kay's dry duffle and my dry sack, and they'd boxed and shrink-wrapped our helmets ($9 US) to have us check those, too. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5213/...124612a7da.jpg Insta-checkable helmets It was 8:06PM, and we discovered we had tickets for the 9:10PM flight to Bogota, and it was boarding at 8:20. And apparently we got Business Class tickets. We hadn't asked for them, and they hadn't specified - we didn't find it out until he gave us the tickets and at that point we didn't want to deal with trying to get coach, so we just sucked it up. Made our way quickly to the security check after only a perfunctory check at immigrations (and no stamp out from Panama!) and ran into some troubles at security. They kept telling us to take everything out of our pockets, etc. but we were wearing our motorcycle gear and we have knee armor (and I have foam at my hips, too) and they wanted us to take that out. Kay explained that we'd have to take the pants off to take the armor out, and the guy indicated we'd have to go off to the side, apparently, and show the security people. Which might entail taking our pants off. We waited while a woman went through Kay's tank bag. Twice. She took everything out, one by one, looked at it, and put it all back in. And then did it all again. No-one even so much as unzipped my tank bag, but they examined Kay's in thorough detail. And his Camelbak. A security guy seemed particularly interested in our caribiners - he took them out and examined them one by one. But only Kay's - they didn't touch the three that were in my bag. Then we both had to go off to the side and show people our knee armor. Kay had to stand in the open and bend his pants sorta inside out, and a woman took me behind a screen and had me pull the legs of my pants up until she could see and examine the knee armor. Which she did, in detail. She felt it quite thoroughly, but was apparently satisfied that it was slightly flexy and appeared to be what we said it was. They told us we could go, and then the security guy started asking questions. How long were we in Panama? Did we like it? Panama was very beautiful - did we agree? We weren't there long so we couldn't tell him much, but we mentioned that we thought the area near Rio Sereno and Vulcan was very beautiful, and he agreed. Had a little chat (in Spanish) about our trip, and then he waved us on our way. I'm guessing they don't get people in motorcycle gear through security very often. Made it to the gate just as they were starting to board. We both had to go to the bathroom but couldn't see any nearby, so we figured we'd just use the bathroom on the plane. Luckily, since we were in business class, we got to board first and we both used the bathroom well before we started to taxi. Kay has flown business once before, but it was my first time flying business, and can I just say "DAYUM!!!" There's SO MUCH MORE ROOM in business class. Our plane was two seats on each side of the aisle in business, and three on each side of the aisle in coach. We had more leg room and space for our stuff in the overhead compartment. And while we were waiting for boarding, the stewardess brought us orange juice! Just for sitting on the runway! http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5214/...4d01e7f0f5.jpg Tired but happy. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5218/...54c911b410.jpg Still not quite sure how I ended up here... As the flight began, she started taking orders for snacks. Snacks? We got snacks on an hour-long flight? This would never happen in the States. Or maybe it's just because I've never flown business class before. We hadn't had a chance for dinner and neither of us ate particularly much at our McDonalds lunch so we were psyched for food. We both got turkey wraps, which came with salad and little pieces of chocolate cake, and were surprisingly tasty. Score for business class! We also discovered, after we boarded, why we had business class - the flight was FULL. There probably weren't any coach seats left. While neither of us would have chosen to spend the extra money on business for this flight, it was a nice luxury. Disembarked in Bogota and had a surprisingly quick trip through immigration, although they seemed perplexed how we could be arriving in Columbia at 11PM with no hotel and no contact information for friends. The immigration guy had to ask the girl next to him what to put, and I think she just put something generic. But he stamped our passports, and we were officially in South America! Headed out through security again, and had to declare our nothing at customs (who was also perplexed how we could have no address in Columbia) and then I waited in line at the money changer. They'd take our US dollars and our Costa Rican Colones, but not our leftover Honduran Lempiras or Nicaraguan Quetzales. So we still have Lempiras and Quetzales, but we got enough money for tonight, at least. While I was waiting in line at the money changer, I saw a guy standing on the outside of the terminal with a sign for a hotel. Kay and I had no plans for a hotel - we hadn't planned to be in Bogota at all yet and had left the South America book in Kay's panniers, so we had no real info. So we asked the guy about the hotel, and he told us $60 US for the hotel. He made some calls and then told Kay that the hotel was full due to a convention, but he'd found us another hotel that had a vacancy. And he had a guy who could drive us there. So we waited around for the guy, which was a taxi but didn't have a meter, and the guy drove us to an unmarked building in a residential neighborhood "cinco minutos" from the airport. (We'd told them that we were looking for a place nearby because we'd be returning tomorrow.) He then asked us for $10 for driving to the hotel, and then told us to stay in the cab while he went inside. He came out a few minutes later and asked for $60 us. We paid him in pesos (apparently Columbia uses pesos, too) and he then told us to wait again and went back inside. He came out a minute later, and I saw him giving the hotel guy one of the three bills we'd given him - so he clearly trippled the charge and kept the rest for himself, and the hotel guy got a fraction of what we paid. Still, we arrived in Bogota at 11:30PM with no hotel and no idea where to go, so it could have been a lot worse. After the money changed hands, the guy had us come inside and showed us the room. It really looks like a guy's house that has a few rooms with bathrooms, and he's calling it a "hotel." There are no keys for the doors, although they have locks inside (push-button locks) but our room has a bed and a bathroom with a shower and a toilet. And a slightly… unusual… decor. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5212/...a7ebeef982.jpg Pimp room baby. The cab driver asked if we needed anything else, and we asked if they had bottled water - the guy brought us a pitcher of water from the sink and a couple of glasses, which we're afraid to drink because we don't know if it's filtered and our filter is in one of the panniers. The cabbie asked if we needed towels, etc. and after we'd gotten everything we needed, he asked for a tip. The nerve! He charged us for the cab ride (more than we should have been charged, I suspect) and got half the price he charged us for the room, and then he asked for a tip on top of that! But still. We arrived in Bogota at 11:30PM with no place to stay and no clue where to go, and got a clean room with a shower and a toilet where we can lay our heads and do some research before returning to the hotel tomorrow. It could have been a lot worse. It's comparable or less than we would have paid at an airport hotel in Panama City, and now we're here and the bikes should be here and we can go pick them up in the morning. In the end, after the cab driver had left us alone in the room and closed the door behind him, Kay and I just had to look at each other and laugh. Here we are, in South America, in some crazy pimp room, in some guy's house, waiting for morning so we can pick up our bikes. When the door closed, our eyes met and we started laughing. We couldn't help it. This is the stuff of adventure. And we seem to have a habit of landing on our feet, for which I'm quite grateful. Dunno how far we'll make it tomorrow, but neither of us is inclined to hang around in the city. Kay is currently researching destinations as I need someplace I can spend a couple of days and get some work done, but we're here! We've made it! We're in South America, in Columbia, and the second part of our trip is about to begin! |
Great Stuff Guys!
One question, How much were the passenger tickets to Colombia? |
Quote:
We would have taken coach but as far as we can figure there weren't any coach seats left. |
Day 50 - Bogota Colombia to Bogota Colombia
Yesterday had a mind of its own and the results were dizzying. Today was similar, and radically different.
We packed our things and left the pimp room in a cab, sans breakfast. It was a residential area and there simply wasn't anywhere to go for desayun. Someone asked if it was a per-hour hotel. We're not really sure. The cabbie did the negotiating and took 2/3 of the total for himself. From one perspective you could be pissed because we got charged 3 times as much as the room cost. On the other hand, we asked for a $60 a night room (you try finding something cheaper near any international airport and see how far you get) and we were given a $60 room. So, off to Girag Bogota. It wasn't hard to find. Just get the cabbie to take you to the Carga terminal and look for the long brick building. Girag's sign is near the middle. As soon as we have our stuff out of the cab there's a woman waving at us from a little window with a slot. She hands us their end of the airbill for each bike and sends us off to customs insisting that we must both go, but that we can throw our stuff just inside the door by the security guard. We wander off to customs, which is not "across the street" as all the other reports claim. It's a smaller blue glass standing in front of the large blue building you can see from Girag. Walk up to, and past, the big blue building and when you you do you'll see the smaller building in front of it. Go in. Go to the third floor. Walk up to the first desk where the person isn't busy and tell them you have two motocycletas for import. They'll forward you on to the appropriate person. Now. If you're smart, and prepared, you'll ask Girag to make you a photocopy of the papers they told you to take to customs as well as a copy of the page with the Colombian immigration stamp in your passport. We didn't know this. We just knew we'd need "some copies". So we hand the guy photocopies of our registrations, and Passport (which also had the license on it). And, because we had most everything, he took pity on us, and took us downstairs to make copies. Turns out they moved the copier and he had to go make them himself but hey, we didn't have to walk back to Girag. :) Back upstairs he flips through photocopies of old imports to see examples of how to do ours, prods our passports and notices that immigrations gave us a Transit permit for 3 days, and the day you enter counts even though there was only about an hour of it left. Today was day two and it was approaching noon. There was no way in hell that we could make it to the Equador border in the remaining day. And, we didn't want to, either. He sends us off to the airport (just down the road) to attempt to rectify it but he's leaving in two hours so we may have to deal with someone else. We decide we'd rather not so instead of walking we just hop a taxi and pay about $3 to get back to the airport ASAP. Go in, find immigration, see that it's behind security, talk to an army looking dude and explain that we don't need to fly we just need immigrations. He points us to an office to the side of security, we go in, explain the situation, and a very helpful man who speaks english (we could have done it in Spanish but it was much easier to just go straight for English in this instance) gets us 60 days because we told him we wanted to enjoy Colombia. But, we know why we got the transit, and we know how to keep you from getting it. Know the name of a hotel in advance. That's it. If you don't know where you're staying they haven't a clue how to deal with you so they give you transit. It doesn't matter what the name of the hotel is, or if you actually stay there, just make sure there's some hotel, or person you can give them a name and city of. Last night we looked up where we're staying in Cali (Hostel Casa Blanca) and used that. (Dachary's note: Personally, I suspect it was simply a communication error. We told them that we were coming back tomorrow to pick up our motorcycles, but I think they only got the "coming back tomorrow" part and that's why they gave is transit instead of tourist. I think they thought we were just flying out again the next day.) When you get your stamp they will write "Touristo 60" on it, or something like that. For us they wrote "Trasit 3" which we didn't think to check because we told them we wanted at least 30 days and that we were tourists and they didn't tell us they were going to screw us, or that they'd given us only three days. Anyway, run to the food court because we're starving, grab sandwiches, grab a cab back to customs (he had no clue where it was but we showed him) and back to a semi-surprised customs dude. He clearly wasn't expecting us back so quickly. Who does some typety typety and then, even though he's sitting in a totally modernized office, surrounded by computers and laser printers, pulls out two special pads and some carbon paper. He takes one sheet from the first pad and manually fills out a long form describing the bike. He takes three sheets from the other pad, shoves carbon paper between them, and fills out a different form containing mostly the same information and has me sign each. Then repeat the whole thing for Dachary's bike. He then starts collating all the copies and forms and everything and realizes he has a copy of the passport with the transit note and not the updated tourist note, and, once again, takes pity on us, and himself, and runs downstairs and makes new copies of that page of our passports. As we're finishing up I ask him, out of curiosity, how much easier it would be if we were using a Carnet. His reply is something of a shock. Not only would it be more complicated he says, it would cost $400 US instead of the $0 US it costs doing it without a Carnet. Now, maybe he was mistaken. He obviously hadn't gone through this process very often but… Including about forty-five minutes spent running to the airport and dealing with immigrations again, it took about two and half hours, but we still weren't done. Back to Girag, eat our sandwiches, go inside and wait for someone to handle us, who takes us upstairs to a secretary who calls another Girag office, and hands the phone to us, where the woman on the other end asks us to send her an e-mail… "I can't send you an E-mail. I'm in the Girag office and don't have a computer." … "Oh, we'll it's going to cost… " "No, we've already shipped the bikes" "Oh, well go to gate…" "No, we're IN the Girag office IN Bogota RIGHT NOW." "Oh, well talk to (some name I've forgotten)." …. Seriously?! I mean, the secretary AT Girag called her and got her on the line to talk to us before I even said "hello". Anyways, they say the person will be back in fifteen minutes so I run to the bathroom, but then the person appears before Dachary can since the room is locked. Downstairs and back to waiting by security, where we wait, and Dachary makes the mistake of asking if she can go use the bathroom instead of just walking back upstairs. Security woman can't leave her post but asks one of the workers. No. not allowed. Go use the ones in the parking lot. "No, those aren't open." (we checked before we came in)…. Eventually the woman who gave us the papers in the morning comes out, the security guard says something to her and she hands us papers to sign. We do, and then, in a quiet voice the lady looks at us and says "Baño?" I nod to Dachary, and they quietly go back upstairs. We grab our stuff, the lady grabs our helmets for us, and we make our way to the warehouse where our bikes are waiting for us. Reconnect the batteries (****ing BMW and their six screws and removal of the oil cap and seat to get to the battery), reattach the little Wunderlich Wind Deflector they removed from Dachary's. We should have though of that. Instead we had just folded it down. Now it's missing a little plastic spacer where it clamps on to the plastic, but it appears to be holding ok. We lost a screw somewhere during the ride to Colombia though. Anyway, considering that the windshields could have been cracked or broken in half as a result of our being too lazy to remove them we didn't really think this such a bad outcome. While we're doing this they wheel in a 1200GS With "Mustang Joe" on the right side of the tank. They tell us it's a Canadian biker's and he's doing the americas south to north. I grab a card, write him a note wishing him the best of luck, and stick it to the plastic wrapping his bike with a couple Corporate Runaways stickers. We're not sure if he put the plastic wrap around the bike or Girag did, so maybe they'll remove it before he sees it, but I didn't want to stick it to his actual bike, because I wouldn't want people sticking things to MY bike without permission… http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5300/...8f39996e75.jpg Bikes Safe and Sound at Girag Bogota Speaking of sticking things to the bike… Do you see the little white sticker on our front fenders? It's just a handwritten note with the airbill number, or something like that, but the adhesive is vicious. and when you try to peel it off the paper just rips; something Dachary discovered right away, but I left the sticker on mine. We get the batteries reconnected, load the bikes up again, check the tire pressure and then get ready to go. We're not sure where to go. The front of the building is just loading bays about 3-4 feet off the ground, but the back of the building seems to lead onto the airfield. Dachary suggests they might have a ramp, but I've seen nothing to indicate a ramp so I head toward the airfield. A guy sees me going that way and motions us toward the front where the loading bays are located, and starts pulling out a ramp. Ok. This ramp is wood laid across steel reinforcement, and looks pretty solid, so we're happy. But when they prop it up, the top of the ramp is about 6" above the floor of the loading bay. So they set a pallet in front of it, and a 2"X4" board on top of the pallet to create "steps" leading up to the ramp. I just say "**** it," cross my fingers, and then go for it, and make it down ok. Dachary pulls up and then puts the bike on the sidestand, and calls for me to come drive it down. Apparently she saw me wobble a bit when I went over the pallet and 2"x4" and decided it was better for me to drop the bike than to try it herself. She told me later that she felt she lost all cred with the Girag crew (she'd reconnected the battery on her own bike and looked generally competent before) but didn't have the machismo to care because she's a girl - men expect her to not be able to ride a big bike like this so she said she doesn't feel as bad looking like a girl in front of them. She said it was more important to her to get the bike down safely. But she also said that she was annoyed at herself because if I hadn't been there, she would have done it on her own - so I told her next time to do it on her own. She's gotten better but still lacks confidence in some situations on the bike. Eventually we're off, and on our way to find the obligatory SOAT insurance. The thing is, that while you can buy it at just about every gas station, it's really hard to find somewhere that can sell it to you for less than a year. I'd looked it up on Google Maps the night before, and the address looked really straight-forward to get to from the airport. So we set out, and immediately after leaving Girag my gas light goes on. Ok, I've got about 30 miles. Should be plenty. No worries… we continue looking, find we can't actually get onto the roads we want, get somewhere in the neighborhood, we think, and discover a gas station. Ooh! It's now about 4:30 and while we're there a cab pulls up at the other side of the pump, and backs one rear wheel up a little ramp they have next to each pump, which tilts the gas cap way up and … i dunno… lets them fit more gas in? Anaway, I take the opportunity to ask the people how to get to the intersection I need. They say something I can't quite figure and point in the direction I thought it was. Then they ask the cabbie, who does some complicated motions with his hands…. Ah yes… mmm… How 'bout I just pay you to go there and we'll follow you? That works. We go, and we go, and we go, around, down, back, over, around, behind, through… Is he just ****ing with us? … loop, one way, one way, back, over stop on some industrial back road where a shitty semi driver has wedged his semi across the road so thoroughly even the tiny motos can't get past. Wait… Wait…. Go and voilla. We're there… except… it's just some random intersection with nothing useful on it. Did I mention this is like a crazy video game ride? Following a cabbie in a major city during rush hour is crazy. Two people following the cabbie is even more crazy. Especially when they're motorcycles, and everyone else is used to pushing motos around and expecting that they'll get out of the way. At one point we lose the cabbie and Dachary has to do some crazy Frogger moves to get in and between the traffic, and I follow - I was so proud of her! She's leveling up! But re: the insurance - ****. It's almost 5:00 pm now, everything's about to close, and dark will be here soon. We need a hotel. "Know of any economical hotels with parking for the bikes?" He starts suggesting hotels like the Marriot (too pricey) and others which I've never heard of and I'm like "Whatever you recommend." And he heads off. We stop and he motions us to stay while he runs in, talks to the bellhop, and comes out. Nope too pricey. We drive down the road, and repeats the process. Nope. Too pricey. Once more and we're at the Hotel San Rafael* which is 80,000 pesos ($40 US), has internet, a Steak house a couple doors down, and a garage that'll fit about two compact cars with locked steel doors you can't see through, and includes breakfast. Oh yeah… The Cabbie chats with us for a bit, and gives us a card for the company that sells insurance to the taxis suggesting that we go to the url on the card and find a local office. He doesn't speak a lick of english, but we don't care. He's awesome. I ask him the total and he says 27,000 pesos ($13.50 US). I give him 40,000 ($20 US) because he has gone way above and beyond. And no, he wasn't cutting deals with the hotels, he was just being damn helpful. There ended up being some confusion at the desk, they thought we wanted two rooms even though I repeatedly specified just one. We paid too much because we were so not going to look for another place at this point, but then resolved it and they gave us money back. We head for the ATM down and around the corner as we're almost totally without cash at this point, and then chill on the upstairs patio of the Red Angus Steak House where, for the first time in two days, we feel we can stop and breathe… Back in the room we chill with some Dr. Who, then diligently stop to do our research to find where the hell we can actually buy this freaking insurance. But, we find that the Wi-Fi password is incorrect. I go out to the lobby. He assures me it isn't. I bring out my laptop, click "show password" and type it in, and assure him it is, in fact, "invalid". Ahh… Yeah, no. He can't do jack shit about it but "manyana" the other guy will be here and we can resolve it… I go back to the room, break the news to Dachary, and decide to go use the hotel computer in the lobby. Sure that's fine he tells me. I sit down. Oh by the way. It's 2,000 pesos an hour. What? No. Screw that. I don't want to pay you for the fact that you've ****ed up the password to your own Wi-Fi. I go back to the room. Dachary agrees that it sucks but rightly points out that it's a lot better than the alternatives. I go back, and confirm that I still have to pay even though the Wi-Fi is "roto". "Yup." he says with a smile, but I can pay for just half an hour if I want. I grumble and hand over the 1000 pesos and start some hardcore googling. The computer doesn't have shit for ram, and eventually Internet Exploder explodes. I've got ten minutes left and I notice an icon for Chrome on the desktop. Wish i'd know that was there before. More googling. More cross checking. I walk away with four addresses, and about two minutes left. Back to the room, where we attempt to sleep after debating if getting our sleeping pads and putting them on the hard tile would be softer than the bed or not. We decide it would be about the same, and proceed to toss and turn until about half an hour before the alarm goes off. Overall, not a great day. But it did give us a wonderful example of the generosity, and helpfulness you keep hearing about the Colombian people, as well as a very tasty, and relaxing dinner. And, Dachary totally leveled during our follow-the-cab escapade. Side Note: In our experience it's the day staff who actually has a clue about the net connection. The first thing you do when you get into your room should be to check that the password they gave you actually works, because if you check after the shift change you may be screwed. It's one of our new rules. * Hotel San Rafael is at Avda. La Esperanza la miasma Calle 24 N. 43a-49, Barrio Quintaparedes, Bogotá, D.C. There are a bunch of other hotels on that street too. Just keep driving and pulling over in the driveways until you find one that's to your liking. |
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Day 51 - Bogota, Colombia to Ibagué, Colombia
Neither of us slept particularly well last night, and today started out with us tired and uncomfortable after a night of tossing and turning. We'd set the alarm for 7AM so we could get out and acquire insurance before we needed to check-out, and that turned out to be perfect, because by 7:05AM, the hotel was full of noise; people talking, laughing and generally having a good time in the dining area just around the corner from our room. Even with the "windows" closed, it was loud. We couldn't have slept any later if we wanted to.
