C - I woke up (by being prodded by Todd) to a beautiful sunrise. After a minute of staring out through the mesh of the tent at the spectacular view, I rolled over and was back asleep in no time at all!

Neither of us ventured up until late and by 10.30 we had paid to stay another night and set up with our books outside the tent, with the beautiful backdrop of blue sky and equally blue ocean.





At lunchtime we made our way into town for some food, but it wasnt long before we were plopped back in our chairs with our books in hand.

The town has a lot of day trippers from Tulum come in on tours and we lost our quiet little beach for a piece of the afternoon. Poor Todd was shocked and spent this time unsure how to get back to the tent or to the bathroom, after several young girls stripped down to nothing but g-strings for sunbathing, swimming and the oh-so-cool duck face selfie posing with a number of props, including drift wood and a coconut palm.







T - There were bloody boobies everywhere and I felt safer confined to my chair and reading my book than venturing out. It was a little weird especially when they started climbing the coconut palm behind us. I guess I’m not used to seeing people get so naked in public, but I felt very uncomfortable.

C - And… thats about the extent of todays adventures.

Tomorrow, we will head back to Tulum and see if I can find someone to manufacture a couple of engine mounts for us. I had been complaining of increased vibrations and a change in Rosies running ‘note’ since the accident and we recently discovered the impact of the crash broke one of the mounts and moved the position of the engine ever so slightly. If we find someone, we will get a few made just incase!



C - Well….. I think I can honestly say that last night was my miserable night of the whole trip so far. Without a doubt.

T - A combination of the relentless howling of the wind, smashing of the surf and crashing about of the tent all night made for a pair of very unhappy little Aussies. Stupid beach. Stupid wind. Stupid flat mat.

C - By the time we had gone to bed the wind had picked up a bit. Enough to be too annoying to sit outside without shelter, but not enough to concern us inside the tent. However, just before midnight, I awoke to the sound of the wind building quickly and strongly. The tent was starting to pull against the pegs, the palm trees loudly voiced their objection and the waves crashed on the shore. All this though, was fine. Perfectly ok… just roll over and go back to sleep. Until…. I copped a face full of sand. Sand whipped up by the wind, forced under the fly and straight through the mesh. Into my bed. Within seconds, I was covered with sand, my hair quickly turning white and my sleeping bag filling with at least 60 tonnes of sand. Lets just say I was not happy.

T - The sand was pouring in through the mesh. But because the mesh was so fine, so was the sand. I was on the upwind side of the tent so I basically used Chantelle as my cover and I managed to slip in and out of sleep for a while before eventually even my side of the tent was 30 foot deep in sand...



C - This went on for hours and hours and hours. I had to wrap my sleeping bag liner around my head so I could breathe.

Thankfully, I learnt that I am good a windbreak and thus gave Todd adequate protection from the wind which had obviously been sent solely to make me understand misery.

Due to this, we were up very early and trying to pack up in the howling, gusty wind. We could see dark tropical rain clouds slowly roll across the sky towards us - we desperately wanted to pack up before everything got wet too.



T - Trying to pack up a flapping sand filled angry tent in the wind and sand and constant threat of skull cracking coconuts falling on my noggin made me a very grumpy boy. At least it wasn’t raining.

C - We managed to get packed up and on the dirt road from Punta Allen back to Tulum by 8.30. It was clear it had rained along this route and we had fun sliding along the muddy road, despite both of us being very tired and looking forward to ridding ourselves of a few kilos of sand.

T - I spoke too soon. It was absolutely chucking it down. The road was a soggy sloppy greasy mess and an absolute hoot to ride on! It didn’t take long and little Mabel was coated in a nice layer of white mud. She was loving it! Not so much Rosie though, who spent a few moments spitting and farting her way along the wet track before cutting out altogether. Oh and she basically gave me the bird by losing her footpeg rubber some ways back, though I looked for it I never found it.

C - By the time we reached Tulum, it was bucketing down. A proper, tropical rain storm. The last 60 kilometres were rather hilarious, although somewhat dangerous, on a very busy highway from Tulum to Playa del Carmen, sometimes through highway rivers which I swear were up to our headlights!!!



T - The drains on the side of the highway just couldn’t cope with the water running off of the road and soon massive puddles were stretched out into the lanes of traffic. I loved the part where a car would tear past us at 90km/hr just barely 2 meters away and hit the deeper water thus spewing massive waves of muddy goodness straight at poor Mabel and me. My helmet was full of water, my boots were full of water, my wet weather gear was doing its job of letting all the water into my crotch. But it was truly fun!