We decided to pack our stuff so it was ready to put on the bikes when we returned, and then head out in a cab armed with the addresses of three potential insurance places. After yesterday's disastrous search and playing "follow the cab" in the middle of Bogota, neither of us wanted to repeat that, so we thought it'd be safer to do our searching from *inside* the cab. Asked when check-out time was on our way out to hail a cab, and the guy at the desk told us 2PM. We understood, but Kay had a hard time believing it was 2PM as most places we've stayed have check-out between 10-12, so the guy eventually had to write it down before we'd believe it. Walked out the front door of our hotel armed with our bike paperwork and hailed a cab instantly. Kay walked to the street and stuck his arm out and BAM! There was a cab. Kay showed the cab driver the address of the most-likely insurance company; Seguros Suramericana* - because it was a major headquarters on the 16th floor of a building, and while we had no verification that it was there after 2008 (the most recent post on Horizons Unlimited), it seemed unlikely that a major insurance company would move out of a skyscraper office. It also opened at 7:30AM, and as it was now 8:20AM, this played a role in where we'd go. The cabbie knew the address and indicated he could take us there, and that the cost would depend on traffic and how slow we had to go. We got in, and had a pleasant commute through rush-hour traffic in Bogota as the cabbie was listening to classical music. Classical has a surprising impact on rush hour. It makes traffic much less stressful and driving in rush hour unexpectedly enjoyable. We attempted to ask the cabbie a couple of times who was the composer, but we got out of him that it was a 17th or 18th century composer - definitely not Vivaldi. The cab delivered us right to the skyscraper, which we were awed to discover was just a few blocks from the face of the mountains themselves. The city of Bogota abuts the mountains near there; they've built and built up the mountains slopes are too vertical to build anymore. It's a really awesome sight, though. Found the address with no trouble and told the security guard we were looking for Seguros Suramericana. He indicated we should check in with reception. She kept telling us that she needed our documents, but when we asked her which documents, she just kept repeating "documentos" over and over until she eventually waved us on and told us a number that in no way translated to "16th floor." But that's what the instructions on Horizons Unlimited told us, so we figured we'd try there first. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5060/...b295c26397.jpg Bogota Arrived at 16, walked out the doors and turned to the right - and there was Seguros Suramericana! Right where it was supposed to be! We were inclined to do a little victory dance right there, but we wisely held ourselves in check while we walked into the office and explained to the girls there that we needed motorcycle insurance. The first woman told us to walk down a few cubes to another woman, and that woman called another woman over to help us. (There was only one man that I saw in this office - the rest were women.) She wanted to sell us a year, but we explained that we were tourists and only wanted to buy one or three months (as those were the quantities we'd heard reports of buying). She had a hard time with that at first, but she went and asked her boss (the one man in the office) and he explained that she could do that, so she came back and asked for our customs paperwork, asked us if two months would be ok, since that's how long we had in our passports, and then told us to go have a seat while she processed the insurance. We went and had a seat. And admired the view of the city abutting the mountains from the 16th floor of Edificio Davivienda. And waited. And waited. And waited. About 50 minutes after we'd walked in the doors, the woman came over to us with some paperwork and indicated that it was time to see the cashier. Yay! During the waiting, I saw her on the phone several times and consulting with several other people in the office. Don't know if she was processing our paperwork the entire time or if she was doing other stuff, but it seemed to be an unusual request and I wouldn't be surprised if she was just having trouble with it. Paid the cashier with only some minor difficulties (i.e. we couldn't understand the number and asked her to write it down for us, and then she had to run off to find change when we produced our bills) and we had our SOAT insurance papers! Yay! Kay did a "we have insurance!" dance and I had to stop myself from cheering and disturbing the whole office. This was the final thing we needed to legally ride the bikes in Columbia, and therefore South America - and we had it! We and the bikes were free to ride in South America! At this point it was around 10AM and we hadn't had breakfast yet, and we didn't know how late our hotel served breakfast (which was included in our room cost, but we skipped it because we were anxious to get the insurance wrapped up) so we headed out of the building and found a convenient cafe nearby to grab breakfast. Got eggs with a variety of breads, a hot drink, orange juice, and hash browns. And when the menu said a variety of breads, we really got a variety of breads. They brought each of us a basket with various breads in them, including a lovely pastry type thing with DARK CHOCOLATE inside! Kay scarfed his down, and he's not usually much of a chocolate fan, so I knew it had to be good. I went for mine only to discover that it was 3/4 empty of chocolate, so Kay squeezed out some of his. Yay for surprise chocolate! The restaurant also had WiFi, so we used WiFi on my iPhone to plot a map course to get us out of Bogota, since neither of us had the vaguest idea of how to get out of the city from our hotel. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5132/...ff17736e20.jpg Bogota Street Art Grabbed a cab back to the hotel, which was much faster than when we went out, and quickly loaded the stuff onto the bikes and headed out. The front desk guy seemed interested in the bikes - he came out to watch us load up, and then back out of the garage and maneuver into the street. He kept commenting on how big our bikes are, and he seemed to understand that they were heavy - he mimed falling over at one point and what a PITA it would be to pick up, and we heartily agreed. Started the ponderous project of leaving Bogota at around 11:20AM. And surprisingly, with only one false turn which we quickly rectified when I realized we weren't going the right way, we made it out of Bogota proper by around 12:30AM! Yay! We were riding in South America! Once we were out of the city, we found ourselves on twisty mountain roads. And it was beautiful. It reminded me of some of the riding we'd done in Costa Rica, but Kay said he liked it better than Costa Rica - something about the shape of the mountains really appealed to him. I was surprised to discover when I was reading our South America book that Bogota was located in the Andes - I always think of the Andes as being further down South America. The mountains we were riding through didn't feel like what I expected the Andes to be. They were pointy at the top and had some deep valleys, but they were covered with trees. Not the Andes I imagined, but beautiful mountain riding. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5095/...30254eec17.jpg The road from Bogota The only thing that marred it was the slow traffic. Lots of large trucks driving slowly down the windey mountain roads. Technically the speed limits on most of the road were 40 to 50KPH, but it felt like a 60-70 road to me and that's what the rest of the traffic that wasn't trucks was trying to do. Kay was riding in front, as usual, and I kept urging him to go around. Even when the trucks were already speeding. And even when we weren't in a passing zone. He kept remarking "You've gone native, woman!" but I still maintain that I never suggested passing on a blind curve - only when it was safe. And the trucks were going SO SLOW! We stopped for lunch at a roadside restaurant just after La Mesa. It was after 1PM so we knew we should eat, but neither of us was particularly hungry after our late breakfast. However, they had meat on a stick, and there were a ton of cars there, so Kay suggested we follow our rule of stopping for meat on a stick and had a nice, tasty lunch. We each got the "three meats" plate, and realized too late that splitting one plate would have been enough for the two of us. I manfully ate all of my meat (chicken, beef, pork and chorizo), but couldn't finish the yucca side, the plantain, or the piece of corn flatbread. Kay, meanwhile - the actual "man" of the two of us - couldn't finish his meat and didn't even eat his potato, let alone the rest of the sides. But it was tasty meat. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5097/...d2e00f875b.jpg Mixed meat lunch http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5299/...fe415fecf3.jpg The bill, with treats Back on the road around 2:30 and we had descended over 1300 meters and the temperature had gone up again. Notably. In fact, it had gotten downright HOT. My temperature gauge was reading around 95 degrees and Kay's (which is in Celsius) read higher than that. And unfortunately, we kept getting stuck behind the slow trucks again going around 40KPH so we weren't getting any airflow and we were just hot. Did I mention hot? It was a big change from the 62 degrees of Bogota in the morning, or the 50 degrees while we were descending through the cloud cover on the drop down to La Mesa. On the way to the next town we encountered an oncoming bus passing a truck, probably over a double line, and heading straight for Kay. The bus didn't seem interested in applying brakes, and wasn't capable of speeding up enough to get by. Kay didn't feel like making it easy for the bus as a matter of principle ("He shouldn't be passing into oncoming traffic"), but eventually was forced to go to the side of the road. It wasn't so much scary as frustrating, but the fates were with us and I caught it all on video. The next notable destination on the road was Giradot, after which we'd turn east-ish to get over to a road that led down to Cali. In this part of Colombia, there aren't a lot of direct routes - you have to go over and around and sideways to get where you're going. Made it through Giradot relatively quickly - maybe an hour or less from La Mesa, in spite of the fact that it was twice the distance from where we'd left Bogota. My map indicated that we'd continue on to Espinal where we'd catch up with 40 over to Ibagué, but shortly after Giradot, we saw signs for Espinal 10KM down the road, and Ibagué off to the right. That didn't sound right. But they were signs for the next city on our route, so we followed them. Turns out the signs put us on a lovely four-lane divided highway. Which had to be new. There was practically nothing along the highway; we saw one gas station under construction (the sign was up but they were still working on the structure itself) and it was a lovely, fast ride. And surprisingly, from the highway, the view was beautiful. The mountains marched along off to our right, and soon we saw mountains ahead and to our left, too. A bit before Ibagué the highway ended (there was a sharp left and the highway itself continued straight for a bit but was blocked off and didn't appear to be going anywhere in particular) and we were back on what I assume was the old route 40. Got into Ibagué at around 4:30 and both Kay and I agreed that we felt like we hadn't been on the bikes long enough today, but we weren't foolhardy enough to attempt a mountain crossing at 4:30 in the evening. The South America book indicated we'd be crossing a very high pass on the road between Ibagué and Armenia (over 3600 meters) and seeing that we'd dropped in altitude significantly, that would have us climbing over a vertical mile between the two cities. We know better than to take a mountain road like that late in the evening (we've done it a couple of times - once in Mexico and once in Guatemala, and gotten stranded by darkness in little mountain towns both times) so in spite of the fact that we wanted to keep going, we started looking for a place to stay. Skipped the road leading to Armenia, and rode into Ibagué looking for a hotel. And rode. And rode. And didn't see a hotel. We followed the signs that said "Centro" but they left us surprisingly without a clue in a place called "Sena" and we still hadn't seen a hotel. We decided to turn around and head back toward the road to Armenia, and hope we'd pass a hotel there - but we saw a sign for a hotel on the right! We'd missed it before because the road was divided. We missed the turn itself, so we rode further until we could make a U-turn, rode back until we could make another U-turn, and this time we made it into the hotel. I could tell immediately when we pulled up that the hotel was out of our price range. It smelled too clean. Kay went in to check anyway, and apparently they kept coming down in price from about $210 but stopped at $100 US which is more than we're willing to pay. They did, however, suggest that we might ride into Ibagué centro to a hotel there that might be more economical. While we were debating whether Ibagué centro was actually the way the hotel told us to go, the concierge came out with a tourism map of Ibagué that had the hotel on it, as well as several others, and showed us how to go into town. We thought it seemed fairly easy so we headed off. Long story short, the map was very inaccurate and after much frustrating turning around and around on one-way streets, we finally found the hotel. Only to discover that it was also $100 US. Not very economical. They suggested yet another hotel that was down the road and around the corner for $40 US. Still high, but we were very overheated at this point and we'd been wandering around town for nearly an hour, so we just wanted someplace to stay. We got near the hotel and a guy came running out to tell us we needed to turn around and park at a drive we'd just passed, about 20 feet down the street before the hotel proper, which we couldn't reach because it's a one-way street. The other hotel had obviously called ahead. So we went down and had to do another series of ridiculous turns because they're all one-way streets around here, so it took another 5-10 minutes to circle around to the parking lot. And once we'd parked, a guy came over and told us we needed to move the motorcycles - we couldn't park there, and was horribly ambiguous as to where we *could* park them. We were hot and overheated but we moved the bikes and Kay went in to check on the hotel for us. 10 minutes later, he came back with a guy from the hotel to help us carry our stuff. Hauled everything back to the room (up some stairs into the hotel, and then up an old-fashioned elevator with a guy who has to operate it with a lever up to the 6th floor). Kay wanted to shower and change into clean clothes before we went out for dinner, but I didn't have any clean clothes to change into - that's one reason we were so keen to get to Cali, where we'll stay for a day or two - so I went back out without showering and in my motorcycle pants and boots, still feeling hot and overheated. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5300/...54920cdd3f.jpg Ibagué http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5296/...5c77bced4b.jpg Ibagué Wandered around until we found a decent restaurant, grabbed dinner, and Kay went to check on buying some pirated DVDs. He's been talking about wanting to see movies lately (i.e. something would remind him of something he'd seen in a movie, and he'd say "I want to see X movie now" but we don't have any movies with us and probably don't have the bandwidth to watch any streaming from Netflix.) So Kay went to look for a pirated DVD table we'd seen, which wasn't there anymore, but he spotted another one on the corner nearby and ended up buying Red and the newest Star Trek for $1.50 each. Walking back toward the hotel, we spotted another pirated movie guy and Kay bought Gulliver's Travels and Tron for $1 each. We may decide that the quality is so poor we'll just throw them away instead of watching them, but for $1 each, it was worth checking. And Kay is firmly of the opinion that one should bring a few favorite movies on a trip like this. Personally, I'm more a "favorite book" kinda gal - but movies require less work to look at after a long day of riding and spending an hour writing up a ride report, so video is definitely good. Did the obligatory "search for Diet Coke for Dachary" and found a supermercado (super market) a couple of blocks from our hotel that had a single bottle of Diet Coke in the fridge. I'm thinking it may be a bit more difficult to find here in South America. Then we headed back to the room, I showered and did some laundry, worked a bit, and then we wrote up ride reports for today and yesterday. And now it's 10:30PM and we've been up and going since 7AM, and didn't sleep well - and haven't had any downtime. I still want a Dr. Who before bed but it's late and I'm not sure we'll have time. Riding the bikes every day is a joy and I feel really lucky to be able to do a trip like this, but it's still nice to veg out and relax at the end of the day and we haven't really had time to sit still since before the fan died on Kay's bike in Costa Rica. We've been going pretty much constantly, all day, every day since then - snuck in a few episodes of Dr. Who but have generally been always researching stuff, doing stuff, or riding. I am VERY much looking forward to getting to Cali (tomorrow, if nothing goes wrong!) and relaxing for a day or two. I do have work to do for a client, but some relaxing is better than none at all. And hopefully we can wash our motorcycle gear while we're there. It stinks so bad now that we've put it out on our balcony just to keep it from stinking up the room like it did last night. So yeah. Trips like this aren't all glory. There's stinky motorcycle gear (dear God, you don't wanna smell the boots, but the jackets and pants are bad too) and too little relaxation, and legs and butts get sore after long stretches on the bike. But so far Colombia is beautiful and some of the riding on this trip has been glorious, so I definitely wouldn't trade it for sitting on the nice comfy couch at home. Lack of clean laundry and abundance of nasty, stinky gear notwithstanding. * The address of the insurance company in Bogota is Seguros Suramericana, Carrera 10, #28-49, Edificio Davivienda, Tower A, 16th floor. The important part to give your cab is the Carrera 10, #28-49, Edificio Davivienda. The hours are 7:30AM to 12:30PM and 1:30PM to 5:30PM. |
Day 52 - Ibagué to Cali Colombia
Today has been a hodgepodge of emotions.
We took the elevator down to the hotel lobby, and one of the bell-hops asked us to wait, then ran back up to check if we'd grabbed anything from the "minibar" (fridge of soda, beer, and assorted toiletries). When he came back down he informed the desk that we hadn't and they then informed us that they'd accidentally only charged us the rate for one person and they'd need another 8000 pesos (a little over $4). This, I felt, was bullshit. First off, hotel prices are entirely fictional to begin with. Especially the pricey ones. Second, it was absolutely clear there were two people who would be in the room, and they watched us both come in. They took down information from both passports. It was clear from the beginning that there were two of us. Third, when you do screw up and accidentally forget to charge someone a small part of your entirely fictional price you just leave it. It's not like they were loosing money on the deal. Then, when we get to the bikes and start loading up, the garage guard/attendant comes by and asks for the plastic plaque we'd been told to put on the bikes. I'd started to gently wedge it between dash and windshield and a corner had snapped off the other day. I figured they'd be somewhat annoyed but didn't think to point it out to the guard who'd just handed it to me. I should have, because todays guard was all annoyed and wanted money for it. I played stupid, and ignorant. I'm good at that. Eventually, with lots of intentionally confusing Spanish statements from me he said he'd go talk to the hotel. And, in the end they payed the 5,000 pesos for it. Which I felt good about because they'd pulled the bullshit with the 8,000. Packed up, with escape instructions from google confirmed by the bellhop we started our ride up into the mountains. Beautiful twisting roads that went up, around, back, and up some more; gradually at first, and then more steeply, and sharply. It was wonderful, or, it would have been, if not for the semis… the endless, overloaded semis creeping up ahead of us. We started out obeying most of the laws: passing only in designated areas, or long straightaways, but as the road became steeper and more windy those became few and far between, until eventually we were passing six semis at a time on the right, at speed, around blind corners, hoping that the shoulder would continue, and the trucks wouldn't swerve right until we made it to the front of the line. We rose to 3318 meters and then started down through the clouds that had become wedged against the far side of the mountain. The trucks were now creeping downward, engine braking in first and visibility dived to maybe fifty feet so we were a bit hesitant to try passing on either side. Eventually though the clouds thinned somewhat, along with our patience, and we went for it. It was brilliant. It was adrenaline filled, and it was something you should never tell your parents about. ;) (Dachary's note: Kay kept saying "You've gone native, woman!" yesterday when I was suggesting we pass in non-passing zones, etc. And yet today he was all like "Oh, they're going wide to the left - let's pass on the right!" Passing 6 semis on the right in a shoulder that may run out at any second (and occasionally did), btw? Friggin nerve-wracking and feels so wrong and yet… strangely glorious. I love riding a motorcycle. We made it up that mountain and back down again in a fraction of the time that a car would take because we could pass in tiny spaces where vehicles were never meant to pass. Oh yeah.) We made it to the outskirts of Armenia where we pulled over for another enormous tasty lunch with chorizo, Chicharrón, ground beef, rice, lots of red beans, a quarter of an avocado, a fried egg, some plantains, and a teeny tortillaish thing. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4127/...0b64e0c411.jpg Protien baby! Sadly, I wasn't feeling very meaty today, but I thoroughly enjoyed all the non-meat parts. I've also decided I'm not a fan of chicharrón, which is essentially sliced pig fat fried and held together by the skin… or, this version of it was. So, on we went, unsure if we'd venture back into mountains, or not. Instead we found minor ups and downs as we bore down on a lightning storm. It wasn't clear if the road would skirt around the edge, or head straight into it, but we decided to pull over when we saw a gas station and pull out the covers for our tank bags, and got a beep and a wave from a passing adventure rider. We both thought he'd probably turn around and come back to talk, but alas... We held off on the rain liners for our jackets because it was just too toasty to put them on "just in case", but soon thereafter it became quite clear that we were headed for the storm, and we pulled over and put them on. Neither of us bothered with the rain liners for our pants because neither of us really seems to care about our legs getting wet unless it's also cold out. Not one kilometer later we saw a line of raindrops in the road: big, hard, fast, splattery raindrops. They fell so quickly that Dachary started in with the "ouch! these hurt!" I didn't notice so much because the material in the BMW jacket is thicker than the RevIt, but soon even it wasn't enough as the rain intensified and even I was smarting. Our legs were wet within a couple minutes, which was fine, until a small rivulet started running down my left leg towards the boot. It hadn't occurred to me that the waterproof liner keeps the water out of the boot too. It's just been so long since I've ridden in rain… which is very odd for me as most years I'm regularly getting rained on. We discovered that in addition to potholes, speedbumps, and missing pavement, latin americans are also afraid of driving in the rain. We were the fastest things on the road, which, thankfully had a speed limit of 90kph (about 55 mph). We both have the Anakee tires on and they're brilliant in the wet. The only problem was the occasional slippery painted arrow on the road. They gripped, and held, and the peaks on our helmets kept an enormous percentage of the raindrops from our visors so we just plowed on, occasionally slowing when visibility and speed combined to make it a bit dangerous. But, we came through it, out onto the wide flat plains, with high speeds, and emerging sun. With nearly a hundred kilometers to go averaging about 90kph we we drying as we went. By the time we made Cali the shells of our jackets had nearly dried, although our legs and crotches were still damp. As per usual, we drove in circles for a while, closing in on our destination, the Hostel Casa Blanca. Along the way we asked directions, and a bicyclist tried to help, but didn't know where to go until someone else walked over and gave us perfect directions. The bicyclist took off and we followed the directions… the bicyclist was too. We ignored the directions at one intersection, as the street appeared to continue. It didn't It took a right, and then another right even though we were in a fairly standard grid of streets. I shit you not. Calle 26N in Cali continues around three sides of a block. The bike came back, waved, and we followed, although we were about to go that way anyway. At the end of the block we took an illegal right to pull into the driveway of Hostel Casa Blanca. The bicyclist hung around waiting for one of us to give him a tip for guiding us the two blocks to the hostel, and I gave him 2,000 pesos (about $1US) just to make him go away and not have to debate whether or not a tip was warranted. Inside I discover a rather nice hostel, with private rooms, as promised. With only one issue. No private bath. Now, we're not prudes, but our plan was to chill in Cali for three nights, and, quite frankly, we like being naked at night (neither of us brought pajamas), and being able to get up and pee when we feel like it without getting dressed first… especially in the middle of the night. Dachary was definitely not into the idea of staying in a place with a shared toilet and shower for three days. She didn't want to stay for one day, but we had no idea where anything else was that would have safe parking, and neither did the girl working the desk. Sadly, with the heat, the rain, and the long day, Dachary was pretty beat, and actively avoiding making any decisions. I managed to get an confirmation of sorts that she really didn't want to stay even one night, although she told me to "do what you want" with regards to it. So, we had two options: drive randomly around town looking for a hotel, or grab a cab and have them take us somewhere. Both involved getting on the bikes so I got her ready to mount up when the adventure rider who'd beeped at us earlier pulled up. He thought, as we did, that there were rooms and probably they'd just been reserved, and he had a reservation. I had confirmed that there were absolutely no rooms with a bathroom available. He said he'd go check if his had one. We'd told him we weren't interested in staying in a place with no connected bathroom, as our goal was to chill out and relax for a while, and I think he was implying we could have his room if it had a bath as he suspected. Regardless, he returned with the news that none of the rooms in the place, including his reserved one, had a bathroom. Alas… We chatted about our trips, gave him a card, and totally forgot his name, but he's from Montreal, and heading down to Santiago. Hopefully he'll drop us a note. Pulling out I did one of those slow motion zero speed tip overs, and a passer-by "helped" lift it, and with thanks, we started off heading "that way". Dachary didn't seem too pleased with the randomness, and total lack of hotels we were finding and we discussed where best to hail a cab when we pulled up next to one at a stop light. I asked him if he knew where a "hotel economica" with parking for the bikes was, he thought a minute, and had an idea. I said good, and told him to go, and that we'd follow him. And we did… the first place was like four blocks from a parking lot, which doesn't work for us. The second looked outrageously priced, but had no parking, the third was outrageously priced, and had parking. We talked with the guys outside and they suggested that we should go in and negotiate the price. I suggested that there was no way they'd come down from 350,000 to my upper target price of 80,000 ($40), and they agreed, discussed, and eventually sent me in to the lobby anyway to see what could be worked out. As with most high end hotels, the staff are totally helpful even if you're not staying there. The receptionists debated, and the one who also spoke English started calling around. Outside we'd determined that there probably weren't any hotels in town, with parking, for under 150,000. They confirmed this inside, and I suggested that i'd maybe be willing to pay 120,000 if they knew of anywhere. While she called I ran out to give Dachary a heads up and see which would be worse for her, paying that much or staying at the hostel. Getting past the "do whatever you want it's your money" was a little frustrating, but eventually I discerned that yes, the lack of attached bathroom really bothered her. As I went back in the lobby, she was on the phone with a place for 121,600 with parking. She was disheartened because it was above 120,000. I told her it was close enough, thanked her greatly, and ran out with the address she'd written down and handed it to the cabbie. I put on the helmet, which connected me to Dachary's voice via the headset, where she informed me that some guy had gone out of his way to come up to her in the street and say something to her that she didn't understand, then stare at her smugly awaiting a response. He walked off after her "no entiendo" and the cabbie came over and informed her that the man had called her… he paused, and almost apologetically, mimed being fat. Then followed up with (in english) "All the women in Cali are beautiful." We suspect the cabbie was just saying that by means of explanation, but wasn't really using his brain when he did. We pulled out… There wasn't much to say besides "What The ****?!" and "I'm sorry love." The cabbie found the hotel, which is swank, although the room is small and after the bellhop showed us to the room Dachary got a big hug. I went to get the bags, and she went to cool off in a shower. Then I got the sweat off me the same way, and wandered out for food as Dachary was thoroughly depressed and not wanting to leave the room. I didn't really blame her. Burgers were found, and cooked, while I read a fashion mag from 2006. There was one on most of the tables, and all were ancient. Apparently that month Michael Jackson was spotted walking around in a black Burka with his son's entire head wrapped in a black turban above his yellow t-shirt and jeans. I swear as soon as the man died everyone conveniently forgot how freaking tweaked he was. Unfortunately, I wasn't paying attention, and my american mindset assumed that when you ordered burgers you got fries, or maybe chips, too, but no. Just burgers. "Screw it." I thought. I've been gone a long time, and Dachary may be worrying. I grabbed cokes went back to the room. Where a disappointed Dachary bit into a displeasing burger. She only ate half of it before declaring that she couldn't eat anymore, and then started in on some salted almonds we've been carrying around since the US to complete her dinner. Me, I kinda liked the burger. As per usual there was ham on it (HAMburgesa) but there was also a burger-sized slice of pineapple which was new, and tasty along with the ham, burger, ketchup, mayo, and whatever else was in there. I suspect that Dachary's emotions were effecting her tastes, as they so often do with us humans, but who knows. We won't be here to repeat the experiment. Tomorrow we're going to sleep the **** in, and take off for somewhere south. I don't think we have anywhere in particular in mind, but we're hoping we can find a place where we can hole up for a few days and relax. We're tired, mentally, and physically, and our clothes are seriously disgusting, despite the fact that we keep washing them in the sink. Our boots are nasty nasty nasty and are currently shoved into the closet, which may cause one of us to pass out when we attempt to retrieve them, and neither of us has clean socks any more. Our gear has not been washed at all, because you can't stick it in a dryer and it takes more than overnight to dry from a full-on washing. The plan was to go to a laundromat, or one of the many cheap laundry services, while we were here. The clothes nastiness has not helped the general mood, especially since we were so looking forward to laundry. As an aside, black people have been really rare in Central America, and here in Colombia, and I think I've discovered why. They're all at this hotel. I can't explain it, but 90% of the cliental is African American… or is that African South American? Still, us white folk are an even smaller minority, which is a refreshing change I think. Another side note, there were probably 10 toll booths between Ibagué and Cali, and while it's awesome to be able to use the free moto lane it feels a bit excessive. There was even one one about a third of the way up the twisty mountain road, which was a bit skinny and had some large concrete (i think) post at the start which I whacked with my pannier and, out of the corner of my eye, saw chips flying off of. These Happy-Trails panniers are really pretty bad ass. The bike keeps falling on them, I whack them into concrete and you can't even tell. |
Day 53 - Cali to Inza Colombia
The day started off badly, but in the end, was one of my favorites.