C - We arrived in Playa with about two hours to waste before checking in to our AirBnB. Duirng a quick trip to Walmart to sit out some rain, we were approached by gentleman who recognised us from our blog. It was wonderful to meet Richard and his wife!! Hopefully we can meet up with these guys for a proper chat before they leave the area!!





After leaving Walmart, we were stopped by a guy in traffic who was really excited to see our little girls. With still an hour to waste, we eagerly accepted his invite to head back to his beach hotel and meet his wife and daughters. We had a lovely chat with Daniel and his beautiful family, who are from northern Mexico, enjoying a well deserved holiday in Playa!



After this, we went straight to our AirBnB, where we enjoyed a steaming hot showers and climbed between clean, sand free sheets for a nice, quiet, peaceful sleep!

Tomorrow, we will hang about here, before heading back to Tulum on Monday.

C - Yesterday was a nice, quiet chilled out day. We did not venture too far, neither of us too keen to see any more of the highly touristed town, particularly given the frequent and heavy rain showers!



Annoyingly, one our Sena headsets decided it no longer liked life. After working perfectly, Todd turned it off, I then plugged it into the charger and nothing. We tried doing a fault reset and all other manner of ‘recycling the power’ and it appears dead.

Today, although humid, was looking to be a better day. We packed up the bikes slowly and enjoyed the short ride back to Tulum, this time getting to see the scenery on the ride in the sunshine!

We had decided to head back to Tulum until Friday, which is the latest arrival date for the elusive part.



We checked into our booked hostel, Rancho Tranquillo, in Tulum town and spent the afternoon relaxing!

Our jobs for this week: 1. find a replacement foot peg rubber (one of Rosie’s floated away during a deep puddle adventure on Saturday) 2. to see if someone can manufacture a new engine mount for Rosie (we discovered one of hers snapped in ‘the crash’ a few weeks ago) and 3. speak with Sena and organise a new headset!

Disappointingly, we missed catching up with Richard due to some unpleasant tummy issues!!









We will most likely not post again until Friday and in the meantime, will enjoy a quiet and restful week before tackling a new country - Belize!



T - It looks as though the part we have been waiting for is lost in transit somewhere and we won’t be seeing it here in Tulum. Oh well, we have had a nice rest off the bikes but both of us are definately keen to get going again! We miss our bikes, we miss the road, we miss you lot!

T - Today was the day. We were getting back on the road regardless as to whether our spares had arrived or not. I did a quick tracking check this morning when I woke up and saw that the thing was still in customs, but I held out for the slight off chance that maybe it was at the Tulum post office. So we went and checked. Nope. It wasn’t. The post office guy told us it was still in aduana, customs.

So the decision was made and we were out of there! Girls revving we raced away down the road. Oh it felt so damn good! Back on the road again. It seems like it has been forever!



C - It really does feel like forever since we have made any movement forward. Whilst it was lovely hanging out in Mexico, it is just not how we travel. We like to move… even if only a little bit in a new direction each day.



T - We were headed for the border city of Chetumal today which meant we were nice and close for an easy crossing into Belize tomorrow.

The ride itself wasn’t terribly exciting. The road was flat and straight and full of traffic. But we managed to break it up into smaller sections thanks to the fact that I needed to stop at every public toilet along the way. My poor butt hole was working overtime.





C - We had 50km to go when we started seeing stalls selling fresh pineapple. I had just had to stop. The pineapple I have had in Mexico has by far been the tastiest I have had anywhere. So, less than $1 later, we were munching our way through through sunshine and heaven!



T - Several hours and 240km’s later we made it to our hotel. A hotel that seems to have a very unfortunate name, but hey, it was cheap and clean. Sort of clean. But the toilet came with a seat which was a luxury item these days! We checked in and lounged about before heading off into town for some dinner.







And that was that. Tomorrow we face a border crossing and a short ride to a howler monkey reserve. Belize isn’t very big and we could likely ride it in a day but we have a new Sena headset waiting in Belize City for us and can’t get it until Monday, so we shall spend a few days having a look around before we head to Guatemala. We have a Spanish School booked for January 2nd in Antigua so we may have to get a wriggle on and get there!

C - Today was the day! We were both excited to cross into Belize, but sad about leaving Mexico. Mexico is such a beautiful country and of course, we had become comfortable there. Knowing how things work and where to find what you want!