Dachary woke up in a grump from last night, and our "personal communications" weren't particularly spectacular, especially after we spent a lot of time debugging the latest version of the iPad magazine app (still broken). And figuring out where exactly we were going at Tierradentro because Dachary discovered there were multiple sites and we wanted to be sure we were going to the right place. It turns out there are multiple sites but they're all relatively close and connected by trails, although you probably won't be able to hit them all in a day. Anyway, we go down to the bikes, pack them up, and once they open the garage door, I ride up the 45 degree ramp… which we kind-of had to approach form the side. No biggie, just had to be careful to not hit the pedestrians as you come flying out the top. Dachary came next, but didn't quite get the throttle / clutch balance right, and fearing she'd stall it if she let out the clutch too much ended up giving it lots of revs that didn't go anywhere except over.. on top of her, and the wall. I heard it over the headset but couldn't see anything "are you ok?" "No. Help!" I threw down the kickstand and came running, but by the time I'd gotten there three men were lifting her bike off of her. I helped roll it down the ramp (in gear because i was on the wrong side) then, because Dachary was standing and brushing herself off, had one hold it while I hopped on and ran it up and out. She whacked her left arm on something, put a small hole in her left glove "Yay glove!" I said, because it's much better than a small hole in her left hand. The plastic corner of her pannier that was slightly pulled away and fixed with stickers was now being held in primarily by the adhesive we put on the neoprene liners. Her left mirror broke off. And, her poor wind deflector thing popped off the windshield and broke into three pieces. We'll try JB welding that but i don't have much hope. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5132/...946962df3e.jpg More stickers please... She walked to the top, deflector pieces and mirror in hand, and set about fixing things. Opening the pannier and pulling out one of the two spare mirror screw/mount things we'd brought since it's a horrible design and pretty much everyone who takes our bike on an overland trip ends up breaking one or two mirrors off. I helped with that and she set about re-stickering the pannier. Mostly, I tried to stay out of the way and let her work because she probably had about a quart of adrenaline pumping through her, was probably mentally frazzled already, and setting about a nice simple task like that was probably the best thing she could do. We set out, found our selves inexplicably on the easiest road to the only real road out of town where we dodged busses, horse drawn carts (in the fast lane), motos, and mini trucks that struggled to do thirty without any load until eventually we were free of Cali. Neither of us have a high opinion of it. Dachary's is probably colored by the ass-hole calling her fat, but I didn't really see much of it that gave me a great vibe or made me want to hang out longer. Bogota though…. Bogota gave us both a great vibe. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5097/...881b841122.jpg Unexpected soup Anyway… we headed south and decided that while adventure riders take the dirt road all the way there we wouldn't make it today if we did because of our late start, so instead we took what tierradentrao.info said was the "recommended" way and should be paved 90% of the way. We figured we could take the dirt road back when we left since I really wanted to do it. Now, either the author of tierradentro.info has never been there, or I totally misremembered because I would swear that it said that it was paved all the way to Inza when in fact, it's paved to just past Totoró which is about 25 of the 93 kilometers here. After that it's almost entirely dirt. [Update now that we have net: I totally misremembered, but they were optimistic too] It is also the most extraordinarily beautiful road we've ever ridden on. There are still some parts I'm kicking myself for not pulling over and taking pictures of; parts where I was saying "what is this?! I've never seen anything like this in my life!" And parts that looked like a cinematographer's idea of a beautiful mountain town. And it just kept going. Sometimes it was good packed dirt. Sometimes it was a few inches of slippery sand with horse tracks down the side. Sometimes it was covered with gravel, sometimes with big rocks. Sometimes six inches of deep brown soil freshly moved by the giant earthmovers we had to squeeze past. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5216/...de88c71289.jpg The road from Totoró to Inza http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5014/...3a5999f248.jpg The road from Totoró to Inza http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5253/...17749476d0.jpg The road from Totoró to Inza http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5052/...87d503e747.jpg The road from Totoró to Inza At one point we got stuck behind a truck and despite the daring passing attempts of yesterday Dachary wasn't up for attempting to pass this on loose, rocky dirt, through the cloud of dust it was kicking up…. So I chilled behind it, figuring that sooner or later the slow speed would drive her nuts and convince her to go. And, it did… so we did. A little moto with two locals wearing old-school ponchos passed us and we spent the rest of the ride either behind it or ahead of it. And it was brilliant. All of it. We are covered in dirt. Not long after the sand I looked down at my right boot and it was solid orange. I wish I'd pulled over and grabbed a shot because the wind and vibrations of the riding afterwards soon removed that beautiful layer. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5053/...4a3e3e77e1.jpg We seem to have gotten a bit dusty http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5013/...9e2caa61d9.jpg We seem to have gotten a bit dusty http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5053/...d419b0ec60.jpg We seem to have gotten a bit dusty http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5011/...4810ca5de0.jpg Horse waits patiently http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5135/...a0a6e995ab.jpg Pit Stop The writing was on the wall though…. too slow, with too far to go. It wasn't just going slower for Dachary. It was also that the road was just too damn twisty and bumpy. Maybe ten kilometers from the end and Dachary had a near death experience with a Dump truck almost as wide as the road that came barreling down on her, and after that pretty much just wanted to get off the bike. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5052/...ea8314b1fb.jpg The road from Totoró to Inza http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5216/...217be4ea8f.jpg The road from Totoró to Inza http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5057/...3a5f980703.jpg The road from Totoró to Inza http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5257/...2618c98148.jpg The road from Totoró to Inza We came into the edge of Inza just as full dark hit and with it a gas station. We pulled in, because you always use more gas than you expect on dirt, and filled up. The guys there told us that yes, there was a hotel in town, and gave us the name. So we headed out, but dachary stalled her bike as she was turning after the pumps, and down it went. I was already starting on the road and said I'd turn around…but in an attempt to get to her quicker I stared my turn too soon and got caught between uneven mounded ground and a parked bus… and went down too. The guys at the pump had gotten her up already and came running to the sounds of my engine revving and the bike going *thunk*… ON MY ANKLE… AGAIN. I can not tell you how thankful I am for the malleous protectors in my boots. Without them there's no way I'd be able to walk. So yeah, we went down, and with the help of locals, got right back up…. around the corner and down a hill into town "I hope we don't have to go back up that" we came to the main square and a bunch of parked trucks and motos. I pulled up to the motos and asked where the hotel was since I suspected I was probably looking at it but not seeing it. Turns out I was. I just had to go into the hardware store and talk to the woman behind the counter. So I did, and she showed me a room, which was small, but surprisingly clean, although lacking a toilet seat. I asked about "agua calliente" and she said no, with a smile, and we ended up kind-of giggling over the idea. The shower, whilst clean, has no curtain, and the water comes out a PVC pipe that extends from the wall. But hey 16,000 pesos (about $8 US) and clean. We are happy. But, she said she had a place to park the bikes… Unfortunately, Colombians have no concept of big bikes either, and she showed be this circuitous path up over a dirt pile over a step to a doorway, around a 90 degree corner, another one, through some construction, up a tiled step and into an office. I shit you not. We've got to get video in the morning. We'd unloaded them, so we had a chance but of course, they didn't fit without moving a few bags and, once getting it half-way through the door dragging the front end over. There was no way I or Dachary would be able to do it, but the moto guys from the square ran over and happily applied their muscles to the task, and voilla… bikes are in. Well, I said **** it to the office because backing them out of there would have been a pain in the ass (if they even fit) and the extra locked door simply wasn't worth it. I have no idea how I'll get them out in the morning. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5219/...9c36f65090.jpg Everything's covered in dirt. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5014/...c8793c7093.jpg Everything's covered in dirt. Bikes unloaded, and locked away, we set out for food and found what Dachary calls a "guild hall". Lots of sections, each with a cook making something. I settled on the one with the best smell and a woman who just seemed more alive than anyone else there. She showed me what was in the pots, and then I just told her to give us a medium portion of whatever she recommended. It ended up being lentil soup… ish kind of think like a side of beans, with a pile of rice, a slice of fried plantain, and two small pieces of thin grilled beef. It was delicious. Dachary didn't much like the carne, and commented that it tasted similar to beef jerky, which it did, and also got stuck in my teeth like beef jerky. But both of us agreed that the lentils were extraordinary. Back in the room, and it stank, already, from our boots. Mine were particularly bad, but Dachary's were pretty bad too. She requested that the boots be moved farther from the bed somehow, and I remembered that the "window" was really just some wrought iron designs with a curtain over it, and stuck my boots out the window. A few minutes later, Dachary did the same with hers, so at least the stinkiest bits of our boots are pointing out an open window. It still smells in our room, somehow. I also decided to wash the nasty socks in my boots. And they were nasty. Just running water in the sink, without any soap or scrubbing, the water turned brown. It took several passes with water and Dr. Brommer's to get them some semblance of clean. After two rinses and the first goo-ing with Dr. Brommer's, I couldn't see the tub stopper that was only a centimeter and a half below the surface of the water. It was that nasty. Dachary did a couple of pairs of hers that she's been wearing yesterday and today (when they got rained into and became quite stinky) and had a similar experience. So dirty. (Dachary's note: Kay wants me to add something here about my thoughts about the dirt road we traveled. It should come as no surprise to anyone - least of all me - that I have very little experience with dirt and my first "real" dirt totally freaked me out. The hard-packed stuff wasn't bad. But the loose stuff - particularly the sand we rode through, but also the deep, loose, freshly-tilled dirt - made me completely uncomfortable. WAY outside of my comfort zone. I felt like I had zero control on the loose stuff, and I was mostly focused on trying not to do anything suddenly that could upset the bike. While the loose stuff was freaking me out a bit, though, it was the near-death experience I had with the dump truck that pushed me over the edge and made me decide that riding dirt was not for me. We were going around a corner, and Kay was ahead of me, and said "dump truck coming - get over to the right!" I couldn't see it yet but I started pulling over to the right anyway. And then suddenly the wide truck was on top of me, and wasn't hugging the left - it was right in the middle of what was probably a 1.5 lane dirt road at that point. I pulled as far over to the right as I could, but the right side of the road was banked up at that point, and I couldn't go very far. I decided that the safest thing to do would be to just stop and let the dump truck find its way around me, but stopping suddenly tends to lead to me falling over (I haven't gotten the hang of how to discharge the forward momentum yet, and the bike usually leans over violently to one side or the other and it's a crap-shoot as to whether I can keep it upright) so I was just having visions of me stopping and not being able to keep the bike up, and falling to the left (the direction the road was banked) and under the dump-truck's wheels. And that mofo wasn't going slow, either. It was over in just a couple of seconds but my system had gotten super-charged with adrenaline and I was trembling and totally freaked out and overwhelmed by an emotional overload. I seriously thought that dump truck was going to kill me. This was the first time I've ever felt really endangered since riding a motorcycle (even the times that I've crashed have all been relatively minor - I might think "Oh crap" or "that's gonna leave a mark" but I never think "Oh, god, I'm going to die.") so it was a lot for me to process. Resuming our trek around loose corners, bumpety, rocky dirt and the encroaching darkness, all I wanted to do was get off the bike and sit quietly somewhere and wait for the sensations to fade. But I couldn't, because dark was encroaching, and even more than not riding this road, I didn't want to be riding this road in the dark. But it left a lasting impression. Our route planning in subsequent days has been, in part, to avoid "scary dirt." I'm writing this note as we sit in Mocoa, Columbia, a few days after this encounter, and I'm debating between a "Death Road" that consists of dirt and mud over a mountain vs. a relatively flat, easy dirt road with the potential threat of Colombian guerrillas kidnapping and holding us for ransom. Personally, I'm leaning toward the guerillas. Which shows you how much this road and the encounter with the dump truck has freaked me out, and how much de-programming we're going to have to do before we get much further south, as the roads just keep degrading.) |
Day 54 - Inza to San Andrés
Probably our shortest day on the bikes.
Inza wakes up around 6 AM and gets to work. Driving, moving, sledge hammering, phone ringing, clothes washing, etc. I'm not entirely sure how but we managed to get back to sleep a couple times until about 8:30 when we went downstairs and discovered a very full town square. We extracted the bikes from their hidey-holes and into the town square with surprisingly little difficulty. I walked it forward and when we got to an unturnable corner Dachary and I (mostly Dachary) would grab the back end and pull it around in the appropriate direction. By the time we'd gotten both out and come down from the hotel with the panniers we'd amassed quite a crowd. They appeared to maintain a pretty respectable distance from the bikes, but we know they were fondling them in our absence because when we rode off I couldn't figure out why my hands felt so damn hot until I looked down and saw that someone had turned on my heated grips (not possible to do accidentally). Overall the people have been both curious and helpful, and we regularly get thumbs up and smiles from the army guys we pass at checkpoints. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5058/...3918890b78.jpg Crowding around the bikes http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5016/...58d6714e75.jpg Crowding around the bikes http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5012/...83d29f632e.jpg Crowding around the bikes The road to San Andrés was about 11 k of dirt that was pretty but not particularly notable. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5291/...1cb82f4fe1.jpg IMG_1853 When we got to San Andrés we passed a couple Hospedajes and then saw El Refugio, the only real hotel in town. We'd heard that it was about $30 and went in to check. Yup. 54,000 ($27 US) for two people. So I meandered up and down the street to check the hospidaje's. The one right next to the hotel had an inner courtyard with a nice garden, and the rooms were decent, and clean, and had a single bed like we wanted, but it was obviously old and concrete floors acquire stains and such over the years no matter how thoroughly you scrub them. Also, no toilet seat. The next hospedaje down the road was all closed up. The one where MotoAdvendureGal stayed in was open, but only had rooms with two twin beds. It was definitely more modern and the bathrooms were way better (although not all have toilet seats), but after having grabbed dinner there for the past couple nights I can assure you that it's not a place I'd choose unless I had zero intent of relaxing there. They both cost 24,000 ($12 US) but the one down the hill has a family, or two, living / working there with a gaggle of kids from two to maybe 20. Yelling, screaming, running, playing, with the adults hanging out back near the kitchen area chatting away. The kids would drive me batty, and the place has no soundproofing at all. So, if, like us, you're looking for a place to relax for a couple days you absoposiloutely want the hotel. The pool is nice, but more importantly the whole inner area of the hotel is a calm, peaceful place to sit and relax. Except on Sunday afternoons (tomorrow) when it appears that much of the town comes to use the pool. We thought it was great that they did. We made it there before 11AM and the room with a single bed was being cleaned still so we asked if the restaurant was open and decided to get an early lunch since we'd skipped breakfast. We went over, sat down, and the guy from the front desk asked us what we'd like to drink (in Colombia you have the choice of juice, CocaCola, or random Colombian soda they never want to list the flavors or names of) and we got the Coke. When he came back we asked about food. He seemed surprised by this even though we'd just asked if the restaurant was open, but he recovered and told us it was Carne Asada ….. or Pollo. I'm not sure why "Pollo" seems to only get added when you sit there and ponder for a bit. Unless we're actually at a place that specializes in chicken it always seems to be an afterthought, "oh yeah, we've got that dead bird in the fridge…" We ordered one of each and waited, and waited, and waited. Occasionally the dude would pop his head out of the kitchen and make sure we hadn't died yet. If I caught his eye he'd give me some hand gesture to indicate it was all good and food was coming. So we waited more… An hour later food came. We suspect that 40 minutes of that was waiting for the one cup of rice that we both got, but we'd have happily skipped the rice to save 40 minutes. The Carne Asada was unremarkable and the chicken leg and thigh had been dropped into a frialator. I'm pretty sure the chicken had been in a knife-fight before, or when, it was killed because there were a number of stab wounds on the section of it that I received. But, aside from the seemingly interminable wait, and the fact that he felt the need to crank the tunes for us, it was really nice. While we sat there we noticed a sign in the back denoting it as the Camping area. We didn't know they let people camp here! We pondered it for like 5 seconds, but in addition to seeing Tierradentro our goal here was to stop moving, relax, and just take a break. So we stuck with the room. The hotel has a nice lawnmower, and we met their dogs Lucy and Lucas. Who I'm happy to report rarely bark, except a few times in the day when Lucy tries to get the lawnmower to play. I'm not sure what the camping costs, but there are bathrooms you can use and I'm pretty sure there are showers too, so it's probably your cheapest option, and one of the best. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5015/...d81ec48383.jpg Playing with Lucy http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4092/...9c597950d9.jpg Lawnmower While we were waiting we met a Sweedish couple who've been driving their vanagon like thing around South America for a couple years. They suggested we get together this evening and they'd show us some stuff on the map. It sounded good. :) We spent the rest of the day doing pretty much nothing other than reading. Which was exactly what we wanted. Around two we handed over our clothes, including our underwear, Dachary's bras, and the gear. I put it in two bags one they could throw in the dryer and one they couldn't… plus the gear which also needs to air dry. We made a rather disturbing discovery along the way. We knew that the BMW Rallye Pro 2 suit had better armor, we just didn't realize quite how much better it was until we saw the knee armor side by side. Turns out, even my elbow armor is larger than her knee armor. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5172/...ab174f7208.jpg A slight difference in protection Next trip I totally want to get her into some BMW gear. The armor's better and the material is thicker. Her RevIt Sand does have better ventilation, but I'll take slightly decreased ventilation with massively increased safety any day of the week. Anway, the guy said two hours. So we went back to the room and read for three hours at which point we were somewhat hungry and interested in venturing out so I was sent to track down our laundry. (all in spanish) "Yes. It's not done." "huh?" It was very mugre." "no entiendo mugre" "mugre mugre…mugre" Ahh…yeah, repetition didn't really help but, whatever. not done…. "dos mas houra?" "Si" I return and break the news. "I'm not going out without a bra." In addition to the effects of gravity she was also concerned about the fact that since she was wearing a tank-top it was possible to catch a glimpse of boob through the side. I suggested that it wasn't really visible and it wasn't a big deal anyway, but there was no budging her and I was sent out to scavenge. Mugre, by the way, means soiled, dirty, etc. I returned from the hospidaje / restaurant down the road with (surprise surprise) carne asada which I had ordered with french fries but received with two odd salads and a small glass jug of red juice which I was to return the next day. I also acquired a couple cokes from the Tienda by the hotel which I was also to return the next day. We ate, in semi-darkness because despite the fact that the hotel was nice, the main light from the room was out despite my telling the guy that it was "muerte" earlier in the day, and the lamps on the side-table are very dim. I sound like I'm being picky. I don't actually mind the dim side-table lights, but I do want to be able to see around the room at night without squinting through shadows. Dachary was somewhat annoyed about the laundry. I had pretty much expected something like this to happen and only annoyed that the guy hadn't actually said "manyana". In the end we watched a couple episodes of Dr. Who, read a little more, and went to bed. Overall, a nice, relaxing day, and as dark fell the whole place became very quiet. No trucks. No loud neighbors. Just us, the crickets, and the dark… we never did get together with the Swedes. Tomorrow Tierradentro. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5100/...7466314c5a.jpg The bikes take a rest |
Day 55 - San Andres and Tierradentro
Yesterday was a glorious day of doing nothing (and waiting for our laundry to be done) after arriving early in the day in San Andres. Today the plan was to check out Tierradentro, which involved some hiking and wandering around. We slept in, and it was glorious. Glorious, glorious, glorious. All night, we heard the stream flowing merrily nearby, night-time bugs and sweet silence. In the morning, a cock crowed to welcome the day but there was no obnoxious noise of huge trucks driving by, or a busy town waking up noisily at 6AM. In short, it was peaceful, relaxing and lovely.
San Andres was a wonderful place to take some time off and relax. Sent Kay off to check on the laundry, which was drying in the laundry room. He snagged a bra and undies for me and left the rest drying, so we were able to go have breakfast in the hotel restaurant and then off to check out the tombs. We had pulled info from the Tierradentro page, but didn't have a really good idea of where the tombs were located or how many we'd get to see. We read that Aguacate was a long hike and there were three ways to get to it, so we thought we'd take the "easiest" route up to Aguacate, and then the "difficult" route down to the museum and then across to Alto Segovia and Alto El Duende. We discovered when we got down to a map of the Tierradentro sites that it wasn't going to work out quite that way. A security guard across the street from the map told us we had to pay the admission fee (10,000 pesos or about $5 US) and then enter the park there. Ok. So we'd start on the side that has Alto Segovia and Alto El Duende, and then circle back across to Alto El Aguacate later in the day. We went to see the museum, which they had to open just for us. It was cool in that it contained a lot of info about the local area, agriculture, etc. but nothing about the Tierradentro tombs. After we checked out the museum, we started our hike up to Alto Segovia. The trail to Alto Segovia started with this really cool bridge made of bamboo. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5131/...bb1e7ce306.jpg The bridge to Alto Segovia It flexed a little more than I found comfortable as I walked across it, but it was a nifty feat of construction and very fun to look at. Then we started going up. And up. The trail was a wide road-type thing for a while, that they could probably have taken trucks or horses up, but we both agreed that we wouldn't want to try it on the motos. It was quite vertical at parts, very rocky and washed out. I was caught off guard by how vertical it was. Before too long, we had to stop and take breaks for me to catch my breath (hey, you take a fat girl to a hike like this and expect stuff like that) but I was determined to see the stuff and wasn't going to let it stop me. Just as I was starting to dread every twist in the trail that might obscure a new vertical ascent, I saw a fence, a green gate and a sign at the top. Yay! We'd made it to Alto Segovia! We arrived at the first tomb to find it covered with a lid made of 2"x4"s and chicken wire. There was a padlock lying hooked through the lid, but it wasn't locked, so Kay opened it and looked down the steps. It was dark. I'd suggested that we bring a headlamp, so Kay brought his - and now he pulled it out and descended into the tomb. And got to the bottom only to find he couldn't see a damn thing because his headlamp wasn't powerful enough. Had we realized it called for that caliber of lighting, I would have brought my headlamp, which is much brighter (and heavier) than his, and a flashlight, too, for good measure. Kay was frustrated at not being able to see anything and climbed back up. If this is what it was going to be like, it looked like we'd hiked a long way (ok, not that long, but it felt like it to me! It took about 20-25 minutes?) for nothing. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5019/...0bdda314f8.jpg IMG_5624 We closed the lid and moved on to the next tomb, and Kay donned the headlamp and went down. He could see a little better in this tomb. I waited at the top, in the meantime, and while I was standing there, a guard/guide walked over to check on us. He saw that I was wearing the wrist band that indicated I'd paid the admission fee, and heard me talking to Kay who was down in the opened tomb - and he walked over and flipped a light switch nearby. Ahh! Lighting! Suddenly Kay could see, and said this tomb was awesome. He took some shots and climbed back up, and told me I should really climb down to see. Before I could get around to the steps, though, the guide/guard closed the lid on the tomb and told us to follow him to the next one. "Oh, well, no big deal," - I thought - "there are tons of these things." I thought wrong, as it happens. Some of the other ones were cool, too, but Kay maintained that the first one he saw with the lights was the best. So we followed the guard on to the next tomb, and then the next one. Kay went down to look at all of them, and I went to check out the ones he dubbed particularly cool and worth me climbing down. Partially because I'm lazy and didn't want to descend/ascend three-foot stones down into what is essentially a hole with some paint on the walls, and partially because I have this problem with heights and didn't like that there weren't any handholds, and partially because I wasn't all that interested in Tierradentro to begin with - this was Kay's thing all along but it was clear he really wanted to go so I assented. Which I was regretting after the "road" across to it. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5057/...9ced809d41.jpg IMG_2063 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5092/...538affb748.jpg IMG_5656 Alto Segovia had around 10 or more tombs (neither of us can quite remember) and Kay checked them all out, and I checked out a handful. One tomb had an example of some really well-constructed pottery inside. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5176/...c3752458db.jpg IMG_5647 Others contained painted drawings and carved faces. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5093/...16a1d8ede1.jpg IMG_5674 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5259/...25e5f7d504.jpg IMG_5695 Some were nifty, and some were essentially just holes in the ground with not much to see besides the impressive steps down into them. While Kay was checking out the tombs, I chatted with the guard/guide guy (and then the actual guard when we got toward the latter tombs at Alto Segovia) about the motos, the trip, etc. My Spanish is still crap, but I'm able to tell people how big our engines are (everyone seems surprised when we tell them we're riding 650s), how long we've been on the road, where we've been, where we're going, etc. Almost everyone asks where we're going and where we've been in the country, and whether we like it. Columbia is a big two thumbs up - it's beautiful, and away from the cities, the people have been very friendly and helpful. In the cities, it's been much like cities anywhere. At one point, he asks if we're going up to Alto El Duende. He indicates that it's a steep ascent and mimes something that I think means it'll be hard and a lot of work for me. That's ok, we tell him - we're going anyway. It's only a bit higher to Alto El Duende at this point, and then we can also go up just a bit more and across what is essentially a horizontal track to check out the statuary at El Tablon. He asks if we're going to Aguacate, and with the difficulty I had getting up to Alto Segovia, I know it's right out for me. So we say no, and he sorta laughs in relief. We continue up the trail toward Alto El Duende, and I point out to Kay that the guys at Alto Segovia had a pair of binoculars, and are probably following along and laughing at me hiking up to Alto El Duende. Because what else are you going to do when you're stuck on a hillside all day? Watch things. So we turn around and wave at one point - dunno if the guys were watching then but I amused myself with that. After more huffing and puffing up another vertical ascent (and Kay was even starting to show signs of wear at this point, so it wasn't just the fat girl) we made it to Alto El Duende. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5094/...86b3b060fc.jpg IMG_5714 This site was smaller and had fewer tombs, we could see right away. Learning our lesson from the other side - that there were lights in most of the tombs - we decide to start with the guide/guard guy and have him turn on/show us where the lights are. So we walk over to the far tomb where the guard guy is standing and chatting with a tourist, and I notice that they're talking about roads to various places while Kay starts to go down the tomb. So I tell Kay "Hey, they're talking about roads" and we go over and ask about the road to Silvia, which is the route that most adventure riders seem to take to get out to Tierradentro. He indicates that it would be no problem for the two of us on motos, and we're encouraged about potentially taking that route back. Kay resumes the tomb-touring, only to find that the tombs at Alto El Duende don't seem as good as the ones at Alto Segovia. Very few of them have lights, but there's a flashlight there for tourists to take down in the tombs. So Kay checks out all of them while I sit on a bench in the shade and enjoy the view. He returns to say that one of the tombs had some really nifty, well-preserved black paint, but for the most part, it wasn't anything particularly special or interesting. So we ask about the trail for El Tablon to the statuary, and head off in the correct direction. El Tablon involves more vertical ascending, but eventually we climb out on a rough dirt road to Santa Rosa. We walk along the road for a surprisingly long time, and end up chatting about deep things to pass the time. Eventually we see a sign for El Tablon, and after some false starts, make it to the statuary. Which is extremely disappointing. After the statuary at Copan and even Atlantas de Tula, El Tablon is just… sad. There are six or eight status under a tin roof, that seem to have been moved here intentionally from who knows where. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5177/...598bd0cc28.jpg IMG_5754 We look and take a few pictures and then head back to the road to go down into San Andres. Neither of us realized at the time that there's a much more direct path back to San Andres, so we end up going by road which leads sort of the long way round. But Kay practices taking "action shots" of all the motos that pass us on the road, and we see lots of interesting people on motos, so we enjoy that. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5298/...7cfbb25d2a.jpg IMG_5743 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5260/...9c215c2648.jpg IMG_5749 Along the road down to San Andres, we encounter the Swedes who are camping in our hotel. We'd met them yesterday and it turns out they toured the tombs yesterday, did Aguacate this morning, and were on their way up to El Tablon this afternoon. They confirmed that the site at Aguacate wasn't particularly interesting (wasn't bad but wasn't particularly good) but that the view from there was spectacular. Kay and I agree that we've seen a lot of spectacular views and expect to see many more, and it's not worth hiking three hours on a "rough" trail that will certainly take me longer than that. On the way down the road, we find what is properly the town of San Andres (I think) and see a restaurant. Yay! It's a different restaurant than the two in the immediate vicinity of our hotel, and we jump at the chance to eat there. While we're waiting for our food, an older woman who we saw using the hotel pool yesterday walks in and starts chatting with us. It turns out that she's visiting Colombia for two months, and is in Tierradentro because she's waiting for a friend to come back from working in the oil fields so she can visit with him. She used to live in South America and has traveled everywhere down here. She seems more interested in the sound of her own voice than having an actual conversation with us - she asks questions and when we start to answer, cuts us off with her own answers. We get a slightly weird vibe from her, and we're dismayed when we pay and get up to leave, and she says she'll walk down the hotel with us because she wants to use their pool again. (She's staying in a cheaper hostel up the hill.) Neither of us wants the hotel administrators to think we've brought her in just to use the hotel pool, so we're happy when we stop to take pictures of the most adorable teeny kitten and she continues walking on ahead. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5053/...4ed551f4c7.jpg IMG_5773 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5139/...093175bd38.jpg IMG_5774 Eventually we make it down the hill and back to our hotel. It's around 2:30-3:00PM, and we're surprised to find that practically everyone in the town is hanging out in the hotel pool. Old, young - middle-aged couples, mothers with kids - everyone in town seems to have turned up to use the hotel pool. There are tons of wee motos parked all over, and it looks like everyone is having a good time. Neither of us minds the shrieking kids or the crowds of people who haven't paid to use the pool - it feels like a good place and a happy community, and we like that. We go back to our room and open the windows and door and just chill. We read and look at pictures, and I proclaim that even though we had lunch an hour ago, I'm hungry again. I used up a ton of energy hiking this morning, and lunch, while tasty, wasn't enough calories to replenish it all. I'm looking forward to dinner. Eventually we decide we should shower, because we both got all sweaty hiking around this morning, but Kay doesn't want to shower until he can get clean clothes to put on. He asks me to go check on the laundry this time, as he's sick of it, and I evade the question because I don't want to. Eventually he relents and goes to get the laundry, and returns with our clothes and our gear. The gear is SO CLEAN! SO FRIGGIN CLEAN!!! How did they do that? I was just hoping they could de-stink my motorcycle gear - I wasn't in a million years expecting it to be nearly as close to clean as they got it. And Kay's BMW gear looked beautiful. The blue was almost as vibrant as the day he got it. And wonder of wonders - it didn't stink! They'd somehow gotten rid of the smell! We gloried in our clean gear, and put the armor back in - and realized exactly how much better Kay's BMW armor is than my Rev'It Sand armor. Makes me worry a bit about my knees. Get cleaned up and I ask to go look for food, as it's nearing 6PM by this point. The hotel pool has emptied out, and we head up to the restaurant and sit down because I remember their servings being large and I wanted a lot of food being so hungry from this morning's hike. After sitting for 20 minutes, it looks like no-one's going to come out. Kay goes looking for the hotel guy and can't find him. Eventually I opt for real food instead of theoretical food, and we go to the other restaurant in town. The woman comes out looking kinda confused to see us there, but Kay asks if they're open and if we can get some food to eat in their dining room, and she says yes and starts giving us the list of available food. We end up with plates of spaghetti, carne, rice and salad. Small plates. I eat it all and wish for a second plate. Kay agrees that he's not full but has no interest in a second plate from here because the food was so uninteresting. We pay and head off, and I ponder where I can get more food. As we're walking back toward the restaurant, we notice that the place in town advertising "Comidas Rapidas," which hasn't been open the entire time we've been there, is open. Kay suggests going to check it, but it's dark and I don't feel good about poking around in strange places in the town, so I want to head back to the hotel. I'm hoping someone else is eating dinner and I can get some kitchen service at our hotel's restaurant. Sadly, when we get there, there's no-one around and the kitchen doesn't sound or smell open. So we head back to the rooms, where I promptly ask if there's anything to eat. Kay gets annoyed with me because I'm doing the "I'm hungry" thing but he says I won't do anything about it, or let him do anything about it. I'm all crashy because I haven't had enough food to offset the morning's exercise, and I'm WAY in the negative on calorie count today, which tends to make my brain unable to process things or make decisions. When I haven't had enough to eat, I literally get to a state where the need to make decisions overwhelms me, and I stand/sit around like a vegetable. It's really annoying. I try to go to sleep since I can't find more food (and at this point, it's before 7PM) and Kay stays up to work on the blog entries. I wake up a bit later when he makes a loud noise (I think he banged into something?) and am hungrier than ever. I start whining (literally) and being snippy and Kay starts yelling and it degenerates into a massive negative shitstorm. Eventually I grab the two protein bars from my tank bag, and eat them. They were gross and I thought I might throw up if I forced one more bite into my mouth, but I ate them anyway, because I was *that* hungry and knew I needed food. But two protein bars is only about 400 calories - I estimated that I needed at least 1000 more to put my brain in the "functional" category. So I ask Kay if he has any protein bars. He says he has some in his tank bag, and I go looking and find only one. Which I attempt to eat, only to discover that I've run out of water, so I go to pump some. Which hurts like a motha-effer, because I've gotten a massive sunburn whilst walking around today. I normally don't wear sleeveless shirts out and about (fat chicks in sleeveless shirts are not flattering) but it was the only shirt I had while they did my laundry, so I wore it. And because I don't wear sleeveless shirts out, I have a very distinctive "farmer's tan." So the skin that doesn't normally see the sun was all pale, and I didn't think to apply suntan lotion, so it burned. Badly. The worse sunburn I've ever had. Moving was agony - getting up and down from the bed was agony - rolling over was agony - anything that involved my shoulders or the extended neckline that got exposed and sunburned was killing me. Hungry, in-pain Dachary? Is a very bad thing. I was practically impossible to deal with, and a part of me knows that, but I was really put out that Kay wasn't doing anything to help me and was just yelling at me because he was frustrated. I ate his only remaining protein bar and figured I was still in the negative on calories, so I asked if we had any other food anywhere. Kay indicated that there was some beef jerky in the yellow dry-sack that was still on his bike, so I put on my headlamp and went out to get it. Whilst I was futzing around with Kay's bike, the Swedes noticed me there and came over to invite us to their fire. They'd mentioned yesterday that they'd already traveled around much of South America, and had some good info to share about places to see, etc. I thanked him for the invite, and told him I'd go let Kay know, and retreated back to the room. I was in no state at this point to make polite conversation with strangers - I was fuming at Kay and my mental capacity was still questionable because I still hadn't really eaten enough. When I got back to the room, I told Kay about the Swedes and said he should go chat with them. He did. I read for a while, and then dozed. It was after 11PM when Kay got back from chatting with the Swedes, and I still didn't want to speak to him. Our relaxing retreat in Tierradentro didn't end up quite as relaxing as planned. |
Day 56 - San Andrés Colombia to Taqui Colombia
So yesterday Dachary decided we should check the oil. A sensible thing. She suggested her bike felt a little rougher. Then again, we had been riding over dirt for the past couple days so everything was rougher… Anyway, we check and there's nothing. We ran the bikes for like thirty seconds and still nothing. We kinda freaked.
It was decided that I should ride back to Inza (about half an hour each way) to procure oil because Dachary is ****ing sunburnt on her arms, chest and back and the idea of riding an extra hour with a jacket over burnt skin is not within her definition of "happy". Because I'm returning to the hotel, I leave my panniers and dry sack and ride with just the tank bag - the bike is light and unencumbered. I go. I have a blast. Without the need to hold back for Dachary I'm flying down the road passing little motos left and right. This bike was made for this shit and it shows. Sure a 125cc dirt bike would handle it better, but the 650 is a joy to ride and when you get tired of standing up the Air Hawk adds an extra bit of shock absorption for your ass. I get to the gas station we saw coming into Inza and sure enough, there's oil. Every gas station since the mexican border has had oil within sight of, or directly next to, the pumps. This one one no exception, although while there were about 12 choices of 2 Stroke oil there was only one choice for 4 Stroke. I throw the bike on the center stand, double check the sight-glass before adding oil and….WTF?! It's full. Like to the top, full. This is why I don't check my oil. The bike never ****ing looses oil, at all… ever. I do check my oil and my own idiocy bites me in the ass. But, I decide that as we're heading into some parts where gas stations may be few and far between carrying a spare quart won't be a bad idea. I can throw it in my mini gas container as soon as I convince the Gas residue to finish evaporating. Also, I didn't want it to be a totally worthless trip. I ride back, and along the way there's a skinny spot in the road and an oncoming truck. I pull over and wait. The truck drops off one kid and passes. I'm standing there with my left leg planted and give it some gas… a bit too much gas. The rear tire spins up, and whirrs the rear end of the bike around me and out from under me. I'm chuckling inwards at my own idiocy. I pick up the bike (surprisingly easy without the panniers) while seven kids who appeared out of thin air are walking towards me. I motion them to go by before the go. No…. no they were coming to see if I needed help. I think the oldest was probably nine. I do a 2 point turn to get the bike facing back up the hill, hop on…. and let it lean too far over. I drop it again and do that ridiculous one legged hop away from it. Now I am laughing out loud. I smile at the kids, walk back to the bike, and now they've swarmed it. They're going to help. "oh gods." I think, "this is going to be a cluster****. They've no clue how much this weighs…" "Ok. on tres…. " I say, and they all start counting. "Uno. Dos. Tres." We all lift; me on the handlebars and them on the seat and the back. And those kids? Badass little MoFo's. They did way more than half of the lifting. I thanked them all, and they waited for me to take off in case I dropped it yet again. I'm happy to report I didn't. Back at the hotel we lube Dachary up with some Burn Gel (Did I mention we have a really nice first aid kit with us?) load up the bikes and…. wait a minute…. Where's my taillight?! The whole ****ing assembly is gone. Shit. Ok. I can go back to Inza and see if it's laying along the road, although with the sheer volume of motos around here there's a pretty serious chance that someone has already stopped and grabbed it. I can't blame them either. I would too if I lived around here. Dachary however, is freaking out about the road ahead. She's scared of more dirt. She's scared of not making it to the town she's decided will be our destination for the day because there's dirt between here and there and going back to Inza will add another hour. It'd add more if she came but with her sunburn she's definitely not up for extra riding. We can't stay in the hotel because we don't have enough cash to pay for another night, and it's going to be like 11 before we get out of here if I go to Inza. I'm voting for running back to Inza because I'm pretty sure BMW would charge a minimum of $150 for a LED taillight assembly and I'm still annoyed by the price of that damn fan. Dachary's just kind of freaking. I offer the option of just dealing until we get to Quito where we can swing by BMW and grab a replacement (hopefully). That doesn't seem to help. There's stress, communication failure, etc. I go to Inza. I don't bother unloading the bike because it's a pain in the ass and after all the stressing I'm really not feeling like adding any more frustration to my morning. I'm a bit more careful this time because picking it up would be harder. I make it all the way to the gas station and no light. I ponder stopping at the moto workshop there and having them bolt in some random light but Dachary has decided to check out and is waiting at the hotel and probably still stressing. So I hurry back as quick as I can to minimize her wait. I don't drop it once. Until I get to the hotel's gravel driveway and decide to slowly and carefully go around the loop instead of having to do a tight turn. Six inches of gravel and… *flump*. I just kind of stare at it. I reach down, turn it off, and we lift it. This is not a good morning. I ride it around and park in front of Dachary's. She goes off to pee in the common bathroom before we leave and while she's walking back the hotel guy hops on her bike. Normally this would annoy the shit out of us. We're not fans of random people touching our bikes. But for some reason it doesn't this time, and it's great to see him realize just how heavy this is when he lifts it off the kickstand. He gets off and makes big muscle arms and I explain to him that they're nearly 300 kilos (i'm guessing) with the panniers. That's probably more than they actually are but… Anyway, we take off. Down random roads, which, because we're in Colombia, are unquestionably gorgeous. Unfortunately, I'm just not in the mood to appreciate them. I'm kind of in a funk because of Dachary stressing before, and because I know she's afraid of the roads we're on and physically hurting which makes me upset that there's nothing I can do to improve the situation. Also, my Camelback, the tire, my drysack, the gas container and the bike lock are conspiring to piss me off. Every time i stand up on bumpy dirt the tire slides forward. It's crooked on the bag. The lock decides to sneak out under the tire and dangle down by my foot, and eventually to the ground (Dachary is giving me the play-by-play as I look for somewhere where I won't be pancaked by an oncoming truck if I pull over). I fix the lock, but for the next hour or so the gas can and the tire keep being annoyances and my Camebak is going to the wrong side and rubbing against my neck. My mood is not improved by these. We ride on. It's still beautiful. I'm aware enough to recognize the beauty even if I'm not enjoying it, and take some pics. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5138/...07c19a3dda.jpg IMG_5810 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5213/...2877d09e54.jpg IMG_5815 Along the way there's an unexpected T junction with no signage. I ask the folks at the restaurant at the intersection if La Plata is in the direction I'm pointing and five adults stare at us blankly. Fortunately there was a kid about 8 years old whose brain was engaged and he said yes, and made the hand motion in the direction we thought… We followed his instructions. He turned out to be right. Along the way, in an attempt to avoid being squished between dump truck and rock wall Dachary attempted to stop too fast and the bike tilted over against the rock wall. At least it wasn't the truck. She hollers, and I come back, she extracts herself and we lift it. Of course, a moto shows up and watches to make sure we don't need help. I totally forgot to take a pic. We really need to go on another grand adventure with a cameraman, because there's simply too many important things that we'd love to have pics of that we don't think of taking pics of because we're too concerned with helping each other instead of photographing their distress. Damn prioritization! Eventually the promised pavement is discovered. Then it disappears. Then it comes back. Then it disappears, etc…. Eventually it stays for a while and we make it to La Plata. We go a little ways into the city and I ask some passing pregnant woman where a Cajero Automatico is. "Just around the corner to the left." she says, and it is. We get back on the bikes since we're parked in a no parking / taxi zone and decide we'll find some place to eat on the far edge of town, but the logical direction turns out to not be the correct direction and since we're headed back into the town square we figure we'll just get something here if we can find somewhere with parking in front of it. We do, and it looks like a normal little restaurant but we think it was actually some chain thing. My chicken burger patty is lame but they somehow made it taste decent. Dachary's was "disgusting" and "The worst food I've had in Colombia." Needing the protein she ate it anyway. While we sat there a man with an eye patch under very dark sunglasses came in, sat down diagonally behind us, ordered a single soda and proceeded to give us the heebie-jeebies staring, we think, in our direction. But then the famous Colombian afternoon rain comes, and as we're finishing the last fries it is finishing up. We get up to leave, and I forget that I opened my tank bag at the table. EVERYTHING, including my camera, falls out. Eye patch man sucks nonexistent soda through his straw (he'd already finished it) and stares at us while I pick it up. We get the **** outta there, but I notice the direction we think we should head doesn't jive with the GPS. Now, it's maps aren't spectacular but the listed town centers are generally quite accurately placed. I notice a road up a hill in the distance that appears to be going the right way, and we attempt to find it. We get close, ask at a corner, and a tiny moto at the corner is all "Follow me!" so we do for a couple blocks and then he pulls over and makes hand gestures for the next couple corners we need to take. We thank him, and go. We twist, turn, improvise, and ask and eventually get going in the right direction… except it's the wrong direction… According to the GPS it's much closer to another road that'll get us there, but in more time. We say **** it and continue on. Then the road totally turns the other way and ends up being the right one. Then the pavement disappears. Then, there's a pice of tape across the road and a construction worker telling us to pull over and that it'll be forty minutes. I accept it as part of life in Latin America, turn off the engine, and start futzing with my bike, replacing batteries in the SPOT tracker (thus the gap in the day's route) and generally improving things. Dachary starts stressing about not making it to the goal town by nightfall. I don't really care where we make it. I figure there'll be somewhere to stay at whatever town we do make it to before nightfall. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5219/...5fb8f9f7da.jpg IMG_5819 Thankfully, the truck/bus full of people behind us, including an old lady, all get out and start chatting. Half way through one of them says something to the others expressing her frustration about how we aren't even trying (with the spanish) and generally being annoyed that we have come to her country without first learning her language. We think we're doing pretty well thank you very much. There's a lot of "no entiendo" of course, but we get by, and we managed to communicate the gas mileage, where we'd come from, where we're going, how big the bikes are, avoided answering how much they cost before eventually giving in. Asking about the road conditions ahead, learning that there's pavement not far on, etc. Side note: everyone in colombia thinks our bikes cost $10,000 US. I assure them they're much much cheaper than that since mine is eight years old and i'm the third owner (we think). Eventually the tape is dropped and on we go. Then the rain that threatened us while we sat catches up, and we put on our rain liners. Not ten minutes later and it's gone. We start drenching in sweat, go through a little town, and …. the pavement disappears and stays gone. Dachary feels mislead by the map. I don't mind the dirt, and soon we go through a dry river crossing. I joke that it's our first river crossing, and Dachary comments that she doesn't mind "this kind" but then we encounter our first real river crossing, but it's only like four inches deep so I just line myself up and go for it, making a surprisingly large bow wave and, unsurprisingly, wibbling a little. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5175/...d883584a0e.jpg IMG_5821 With the stress of the morning, and the sunburn (which is on its way to becoming second degree), and the maps betrayal, and the extra dirt, and seeing me wibble, she asks me to do it. I say ok, but she has to promise to take a picture of the little bamboo bridge. She's too stressed and hurting. So I take it across, then go get a pic of the bridge. I wish I had a pic of one of us going through the water, but here's some of the locals daring the raging river themselves. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5176/...0161c753d2.jpg IMG_5825 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5052/...c02a185f94.jpg Dog vs. River http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5255/...c2438aa605.jpg IMG_5829 The horse walks past Dachary's bike and begins to absolutely freak out when it sees mine. Rearing back, twisting, trying to get away…. Dachary and I are both half convinced that it's going to kick my bike over. I am torn between thinking it would be an awesome story if it did and fearing the horse might hurt itself. Of course, as I'm not a professional photographer I stand there, jaw open, gaping at the unfolding chaos, with camera sitting unused in my hand. I think that's the difference between true professional photographers and amateurs. A professional's first reaction is to take pictures, and contemplate later… But, the rider convinces the horse to calm down somewhat and continue on up the road. Soon we make it into Taqui and, with dusk approaching decide to hunt down a hotel. Turns out to be somewhat tricky, some guy keeps interpreting hotel and hospidaje as hospital. I keep correcting him, but he keeps overriding those around him who get it, until one of them speaks up enough and says "yeah right down there". We go, it's cheap, it has a bathroom with a toilet seat, and a pvc pipe shower almost directly over both, we're in no position to complain. They'll put the bikes in their house downstairs too. Sweet. Both of our moods improved dramatically once we had the bikes ensconced, had a place to stay for the night and could just relax. This was a Good Thing. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5054/...f472b57ab2.jpg Instant crowd. Just add adventure motos We take off the panniers since they'll never fit through the front door, wheel them in, and then look down the street. Wait… that's a motorcycle mechanic RIGHT THERE. We go over, explain our problem, "no no, not just a lightbulb… here come with me." he does. He examines the bikes (in the house downstairs). "What make? Oh BMW? No we don't have that." "No est importante. Yamaha, Kawasaki. whatever…" "but we don't have anything similar" "No bonito est no problemo." We go back to the shop, then I ask if it'd be better to just brink the bike over. It was, so I did, and a gaggle of children and teens gather around to watch the proceedings. They find something about the right size and the more senior mechanic proceeds to short the bike and blow a fuze. This is after repeatedly explaining to them that no, there is no way to shut off the lights. No really. They don't turn off. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5251/...ac8e0d6d2c.jpg Mototaller right next to the Hospidaje Junior mechanic hops on a scooter to ride off and find a fuze. We're not going to mention we have spares unless they can't find one since they're the ones who blew it. Long story short, the bodge was completed, names were exchanged, stickers were stuck, and we were charged 8,000 pesos (about $4 US). Dachary saw a price tag on the light housing that was over 8,000 so we think they were just happy that we were so happy, provided and entertaining distraction, and wanted to know their names so we can put them on the net. (Dachary's note: Kay wants me to expand upon the happenings in the shop, so here goes… Kay keeps wandering off for various things (to grab something from the room, to grab food, etc.) and I decide that at least one of us should stay with the bike, so I hang out at the shop with the bike while they're working on it. Pretty quickly, they find an assembly that will fit in the hole left by the BMW taillight assembly. It'll need a little convincing to fit properly and the hardware doesn't line up, but they can make it work. So they strip the BMW connectors from the wires, and start connecting the wires from the bike to the wires from the light, trying to figure out which wire was supposed to go to which. They get the taillight to light up, but nothing happens when you hit the brake. So they start switching the wires around, and grounding the wires against the bike's frame, which is how they blow the fuze. Whoops. After the new fuse comes back, they find the right combination of wires and start looking at ways to connect the hardware. One guy finds some stiff rubber tubing and cuts a couple of short pieces off, and it looks like they're going to use it as spacers to hold the assembly and the screws into the bike. He cuts and measures and tries it and then cuts some more until he gets the spacers fairly even and has the hardware lined up and screwed in. And viola! New taillight. During the time there, the little kids kept asking me stuff, some of which I could answer and some of which my Spanish was too insufficient. Then the woman who I assume is the wife of the guy who runs the shop asks me something - the same thing they asked us at the road construction earlier and I didn't understand then, either. Something that involved a hand gesture in front of the face. Something about the helmet visor, maybe? No idea. I try to convey that I understand one of the words, but I don't understand the other word they're using - and a kid steps in and tries to translate. Apparently he's been telling all of them that he speaks English, and he says something in English that sounds like "Stop." Except it makes no sense in context. I tell him I don't understand, and they all start laughing at him. Apparently he doesn't speak English as well as he's been bragging. He tries to explain that he doesn't speak "Gringo English," but they've seen through his attempts to impress them. Everyone is smiling and amused except the kid, although he's taking it with good cheer. I explain to them at one point about the trip - where we've been and where we're going. And while we're in there, some military stuff comes on the tv (it's playing the news) and one of the kids nearby gestures to get my attention and points at the TV. I watch and see that there's some military stuff going on and apparently there was a bombing somewhere that they're reacting to? The kid says "In Bogota." "In Bogota?" I ask. I try to convey that I was just there four or five days ago, but I don't have any sense for how to convey time - we don't know the words for now, or a few days ago, or last week. All we can say is tomorrow or "in x days". But I seem to have conveyed it properly as all of our eyes go wide at the thought that I was just there and just missed some bombing/military stuff. In the end, they charge us less than the part cost for the part itself and for affixing it to the bike. They take some pictures and video of us, and we take some pictures and video of them. They seem flattered and happy that we asked for their names for our website. (Although the junior mechanic got all bashful at first, and when I was persistent, he eventually wrote down the names of everyone there. And then the people went around introducing themselves from the paper. And because we said we wanted to write their names down, here are their names! If you need a nice bodge, this is who you want... http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5136/...e3c2562793.jpg IMG_2113 (Diego's giving the thumb's up, and Consuelo's the grey haired lady on the right) Almacen Motolimpico (is the name of the shop) Diego Armando Gasca - Diego is the "junior mechanic" who helped us and did most of the running around Maria Consuelo Gasca (A younger girl who was hanging around - maybe a daughter of the owner?) Olimpo Gasca - Perhaps the owner? I forget and I feel so bad for forgetting who was whom! Consuelo Mendez - she was the woman I thought was the wife of the owner, and she was very sweet Alex Gasca - Perhaps the other mechanic? Or maybe one of the kids belonging to the family They also wrote "Thank you much" in English on the bottom of the list of names, and I confirmed that was how you say "Muchas gracias" in English, and it was totally sweet and awesome. We were all richer for our encounter, I think. Kay ran to the room and brought back some stickers for them, and our cards - and when he handed over the stickers and cards to the owners/mechanic, the kids all start reaching for them, too. Kay obligingly hands out our cards, even though I try to point out "It's in English!" and it's nothing they'd care about - they all want one or they'd feel left out. One kid realizes it doesn't help and hands it back to Kay, miming that he should put it back into the container where we carry our cards. They give Kay some stickers for his bike, including a rosary which seems to be a prerequisite for any Colombian vehicle and a "100% Colombian" sticker (Diego chose it), and they proudly help him stick them on. It was really cool and awesome.) End Dachary's note--- While this was happening I tracked down a restaurant which turned out to be right beside us but we couldn't see it, and procured us some tasty dinner, which I haven't been able to finish for no particular reason. In the end it was $4 for the light (and stickers) $12 for the room and $5 for the food. Now we're going to relax and watch Top Gear… I think. Side note: my bike's a 2003 and doesn't come with a rear flashing LED light like the new ones, but the previous owner had added it. While flashing is definitely as safety feature I'm very happy with my $4 bodge, especially when compared to the scary price the "real" part would cost. Bike Bandit claims about $100 US for the OEM with a standard bulb, but both of ours had an LED array that would flash when you first hit the brakes. Im not sure how much those go for. |
Day 57 Tarqui Colombia to Mocoa Colombia
The day started out pretty well. We emerged from our room with smiles and found that the place with the tasty chicken last night also did breakfast. We weren't specific enough with our responses and ended up with hot soup with beef broth, and some of the most deliciously tender roast beef and rice. Neither of us like the idea of warm soup for breakfast on a warm day, but it wasn't bad. We'll be more specific next time.