We packed up and headed to the Chetamul border crossing. The gentleman on the Mexican side was lovely and told us where to find the Banjercito. After following his instructions, we were soon stamped out of Mexico and riding across no-mans land towards Belize.

T- It was with a heavy heart that I handed over my tourist visa card and told the import lady that I wanted to take my bike out of Mexico for ever. I really liked it there. It was ecerything that you could hope for in a country as you travel through. Warm friendly people, beautiful climate and such diversity in the landscape. Goodbye Mexico, I’ll be back!

We knew this was going to be an easy crossing. Especially as on the Belizian side English was the national language. But still we had researched it as much as we could before we attempted it. In the end we exited smoothly and quickly from Mexico and we were soon riding down the concrete and razor wire lined road to the Belize gate.



Straight away the Belize people were friendly and I enjoyed a joke with the guys who sprayed our bikes with pesticides. From there we were processed through Belize immigration and customs and shortly had our bikes temporarily imported into the country.



Then we got stung. We think. Neither of us was on our game at the moment. Maybe we were tired, maybe we were just preoccupied with the crossing, maybe maybe maybe. A guy in the car park wearing a Belize Border Control or some such thing hi vis vest approached us and pointing at a sign on the fence said we had to pay $15Belize each bike as a transit fee to the government. He told us we could either pay here or at the exit of the country. We should have said pay later, just in case it was a scam. We both felt a bit unsure and that should have been our first warning, always trust your gut. But we didn’t and we paid him and got an official looking government receipt in exchange. Now in hindsight we should have said pay later, but we didn’t. Our exit from Belize will soon tell us if we have been ‘had’. Being scammed occasionally is all part of travel and I am yet to meet anyone who hasn’t in some way been scammed before on an overseas trip!

We cruised across and got our compulsory insurance, don’t be an idiot and try to get away with not getting it, its a legal requirement here and there are several police checkpoints along the way to make sure you have it. We have heard of huge huge fines and/or jail time for those caught without it.

Then we were free to wander Belize! We had a camp picked out at a baboon sanctuary about 150km down the road so off we went.







C - I was immediately surprised by the landscape. When I think of Belize, I think jungle and beaches. But as we rode along, all we saw were sugar cane farms. I had no clue that the sugar industry was so big here!!!

It was not long before we reached a police check point - we were told to expect at least one after the border. We were immediately told to pull off the road and to wait for another police officer. Eventually, another guy came over and inspected our insurance papers. And I mean inspected. I think he read every line at least twice, held the sticker up the sun and waved it about a bit, and then inspected the plastic sleeve it was given to us in. He then obviously decided it was legitimate and let us go, but not before we both caught a very quick look of disappointment flash across his face.

T - There was pretty well one road south but we managed to find a funny little back track made of slippery white clay and spent the next hour laughing and slopping around in it. A truck driver carting a huge load of sugar cane stopped by and told us we had missed our turn off and should go back because this road was bad for the next 30km. But once we explained to him that we like this type of road he laughed and gave us directions so we wouldn’t get lost and waved us goodbye.





We ended up back on the main road and carried on towards our camp.

We finally pulled into the sanctuary and immediately headed down the road for some of the local s. It was a good day today and it feels great to be making some progress again! I would have liked to have Mabels new piston and bore to put in but I will try to come up with a new plan for a way to get one flown by UPS or DHL or some such thing to Guatemala. Im sure I will work it out.







We setup camp and settled down with our s while listening to the strange sound of the howler monkeys in the trees.





C - We had a little friend come and join us.. a very sweet ginger tom cat. He was affectionate and loving and spent the evening just chilling out with us. We called him Mr Beans.







T - As it grew darker some locals pulled up in the carpark and cranked their music up and drank a few s. This didn’t look good. We ignored them and just continued on with our cooking. Another guy came over and told us that there was going to be an end of school party at the sanctuary tonight and we were welcome to move into another area of the park, but that we would have to leave the bikes out the front over night. No deal! We said no thanks and that we would put up with the noise.

And what noise! With the loud reggae music from the car park and the doof doof music from the party we were guaranteed to not get much sleep. But just after midnight it all died down and we slumbered through til 7am. We also had a visitor that slept in the tent with us. Mr Beans. He was such a little sook and spent the night curled up between us on a sleeping bag and purred and drooled all night.

Tomorrow we head further south. We are thinking we will go as far as a town called Hopkins and on Monday will head back to Belize City where we have a new Sena headset replacement waiting for us!