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5258/...5067d4531e.jpg The breakfast parrot Bikes retrieved and loaded, we headed out, and to Dachary's great surprise, and joy, had paved roads the entire way. On the edge of Pitalito we pulled into a gas station to grab a drink and check the map. I, of course, came to a complete stop and promptly dropped the bike for no reason. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5220/...c062e5c737.jpg So much to love http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5092/...cfa728d252.jpg The road to Pitalito The guy whose bike I almost squished was instantly there to help me lift (again had no clue about the weight). And soon there were a handful of guys standing around contemplating the bikes. One of them mentioned something about a colombian plate, and pointed to Dachary's which made no sense to me. But later he pointed to my bike and said something about the plate. I looked and…. wait a minute! Where the **** is my Plate?! http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5297/...65f08878ac.jpg My new light and... something missing Turns out, it wasn't just my light that had fallen off. It was the whole damn plastic section that holds the light and the license plate. There is NO WAY I would have driven past something that large when I was looking for the light. So either it was picked up by someone or someone stole it from the bike while it was parked at the hotel. I'm leaning towards the former as I can't see why anyone around there would want the tail piece from a BMW since they've all got tiny motos. Anyway…. The guys are talking and miming handcuffs. I'm not sure if they're serious or joking. I manage to explain that I lost it on the dirt road the other day and one guy steps up and explains, in Spanish, that I need to go to the police station and report it as being lost. It sounds like decent advice, so I ask where the station is and he tells me to follow him (and his girlfriend who hops on the back). So we do, and he talks to the guy in the windows but no, we have to go to the other police station. So we hop back on our bikes and he leads us the other way through town to a building that there is no way in hell I would have been able to find even if I was standing in front of it. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5258/...642b2f3e71.jpg Nonono. You need the OTHER police station. In we go, he explains the problem to a cop, who asks for a little over 2000 pesos (maybe $1.25 US) for the form (not sure why but it's way too little to have been corruption) around the corner to the registration room, and the woman fills it out for me. I mistakenly think I'm 36 instead of 37 and sign the result. Back to the bikes and I thank the guy hugely for the twelfth time. He grins, shakes our hands, and rides off with his girl. I turned to Dachary and said, "I am so glad he didn't ask for a tip. It would have totally ruined it. Plus, while I'd have been more than happy to tip him, I haven't a clue what something like that is worth." So. Word of advice. If you loose your license plate in Colombia, go to the nearest police station and report it. It's no biggie and then you've got a pice of official paper to show cops or military if you're pulled over, which, it so happens we do! Just as we're approaching Mocoa. You're still gonna have problems at the border, but that's no reason to not enjoy the country while your cohorts back home get you a replacement. It is our first official police stop, or maybe army. It's hard to tell. They all wear green and carry machine guns. I pull out my papers and the guy holds out his hand for something else. He says a word. Nope.. not getting it… My license? No… he says it again… no, not getting it. He reaches out and shakes my hand, and I break into a huge grin. OHHHH That's what he was saying. The papers are fine, he sees the thing about the plate, and notes that yup, it's missing, no biggie, I've reported it. Dachary's papers are good too of course, and on we go. We drive into town and start stopping at hotels with one big question… "Usted tiene internet?" Because we need net, and we need it in the room so that we can put together a power of attorney (do that before you leave) and contact friends back home to go to the RMV (Registry of Motor Vehicles) for me and get new plates, and, of course, track the resulting FedEx package to our hotel which is sure to be expensive. Eventually, we find one, and for 55,000 pesos (about $28 US) for two nights we're set. Dachary of course, gets curious about the town we're in and discovers we're in FARC territory, that they really don't like the US, and that the road we were planning on taking is the "Colombian Death Road" which she seems pretty set on avoiding. No matter what road we take out of here she'll have had a chance to let her sunburn heal. We stopped by the pharmacy, and asked for Aloe for her sunburn. The pharmacist put something pink in a bottle of Johnsons & Johnsons Baby Oil instead. When we got back to the room we basted her. The official feedback is that "it doesn't hurt as much". So that's good…. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5172/...b8f4c99bd8.jpg Second Hand Mannequins |
Riding through Colombia
Intersting story. Keep it coming. About losing your brake light asembly and license plate from your bike. I had the same thing happen to me a few years ago while riding through Costa Rica on board a BMW F650 GS. After the end of a days ride along a number of nasty roads, I found that my brake light along withthe license plate had fallen off. I have heard the same story from a number of other riders. Must be a design flaw. |
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Recapping what's broken so far.
Recapping the items that have failed or broken in some way, so far.
* Airhawk - front strap ripped out of cover. Cory (Oso Blanco on ADVRider.com) had the same problem with his apparently. * Beadrider - the heavy duty fishing line that holds the beads together is breaking apart and beads are falling out. It and the Airhawk appear to be from repeatedly being struck by the foot when throwing it over the seat. * Touratech sidestand foot - Both have had the bottom layer of the edge closest to the bike (when extended) bend down either slightly or severely. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5046/...b0de784ac3.jpg It's somewhat bent * Metal loop on the kickstand in the photo above has broken off, which makes it very difficult to extend the kickstand. We'll get that fixed the next time we pass a welder and have 20 minutes to spare. * Cooling fan for the F650GS on Kay's bike * Fork seals on Kay's bike * screw / bolt thing that holds the mirror stalk onto the F650GS (we brought 2 spares because everyone seems to break these) * lost tail light assembly on kay's bike. Including tail light, license plate, and mud flap on Kay's bike. * headlight (low beam) on Kay's bike. * Rear left blinker on Kay's bike. This was an aftermarket flexible stalk blinker that the prior owner put on. I'm think he claimed it was Touratech. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5289/...6e01020047.jpg Floppy Blinker * one inner tube (rear). Probably a nail in a Mexican parking lot. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5165/...f5fba3ba50.jpg Tube es No Bueno! * Glasses (stepped on) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5089/...b339666167.jpg Entropy and glasses * Laminar lip / wind deflector for the top of Dachary's windshield (broken when bike fell against wall) * Corner of SW-Motech Trax case. Repeated drops at low to no speed ripped off the plastic corner. We're getting a piece of aluminum welded to replace it. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4073/...b757e67e82.jpg Damage to Trax case * Quick-locks for SW-Motech racks. There's a vertical shaft with tiny horizontal rods coming out of two sides. The horizontal rods are what holds it on. They both broke off on both Quick locks. Without these in place the rack holding the pannier falls outwards and would bend and break if ridden in that state. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5289/...7a582030e7.jpg The horizontal pins have sheared off. * cord pull tabs on two zippers on the BMW Rally Pro 2 suit. * The electrical socket / connection in Dachary's Gerbing's heated Jacket. Yes, it's currently in the high 80's outside but we'll be climbing to over 4000 meters in Bolivia and the Andes and it'll be good to have working. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5204/...3fa09d1f7e.jpg Solving the Gerbing's problem * Sena SMH-10 headsets. - Multiple failures chronicled elsewhere http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5047/...52dc58dd8f.jpg Taping the Sena * Contour GPS camera. USB Port fell inwards. We've got it in a bag almost entirely disassembled. Just can't get the last bit of the tube open to get at the piece we need. * RevIt Rival H20 Boots (zipper died) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5284/...d0e6296f7c.jpg The Zipper of Doom * Digital 5 Function meters - These were never designed for motorcycles and Aerostitch should be ashamed of themselves for selling them. As soon as they get wet, they die. They come back… kind-of. My thermometer is convinced it's below freezing out when it's in the 80's. They both max out somewhere close to 100 deg. F. Mine now beeps randomly The only thing that's semi-reliable is the voltmeter which is either fully lit up 88:8 or accurate. http://www.corporaterunaways.com/wp-.../4632_1a_3.jpg * Camelback bite valves. Dachary's now drips constantly and both of them have started to gradually slide off the stalk. Bring spares. * Dachary's hair - lost to a Hairdresser in love with the 80's * Kay's hair - lost in a vicious Honduran barbering. Not quite broken but…. * Thumb of Joe Rocket Sonic gloves was too short and resulted in your thumb being jammed into the end as you twisted the throttle. Not technically broken but as good as. Attacked the stitching with a Leatherman. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5133/...d40ae272cc.jpg Glove Mod * Aerostitch Triple Digit Rain Covers Not broken. Just annoying and slippy. Won't bother using them again unless it rains during cold weather. First attempt at using resulted in large sacks of water surrounding each hand. Second attempt seemed to work as designed. |
Day 58 - Mocoa, Colombia
We were hoping for good news this morning from the RMV back home, but apparently Boston just got another umpteen feet of snow dumped on it and the RMV is closed and the Governor has told everyone to stay home. So our friend will try again tomorrow, and we wait in limbo in Mocoa to see if we can get a new plate for Kay's bike.
In the meantime, we went out this morning to explore the town and see what else we could accomplish here. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5138/...2f086f5e29.jpg Carboarded motos http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4145/...188b111909.jpg Surgically Augmented Mannequins by CorporateRunaways, on Flickr My SW-Motech TraX pannier has been held together by stickers through two falls now, and we decided to see if we could find an aluminum welder to replace the plastic cap that's broken off with something a little more substantial. Wandered a bit, asked a cop, who sent us over a block, down a block and over a block - but the cop next to him said we should just go down two blocks and over a block. Neither was quite accurate, but with one more stop to ask directions, we made our way to a welder who was working on something on the sidewalk. The trick is finding a welder who can work with aluminum - most only weld steel. We'd planned to wander over and ask, but the thing we saw him welding in the street was a large aluminum frame, that looked like in better days it might be a window frame. Check. They weld aluminum. So we went back to the hotel room, emptied my pannier, peeled the stickers off (they came off in one giant sheet and didn't leave any residue! Yet another victory for the stickers!) and walked back over to the welder. Along the way, we looked up a few words we wanted to make sure we got across - "strong" - "substitute" - we didn't want them to try to fix the plastic, but we wanted a new strong piece of aluminum there. Even with our poor Spanish we managed to get our point across. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4073/...b757e67e82.jpg Damage to Trax case In the end, it sounded like they were going to use the plastic cap as a template and machine a new aluminum cap piece for the pannier. We asked how long, and they seemed worried that we needed it "rapido." "No, no, tomorrow's fine" - and they told us to come back at 11AM tomorrow to pick it up. Yay! So now, hopefully, my pannier will no longer need the stickers, and will be stronger than before. We'll see what we find. We went window shopping for little motos, which sadly took less than five minutes. We'd spotted a showroom yesterday that had a selection of Bajaj motos, which we checked out today. It turns out that they only have two models - a 135CC and a 220CC. Which both have the exact same body work, and seem to us very much similar to the new Ninja 250 we've looked at in the states. (We used to have an old school Ninja 250 - Kay had it before I bought it off him, and it was my first bike. I learned a lot from crashing and repairing that sucker.) Either Bajaj or Kawasaki ripped off a lot of the body work and design features from the other. Then some poking our heads into the local supermarkets for Diet Coke. Diet Coke was readily available in Central America (although they call it Coke Light) and I've been missing it in Colombia where I can only get regular coke, or the rather odd Colombian brand sodas. Although Kay has discovered a soda called "Quatro" which tastes remarkably like Fresca, which we both like. But because our hotel room has a mini-fridge (did I mention $13 per night for fast internet, hot water and a… MINI-FRIDGE? Yeah baby. Luxury.) I thought I could grab some soda and keep it there for a treat. We did eventually find a two-liter of Coke Light, some snacky stuff and some cord for another bodge we want to do for our bikes, and then headed back to the hotel room. All before noon. While we may not be excited about our enforced stay while waiting for license plates, we're certainly going to get the most out of our stay in Mocoa. Kay's note: I couldn't help but feel like we were playing a real live version of World of Warcraft this morning. First we received a quest to go find an aluminum welder. Then the welder gave us a quest to go get, and prepare, a pannier for welding. When we did that we got a quest to take it to the welder. When we dropped it off at the welder we got a quest to return the next day. Dachary said "what filler quests can we do in the meantime?" We're just hoping we don't encounter any random mobs while wandering around town the next couple/few days. The afternoon was spent updating our blog and generally being lazy. Went out around 2PM looking for lunch, and apparently that's the wrong time of day to go out in Mocoa. Everything was closed and shuttered. The vibrant town that we had seen this morning was non-existent. In spite of the fact that we'd seen half a dozen restaurants whilst wandering around this morning, we could only find three open this afternoon. We sat down at one, which told us they wouldn't be serving food again until 3PM. We tried another, but they only had breakfast and juices on their menu. So we went back to the same place where we had dinner yesterday, and got the same dishes we had then. It's pricey but apparently it was the only place in town open and serving lunch at 2PM. Lesson: go earlier or later for food. Got back to the room and spent more time poking around the computers. I got a new assignment from a client to write articles about this trip - YAY! and spent hours working on my first assignments. Kay tried in vain to finish the book he's been reading on his iPad via the Kindle app (it refuses to end). We watched some Dr. Who and chilled. It's been a very low-key day. Looking forward to picking up my pannier tomorrow and see what they've been able to do with it. And hoping for good news tomorrow with our friend and the RMV! (Although MotoAdventureGal has suggested a lovely Plan B that might just do the trick, so we'll see what happens.) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5217/...4454e702de.jpg Mocoa at night |
Day 59 - Mocoa Colombia
Wow, almost two months now.
Today our friend in the states managed to make it through the snow-drifts to the Registry of Motor Vehicles and procure a new plate (and registration) for my bike. It didn't require any convincing with tales of dangerous colombian drug dealers. In fact, all it required, literally, was a copy of my registration, which I find rather disturbing, because with the Mass. registration being so amazingly forgeable it seems that just about anyone could go in and **** with someone else vehicle. There was one, minor, tiny, insignificant, little snag though. The whole getting it delivered to us? Yeah. No. We checked the FedEx web site… we could have it delivered to a FedEx location in Pasto, which is on the way to one of the two borders. That sounded good, so we gave our friend a heads-up. She goes, and discovers that the "hold for pick-up" location for Pasto is not exactly IN Pasto. No. It's in Bogota, at the Airport. A three day drive from Pasto. So, not exactly what I'd call "convenient" to anyone living there. It's a two day drive from Mocoa, and along the way is San Agust |
Day 60 - Mocoa to Neiva Colombia
The morning was uneventful save for one thing. We got breakfast, retrieved or bikes from the parking lot across the street, started putting our bags on them, and then, checked the tires because my rear looked a little low, and turned out to be just as low as it looked.
So, I dug down to the bottom of one of my panniers for the CyclePump, pulled it out, filled it and the front up (Dachary's didn't need any) shoved it back in shoved the other things back in, squished my toiletries bag back in and pressed against the blade of my razor with the crook of my thumb, slicing open the toiletries bag (now no longer a dry sac) and the crook of my thumb. It was raining, we were about to set off, and now the most flexed portion of my hand was bleeding. Wonderful. I went in, convinced it to mostly stop bleeding, put on my jacket, wrapped toilet paper around the base of my thumb, then shoved it in my glove and hoped I wouldn't have to take it off for a long time… also hoped that it wouldn't start bleeding on the ride and give me a blood caked glove, because as OJ proved, leather gloves that have become soaked in blood have a tendency to shrink. So on we rode, back up route 45, with comments like "Oh poor us, having to spend more days riding nicely paved roads with beautiful curves winding through the incredible Colombian landscape. Woe is us. " Honestly the only thing we mind about all this is that it's eaten up a week and by the time we finally exit Colombia we'll probably only have six weeks left for the rest of the continent, which, frankly, sucks. We're going to have to spend more time than we wanted on main roads, but there's no way we're skipping Bolivia and the Salar De Uyuni. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4118/...2d0a8a7855.jpg Smiling guard So, on we ride, until we get to one of the rare police checkpoints where they actually want to pull us over. I tell them we're heading back to Bogota to get a plate and point to the paper the police gave me when I declared it lost. He wanted to know something else, which I wasn't quite getting, and then he got interested in the GPS, looking for Mocoa (the town we'd just left) for some reason. Then a woman walked up and started chatting in English, not about what the cops wanted, just… chatting. Eventually I ended up telling her that out of all the places we'd been so far Colombia was absolutely our favorite, that the people were great and the country was gorgeous. She said how much she loved to hear people say that, that it made her feel proud of her country, as well she should. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4096/...3df5ddc184.jpg If you need help in Popayan She said that if we ever needed help we should just stop and ask the police as they were good. We'd employed this tactic before on a number of occasions, but it was good to hear a local suggesting they were good too…. and "Do you know Popayan?" It was ringing a bell…. then Dachary, who was talking with the cop, who'd moved over to her bike, heard me over the headset and reminded me where it was… "oh, yes, We turned just before that when we went to Inza and Tierradentro." I said, "we'll probably be passing through it when we head back towards Equador. "Well, if you're in Popayan and you need anything give me a call… well, give my husband a call, as I'll probably not be back yet." And she wrote down her and her husband's cell phone numbers. I gave her a card, took her picture, and thanked her greatly. An offer like that really means a lot to me. I hope we never have to call her, but it's good to know we can. So, Adriana, Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5300/...bc5f831fd5.jpg At a military checkpoint As we rode off Dachary informed me of what had been happening over at her bike. While the guys were gathered around my GPS another had come and asked to look in her panniers. This was the first time anyone in Colombia has asked to look, and the first time anyone at all has asked to look at Dachary's. She opened one up, and he seemed somewhat disappointed that everything was bagged up and not visible. He picked out almost everything in her left pannier, opening some of the bags, and a few bags from the right, but in the end it was too much trouble for too little return. "Oh look, wodged up clothes." "Oh look. cords" Dachary was secretly waiting for him to look inside the bag of tampons, but alas, he got bored just before. After not quite finding what he'd wanted in the GPS my guy wandered off to her bike, noticed the map on her tank bag, and asked if it was of Colombia. "Yes", and set about finding Mocoa, again, and then tracing the route northward to roughly the current location, asked for a pen, which she didn't feel like digging out, but pointed to the one I was offering to Adriana, which he didn't feel like asking for. We're still not sure what he wanted to do with it, but soon thereafter we were back on the road. Around lunch time we made it into Pitalito, where we went into town, to find food, passed a restaurant full of people, circled the block (one way streets) passed through the moto-everything block of town, and pulled up alongside the restaurant. There were no empty tables, but the guy behind the counter motioned us to squeeze in at a six seater that only had two. So we did. The wife was very talkative, and like many Colombians, willing to work around our limited vocabulary. When I asked what you called the lentil soup thing her hubby had on his plate she said "lenteah" (or something that sounded like that) and hollered for the waiter guy to get us a bowl of it. I didn't stop her because we'd had it elsewhere and it was freaking delicious. Turns out, the whole meal was delicious. Dachary ordered pasta and beef and i'd ordered pasta and chicken. We'd gone for the pasta because he mentioned it and I think we're both sick of carne asada. The pasta was awesome. Big wide linguini strips that had been cooked in some delectable chicken broth. So good. The chicken, beef, and lenteah were also delicious. While we sat there she asked if we were going to see San Agust�*n and we said no, because, whilst it was on the way, last night we'd both commented that we had absolutely no desire to go there. It just wasn't calling to us. But as we sat there she kept going on about it, how beautiful it was, how it was only thirty minutes down the road, how easy it was to get too, oh you'll love it… She, like everyone else in Pitalito and the surrounding area, seemed so proud of it. They loved it. They thought everyone should see it. It wasn't the "oh we have a tourist attraction that people come to see" kind of feeling. People around here really love San Agust�*n, and as we set out on the bikes we both felt a little guilty for still not having any interest, and continuing northward. The riding continued to be spectacular. The Andes have been to our left all day, rising up like giant dark shadows behind the mountains we can make out. Frequently I didn't even realize they were there. I thought it was just darker skies behind the mountains until I'd notice that one part of the darker sky had a cloud curling around it. Dachary says that one of the peaks to our west is nearly 6,000 meters. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5136/...66f2abbba0.jpg Colombian Panorama (click through for the full panorama) We covered nearly two hundred miles today, and as we approached Neiva we were drained, and not looking forward to dealing with finding a hotel in a city this size, or the price. A sign came up, Hotel 500m. Hmm…. We found it. We pulled in. It's a nice place. I have no idea what it's called, it has a restaurant on site, and the guy wanted 100,000 pesos (about $50). Nope, not paying *that* much. I told him so, figured he wouldn't come down enough, and asked him to recommend a place. He did, the semi-tourist town we'd passed a turn-off to 8k back. And by the time I was walking out the door he'd talked himself down to 70,000. Still more than I wanted to pay, but tempting because we were so tired, and really, really not wanting to deal with a city…. I talked to Dachary. "If it means not having to deal with a city…." We took it. In the end they got their 100,000 because the food was pricey (no surprise there), but it was fairly good. As we were putting on normal pants to go out to the outdoor restaurant and eat it Dachary asked what that sound was, and wondered if it would be going on all night. I hypothesized that it was cicadas, but that I'd never heard so many as to make a chorus affect. We stepped out the door and, as if they'd been waiting for precisely that moment, they came to a whining crescendo that sounded like fifty weed-whackers grinding their metal plates into submission. "That can't be cicadas." she said, but it was. It's 10:29 and the temperature has dropped enough that they've shut up. But their droning tone has been replaced by the screams and yells of children playing in the pool. Some parents need to be seriously bitch-slapped. Side note: Dachary's been picking at her sunburn since she took off her shirt. She's obsessed with it. |
Day 61 - Neiva to Zapiquira
At some point in the middle of the night the rain started. Torrential downpours. It would pause for a few minutes, then start back up again, and continued in that fashion until the alarm went off.
We were not thrilled. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4146/...6baf565f63.jpg When it rains it pours... We dawdled a little as we packed, or, I did, hoping it would let up, but it didn't seem interested, so we put in our rain liners and started hauling things out to the bikes. The overpriced hotel restaurant had all the chairs up on the tables, so we didn't even consider breakfast there, but as we lugged things out, the guy in charge enthusiastically offered us some juice. Which, it should be noted, is never from a jug. Juice in Latin America is always fresh-squeezed / blended. I asked if they were serving breakfast, and yes, it turns out they were. "Do you want breakfast?"… "I don't know…" Dachary was focused on getting things loaded, but after that, she decided that yeah, it would be better than hunting for breakfast, so we sat down, and voila, one of the best breakfasts we'd had in a while. Turned out it was included with the room too. By the end of breakfast the rain had become a light sprinkle, and Dachary took off the rain liner in her coat. I was not so bright. Ten minutes after hitting the road and the skies were clear. I took off my coat's rain liner, but both of us still had the pant liners on, and it was 104 deg. F in the shade when we finally pulled over to a gas station with a teeny bathroom to remove them. We rode through more beautiful roads that looked like the Colorado plains, then up into lush green China as we rose to greet Bogota, then past its outskirts (bleh), and through some town where everyone seemed to go to eat. It was packed and there were literally corrals to funnel the crowds, but on we went into the darkest rain cloud either of us had dared to ride into. We stopped to put our jacket liners in just before, and were very grateful we did, because it was another downpour that ended just as we made it to Zapiquira. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4145/...32b65d6d69.jpg Colombian Countryside Now, you may be wondering, "Why Zapiquira?" well, an ADVRider pointed out that since we needed to be near Bogota, we might want to check out the Cathedral De Sal, and I remembered seeing a number of programs over the years that spoke of it in glowing terms. Dachary wasn't so into the idea, but she was willing to go along with it. So, we pulled in, and knowing we'd be stuck there for two nights (waiting for Monday morning to pick up my new plate in Bogota) checked the best place in the travel book. The price was a wee much but not too bad and it had internet, but there was something weird about the room. It wasn't available until 8pm (it was a little after 6 at the time), and if we wanted it we'd have to put down money to reserve it, and then, when I said ****-it, sure because it was the nicest one recommended by the book, the price suddenly went up another 27,000 pesos. Hmm… no, I think we'll go look somewhere else. So we did. We checked the two other places in the book, and another that was next door, picked one that had net (in the lobby only), unloaded, and wandered out for food. Unfortunately it was a tourist town, and all the restaurants seemed to be catering to the bar crowd. Loud, with a side-order of can't think. We finally found a chicken place that seemed quiet from the doorway, ordered, and walked around to the tables in the back, where we gingerly assaulted by the days soccer highlights on the TV. Something about Latin America and loud volumes. We don't get it. My fish was good, Dachary's chicken was lame, but back in the room we were happy to report that the Hotel seemed surprisingly quiet. We're not used to hotels that are actually quiet. So, we booted up the iPad and watched some Top Gear and Dr. Who, read a bit, and fell asleep. Not a bad day, but the miles did leave us rather tired. |
Day 62 - Zipaquira and Catedral de Sal
Upon checking into the hotel that had semi-functional internet access last night, we discovered that Kay's new license plate had already been delivered to FedEx in Bogota. We figured we could scrap the plans to see Catedral de Sal and ride to Bogota, grab it and get on the road, but Kay was really interested in seeing it and since we'd already gotten there, decided we should stick around and see it. So I did some research and found lots of great reviews about it, and info saying that it would take a half day to see everything there.
We decided that after seeing Catedral de Sal, it would be too late to get into Bogota, locate the FedEx thing, and get out again - we'd get stuck hunting for a hotel in Bogota. Which didn't sound good to either of us. So we decided to take the room in Zipaquira for another night, and make a day of it. I wanted to check some stuff on my bike, and Kay wanted to remove the annoying Aerostich multimeter thing, so we had enough to do after seeing the Catedral. So we got up at a leisurely pace, had breakfast, and went to see the Catedral. Got there around 10AM, bought our tickets (around $10 US per person for just the Catedral de Sal and some 3D movie thing) and headed in. We realized too late that we were going in with a Spanish-speaking tour group, and we could have waited for an English-speaking tour guide, but Kay opted to just go in with the Spanish guide instead of waiting around until later, figuring that the place would be interesting enough to hold our attention even if we didn't understand the guide. The Catedral de Sal was… disappointing. One of the reviews described it as the "Eighth Wonder of the World" - we beg to differ. It was impressive from the standpoint of being a salt mine, and Kay was very impressed with what we saw from a mining perspective… but otherwise, it was a bunch of crosses lit up in mined-out caverns which represented various "stations" in Jesus' life. The main cathedral itself was somewhat impressive, but the rest of it was kind of… lame. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5212/...6c4149cf31.jpg Cathedral De Sal http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5299/...51469966a3.jpg Cathedral De Sal http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4142/...3ec6e0d1ef.jpg Cathedral De Sal http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5015/...159f7381c1.jpg Cathedral De Sal Also? After seeing just the Catedral and the 3D movie (about mining, and the infrastructure of this mine in particular, which was somewhat interesting) it was barely even 12. Obviously we miscalculated, and had we not taken the room for another night, we could have probably made it into Bogota, gotten the license plate, and made it out again. But we'd already paid for the room, and there was still stuff we could do on the bikes, so we simply headed back. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4150/...d9473d0584.jpg Startled pera http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4138/...57d8c4717f.jpg Cute for sale The most noteworthy thing about this visit was the fact that the altitude kicked my ass. I was short of breath after walking up just a few flights of stairs toward the mine - far more so than normal. And then walking along the flat roads. And walking downhill later. I don't remember having this much trouble the first time we were in Bogota, but I also didn't do much walking around then. By the time we finished with the mine, I was ready to go back to the hotel room and crash for a bit. So we did - went back and watched an episode of Dr. Who and then went out to futz with the bikes. My bike was having its first problem. I'd noticed vibrations between 60-70KPH. It was worse when decelerating, but it got quite bumpy from time to time and I was worried about it. So we pulled up the F650 forum (the Chain Gang) FAQ, which Kay had archived the entirety of on his iPad for quick reference, and I stared going through the vibration FAQ. Checked this and that and nothing really seemed to apply. In the end, we tightened two of the engine bolts, which I was skeptical of but was easy enough to do so there was no reason not to do it. I also discovered that my steering bearing is notched, but I have no idea how serious of a problem this is and haven't had a chance to look it up on the Web. Checked some other fasteners - notably my taillight, after Kay's had simply fallen off - checked my front sprocket, which requires removing the stupid BMW guard (this is a bitch to remove if you have the Touratech engine guards - we Dremeled a bit out to make it easier but it's still a PITA) and did some general checking and maintenance. The bike didn't really seem to need anything else, although the chain is showing signs of wear - my Loobman seems to be doing an insufficient job of lubing the chain. Guess it's time to find a moto shop and buy some lube and a cleaning brush and do it the old fashioned way. Kay took the opportunity to disconnect and remove the Aerostich multimeter, which had been failing on him for a while. After the rain in Neiva, it had gotten to the point that it beeped incessantly every 5 seconds, and NONE of the things worked anymore. So he had to take off the seat, disconnect it from his Fuzeblock, and remove the multimeter and wires. Before trashing it he chopped off the wires to use as extra reinforcement for the license plate. Mine, by the way, is still fully functional, except for the fact that the clock keeps losing time and some of the LCDs on the clock don't work anymore. I think being more inside the cockpit has afforded mine some protection, but these still aren't meant for use on a motorcycle. Shame on you, Aerostich, for selling them to motorcycle owners. (They're meant for inside of a car, we now know.) Otherwise were fairly lazy, aside from some minor medical ailments. We had to go to a drugstore to request some anti-histamines for me, because I seem to be developing some obnoxiously itchy red dots. Akin to Chicken Pox, actually - I noticed them first at the hotel in Neiva, and they've been getting worse since then (i.e. more of them, itchier). Not quite sure what to do about it, except to give it a few more days and see if it goes away on its own. Also had to get a laxative, because I've gone from one extreme to the other - so now I was glued to the bathroom for the rest of the night. There was a pizza place next to the hotel, and we'd had no luck getting pizza there for dinner last night. I sent Kay to try again while I stayed close to the bathroom, and after much to-do, which resulted in the pizza shop lady coming back inside our hotel and talking to the hotel receptionist, who apparently called a pizza shop somewhere else and ordered pizza for us, we finally got an order in for pizza. 45 minutes later, we got two "personal" pizzas. And they were TINY. Still, we dug in optimistically… and agreed that we've had better pizzas from a box in the frozen food section. The crust was lame, there was no sauce and the cheese tasted… odd. The only saving grace was that it was cheap. Kay went out a bit later to get a second dinner for us to share - chicken and potatoes. That was much better. Kay's note: the Pizza place didn't have pizza, wouldn't make pizza, didn't have the lasagna that was on the menu, and I suspect didn't have the hamburgers on the menu either. Also, the woman who ran the pizza place was unaware that pepperoni was a form of salami. So word of advice? Ordering pizza in Colombia is a crap-shoot. Also? I'm now in a position to say decisively that laxatives are NO FUN. Wish I didn't have an opinion, but… my digestive tract has been taking a beating on this trip. |
Day 63 - Zipaquira to Flandes
We think Colombia is beautiful and awesome and our favorite country of the trip so far, but we woke up this morning ready to get to Bogota, get Kay's license plate, and get moving. We've spent longer than we intended here, waiting for the plate, which cuts the rest of our trip short. Just 7 weeks to get down to Ushuaia and then up to Buenos Aires to fly home!
We'd done some intense Google Mapping with our intermittent internet connection this morning, and I made an executive call to take the big road that goes directly into Bogota from Zipaquira. Kay had wanted a more indirect route that traverses less of the city, but I thought this way would actually be faster, so I requested he concede to me and take the route I wanted. Which he did, and it was great… we got right into Bogota with no hassle, and then found the road we needed to go sorta east across the city. But when it came time to get on the road that heads northwest to the airport, we must have missed the exit. We noticed our mistake and got off a bit further and started circling back - but we simply couldn't get on the road we wanted in the direction we wanted to go. It took us nearly 45 minutes of turning and turning and circling back until we could finally get on the road to the airport. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5177/...7279450ef1.jpg Bogata Street Art And then, of course, we went too far (Kay spotted what ended up being the right turn, but I wanted to go further because I was afraid that if we got of the road to the airport again, we'd spend another 45 minutes trying to get back on it.) More circling around, which this time involved going all the way across town on the road leading from the airport until we could make an illegal U-turn to get back and try the turn Kay thought it was. Kay's note: to get to transversal 93 take the sign for "Almo". Also, that's where all cheap hotels near the airport appear to be. Most of them appear to have parking that is hidden from the street. Eventually we made it back and it was, indeed, the correct turn. Found the industrial park where the FedEx office was located with fairly little trouble using the street numbers (although there was no FedEx sign out front - it's buried in the back of the complex) and had a little trouble getting in because Kay didn't have a license plate for the guy to record, and neither of us wanted to hand over our passports and didn't have another form of ID he wanted. But we played dumb gringo and eventually he let us through, and told us the FedEx people would have to stamp these pieces of paper he gave us. But they apparently weren't taking any chances with the clearly dangerous gringos, as one of the security guys walked back to the FedEx building and waited there until we pulled up and got off the bikes, making sure that was, indeed, where we were going. Kay got his package with a minimum of fuss (Thank you so much, Diane!) and opened it up in front of the FedEx building. He'd saved some wire from removing the Aerostich multimeter yesterday, and intended to tie it to his frame since the plate holder thing had fallen off along with his taillight. But the FedEx guys quickly cottoned onto the problem, and brought a fist-full of zip ties out to us - industrial-strength zip ties. Kay proceeded to try a few anchor points and eventually found a good spot to secure the plate, and used a doubly-reinforced system of zip ties and wire to bodge the plate onto the bike, much to the amusement of the FedEx people. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5057/...12736061d0.jpg Attaching the new plate By now, it was 1:15PM, we hadn't had breakfast or lunch, and we just wanted to get out of Bogota. I'd also mapped us a route out taking a different road than we'd taken out of Bogota the first time (through Soacha this time instead of La Mesa, which I think is probably the main route to Cali) and gave in and stopped for food when we saw a Dunkin' Donuts sign at a gas station leaving Soacha. I wasn't hungry at this point, but I was dizzy and lightheaded which is a bad combo for being on the bike. But neither of us having eaten, we knew it was high time to grab food, and at least we knew what to expect from Dunkin Donuts. Alas, we spent double what we normally spend on a meal (triple some of our cheap meals) and had a very mediocre meal at Dunkin. A couple of their "flat" sandwiches, and a donut, each - the flats were ok but somewhat flavorless and I had to force myself to eat the second one because I knew I needed the calories. It was insane how much it cost (around $24 US, and most of our meals between $5 and $10 US) but we didn't know where else to look for food and we were grateful for the opportunity to eat something other than chicken or carne asada at this point. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5216/...7fe8d891b2.jpg Colombian Countryside http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4122/...7fac7da2f5.jpg Colombian Countryside http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5051/...178614bd9b.jpg Colombian Countryside When all was said and done, we rolled into Giradot around 5PM and decided to stop there for the night. We had well over another hour of light, which would have gotten us to Ibague, but we were annoyed with the hotel and parking at our last stay in Ibague so neither of us wanted to stay there again. We kept seeing signs advertising hotels, but when we'd turn down the road, there was no hotel to be seen. In the end, we drove for 40 minutes, checked 4 hotels and ended up in the next town over - Flandes - before we found a place to stop. It was more than we usually spend but we just wanted to stop looking at that point, it had air conditioning, seemed clean, and promised internet. The internet, sadly, isn't working after all, and we might not have paid this much for the room had we known… but it got us off the bikes for the night. Went down to the "restaurant" and the guy explained that he could call anywhere we wanted to get us food. Did we want pizza, etc.? We'd tried pizza last night in Zipaquira which had gone horribly awry, so we gave the pizza another shot. Asked for a grande Hawaiian and a large Coke to share. Sat on the balcony working on catching up the writing for our blog, even though we can't post it, and the promised pizza arrived in a timely manner. And was huge. And came with 3 liters of Coke. And, it turns out, neither of us wanted to eat it once we tried it. Kay said at one point that "It tastes like someone put ham, pineapples, and cheese on a donut" - which neither of us particularly wanted to eat. So today we've spent more than we'd normally spend on hotels for two nights for two meals, and only ate one of them. Expensive day here in Colombia. Kay headed out again and wandered around in the dark until he found a restaurant a few blocks away, and chose the woman who had the most pots of yummy-smelling things to get us dinner. Second dinner turned out much better. Try, try again! Kays note: it wasn't so much a restaurant as a collection of tables and chairs behind a long table with lots and lots of silver pots on it, illuminated by a street light. All the other places on the street with tables only served alcohol. But now we have Kay's new license plate, Yay! So tomorrow we get to cross over the ginormous mountain range over to Armenia again, and then start heading toward Ecuador. Probably two more days of riding (maybe three if we decide to tackle the border crossing early in the AM instead of at the end of the day) and then we move on from Colombia, finally! (PS: Minor medical note - my itchy red dots are getting worse. They've doubled in number and itchiness, and now they're all up and down my arms and legs. One on my neck, too. Kay commented again today that they seem like chicken pox, but I've had chicken pox before. Not sure what else they could be. If only I had the Internet to do some research… but I guess I'll just keep taking the anti-histamines and hope it's just some sort of infection that my body can fight off.) |
Day 64 - Flandes to Tunia
We knew the mountain crossing from Ibague to Armenia takes roughly three hours, so we got up early today and hit the road at a respectable time. We were on the bikes shortly after 8AM, stopped for breakfast and gas and got really "on the road" at 9. Made good time to Ibague and found a road that bypasses it so we wouldn't have to go through the city. But it was starting to drizzle. Or rain.
We stopped to put liners on our top half and cover our tank bags, and I commented that if we happened to pass a gas station, I could probably use a bathroom before our endless trek over the mountains. Ask and ye shall receive! Gas station with bathroom. The rain was coming down harder now, and I didn't want sloshy boots, so I decided that while we were stopped, I'd put the leg liners in my pants. Which involves taking the boots off, the pants off, zipping the liner in, putting pants back on and putting boots back on. It sounds like a PITA but normally it's not this bad. The bathroom was small. Like tiny. Built for children. I had to take off my Camelbak and turn sideways just to fit through the stall door, and I had to straddle the toilet while messing with the boots and pants because there wasn't room for me to stand/put my legs in front of me/etc. So I put the liner in quickly, zipped it in, went to pull the pants on and… my right leg won't go through. What? That's never happened before. The leg must be twisted, but I had no idea it would prevent my leg from passing through entirely if that happened. So I take the pants back off and go to unzip the right leg, and get about halfway around before the zipper won't budge anymore. One single tooth didn't get zipped properly when I put the liner in - it's out of line with the other teeth and sticking kinda sideways - and I can't get it to unzip anymore. I fuss with it for a few minutes before calling to Kay through the headsets; handy that we were both still wearing our helmets. I ask for a Leatherman to tackle the zipper, but there's a catch - I'm in the women's bathroom and I'm literally stuck in the stall. And Kay can't come in because of social restrictions and because the door is locked. We argue about it for a few minutes before I realize I can stick my hand out the stall and reach the door to the bathroom, and get the Leatherman from Kay. Grab the zipper with the pliers, give it a good yank and it unzips like nothing was ever wrong. Yay for Leatherman! Get the leg liner in the right way, and with much grunting and whimpering about the confined space, I manage to get my pants back on, boots on and boots buckled. All told, this little episode had me in the bathroom for something like 20 minutes, what with the zipper difficulties. The guys who were standing around were probably snickering about it. Kay went to put his leg liners in, and got it done with much less drama thanks to a much larger stall. Back to the bikes… and the rain has slowed down. In fact, it's nearly stopped. But liners stay in, and on we go, across the mountains. We encountered fewer trucks in the first stretch than we did last time, which I suspect is because of the rain. A bunch of trucks were stopped at the gas station and I think they were waiting the rain out - it's a steep, slippery, twisty road that ascends and descends 3300 meters in the span of about 30 kilometers and I imagine the smart truckers don't take chances. Made it up the easy part of the road in good time and spotted a bank in the tiny town before the steep part of the ascent starts, and stopped to try to get cash. Unfortunately, the bank we spotted wasn't finished yet (they were building it) but a guy pointed out another bank that we drove right past which had an ATM. Alas, it didn't like our debit card. Kay pondered taking the jacket liner out, but it started raining again while we were checking ATMs (because at this point we had about 4000 pesos to our name, or about $2 US) so we just got back on the bikes and headed up the steep part of the ascent. It was just as steep as we remembered from last time, but we seemed to have better luck with the trucks. We only got stuck behind trucks a few times, and were able to safely pass on the left with a little patience each time. When we broke out the top of the pass we saw sunshine, which felt wonderful! But back down the other side of the pass, we passed back into clouds and drizzle. In all, though, we made better time crossing this time - only two hours from Ibague to Armenia instead of the three it took us last time. Heading up toward the top of the pass, though, the road was wet from rain and the moisture of the clouds, and at one point, Kay's back end slides out a bit. Not enough to drop him, but enough to cause a wibble and a bit of panic. That's when I notice the rainbow-colored tracks in the water on the road. "Someone's leaking oil!" Kay calls out, and we now have an ongoing oil slick to contend with on this steep twisty mountain road. We try to ride outside of the slick as much as possible, and keep our bikes going forward at a steady pace as much as possible, and hope we don't have an off. Eventually we come around a corner where there's a gigantic pool of oil under a car and a guy poking it from underneath and a guy standing there staring at it and scratching his head. He lost oil for probably a kilometer, but after the pool where he finally stopped, no more oil on the road. Which was a bit of a relief for both of us. Quick side trip to Armenia to find an ATM so we could get lunch, which still didn't like our debit card, but Kay used his personal debit card and was able to get cash. No idea what's going on with that. We'll have to check on that account when we have internet, and I'll have to try my card next time. Rode out of Armenia and stopped at one of the many restaurants that litters the roadside of the Pan American highway through Colombia (in a good way - we've stopped at a few now and they've all been delicious). Had a lovely lunch, and a bit of a chat with the waiter who spoke some English. He had enough English to ask us some questions about the bikes, which we answered in a combination of English and Spanish. It was fun. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5018/...63104f1065.jpg Colombian Countryside http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4145/...36385229ec.jpg Colombian Countryside Hit the road again and head toward Cali. And at lunch, we took a chance and removed the rain liners from our pants as well as our jackets. Which, of course, invoked Murphy - we had some rain spatters leaving lunch, and when we were getting close to the turn off for Cali, we encountered some more serious rain. We stopped to put on the rain covers for our tank bags, and Kay put on the rain liner in his jacket, but I was hoping the road would curve right instead of left and we wouldn't hit the rain. So I took a chance and left my jacket liner off. Wrong move. We hit rain almost immediately, but it was short-lived. We rode out of the rain, but we could see deeper black ahead, and I started seeing lightning strikes. It was obvious at this point that the road was heading right toward it, so I asked to stop again so I could put on my jacket liner. Should have just done it when Kay did. Forward again, and into an intense downpour. Which soaked us in a few seconds flat, but didn't even last as long as it took us to stop and put in the liners. After riding through the rain, it was smooth sailing on a nice highway with speeds of 60MPH! We thought we'd make some good forward progress and get dry. It became apparent that we'd hit Cali around 4PM. I had no desire to waste time going into the city again to stay at Casa Blanca Hostel, and then loose time getting out of the city in the morning, so when I saw a road that bypassed Cali for Popayan I asked Kay if we could just skip Cali and keep going. He agreed, but expressed concerns that we wouldn't find somewhere else to stay. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5293/...f6f95f1035.jpg Just before the rains We rode. And we rode. And we rode some more. Just when we were starting to get dry, we rode into another downpour which soaked us again. We thought the worst of the clouds were behind us and had no inkling we were about to hit another rainstorm, but we rode right into it with zero warning. So we were soaked again, and it was 5PM, and we were over 100KM from Popayan but had no idea where to stay. At this point we just kept riding, hoping we'd see a hotel on the side of the road. We'd found some good spots for camping in the valley near Cali (although it stunk there) but that was far behind us, and the road got hilly and twisty with no more good camping spots. As the sun started to go down, the temperature dropped, and we were getting chilly and then outright cold in our wet gear. Just when sunset was imminent and we were about to have to ride in the dark, we hit a service station and Kay spotted a "hostel" sign in the plaza. Kay pulled in and suggested we check it out, so he did, and it turns out it's a nice, clean, modern facility with private bedrooms and bathrooms for around $7 US. We got a room, unloaded the bikes and grabbed dinner in the restaurant in the plaza. Dinner came with the obligatory Colombian soup, which was delicious to our cold, damp selves - and we count ourselves lucky for this bounty at the day's end. Also? They had Diet Coke. Every restaurant today had Diet Coke. I had it with breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I haven't seen Diet Coke in ages so I'm really excited about this. It's been a good day. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5059/...371147347d.jpg She found Coke-Light! |
Day 65 - Tunia to Pasto
Today started off with a chance encounter with a couple of travelers from Oregon. They've traveled through Central America in their RV, spending some time in Mexico along the way, and now they're headed toward Argentina where I think they intend to make a new home in their retirement. Spent longer than planned chatting so we got on the road a bit late, alas.
The first leg from Tunia to Pasto got progressively worse as we rode along. At places, it resembled the roads in Honduras, which have been the worse paved roads we've ridden. It was heavily potholed and bumpy with patches, although because we were on motos, we were able to pick good lines through most of it. I was just surprised by the condition of the road because A) It was the Pan American and B) All of the other paved roads we've ridden in Colombia have been in MUCH better condition. But, as usual, it was beautiful riding in Colombia, anyway. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/...1441e3494f.jpg Colombian Countryside by CorporateRunaways, on Flickr http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4138/...66d57c8fd6.jpg Colombian Countryside by CorporateRunaways, on Flickr http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5098/...8585f02c7e.jpg Colombian Countryside by CorporateRunaways, on Flickr http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4093/...4f9934e612.jpg Colombian Countryside by CorporateRunaways, on Flickr http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5092/...e6807ec8ba.jpg Dachary in my sights by CorporateRunaways, on Flickr Stopped for lunch at a random roadside restaurant, and while we were finishing up our meal, a couple of guys walked in and introduced themselves with "You guys must be the guys causing trouble on the BMWs out there." Indeed, we were! And so we met Vern and Joe, who are also riding to Ushuaia. We had a very pleasant chat with them, and Joe had a lot of good information, including some tips on the road to Uyuni in Bolivia that we intended to ride. (Apparently the main road that people tend to take has some deep sand, in addition to the washboards we'd already heard about, but Joe gave us a heads-up about an alternate route that is decent dirt.) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5176/...5677459c79.jpg Joe and Vern by CorporateRunaways, on Flickr They told us they intended to head to Pasto tonight, and I asked for the name of the hotel where they planned to stay. We were probably going to stop in Pasto, too. We were hoping we'd see them again when we arrived at the hotel because it's always nice to chat with other adventure riders and I wanted to pick their brains. But as it happens, we caught up with them on the road to Pasto! http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4081/...ab76bcb566.jpg Joe And Vern by CorporateRunaways, on Flickr http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4137/...41498b7349.jpg Vern waddling through the moto lane by CorporateRunaways, on Flickr We ended up behind them and followed them most of the way to Pasto (except a few sections where they got ahead again) and when they stopped at a gas station on the edge of Pasto to reconnoiter, we asked if they'd mind if we followed them to the hotel. They didn't, and in surprisingly short order, with the help of some GPS coordinates and a friendly Colombian moto rider who helped lead us the last bit, we made it to the hotel and unpacked. Hotel San Sebastian - nice rooms, internet - the only problem is that our room is on the fourth floor. And we unloaded all the crap from our bikes. Boo. Unloaded the bikes and went out in search of dinner with Joe and Vern, which was fun. We found a local comidas rapidas place (fast food) where we had assorted hamburgers, sausage on a stick, potatoes and pizza. Then off to a pastelria for cookies to enjoy back in the room, and calling it a night. Tomorrow the plan is to head for the border with Ecuador and cross. Yay! Alas, Joe and Vern are both Iron Butt riders and tend to get started earlier than we do, so I'm not sure we'll travel with them much further - we take our time a bit more to stop for photos, linger over places we like and good meals, etc. We may make it to Quito with the guys tomorrow, but they might leave too early for us in the AM - and even if we do hit Quito with them, our paths might diverge there. We'll see. But it's been fun chatting with them, and I enjoyed riding in a convo of adventure riders today! Kay's note: Vern is riding a Suzuki DRZ 350, which we think might just be the perfect size for the Americas, although neither of us like the idea of riding a bike without fuel injection at high altitudes. But, for some reason we're getting way better mileage that either of them. We've been averaging between 65 and 75 Mpg lately. We have no idea why. |
Day 66 - Pasto Colombia to …. somewhere in Ecuador.
We decided to ride out of Pasto with Joe and Vern this morning because: they knew the way out (or had a GPS that would get us out), they were going to the church at Las Lajas and Joe, having seen it before and not feeling like walking back up the hill, was going to sit with the bikes while Vern went down, and Joe had been through the border crossing twice before. While the South American border crossings are widely reported to be cake it'd been so long since we'd crossed a border we both felt a bit out of the habit, and in no mood to turn down the ability to cross with someone who'd been there before.
So, we set off early, because they did, and skipped breakfast, because as we found out later in the day, they don't eat breakfast or lunch. We suspect that this has something to do with the senior citizen metabolism. It makes no sense to me that the older you get the less you eat and the less you sleep. Anyway…. Off we went, a bit faster than normal, and passing notably more aggressively than normal, as we tried to keep up with the guys. Colombia was gorgeous, (as per usual) but I felt that I was missing a little of the sights by focusing on keeping up. They guys don't ride blazingly fast, but with way more years in the saddle than us, a few iron butt rides, and a tighter deadline, they ride at a speed that's just a bit more than what we prefer. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5175/...510593dcaa.jpg Colombian Countryside A wrong turn or two, a missing Vern, and we make it to the parking lot above the church. Soon Joe returns with a Vern in tow, and Vern, Dachary, and I proceed down the hill. Dachary and I were both interested in the church from afar, but undecided if we'd actually go into it, because honestly, we don't care much about churches. But, this was absolutely worth the time. The walk down is quiet and beautiful, with great views of the river and waterfall, and the church itself was honestly spectacular. We were very impressed and very glad that we'd come with the guys and gone all the way in. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5291/...c2ea8d5e8f.jpg Las Lajas Sanctuary http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5254/...fecf53e173.jpg Las Lajas Sanctuary http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5018/...dd7605f5f5.jpg Las Lajas Sanctuary http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5211/...320eaa5eb8.jpg Las Lajas Sanctuary http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5255/...a97889e8f5.jpg Las Lajas Sanctuary http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5176/...40524cd35a.jpg Las Lajas Sanctuary http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5136/...ec60ec5c37.jpg Las Lajas Sanctuary http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4143/...f5be6d1dab.jpg Las Lajas Sanctuary http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5134/...80b20748af.jpg Las Lajas Sanctuary http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5294/...8afe01b1c0.jpg IMG_2201 http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4097/...4089e221f1.jpg Las Lajas Sanctuary http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4077/...d05bf622e0.jpg IMG_2202 http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4073/...6b95670c46.jpg Las Lajas Sanctuary http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4097/...be30913fab.jpg Las Lajas Sanctuary http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5094/...cb01a2918c.jpg Las Lajas Sanctuary http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5094/...d2be8079ed.jpg Las Lajas Sanctuary http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5018/...60fc63388c.jpg Las Lajas Sanctuary http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5099/...bd60a7685e.jpg Las Lajas Sanctuary http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4076/...7eb7132354.jpg Las Lajas Sanctuary Back on the bikes we headed for the border, where we encountered the RV travelers from yesterday having a little trouble with the language barrier at Ecuador's customs. Because Dachary and I came with photocopies of everything we got to go first whilst the guys ran to get copies of the passport (main page), license, and title / registration (They used their titles, we used our registrations). And whilst the guys were getting their paperwork done Dachary ran to the Comidas Rapidas place by Ecuadorian immigration and we wolfed down a quick lunch which allowed us to not have to abandon the guys at this point, because having skipped breakfast we both needed something in our bellies. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5256/...8d522b23f0.jpg The bikes at the Ecuadoran Border Coming in to the town at the Colombian side of the border (Ipiales) was an absolute shit hole, unlike the rest of Colombia, although the outskirts of Bogota aren't very pretty. The town on the Ecuadorian side wasn't the prettiest, but it was livable, and not somewhere you'd feel you'd been sentenced to as punishment for multiple cases of manslaughter. We made it through, and found that this part of Ecuador looks like someone laid a giant green patchwork quilt over it. It's pretty, but not as pretty as Colombia, and even the very pretty bits we encountered so far didn't affect me as much as the typical Colombian scenery. But we discovered a couple reasons why having the right riding partner is so critical. Before now it'd all just been theory, but now… We were riding at a pace slightly greater than we were really comfortable at, they didn't stop for photos like we do, and because they don't have camelbacks and don't drink, or eat, during the day, they never have to stop to pee. We suspect they've had special super secret Iron Butt training courses to enlarge their bladders. We've totally enjoyed the past couple days with the guys, but it has also served to emphasize just how lucky we are to be such perfect riding partners. There were things we passed today that we'd totally have stopped to take pictures of on our own, and we both tend to want to eat at the same times, and are more inclined to pull over at a gas station when we need to pee than hold it. It became apparent we weren't going to make Quito today, and they guys figured it'd be better to call it a day early with time to **** around with their bikes rather than push it, so we stopped at a place Joe noticed, but he didn't catch that the price was per-person, rather than per-room so he ended up paying more than expected ($20 per person). It's high for us too, but were both of the opinion that the extra night of chatting with the guys over dinner was worth it. Nice rooms, actual hot water, tasty food….. All good, but just after we pulled in the RV people saw our bikes and pulled in to see if we knew something about the place, and find out if they could park their RV here for the night. Later on the son came and chatted while we all futzed with our bikes, and Joe and Vern advised against our plan to change my rear tire tonight suggesting that the roads between here and Bolivia were fine and that the tire would totally make it, and give piece of mind of having the spare for those extra miles. I figured they've each been riding about 8 times longer than I have and have a far better sense of these things and their advice is probably damn worth it. So, I took it. The RV folks joined us for dinner which was… interesting. I think I'd have preferred it to be just us bikers, but they're nice folk, and the son was somewhat starved for conversation because they've been living in Mexico for a year, and then spent some time crossing Central America speaking zero Spanish. We're practically fluent compared to them and we're terrible. As we headed back for our rooms we thanked the guys for letting us tag along for a couple days, wished them the best, and grabbed a couple of Joe's stickers, which I've added to my panniers. I love getting stickers from other bikers, and I am proud to be sporting Joe's. Joe and Vern are great guys, and we're are totally in debt to them for the great info they gave us during our chats. Hopefully we can pass it on to other riders someday. So, thank you Joe, and Vern. We had a great time riding with you, but we're looking forward to taking things at our own pace tomorrow. |
Day 67 - Somewhere north of Quito to Somewhere south of Ambato Ecuador
We caught Joe and Vern as they were doing their final packing, chatted for a bit, and wished them the best before heading to breakfast. Great guys, and we'll miss their company but we like eating breakfast and lunch and stopping to pee (since we drink constantly from the Camelbacks).