T - Well in the end the parties both died down by midnight and surprisingly enough I managed to sleep through most of the racket! I was pretty damn tired.

We were up early and sat outside and enjoyed a nice hot coffee as the day came to life. Ahh blissful this! The howler monkeys started howling and monkeying around and Mr Beans settled down onto my lap for some more sleep. Aww he is so sweet.

We had settled on the town of Hopkins today. It was an easy ride and would give us a taste of the southern part of Belize. We were tossing up about heading further south to Punto Gorda but we will see how we feel.

We had to slog along the main highway for a bit but we had a plan up our sleeves. The Manatee highway. It was a bit of a shortcut and stayed away from the traffic that dominated the main road. Turned out to be a great ride!



The tar ended quickly and soon we were slipping and sliding around in glorious bright red mud! The road was in pretty bad shape but it made us smile and giggle like mad. We scooted around potholes in a constant wiggling waving swerving line and flew through several flooded sections of road. The hot steamy jungle closed in on us as the road got narrower and narrower. It was some great riding!





C - What a road! The Manatee Highway was just so much fun to ride, and the best part, no other cars were using it!





T - We had about 60 km’s of this brilliant little road before we rejoined the highway and in the end we only saw 2 other vehicles the whole time. I would definitely recommend it to other riders looking to get off the main drag.



The bitumen road led us through a lovely low lying area of wetlands full of birdlife. Very pretty.

Hopkins was a small village set right on the Caribbean coast and basically had one main street that ran north to south. We found a little Belizean eatery and scoffed ourselves stupid. We had skipped breakfast, simply because we had no food on board our bikes, but we made up for it with lunch.





We decided to stay the night here and found a room at the Funky Dodo right on the beach. We had a wander around and in the afternoon sat in a bar and had a few local rums, I miss Bundy, and chatted to a lovely couple from Colorado about life in the US these days.







Then it was a short stroll into town where we crossed a line from nice and touristy to dodgy and not so nice. After being offered marijuana twice we quickly turned tail and went back to the much nicer feeling part of town. We didn’t feel threatened in the seedy bit but it wasn’t a place we wanted to hang out in. There is almost zero crime in Hopkins and the locals like to keep it that way.

Then it was time to head to bed. It was a hot and humid and sticky night and I loved it! Tomorrow we head for Belize City, unfortunately, to pick up our replacement headset.

T - It ended up getting really hot last night. I had the top bunk in our room and the little fan wheezing at me barely moved any air. I would have slept outside but the amazing tropical rain may have grown a little tiresome after a while! Still I slept quite well on and off and awoke refreshed and ready to tackle the day.



We had to backtrack today around 120kms. Our choices were either the main highway or back up the dirt Manatee Highway. We chose the dirt!

The extra rain overnight had turned it into a sticky mess. It was so much fun again! The water crossings were a little longer and a little deeper, but that didn't faze our little bikes and we splashed and roared our way through.







We made good time on the way back and we were in Belize City by 12pm. I went straight to the company who was receiving our goods and they directed me out of the city to their warehouse where the item was being held for payment of customs and other taxes. What? It is a warranty item that I didn’t buy, that I certainly didn’t buy in Belize.

At the warehouse the lady in charge of customs told us we needed to pay duties and taxes on the value of the item. We had a bit of back and forth and told her we had purchased the thing back in Australia in April and had paid the appropriate taxes back then. Chantelle and I were getting a bit steamed up as there was no way I was paying Belize any sales tax on an item that I already owned. In the end she told us we would instead just have to pay GST on the freight of the item. What? We hadn’t purchased a single thing to do with this unit in Belize. We had paid our shipping to Sena and UPS so why did we now need to pay Belize as well? We went to the payment clerk who charged us a whopping 45% of the shipping costs. We were very unhappy.

It was nice to have our comms back, but we were being left with a bit of a sour taste about Belize. Our experience had shown us that there were hidden fees and taxes in everything in Belize which is what makes it an expensive country. Neither of us had really been feeling the vibe here suited us and both of us were keen for the vibe and insanity of Latin America. With that in mind we decided to head for the border.

We had a contact that we wanted to say hello to on the way but as we had no internet and no sim for our phone we struggled to find a way to get a hold of her. So we set our sights on San Ignacio with the intention of crossing into Guatemala tomorrow.



We know that we will like some places and some not so much. And that is ok, it's what travel is all about! We are lucky that we have the freedom to just move on if we don't like it. The people of Belize have been super lovely and friendly and we have never felt unsafe. But its just not for us and maybe its just because we miss Mexico alot. So its goodbye Belize!