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5173/...e7a7c686c8.jpg Joe and Vern http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5253/...e00bb5d797.jpg Vern sets off http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5053/...8f322db583.jpg Joe sets off The only touristy thing of the day was the equator, which I had put as a waypoint in the GPS. Joe had warned us that the sign was easy to miss, so I was keeping a careful eye on the GPS, switching it from Kilometers to Hours, mInutes, seconds when we got within 1k of it. Was kinda cool watching it tick down from 300 seconds to… "Oh hey! The sign!… that's not very small…." note: The entrance is about fifty meters after the sign if you're heading south. Pulled in, and the guy there told us we could bring the bikes in to the main area. Whoot! Then directed us to point them nose to nose along the equator. Many pictures were taken, and then he gave us his educational talk about why the equator is cool, and why the map we're so used to really ought to be turned sideways so that North is on the left and South is on the right. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5172/...1719148fe0.jpg The Equator http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4076/...4b52a3b813.jpg The Equator http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5212/...eece4580d2.jpg The Equator http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5138/...3ce8a90387.jpg Some Ecuatorial T-Shirt love for Revzilla The idea has a few merits, the one we liked best was that no country is on top of any other country. No matter what map we look at there will always be some psychological value to the country on top, but when you have the equator at the center vertically everything kind of comes in from the side and there's not as much of a sense of domination by the US and Russia. Also, he explained the Tropic of Cancer and Tropic of Capricorn to us, which is good, because while we both knew they were important neither of us could remember why. Sadly, we didn't stop to take a pic when we passed the Tropic of Cancer in Mexico. Anyway, they were asking for donation to support their educational stuff, and had a cool sky map with all the constellations (since you can see them all from the equator) and a DVD. We liked what they were trying to do, and ponied up the $20 they were asking for. Honestly I don't care so much if they achieve their goals, but i think that even trying to achieve their goals will get kids thinking and asking questions about the world we live in which is great. Their site is at Untitled Document We asked the guy if he'd seen a couple of "older guys" on bikes earlier in the day and he said no. We were shocked. Did Joe and Vern somehow miss it?! I hope not, because Vern hadn't been there before. Either way, Dachary and I looked at each other and thought how grateful we weren't riding with them today, because we would have missed it. Also, it's just much more comfortable riding at our own pace, which seems to frequently be about 5 to 10 kph slower than theirs. Shortly after we left I said "I think there's something wrong with my tires." to Dachary, "No. It's the road." Which is somewhat humorous because there have been so many times when Dachary has been "is there something wrong with the road or my bike?" It felt like i was kind-of floating on the road an not really gripping it. Like when they've just run one of those road eaters over the tarmac to prepare it for resurfacing, except the road *looked* fine. Visually it was great, but both of us were weirded out by it and kept our speed down for the next ten minutes or so, until the road finally rejoined normalcy. Not long after that we were following the Pan American through Quito, which I'm happy to report was a 4 lane highway that skirted the guts of the city. Neither of us realized how high Quito was though. 3177 meters was the highest we hit in town, and not long afterwards we brushed up against 3500. It's also, FREAKING HUGE. It's hard to get a sense of the thing since it is situated between mountains, and you can never see it all at once. But trust me, it's big, and you really don't want to ride through it if you don't have to. It was chilly, and wet, as we were riding through the lower fringes of the clouds into, through, and past Quito. When we started coming down we were able to look over and down onto a rain storm, seeing it from a distance, but level with the bottom edge of the cloud. We could see Rain going down onto the plain from our level. It was quite cool. But, by then we'd been in the mid fifties, with wet misty cloudstuff for hours. I was chilly, and Dachary was starting to shiver. We needed to find somewhere for lunch, which we were already a couple hours late for, but honestly, nothing looked like something we'd even want to park at, nevermind *eat at, until finally, I saw a restaurant sign that proclaimed "Healthy Food" (I didn't realized until later that it was in english). I figured anyone that is going to go out of their way to promote "healthy food" is going to have some standards, and thus, hopefully, a decent place. I couldn't quite figure where it was, but I dutifully pulled over by the sign and saw that it was an adjunct to a hotel, which generally means a bit pricier, but at this point we really needed to just warm up. So, in we went, past the guy at reception, and into an empty dining room…"Is it open?" We went back and asked. Yup, it was. We ordered "Cordon Blue" and knew we were in for something…"interesting" when he asked us if we wanted that with beef or chicken. Neither of us felt adventurous enough to try it with beef. What we ended up with was essentially a piece of flat chicken wrapped around a piece of ham and a pice of that cheese that seems so common in Latin America. It wasn't technically Cordon blue…. I think, but it wasn't bad. Before the actual meal came though, he plopped down a plate of popcorn (a first for us) and offered us some hot juice. We didn't know the word for whatever kind it was, but, being us, we told him we didn't know what exactly he meant, but we'd be happy to try it. We think it was warm grapefruit juice, watered down so it wasn't sour, with a bunch of sugar mixed in. It was quite tasty, and warm…. While we were eating the rain clouds moved in and neither of us felt like leaving. We even pondered just staying at the hotel, but it wan't even four yet and we would have both felt like wusses if we'd wimped out that early because of a little rain. So, we threw the rain liners in our pants (we already had them in our coats for the extra warmth) then added our electric jackets (but neither of us bothered to plug them in) and set out. It wasn't that bad. And, in typical fashion around here, we rode out of it in less than ten minutes. But, as five o'clock came around Dachary informed me that she was feeling like crap (queezy, feverish, intestines, the whole bit) and really needed a hotel. So, we started looking, and looking, hoping for something… anything that didn't look like a crap-hole. And we stumbled across it. I went in, and as i was talking with the guy she came in and informed me that I needed to "Just book it" With an emphasis on now. So, I skipped looking at it "it'll just take a minute" "No. She's feeling bad, we'll take it" And we did. Made it into the room… er no not that room, the electronic lock is broken and you can't get out… next room…. guy leaves and Dachary dashes into the bathroom. I brought up her stuff, she crawled into bed, and I set her camelback on the bed beside her in case she needed a drink while I went downstairs to the room with the net because we'd exhausted all the points I'd entered into the GPS and I needed to get more from Google Maps. When I came back a bit later to bring her some drinks I discovered that her CamelBak's bite valve had taken it upon itself to empty half of the CamelBak onto the bed beside her. Unfortunately this means that one of the things that it most important to her in a hotel room (being able to sleep in the same bed) is something she's having to go without on a night when the comforting touch of a lover can be so dearly needed. Later on I brought her dinner, with little hope that she'd actually eat it, but I had to try. Now the leftovers are hiding in the closet because the scent was not sitting well with her. She felt a little feverish yesterday, and had some minor diarrhea, but I suspect that the time she spent shivering this afternoon left her with too little energy to fight of whatever it was and it all came crashing down on her at the end of the day. I told her that we're absolutely staying another day if she's still feeling ill tomorrow morning. She tried to argue that we couldn't afford the time (we've only got about six weeks left to cover most of the continent). I countered that her health was far more important than anything else, and that riding when you're feeling queazy and ill simply isn't safe. On a related note: those itchy bumps she'd been developing? Yeah, now I've got a few too. And no, they're not bedbug bites, and they're not mosquito bites. Neither of us really think they're bites of any kind, even though bugs love biting her. Mine don't appear to itch nearly as much as hers though. I think hers are starting to slowly fade, but I can't ask because she's passed out in the dry twin bed as I type this. Sometimes a trip like this has some frustrating, or unpleasant parts. But I don't think either of us would trade it for anything, except maybe the promise of more trips that someone else was paying for. ;) And we're both incredibly grateful for the opportunity to experience the world like this. But, sometimes we dearly miss the ability to curl up on the couch with our dogs and not worry about anything. I suspect that tonight is a time like that for Dachary. |
Day 68 - Somewhere just south of Ambato Ecuador
We decided to stay another day because even getting up from bed in the morning to go to the bathroom left Dachary dizzy and queazy. (And going to the bathroom convinced her that she needed to stay near a bathroom.) We read, we… actually, that's about it. Breakfast, lunch, dinner, some Top Gear. Some Dr. Who. Dachary didn't feel up to leaving the room so I brought her the meals in bed. Luckily the beds were comfy, with nice, warm, soft blankets and comforters.
I'm happy to report that the meals were pretty cheap because the restaurant is trying to be affordable food for locals too. I also bought a pirated copy of the last Terminator movie. Not sure if it's one of those horrid things filmed with a camcorder in the theatre or a rip of the DVD. Hoping for the latter since the DVD has been out for so long. |
Day 69 - Somewhere south of Ambato to Machala Ecuador.
The day started off with a grumble. Unbeknownst to me, Dachary hadn't fallen asleep until 2 AM, and I had woken her up shortly after thinking she hadn't taken the evening's antibiotics. Turns out she had. In the morning, I woke up shortly after 7am, went to the bathroom and decided to take a shower. Apparently that woke Dachary up again. She grumbled a bit but fell back asleep, so I let her sleep in until 8:30 (an extra hour more than normal) but at that point she was all "let me sleeeeeep", then got up and grumped at me for a while.
Pack up, grab breakfast downstairs, and start carrying shit to the bikes, while Dachary replies to the developer for the iPad magazine who has promised, yet again, that "one more build" and it would all be fixed. We seriously doubt it, but he's close, and it's less frustration and more benefit, to give him the one last chance than file a dispute with E-Lance to get our money back from the escrow. We set off a bit late, but that's ok since Dachary's not 100% and head up into the mountains, passing through a town so filled with indigenous people that the street signs are bi-lingual, then a right up, up, up to 3870 meters (our new record) where it's raining, owing to the fact that we're in the middle of a cloud, and we stop to put the rain liners in in our jackets, which we probably would have even without the rain because it's cold and misty up there in the clouds. We crest the mountain and discover that it's even cloudier on the west side. I guess the clouds blew in from the Pacific and got stuck. We have to drop over 2,000 meters before we're finally below the clouds, and before then they're so thick that we max out at about 50 KPH (diddly-sqat MPH). By day's end we will have descended over 3,800 vertical meters, which I consider a strong argument for fuel injected engines. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5256/...2302386660.jpg Putting on rain liners at 3,800 meters I'm sorry there aren't more pictures but I didn't want to get the camera soaked. When we weren't getting saturated and lightly rained on in the clouds, we were getting intermittent downpours under the clouds. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5296/...ecd0f60397.jpg Fixing the BeadRider... again Dachary kicked her her BeadRider one too many times today and lost a few more beads which we attempted to tie back in. Great device, but they need to use kevlar thread or something that'll stand up to repeated kickings better than heavy-duty fishing line. Soon, we find ourselves in Bannanna country, literally. Bannanna groves line E25 and are only broken by dirty little towns. Seriously. I was annoyed by Mexico's tendency to just line the town with stores and hovels, but when there were poor towns they didn't feel as dirty or run-down as these. We started looking for hotels as sunset approached, but frequently said "I don't care if there's a hotel in this town. I don't want to stay here." Soon we were on the outskirts of Machala and are presented with four kiss-no-tell-motels, which Dachary is surprisingly into checking out this time. "I don't want to go into the city" she says. I'm not thrilled with dealing with city either, and later I find out that she'd read in the book that Machala is "dirty" and "not safe". We pull into the swankest looking one, ask one of the dudes how much ($11 for 5hrs) which is pretty steep, but the place looks high quality…Well, as much as you can tell from the garages and enclosing walls. But, we figure that since we don't even have to get off the bikes to check these out we should see what the others are like and what they cost. We skip the Club 69 simply because of the name. Motel Miami looks kinda skanky, and Hotel California you can practically see the bedbugs scampering beneath the giant curtains to hide the cars. We go back to the swank looking one, pull into one of the garages (with real garage doors), walk up into the place and see that it is, in fact, swank. Round bed, fancy multi-person shower, circular mirror over the bed, big mirror beside it, air conditioning… Only downside? No top sheet or blanket. I guess they figure you're just coming here to boff each others brains out for a few hours and don't really need them. There's a menu on the wall, with some interesting extras: viagra, Preservativos, Protectores diarios, cepillo dental, Pasta dental (that kinda scares me, is it dental floss?) KY, Aspirina, Alka Seltzer, Sal Andrews, and a few more. We ordered some food and a couple sodas, but decided to skip the $280 bottle of wine. The food was tasty, and included our first encounter with a Bell Pepper since the US, but neither of us seem to have much of an appetite. Also, I threw my back out of whack this afternoon. I have no idea how. We'll have to work around that. We can't let these mirrors go to waste. Side note: We have come to the conclusion that neither BMW's Gore-Tex nor RevIt's Hydratex is capable of withstanding the Ecuadoran rains. Our top halves stayed mostly dry, but our legs were damp when we went to the bathroom. Our shirts were dry, but when we put the liners back on after lunch, the liners felt damp. Also, when you don't have a chance to dry out at before the end of the day, you have to put on wet liners/shells in the morning. These rains weren't even the worst we've encountered so far, but I think we're both envying Joe and Vern with their Frog Togs. Not only do they stay dry, they don't have soaking wet shells outside of the rain liners. Nor, do they have the need to take things off to put the rain liners on. Next trip, we're totally taking those. Dachary's note: Also, apparently my boots are no longer waterproof. I'm pretty sure they were supposed to be waterproof when I bought them, but the last several rainstorms, I've had damp/wet feet. Today my feet were squishy when I got off the bike to walk around at lunch. That's one of the worse feelings ever, and why I decided to get waterproof boots in the first place. Not sure what to do about that. But at least today's hotel has a hair dryer I can take to the inside of the boots to try to dry them out a bit so I don't have to put on sloshing wet boots in the morning. |
Day 70 - Machala, Ecuador to Talara, Peru
Waking up in the Love Hotel was surprisingly conducive to us getting on the road. No place nearby for breakfast, no dawdling over packing our bikes - get up, get our stuff together and load the bikes up. I opted for a quick shower before we left, because you never know when you'll have hot water again… and while we were showering, an odd noise started. When we went downstairs, we looked out the window above the garage door and saw that the odd noise was caused by POURING rain. Pouring. So back upstairs to our "suite" and put in the rain liners in our pants, and put the rain covers on our tank bags… and out into the rain.
We rode into Machala because I wanted to find an ATM and grab some more US cash to replenish our "emergency" stash (which we ended up using to fly the bikes with Girag, since they require cash and we hadn't had enough days to stock up). Turns out, it had been raining most of the night and Machala was quasi-flooded. We kept riding through deep puddles that created a bow wave when we passed… and did I mention that through some fluke, my boots were either never waterproof or are no longer waterproof? Before we left Machala, my boots were soaked and squishy again. Boo squishy feet! Also, I had my face shield cracked a bit on my helmet because it was fogging up in the rain, and when we went through one of those deep puddles, I got passed on both sides by cars going fast and the bow wave went up, up… and I took a giant splash of muddy road water to the face. Double boo. Rode out of Machala and toward the border town of Huaquillas, and somewhere along the way, it stopped raining. Yay! The ride to the border was rather uneventful, and we were there shortly after 10AM. Rode along toward the frontier… and… oh, wait? Leaving Ecuador? But where's the border control stuff? Oh, hi, Peru. Yeah. We didn't get stamped out of Ecuador. Or the bikes. What's that? Turn around and get stamped out? Yeah. Rode the 3km back into Ecuador, and tried to stop at the ginormous building that claimed to be border control… except it was blocked off. Entirely. It's a huge complex, and they had wire and rope strung across the car lanes, and rocks and debris across the entrances, so you couldn't drive in. We had to go the wrong way down a divided highway to get past the border control complex, and while we were trying to figure it out, an Ecuadorean car pulled up apparently looking for the same thing. On the other side of the border control complex (what would have been the exit, if it had been open) were a couple of security guards, and the car stopped to ask where to go. The guards said back to the roundabout and toward the border town (Huaquillas) instead of toward the frontier. Cars have to pay a toll to go there, but they had a moto lane to the right so we skipped by the toll and followed the car… and just past the toll booth, on the left, is Ecuadorean immigration. The sign is big enough, but there's no friggin clue that's where you need to go from the road signage. If you head toward the frontier, you'll completely bypass immigrations. Boo Ecuador! Then we asked for aduana to check out the motos, and they told us to go back to the big blue building that was the border control building. No, we told them - that building isn't open. Yes, they say - go back there, it's open 24 hours. Kay clarifies that it's the giant blue and white building, and they confirm. So we head back there, and talk to the same guards as before, asking where aduana is. It starts to get confusing. One of the guys says go back to the roundabout and take a right. Another guy comes out with a small moto/scooter and offers to show us. Yes! So we follow him, and he goes back to the roundabout… and takes a left. Toward Huaquillas. And leads us to the immigration building. No, no, we say - we want aduana for the motos. Ohh. Well, for that, go back to the roundabout, take the right that the other guard told us, and 2KM down the road is the aduana. We go that way, and head 2km down the road… no aduana. 4km down the road… no aduana. We remember passing some sort of control checkpoint that they waved us through a bit before town, so we go a bit further wondering if that's it. Yes! 5km down the road, give or take, is the aduana building, which you're funneled into if you're entering Ecuador, but if you're leaving Ecuador, you drive right past it without ever knowing it's there. And it's not even a building. Aduana is a tent with two military guys, (outside of a blue and white building) and you hand the military guys your moto papers, and now everything is checked out of Ecuador. It only took us an hour of wandering around to find border offices that are kilometers apart, and getting incorrect directions from officials. We, and our bikes, are now riding around Ecuador illegally. Back to the roundabout and toward the frontier again, and this time we know where to go! Leaving Ecuador, again! Yay! Hello Peru, again! Yay! This time when we pull up to the Peruvian border guy, he asks us some questions about us and our bikes and writes some stuff down on his clipboard. Then we park our bikes in front of the tent where the border guys are set up, and walk over to immigration, where we get a paper to fill out. Fill out the paper and walk to the next building, where a guy stamps the paper. Then we take it back to the first building and give it to the guy, who stamps our passport and gives us the bottom half of the form as our tourist visa card thing. A few buildings down is aduana for the motos. They give us two forms to fill out (one for each bike), we fill them out and give them back, along with our driver's license (the real one, not the fake we keep for corrupt cops), our registration and our passport. They do some stuff with the form, and then give us back two parts of it (it's perforated and they keep one part that has all of our info on it) as well as an oval-shaped piece of paper with some info on it that they say the police will want to see. And viola! We're checked into Peru. Walk back to the bikes, where a guy tells us it's $1 each to "fumigate" the bikes. We see no evidence of fumigation equipment, so we're skeptical, but the border guys confirm it's required. The guy takes our money, comes back a few minutes later with a receipt (after we ask for it), and then I see him walking over with a tank of some sort of spray on his back just as we're about to pull off. We get off the bikes and he "fumigates" them (sprays the spray half-heartedly over the wheels and along the bottom of the chassis, completely ignoring all of the grime and gook on our panniers and the rest of our bikes). Start to ride off again, and we get to a control point where a guy walks over and moves a cone aside and waves Kay through. Kay starts to pull off, but I'm behind him, and I see another guy motion to stop Kay, so the guy who originally waved Kay through suddenly blows his whistle and another guy motions for me to stop. I tell Kay through the headset that he needs to stop, and a guy runs over to him. Meanwhile, a guy comes up to me and tells me I need to turn around because I need to check the bike into Peru. I have, I tell him. I have the paperwork. No, he says - you have to turn around and check the bike into Peru. Yes, I argue - I already have, and I'm pulling out the paperwork to show him. He still argues that I need a stamp for the bike, but the aduana people told us we were done, so I'm arguing with him and a superior comes over to look at my paperwork. He takes one look, sees that I have everything I need, and tells the confused official to wave me on. He does. In the meantime, Kay has been told to turn around because he has to check his bike into Peru, too, and the same supervisor who ok'ed my paperwork walks over to Kay, takes a quick look at his stuff, sees that it's ok and waves him on, too. Yay for a competent official! And boo for the stupid guys who didn't believe we'd gotten the bikes legally across the border. So now we're free to ride off into Peru, which we do! The only complication is that because this border was so confusing and spread out on the Ecuadorean side and so easy on the Peruvian side, there are no helpers or money changers wandering around. So we have no Peruvian money (Nuevo Sol). Our first order of business is to find an ATM or a cambio where we can change our money. We ride into Tumbes, which is the first town on the map I think is big enough to have an ATM, and do a fair amount of wandering around (the drivers in Tumbes are absolutely insane, btw - made me worried about Peru in general, but the rest of the drivers have been fairly tame). Eventually we find an ATM, which will only let Kay withdraw the equivalent of around $120 US. We figure that'll be enough for a while and go on. From there, it's a fairly pleasant ride down the Pan American along the Pacific, through beach and ocean towns. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5216/...d14e5a518c.jpg The Peruvian Pacific http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5299/...88d9d178ff.jpg dry dock We see a restaurant/hospidaje in Zorritos and stop for lunch, which is simple chicken, rice and french fries - but surprisingly tasty. http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4105/...86edc59ddb.jpg Bikes in Zorritos http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5096/...4fbd2754e8.jpg Lunchtime ponderings Then begins our quest for gasoline. We saw a couple gas stations near the border but don't see another one until Punta Sal, but they're out of gas. He tells us to go to Mancora for gas. We find a couple of gas stations in Mancora, one of which has gas! Yay! http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5294/...720cc3cd37.jpg Weird Looking Mutt But now I'm kinda worried about Peruvian gas because it blew up a couple of BMW F800GSes (these guys who are going from Canada to Argentina) so now I'm feeling rather hyper- vigilant. This is also the first time we've had to look and ride further than we'd planned before getting gas (we started looking about 40 miles before we actually found gas) so I'm marginally concerned about finding enough gas in Peru. I'm sure we'll get through fine, but it'll take more opportunistic gas-filling and being aware of where the next place to find gas is from where we are. We know there are spots in Bolivia where we'll have to carry extra gas, and we've been told that we have to get the gas before we leave Peru as Bolivian gas stations won't let you fill extra containers, so we'll see. Gas cost us 80 Peruvian, and Kay had only been able to withdraw 400, so we figured out we're gonna need more cash while we're here in Peru. So while we we're in Mancora, we look for another ATM. After asking a couple of times, we find one right on the main street (which is the Pan Americana) down from a couple more, and this one lets me withdraw more money. So now we should be good for a bit, as there are parts of our route that are probably going to be far from ATMs. Back to making tracks, and shortly after Mancora, the Pan Americana turns inland a bit and climbs up to the top of the reddish-tan hills we've been seeing from the coast. The landscape turns to what Kay calls "Southern California" and then "the Badlands" - it's a dramatic change from Ecuador already. At parts, the plateau we're on opens up and you can see tons of these reddish-tan hills and the landscape feels utterly surreal to me. It's like nothing I've ever seen. We saw hints of this sort of landscape in parts of Mexico, but nothing on this scale. It's awesome and cool and totally different. Alas, we didn't get any good pics of the hilly bit, but here's a desert shot… http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5256/...8f100357ff.jpg Through the Desert by CorporateRunaways, on Flickr I requested that we try to find a hotel with internet tonight as I wanted to check on a couple of things for work and get caught up on the blog. We looked at the map and found that the nearest town that was likely to have a decent selection of hotels, including possibly one with net, was Talara. There's another sizeable-ish town further along the Pan Americana and a bit inland, but we haven't got a sense for the scale of the Peruvian map yet and I wasn't sure if we could make it before dark. So Talara it was! We hit town around 5PM, and rode around randomly a bit trying to find a good spot. We saw one "hotel" sign but couldn't find the hotel… hit a roundabout, took one direction and then decided to try a different direction so back to the roundabout and saw a hostel on a random corner. We figured the hostel wouldn't have wi-fi but they might be able to suggest someone who did, so Kay went inside… and came back with surprising news. They had wi-fi! And secure parking for the bikes! And a decently sized room, as soon as Kay explained that he was with his girlfriend and not another male biker. (I think, actually, the nicest room in this hostel.) So yay for random hostel on random street corner with internet! Brought our bags up from the bike, started stuff uploading and then went out to find dinner and walk around the town a little bit. We both agree that we have a decently good vibe about the town, and Peru is growing on me. The first town we encountered after the border, Tumbes, was hectic and dense and the traffic was very thick and crazy… and I just didn't like the town. Not at all. I feared that if Peruvian towns were like this, I wasn't going to like Peru. Some of the beach towns we rode through were kinda cute and fun, which gave me hope for Peru. Talara is neither cute nor fun… in fact, bits of it are dirty and run down and there's this weird shanty-town coming into town that's indicative of the stark poverty here. But the town center itself isn't bad, and the people have been friendly and curious. I think I already like Peru more than I liked Ecuador. Also, bonus? One of our power adaptors died for the laptops a while ago (yes, we're carrying two laptops and two power adaptors - extravagant!) and I insisted on carrying it anyway because when we got back to the states, we could take it to Apple and they'd replace it. They've already replaced one adaptor for me because the dog laid on the cord too often and shorted the cord. But the hotel where we're staying has plugs that won't work with our two-pronged adaptor (both prongs are the same size, and our adaptor has one prong slightly wider than the other) so we went to steal the end from the broken laptop power adaptor. Kay said "just for the heck of it, let me plug this in" - and viola! The broken power adaptor is suddenly working again! It sparked when Kay put it into the wall outlet and now it's charging our laptops quite happily. So now we have two functional adaptors again! Yay Peru! Kay's note: Totally excited about camping in Peru. There were about four billion places we could have pulled off the road, ridden behind some bushes / trees and set up the tent, but one of Dachary's requirements set forth at the start of the trip was that when she was having her period we'd get a hotel. Obviously if we were nowhere near one, she'd deal, but it's generally not a hard thing to find, and running water and toilets just makes her life that much easier. |
Day 71 - Talara to Chiclayo Peru
Last night did not go as planned. Dachary didn't get around to the work she wanted to get done, but decided that since it was just a little revision work she'd do it in the morning.