T - Woohoo! Guatemala here we come! But first I better wait until its daylight, and I should go get some breakfast. I was awake early and keen to go today. I was feeling very excited about heading into Guatemala. One of our friends had told us that if we loved Mexico then we would probably love Guatemala even more!

C - We found a fantastic little place for breakfast, Todd munching down on banana pancakes whilst I went with a Belizian breakfast.



T - After we did the usual packing up and researching the border crossing just to make sure we we knew what to do, we headed off. The border was only about 15 minutes away and we rode in blissful sunshine. Right up until we reached the Belize border. At which point the heavens opened up and gave everything a good dowsing.





C - The Belize border was surprisingly sedate, with only a few money changers hanging about. It was pretty ordered and easy to find where to go. We are still a bit unsure about our vehicle transit fee we paid at the entry into Belize - no one here asked us for proof we had paid it, but another couple were told clearly about this payment. So, it is or isnt a genuine fee!!

T - We were checked out of Belize quickly and efficiently and were soon crossing through into the Guatemala border checkpoint. Again the formalities were easy and we were soon through. The whole crossing taking about an hour and a half.

C - We were approached by a small boy when we reached the fumigation station on the Guatemalan side. He explained to us that he speaks ‘mucho espanol’ and then followed us around, translating when he thought we did not understand. Obviously he was doing this for some money, but he never directly asked for any and was fun to hang out and we had lots of jokes with him. We did give him a bottle of water and some change, but it is such a difficult thing to figure out. Do you give him some money for his assistance and reinforce this as a way to make money??? For me, it is one of those situations where you want to give but have an ethical dilemma about giving.

We met a lovely couple from America at customs. Honi and her husband were travelling around the area on holidays. Safe travels to you two!!!

T - The rain at this point had stepped it up a notch and it was bucketing down! We picked a lull in the weather and headed for the Guatemala entry point and then just like that, we were in a new country! Woohoo!







We had planned on staying near the Tikal ruins in a town called El Remate but it appeared a little hard. The rooms that were within our budget were all sold out, leaving us looking down the barrel of a $USD40 a night room. Not in our budget at all! Then like a knight in shining armour come to our rescue Zack, another biker, pulled up and told us about a great hotel he was staying at in the nearby town of Flores, on an island to boot! We had a quick chat as Zack was off to see the Tikal ruins and then we headed to Flores.



Shortly after we were settled into our room and peeling off the very wet, very soggy, very smelly layers of our riding gear. We filled up the room with our wet boot stank and wandered around the local area. It was quite pretty and the lake really was gorgeous. I couldn’t stop taking photos, much to Chantelles annoyance.





C - I was feeling frustrated for no particular reason really.. although I think my ethical dilemma at the border contributed this… not being able to figure out how I felt about what was ‘right’.

T - We chilled out for a spell with a much deserved $1.50 rum and coke before heading off in search for dinner. Both of us have been feeling a little frustrated the last few days and the rum definitely helped to take the edge off.







We had a browse through a few restaurant menus, all of which were quite pricey, before we found some road side stalls where we had way too much food, drink and cake for just under $3 each.







We are so excited to be in Guatemala and I am loving being back into the Spanish scene. We shall head from here to Lake Atitlan the long round about way before settling into Antigua for a week of spanish lessons. But tomorrow we think we will stay put and do some exploring of the local area. We want to visit the ruins of Quirigua at Lago de Izabal south of us before heading west.

C - We decided to stay put today and get some laundry done. So, after a leisurely lie in, we went out to breakfast with Zack.

T - Zack is a really lovely guy and we chatted away most of the morning with him. He is doing some great work raising awareness for Veterans suffering from PTSD. Something that guys really don't like to discuss with other people.

C - We had a great breakfast and as normally happens, it was 11.30 by the time we left the breakfast table!



Zack was heading off today, but offered to show us where the local Honda dealer was on his way out.

Ride safe Zack! I am sure we will see you again along the way!

We were chasing some new clutch plates for Rosie - we just can not get her to slipping since the crash. Time to just replace the plates! The Honda dealer was lovely, but unable to help us, but he did point us in the direction of someone who could help.



A few doors down, we found exactly what we were looking for, for $10AUD - which we were pretty happy with.

T - I was pretty damn chuffed that we could find clutch plates to suit a Lifan 125 in the middle of Guatemala. Then I realised how many Chinese bikes there really were getting around the place. Sure does make for some easy parts purchasing! While in the Honda dealer I checked out the mounting bolt pattern on the Honda Waves as I wouldn’t mind converting our bikes to those engines in the future. Looks like they won't fit without some customising, but that's easy enough to do!



The rest of the afternoon was spent chilling out and wandering around town, before we headed down to the local stalls for a delicious cheap dinner.

T - They had slices of cake at the little stalls. And I don't mean little slices of cake. These things were frigging huge! It took all my strength to not buy a big slab of Coconut Cake. I’m trying to lose some of my Mexico weight!

C - Tomorrow, we will head on out and start making our way towards Lake Atitlan.

C - We were up and at ‘em early this morning and it was lovely to see blue sky without any ominous grey clouds lurking about.

After a superbly delicious and cheap breakfast, we headed toward Coban. We had just set the GPS and within a few minutes it was clear the GPS was not taking the smartest way. The road quickly became gravel, well, potholes dribbled with gravel in between. Slowly the road became quieter and quieter. After reading the local newspaper at breakfast we both decided it was smarter to go back and take the main highway.



T - We were handed the local rag at the brekky table this morning. Front page feature was of a fatal car crash photo complete with bodies, then the next few pages in were all of people shot, run over, or just bashed into next week. Never read the local paper in Guatemala! The road the GPS wanted us to take was one of our ideal roads. Full of mud and water and rough as guts. But both of us became a little nervous once we had left all the traffic behind, so we decided to just stick to the main roads for now. It’s silly really and probably all just in our heads, but we need to be comfortable with what we are doing or we won't enjoy it!



C - Guatemala quickly showed itself to be beautiful and the roads, although in varying states of repair, were fun to ride. The traffic moves slower here on the highway, actually at our pace mostly, although the driving is somewhat chaotic!!

T - The roads are a hoot and both of us were laughing and giggling all day. The ride went like this, speed bump, pothole, pothole, dog, speedbump, pothole, man on a bike, pothole, dog, dog, truck, child, dog and child in a pothole, pothole, stick, pothole, pothole, dog in a truck with a child on the back waving a stick at a man on a bike in a pothole that was in the middle of another pothole with a speedbump at both sides. It was brilliant! The fun curvy bits kept us entertained and the sudden appearance of bomb craters halfway around a corner kept us on our toes (and the brakes).





C - We were excited to reach the ferry crossing at Sayaxche. We watched a very small boat load itself full to bursting with motorbikes and although I am sure this boat was cheap and safe enough, we opted to take the bigger barge ferry.





T - 7 bikes were jammed into what can only be described as a two person canoe with an old underpowered, over revved 2 stroke outboard powering it up stream against the current. I really really wanted to take Mabel on that contraption! But the ferry ride itself proved to be fun and was powered by a few outboards hanging on the sides of the barge, each motor with its own driver working in tandem with the others to navigate the river.

C - After the ferry ride, we started to climb. I had to ride Rosie much easier than usual, to prevent the clutch slipping. So I was back at Mabels pace!

We climbed, climbed, climbed, with some gradients being so steep that I wondered whether our little girls would make it up in anything other than first gear. We did have one or two first gear climbs and many second gear climbs.





The towns we rode through were noisy and chaotic and reminded me so much Africa! Music blearing, rubbish everywhere, people everywhere, vehicles going everywhere, but the most prevalent being dogs everywhere. Two very nearly ended their lives in front us during the day.

When approaching one town, there was an older gentleman and two or three kids shovelling potholes. The kids screamed at each passing vehicle and as we went passed, they screamed and chased us, trying to grab at our bikes. We quickly realised that they wanted money, a ‘toll’ if you will, for shovelling the potholes. It wasn't nice to have small kids chase the bikes - so many things could go this in this scenario.

Although the ride was only 250km it took us the best part of the day and we didn't arrive at the hotel in Coban until 4.30pm.





We hadn't eaten since breakfast, so headed straight out to find an early dinner. We found a small pizza place open at this early dinner hour and enjoyed some of the best pizza I have ever had!



The plan is to continue to head towards the lake and hopefully find a hotel to stay for Christmas Eve.



C - We were on the road by 8.30 this morning, with a firm plan to head to Panajechal on Lake Atitlan. Our route was about 220km, all on major highways - although the state of such major highways here can be questionable!

We stopped for gas on the way out of Coban and enjoyed some fun conversation with the gas station attendants whilst we ate a very healthy breakfast of iced coffee and oatbran cookies.