Unfortunately, we discovered that there was a thump-thump-thumpitdy nightclub somewhere nearby, and none of the local drivers seem to give a shit about the fact that people may be trying to sleep in the town and continue to communicate with each other via horn until the wee hours. Then, there were the mosquitoes. They didn't bother me, because they rarely do (I'm lucky that way) but they like to buzz in Dachary's ears, bite her repeatedly, and generally do their best to keep her up all night with itching, and biting, and buzzing. So… she didn't sleep much. In the morning she typed up the rest of her revisions, I packed and pumped water, then, went to the International Casa de Cambio while she finished the rest of her packing and getting ready. Walk up to the guy, tell him "I have Quetzales and Limpiera and need Soles. Is that ok?" "Huh?" I repeat myself. "Yes, five minutes. Just wait there." I do. Nothing happens. I wander off to the tiny competitor in the square. No, they just convert Dollars and Euros to Soles. I return and now whatever he was waiting for has happened. I go up to the window, pull out my cash, and both he, and the guy who was just at the window, get completely bewildered looks on their faces. "What are those?!" …."Quetzales, y Limpieras…." "Dolares?" …"NO. Quetzales y Limpieras" …. more bewildered looks…. I hold up one "Costa Rica", the other "Colombia"… (Dachary later informed me that I was horribly wrong and the Quetzales are from Nicaragua and the Limpieras from Honduras) They shake their heads…. "Pero yo habla yo tengo Quetzales y LImpieras y nessecito Soles" "Desculpe…" he responds. Gah! I walk out in frustration. My initial conversation was very simple. "I have X. I need Y. Is that ok?" and he said yes. Grrr We hit the road without breakfast and start driving farther into the desert. Long plains of brown with bumpy brown sides that have somehow funneled enough water to repeatedly wash out the road. Past virulently green fields engineered by humans against all the laws of the desert with signs warning that the water used on them is not safe for human consumption. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5214/...6eff7e9e68.jpg Desert Bird http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5292/...c1e0205502.jpg Road's been washed away (click through on that one to see how badly the road's been washed away in the middle) http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4098/...faa08a8487.jpg Road Obstruction (giant piece of paper, but is it empty?) We made it to Piura where we planned to fill up before the 200k of desert but… wait, "gasohol" Nonono. Not Gasohol…. Next place… Nope. Gasohol… "Donde esta una bomba con gasolina? No Gasohol." "en *uninteligable bit* 15, no twenty minutes down the road. " Oh my…. It's a big town, so we keep looking. Eventually pulling into a station that appears to all be gasohol too. I ask. "Yes this is gasoline" "With alcohol. right?" "yes. gasoline and alcohol" "I need gasoline without alcohol" He seems to be saying that it's all gasohol in Peru…but that can't be right. "Hold on." he runs back to finish helping people at the pump, comes back, explains some more, helps someone else, comes back… then a guy on a little 50cc scoot with his girlfriend riding pillion joins the conversation, understands the problem, and starts giving me directions to where we can find actual gasoline. Then realizes the directions are too effing complex before even finishing them and tells me to just follow them. So we do. Eventually, we come to a gas station (after passing a few others) where he converses with the person there and it is determined that yes, the "97" is pure gasoline. Then they make sure we know how to get back (yay GPS tracks) and the girlfriend tells us where we can find tasty lunch. We thank them hugely, and they ride off into the city without asking for anything. We'd have happily given them money since they went out of their way and drove us half way across the city, but it warms our hearts to know that they did that out of the goodness of their hearts. I hope I can return the favor for someone back home. On a related note, we may have inadvertently used gasohol the other day (it didn't look quite right), because the bottom of the pump said "gasohol" but the part by the levers said "gasoline" and looked to be newer. The bikes didn't complain, but considering how picky BMW's are about gas neither of us is willing to risk putting gasohol in there. Also, WTF do the numbers mean if the gas is mixed with alcohol. An Octane rating is related to the number of carbon atoms in the molecule. WTF do the numbers mean if you've got two different molecules floating around in there? We escape the city, and head deeper into the desert, past stick houses teleported from Africa, past warning signs for dunes that might creep across the road, and then…. nothing. Eight meters below sea level and there's a flat plain of… nothing. We had to stop and take some pics. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5299/...c0185b9a26.jpg Stick houses in the desert (African stick houses in Peru) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5297/...5a165ffba7.jpg Zona Urbana (A bad photo, but I love the juxtaposition of stick houses and the Zona Urbana sign) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5138/...73497a582a.jpg Sand Dune http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5099/...c663cc015d.jpg Flat, empty, desert. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5215/...e8440c29d5.jpg Flat, empty, desert. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5138/...1b6973bdba.jpg Flat, empty, desert. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5252/...85d6e0ff56.jpg Flat, empty, desert. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5051/...5b9c775449.jpg Flat, empty, desert. (Dachary and some sticker-love for the Revzilla guys) http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5211/...9fc8a42f81.jpg Flat, empty, desert. (gotsta have our own sticker-love too ;) ) There are a few more pictures of us stopping at the empty desert spot in our Peru set on Flickr. Back on the bikes we continue down the straight straight road. Maybe one turn in two hours until a voice comes over my headset. "I think there's something wrong with my motorcycle" "Do you want to pull over?" "I'm not sure what good it would do?" "Ok"… A minute later. "Let's pull over. I think I have a flat." So we do. "Yup. I have a flat." she says. It's the rear of course. Couldn't be the nice easy front. We pull it off and I spin it, looking for what could have punctured it… I don't see anything obvious, but I do notice something suspicious. These water patterns shooting out from under the bead at points all around the wheel. That can't be good. The only thing I can think of that would have caused that is the entire tube blowing catastrophically. But, that couldn't have happened. I keep my thoughts to myself. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5257/...28a961dc85.jpg Fixing the flat We've pulled everything we need from the panniers. I open up the BeadBreakr and hand Dachary the instruction sheet. She's always better at interpreting instruction sheets, probably because she used to write instruction manuals in a past life. Tab A, Slot B… this way on the tire and voilla! easiest bead break ever; like trivially easy. That can't be good. The F650GS has one of the hardest beads to break, and none of the previous times has it ever been "trivial". The BeadBreakr generally makes it pretty easy, but not…. Oh my. That's … not good. and, oh… that's … that's really not good. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5140/...e1b664f210.jpg Fixing the flat http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5100/...60ab3e0b8a.jpg Fixing the flat http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5019/...005c57344d.jpg Disitegrated Inner-tube crubles http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5260/...78a40d68bb.jpg Ruined Carcass http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5211/...0b985ac9d5.jpg Fixing the flat Turns out, something had been "gradually getting worse" on her bike for nearly ten minutes before she mentioned it to me; not that I would have known what the problem was from my bike in front of her. I suspect that riding it for that long with way to little, and then no, air built up so much heat that the tube simultaneously disintegrated and melted to itself. The pressure from all the weight of the rear end of the bike on the flat tire caused the inside of relatively new treads to bend the carcass and crack it along the grooves. The tire is shot. We're keeping it for the moment because while it may be ****ed it's at least usable in a pinch if one of our rears somehow gets a big rip in it. We'll try and get internet soon so that we can e-mail the BMW dealer in Lima and see if they can get a tire in stock for us before we swing by. I wouldn't mind being back at the hotel in Ecuador with Joe and Vern though… just down the street was the moto district with a bunch of tire vendors and while our front tire may be an uncommon size, I'm pretty sure our rear isn't too hard to find. Anyway. We grabbed the spare I'd been carrying for myself and put it on her bike. The spare, which I still had, thanks to the advice of Joe and Vern, who suggested I could probably get another 2k out of my tires if I needed to, and that they'd consider it piece of mind to have a spare "just in case". Always listen to your elders kids. Especially when they've got nearly a hundred years of motorcycle riding experience between them. Dachary says we changed the tire in an hour and a half, and then spent thirty five minutes picking up our crap. I'm not sure how we managed to spend that much time cleaning up, but I think an hour and a half isn't bad considering we weren't trying to rush it. It was nice out: about 80 degrees, good breeze, plenty of sunlight left… There wasn't much sunlight left though, and as soon as we found a town big enough to have a hotel / hostel / hospedaje we opened our eyes and pulled into the first decent one we found. 40 Soles, a parking spot with a big door behind the place and a restaurant three doors down. :) Dachary's note: the flat was actually a fairly trivial thing. I think we've been traveling long enough now that we didn't panic or get upset when the flat happened. We were just grateful we had enough light to fix it, and proceeded to do so without drama. And honestly, it was kind of cool to get a flat (and fix it!) in the middle of the Peruvian desert. Like somehow now we're "real" adventure riders. "Remember that time we got the flat in the Peruvian desert?" "Yeah, that was cool." I'm just annoyed with myself that I didn't pull over immediately when I noticed something was wrong, because we might have been able to save the tire. Finding a new rear for Kay may be a bit more of a quest than we'd bargained for, and I'd like him to have a new rear before Bolivia. But yeah. Adventure, here we are! |
Day 72 - Chiclayo to Chimbote Peru
Day 72 - Chiclayo to Chimbote Peru
http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5298/...653d4319ba.jpg Roof Dog guards our bikes Packed up the bikes and headed out without breakfast again. We're having trouble finding places in Peru that advertise breakfast. We don't know if they simply don't do breakfast here in restaurants or if they just assume that you know that if they're open they do it. We're leaning towards the former. The morning started with desert with piles of garbage dumped from garbage trucks stretching from the road off to the nearby mountains. Sometimes they were being burnt. Sometimes they weren't. The sides were littered with… litter as well. Soon there were more man-made fields of green sitting directly against the sand. It's a testament to what humans can do, but it also seemed horribly wrong, especially the rice paddies. Around 10:45 we were both starving and decided to stop for an early lunch not long thereafter. When Dachary pulls off her jacket she discovers this. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5100/...378fed291a.jpg Chest bee He's alive and kicking, but has attempted to sting her coat. Unfortunately, he's thoroughly wedged half-way in the hole of the mesh. We're betting Rev'It hasn't encountered this problem before. But it does give a good sense of just how much air can flow through the 3D Mesh on the Sand Jacket. Speaking of…. In this dry weather neither of us has felt overheated on the road even when the temps have been over 100. Both of our jackets have been doing an excellent job of keeping us well ventilated. It's not terribly surprising with the Sand jacket, but the BMW stuff really doesn't *look* like it would flow a ton of air, and yet it does. I'm still envious of the Sand's chest vents though, but not enough to give up the incredible armor on the BMW Rallye Pro 2. (Dachary's note: the dry heat of the desert is WAY easier to bear than the wet heat of places like Panama in Central America. Dry heat bakes you, but it's not miserable like humid, wet heat. So give me Peruvian desert any day!) We couldn't figure out how to remove the bee without seriously injuring him, so in the end I pulled out the Leatherman, grabbed him around the middle, pulled, and threw him to the ground to give him a stomp and put him out of his misery. Poor bee. :( The owner of the lunch place where we stopped recommended Pato (tasty chicken with an almost curry-like sauce) and ended up sitting down and talking with us for a while. He'd had some English lessons a couple of years ago, but asked us to speak a bit slower. Dachary says I failed miserably at this. Sorry. :( http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5171/...f3e3eba270.jpg He owned the restaurant we ate lunch at. We've totally forgotten his name, but one of the interesting points of the conversation was that he was doing fairly well for himself, he had a restaurant, he had two cars (we think he was saying there were taxis since he didn't drive at all himself) and yet he only made $5,000 US per year. The conversation was such that I didn't really mind when he asked how much I made, but I felt terrible revealing it. As a programmer in a big city with 15 years of experience I make good money, but there's no way to convey that rent and taxes alone eat up over half of it, then add in all the other bills, and while yes, I have more disposable income than him, I'm not nearly as well off as my salary from The Man, would have him think, or that I'll be quite lucky if I have enough money to survive for two months when we return. Anyways, we got back on the bikes and headed out. I asked Dachary if she was ok with stopping to get some welding done today as the loop on my kickstand had broken off a while ago, and getting it out is very difficult without it. Also, the $32 "Large Sidestand Foot" from Touratech that we'd put on each of our bikes had each fallen off, probably when scraping in a curve, we're not really sure. They required an hour of grinding each to make them fit in the first place, and then the layers split, and then they fell off. ****ing pieces of crap, but I digress. Dachary was up for it, feeling somewhat guilty about the fact that I'd been dealing with the frustrating lack of a loop to pull out the kickstand for a while now. Plus, with so much sand and dirt in our future having a foot that was wide enough to not sink straight into the ground was probably a good thing. So, when we saw a welder next to a little lunch place with drinks and shade, we turned around a pulled in. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5132/...35189c389d.jpg Welding on new kickstand feet and loop Showed him what we wanted, asked how long and how much. 30 Soles (about $12 US), and one hour, he told us. Excellent. We sat at a table and grabbed some drinks while he made a little cardboard template for the feet, which I modified somewhat to better not hit the center stand or drag as much during leans (we hope), and then he set to work cutting and grinding with his apprentice(?). I did the whole mega-tourist thing and brought out the big camera, taking tons of pictures of the whole process. Yes, cheesy, and touristy, but when am I ever going to do this again? Ok, there's a decent chance I might, but hopefully not on this bike again. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5216/...f7cd002aee.jpg Cutting out some new feet for our kickstands http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5294/...318d032a1e.jpg Welding on new kickstand feet and loop http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5298/...a128481928.jpg Welding on new kickstand feet and loop When he was about to weld it on he looked up and told us we needed to disconnect the batteries before he started… "shit". ****ing BMW and their pain in the ass designs. "diez minutos" I told him. He was a little confused by this, thinking we'd just need to take off the seat, but accepted it and wend back to grind some more. We set about removing the seats and undoing far too many screws. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5296/...fc861c8b73.jpg Welding on new kickstand feet and loop http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5174/...882e79dbe3.jpg Welding on new kickstand feet and loop In the end I was happier than a pig in shit. I kept looking over at Dachary and saying "I have a loop!" because I'm thrilled that I don't have to dig awkwardly with my heal in hope of being able to catch and pull out a kickstand I can't see. I'm happy about the foot too, but I don't try and stand the bike on squishy dirt / sand nearly as often as I kick out that kickstand. Having that loop back is a little slice of heaven, and the whole experience was just a great part of the adventure. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5057/...0e0aea7e27.jpg Yes, that's a baby stroller with a cooler in it. (this guy sells frozen treats from his cooler in a baby-stroller) Soon the welding was done, and it was time to head out. Sadly, today's driving was filled with human towns, and almost every one stank, mostly from burning garbage and such. Plus gasohol exhaust smells worse than gasoline exhaust. Speaking of which… we came to the conclusion that we'd never see 97 octane "Gasoline" again and gave up and used Gasohol at the best octane we could find (95). When we filled up we discovered we'd only gotten 45 mpg, which is crap, as we'd been getting 65-75 for this entire trip. Yes, we were driving almost 60mph for most of yesterday, but at that speed we should have definitely been getting over 55mpg. So, we think the claims that the 97 "Gasoline" didn't have any alcohol in it was pure crap. Later on in the day we found a Repsol station with 98 and even that wasn't gasoline. We have come to the conclusion that there simply is not any pure gasoline in Peru. I don't know why we never discovered this in any of the ride reports we've read before, but there you have it. Peru: guaranteed to void the warranty on any BMW motorcycle. I don't know what the negative side effects are of running Gasohol in a finicky BMW engine are, but we don't have a choice. We'd need a support vehicle filled with jerry-cans of gasoline from Ecuador to do this without using Gasohol because Peru is big! http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4075/...c14c3ce5cd.jpg Hedgehog truck Anyway… more beautiful desert http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5177/...2e60991f3b.jpg Peruvian desert http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5256/...d55d6d50ff.jpg Peruvian desert http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4150/...66e49c1d4a.jpg Dachary in the Peruvian desert http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/...2b4e1acabd.jpg Dachary in the Peruvian desert and then…. http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5260/...893c9f8161.jpg Peruvian seashore http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5175/...7beafa2343.jpg Peruvian Seashore http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5296/...bd9b742495.jpg Peruvian seashore http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5132/...6235cf4b4a.jpg Peruvian Seashore Pano 1 http://farm6.static.flickr.com/5051/...87ef49e322.jpg Peruvian Seashore Pano 2 When we got into town we started looking for a hotel that had a chance of having somewhere to put the bikes. The first one we found was a 3 star place by the water. Didn't have high hopes for being able to afford it but… walk in, start asking the price for a room and the guy just starts shaking his head at me. Doesn't even say a word. Just gives me a "we don't want your kind here… smelly biker." look. But, I got him to recommend somewhere else because Dachary needed net for work and I wanted to give BMW Lima a heads up about needing new dual-sport rear tire. He recommends a place down the road with one of the noisiest intersections known to man. It's another 3 star hotel, but we're both tired and I'm really not into hunting this city any more for places that'll be cheaper but still have internet and parking so we pay the $35(ish) US. and take the room. The intersection eventually quiets down, but we get to hear bad karaoke from across the street into the wee hours. Dachary is totally crashy at this point, barely articulating herself and staring blankly at everything as a result of only having had an early lunch. I convince her that yes, you need to go eat now, not attempt to do work, so we wander out to the corner, don't see anything immediately, and I make the Executive Decision that she's not mentally capable of wandering around town for food, so we turn around and eat at the fancy Chinese Restaurant attached to the hotel. Like the US it's got lots of red lacquer with cheap looking jade and porcelain things behind glass. Each plate is intended for two people (oops) but you have to specifically ask for rice (weird). Also, we're the only people in the place who ask for chop sticks, and we get the standard ginormous unwieldy plastic things that seem to be a universal standard in Chinese restaurants that don't use disposable wooden ones. I don't get it. They're the worst chop sticks under the sun. But then, we each eat everything on our plates. Ok, I left a few pieces of crunchy white lettuce bottoms, but I don't think either of us had any idea we were *that* hungry. Back to the room and Dachary barely gets any work done before, sensibly, declaring that she's too tired. We'll get up early(ish) to finish that, and putting images in the last two posts. Takes about an hour every night to do these posts if you include the uploading and putting in the code for the images… Daily posting is not an easy task my friends. Side note: can't find an e-mail address for BMW Lima, but it looks like we may actually be able to find the place without playing follow-the-taxi. The plan is to go there try and get a tire since they'll be the most likely to have one of the appropriate size I think. If they have one, great. If they don't ask them where we can find tires in town (Damn I miss Colombia with all it's motos and streets of moto shops) and go buy something there. I'm not going to be picky, just something that'll be able to handle the dirt we're going to encounter as we head farther south. Also, Moto Adventure Gal took a dirt road I really wanted to see that went through the Cañón del Pato, passed through like 40 tunnels, by a couple coal mines, and had Laguna Paron just half an hour off the main road. I really wanted to see Laguna Paron, it looks so pretty, but it'd add at least a day to the trip and Dachary has convinced me that since neither of us want to give up the Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia (dunno how much time that'll add), or Machu Pichu here in Peru (adds about 6 day), we're going to need to give up a few other things. We'll still probably need to push pretty hard after the Salar, but there's nothing we can do about our time limit. We're both of the opinion that it's wrong to go to Peru and skip Machu Pichu even if it's totally touristy and expensive. Unless of course, you've already seen it, but we haven't. Dachary's Note: We got internet and I was disappointed to find that Naomi had emailed us (she's the female half of the couple with the exploded F800GS engines here in Peru) and we rode right past where they were staying this afternoon! I'd thought they were in Lima because I believe their bikes are in Lima, so I thought we'd still have a couple of days before we'd need to figure out the details of meeting up - but it turns out they're a bit further north, and we rode right past the town where they were staying this afternoon. Bummer! Stopping there for the day would have been quite early, but we always enjoy hanging out with other ADVers, and Kay and I agree that it's a shame we didn't get the email before then. We would have called it an early night and been happy to hang out. So sorry we missed you guys, and maybe we'll meet again down the road! Regarding Peru… I have a lot of mixed feelings about this country so far. The landscape has been otherworldly and beautiful… except for all the trash. So much trash. Trash lining the road practically the entire way. Open landfills beside the road - even in the towns themselves, right across the street from collections of shanty homes. It seems like such a shame to have all this trash everywhere, but clearly Peru doesn't have anything resembling the infrastructure and organization we have in the States. I just keep thinking about that old commercial with the Native American guy looking at trash in the middle of a beautiful American landscape and the single tear rolling down his face, and I know that's such a cliche image… but that's how I feel about Peru. It makes me sad. I know that as a "rich American" I have no right to really find it sad, but I do. It saddens me to see the planet treated like a giant trash can. This is something I took for granted before I left, and now I know a bit more about myself. So there's that. Also, I'm having trouble with the poverty here in Peru. We rode by a big corporate farm thing (in the middle of the desert) at one point today, and there were probably a dozen big tour buses lined up outside of the place. Parked there. Kay and I figured those buses must transport workers to the big corporate farms. I started thinking about what it must be like to toil in these fields all day, under the desert sun, and take home what is basically pennies for an entire day of hard labor. Shortly after seeing these fields, we met the guy who owned the restaurant and was talking to us about his salary and life here in Peru. He took English lessons because he dreamed of going to the United States and work in a kitchen, but he said he never had the opportunity. In large part, I'm guessing, because he makes so little here and just to get to the US must require an amazing amount of cash for people here, and I can't imagine how he'd adjust to the inflated cost of living in most of the US. This has made me very thoughtful about the poverty we've encountered here in Peru. We've encountered poverty in many of the Latin American countries, but it wasn't *all* poverty. Peru seems to have more shanty-towns, more sad-looking towns and while there may not actually *be* more poverty here, it certainly feels like there is. And I don't know how to feel about that. Part of me feels like I should feel guilty that I make so much more than the people here, and I have so many more opportunities than they do. Most people here could never begin to contemplate a trip like ours. There simply isn't enough money in a lifetime for the folks here. And I do regret that they don't have the opportunity that we have in the United States. But I don't want to feel guilty because I *am* American - it's just a fluke of birth that I was born there and they were born here. And yet, I feel that there would be something inhuman in not acknowledging that we have it so much better than so many of the people here, and I hate feeling like a "rich gringo" taking an extravagant trip like this through their country. The guy at the restaurant seemed shocked when we told him we paid rent for our apartment. He didn't seem to get the concept at first, and then when he did, he asked why we didn't just buy a place. We told him that we can't afford a place in Boston (we might or might not be able to afford one there, but neither of us wants the kind of lifestyle that would be required to buy a place in Boston). But we could have used the money that's funding this trip to put a decent downpayment on a home somewhere else, and we could have bought ourselves a lot of stability with this money. Except neither of us wants that at the cost of this. A trip like this is worth so much more to us than a mortgage and bills… and yeah, having a home back in the States is important, but neither of us wants to forego the experiences of traveling for the security and stability of a 9-5 job and the life back home. And yet, part of me feels arrogant and kind of wasteful that the people here would make so much better use of the money we're spending, and it would offer them security and stability and being well-off for such a long time… maybe even a lifetime. So yeah. Peru is full of confusing feelings and reflection on poverty and American consumerism and the way of life that I want for myself, and trying to reconcile all of these things. I have no idea what the outcome of these reflections will be, but I do know that it will make me a better, more developed, deeper person for having to face these thoughts and ideas. |
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