Soon enough, the ‘major’ highway deteriorated into mostly potholes, then potholed gravelly mud with an occasional stump of bitumen, then just badly maintained dirt with all sorts of bumps, corrugations, holes, rockfalls and landslides. Oh, and trucks and chicken buses and dogs and people moving about erratically!





T - We had some incredible views here. Lines of mountains marching away toward the horizon, with towering mounds of rancid smelling, stomach churning rotting garbage complete with rolled up used baby nappies. So gross. I was dry retching in my helmet while I was taking these photos.





C - This stretch of road had us down to about 20km an hour for most of it and it was such a hoot!! Just our sort of riding!! About 30km later the road suddenly and abruptly returned to relatively good condition bitumen and we were away again… well away at 65km an hour that is.



T - The road was fun! I couldn’t believe it was a major road through these parts. But the numerous trucks and chicken buses certainly proved it to be so. We fell into potholes and clambered over broken speed humps. What a work out for our poor bikes. But they soldiered on!



C - Each village we came to presented us with complete and utter chaos. I can not even begin to explain how much concentration it takes to drive through a busy Guatemalan village on market day. Boy oh boy! Each exit had us sighing with relief that everyone somehow survived before we quickly returned our attention to the road ahead.

T - I have never ridden in conditions like this! I cant even begin to explain the crazyness of it. Imagine a narrow two lane road with traffic going both ways. Now fill one side with parked trucks and cars and we are down to one lane acting as two. Now partially fill that lane with some more parked machinery, chuck in a few hundred pedestrians (because there is no sidewalk), a smattering of 500 or so dogs, 600 tuk tuks, 30 million motorcycles, 57 trucks and 3000 cars all trying to squeeze by each other all at once. Now once you have that in mind throw in a overloaded truck that just reverses out of a side street into the middle of this chaos. Got an idea of it? Its crazy!



C - At one point, Todd became convinced that each chicken bus driver was conspiring against him. For some time, each chicken bus that approached us swerved unexpectedly into our path, for no apparent reason, before returning to their own side of the road just in time.

T - My sphincter got the work out of its life today. My poor bottom clenched up tight every time one of those buses aimed at me. Madness!





C - This morning we climbed another 1000mtrs in elevation and we were glad to be wearing our thermals and rain pants to provide us with some warmth. Even our heated grips had their first work out in some time.

After two more lengthy stretches of off roading down the major highway, we began climbing up and then zooming down the steepest gradients. The switchbacks were so tight that the vehicles going down the hill had to stop and give way to vehicles coming up the hill. Madness!!



T - These hills were incredibly steep. I don’t know how the bitumen stayed stuck to the road it was so steep. Poor Mabel was back down to first gear a lot here. Screaming her little lungs out in the thin air with too much fuel rasping down her little throat. Poor Mabel.

C - Eventually we were spat out on the CA1 ‘PanAmerican Highway’ and we caught our first glimpse of the Lake. Simply stunning with volcanoes towering over the lake. We were only 10km from Pana when we were caught up in a traffic jam. Eventually a policeman sent us the wrong way down a one way street to get out of the jam, but this caused our GPS to have a meltdown. After sending us in circles in the opposite direction to where we wanted to go, we finally got out of centro historico in Solola once I dismissed all the GPS’ recommendations and found the road we wanted.





We soon found our chosen hotel ‘Villa Lupita’ and after a hot shower, went in search of dinner. We were lucky enough to stumble across a small food cart doing a roaring trade in tortas mexicana. For $4AUD we had a massive torta each, filled with chicken, sausage, ham, bacon, cheese, tomato, onion and the compulsory picante salsa! Divine!



The town was pumping so we walked around and eventually found ourself in the tourist part of town. At this point, we turned around and headed back to the hotel to collapse in sheer mental exhaustion from the days concentration.

Guatemala - you are intoxicatingly insane and beautiful! It was sad today to ride through such large sections of deforested land. Huge sections of logging and farming which have resulted in completely bare hillsides. There is also quite a lot of rubbish littering the road sides and the smell of rotting and/or burning household rubbish is just not something you can get used to. The majority of the litter on the roadsides though appear to be plastic drink bottles. Coke and Pepsi products. I don't know if there are education programs already, but these large companies who make such wealth by supplying terrible products such as these should be socially responsible and contribute to waste eradication and education in nations like this.

Tomorrow is Christmas Eve and we don't really know what we will do. It might be wise to stay here a night longer. Panajachel seems like a nice town and might be a nice place to spend Christmas Eve.

Make sure you have your volume up and check out this. Every household in the city was firing off rockets and fireworks. Brilliant!

T - We like Panajachel. So we decided to hang out here until we begin our Spanish lessons. We changed our class from Antigua to San Pedro. The cost saving was $200AUD to begin with! Plus the one in San Pedro has a really good review, has few students at once and we can have our own private house for $50 for the week. Score!

Today was spent wandering down to the lake edge through the throngs of tourists and the tourist tat that accompanies them. Our hotel is just of the tourist street and up next to the locals markets and food stalls which we really enjoy.







I stuck my toe into the lake thinking it would be nice to go for a swim, but it was frigging freezing! No thankyou!

We basically just chilled out for the day, hanging out in the hotel and then the local bar before wandering off to get another incredible torta. We spent the rest of the night sleeping in fits and bursts while the locals set of a bazillion fireworks that cumulated in an epic fireworks show right on midnight. Very cool!











Tomorrow is Christmas Day and we head around the lake to San Pedro where we will be doing our schooling.









Merry Christmas all!

T - Well after last nights fire works we ended up sleeping in a little bit later than we planned. Santa never came to see us in the night but he did manage to drop a few empty firework casings on our bikes for us!

We packed up and began the incredibly steep slow climb out of Pana and back to the Pan-Am highway which would take us west to San Pedro.



The poor bikes were screaming and moaning all the way up the hill and both of them were stuck in 2nd for the best part of it, with poor Mabel having to go down to 1st gear for some sections. What a climb! We could smell the clutches and brakes of the other cars on the road as they whizzed by.

That hill was nothing in comparison to the one down in to San Pedro though. Steep doesn't describe it at all! At one point I thought I was going to have to push Mabel as she started losing revs fast even in first gear. We climbed and climbed up and over 2600 meters before we began the dizzying descent into town. The road went from concrete to tarmac to broken tarmac to bull dust to potholes and dirt. It was quite fun but I am already feeling bad for the bikes knowing that this is going to be a nasty hard ride for them on the way back out. There is a road that can take us around the south of the lake but we have been warned by many other overlanders to avoid this road known as Robbers Highway. There is a section along there where some banditos operate and many other overlanders have fallen victim to armed holdups there. We wont take that chance unless we can arrange a police escort, $10USD, and so will probably head back around to Pana for New Years.





We slowly bumped and slid our way down the hill and soon we were checked in and settling into our new home for the week. The school looks fantastic and is very welcoming and easy going. A quick walk through the town though show us that tourism may have ruined this place. There were many unhappy Guatemalan faces in the shops and the tourists we saw were being terribly rude with the locals, smoking weed, being drunk, and just being arseholes in general. Not to worry. We shall find the local haunts and stay away from the seedy areas.











Tomorrow we start our Espanol class and we are both looking forward to be able to attempt to converse with the locals a little more.

T - It is with a little trepidation that I go into these spanish classes. I am terrible at learning a new language. Many years ago Chantelle and I tried to learn french. By the time Chantelle was able to have a decent conversation I had barely progressed from dribbling idiot.



As I sat down in the class today everything, and I mean everything, just vacated my brain. The piece of paper in front of me which contained several spanish phrases may as well have been written in hieroglyphics. Not a word of it made sense. Maybe I should have cheated and written the entire spanish dictionary onto my body for this.

But eventually I managed to make some sense of the words and I bumbled and stumbled my way through the first class of the week, and in the process I am sure I managed to totally butcher the spanish language with me having many cringe worthy pronunciation stuff ups. We managed to turn travel into old age, made bears drink milk, said I like cats very pleased to meet you (yes that is written correctly), and many other silly things.

It was good fun and I do look forward to learning a little more.



C - Our teacher, Juanita, is really lovely and I learnt more in that first four hours that I could teach myself using Duolingo, Zen Language and numerous other learning tools. I am excited about the rest of the week, but my brain is very, very tired tonight! I wish I had learnt another language fluently when I was a child… I feel it would be much easier than trying as an adult.

T - Then we had the afternoon to ourselves and spent a few hours strolling the streets and judging all the other tourists before heading back to our casa and practising our newly learnt espanol.







The next weeks worth of blog entries will be short and sweet as we are spending the whole time at the school. I will dazzle you all with my ability to say hola fluently by the end of the week!

Hasta Manana amigos!