All the other Countries (cool photo’s)
Well I though that at last I should close the book on the Central America tour, and take you out with some photos of the last leg of the trip…
The usual suspect
This is how it’s done in Belize….
This was climbing up in the mountains just north of Coban. Earlier in the day children would run away screaming when they saw us approaching, and when I saw coffee growing for the first time on the mountainsides and stopped to ask some women about it they tried to walk away and hide.
We got hung up in Guatemala City (largest in Central America) for a night because a Nat-vigation error saw us do a bonus loop. Renound for being dangerous, most of the stores we saw had permanent bars across the doorways… so to shop you would tell the clerk what you wanted, paid, and then they brought it to you.
Of course Lago Atitlan was beautiful, and there was another stunning colonial city… but I was shooting with my film camera through there.
I liked El Salvador, though like Guatemala most people seemed to have a hand gun on there person somewhere.
Riding shotgun is a literal term. I only noticed that all the trucks ‘gunmen’ were outside on guard waiting for the boat, after I’d put my camera away, so I didn’t get any close ups.
We nicked through the bottom of Honduras in fewer than 24h. The entry boarder crossing was chaos, and I got hammered on the black market money exchange… but with no banks around…
Nicaragua was ‘safe’ meaning that everyone had the usual Machete, and no more guns. Around Managua was the fist time that I really noticed a middle class. After a run in with a (very) dirty old man I ended up sleeping in a carport with the blessing of the night watchman, armed with a Machete to guard a beat up Camry and Mazda, because it’s so ‘safe’.
My first night in Costa Rica I ended up sleeping in a fire station, which was fine, until the siren went off. As they couldn’t leave me there by myself, I ended up sleeping on the driveway, beside the gate until they got and let me into the bunks again.
The next night we ended up sleeping in the tent village with the Monte Verde farm hands.
When your bike is 150 lbs. what’s an extra watermelon on top of that?
I made a point of having a beer a country. Though the 1L Victoria beer from Honduras had me waiting a little while before I could safely ride again… Somehow even though it only cost around a dollar, they didn’t have change in the store for my bill which was the equivalent of $1.20, so I got a home made chocolate bar as change.
Here’s a Costa Rica Beer, starting onto a 45km ‘unfinished’ section of road, I stopped for a ‘glass’ complete with cow decals, and ice cubes.
Remember the road was unfinished. I’m not sure if the bridge is collapsing or being built. Anyhow south of Quepos two counties are in competition to be the top tourist spots. Quepos aims to keep their edge by not allowing the road to be built. Somehow the 18 wheelers where still on this route as it bypassed the mountains and saved them a day’s driving.
El Canal
‘You can’t take your bicycle on the airplane’…. $20 + a few scraps of card board + lots of seran wrap. Of course security let me pack it myself, outside the airport, after they checked it…. Not that it really mattered, because to stow your oversized luggage they sent me downstairs and through the yellow gate… which took me onto the runway… carrying a large unchecked box. Hello? Then they didn’t have those magic wands at the metal detectors either, so after setting it off twice the guy in front of me was cleared following a brief frisking.
What have I been up to otherwise?
Trying to become fast. Somewhere I lost that.
Yeah.
Well I went surfing the other day for my first time. It is almost the opposite of cycling. No earth, no legs, hyper extending you back, arms and shoulders get lots of use. .
You do get to wear tight 4mm neoprene batman suits, helmetless. The archbiker was my surf instructor, go figure! Though the coolest thing by far was the 3 dolphins that chose to join us.
Speed Updating…
So I am in Oregon now. I missed the Amtrak train 2 days in a row. Except the second day the engine on the train was broken. In the 3 h delay of finding a working one I managed to get my things loaded. Transferring in Sacramento, I was told that you needed to check you bicycle 2h ahead of time for the next train, and I could NOT travel with it unboxed and unchecked. Um, but my transferring train only got here with 45 minutes, not 2h….
It is between 3 and 4 am on a trip that will see a 14h train ride take 24h. They let me stow my bicycle in with the water hoses. If you are going to tell me that I can’t do something, why will you let me do it? It just teaches me to ignore your rules.
I am now a pro Ironman. Yes Yass. It is true because you read it on the interweb.
Happy May 8th.
Fan mail: faatnaat at hotmail (dot) com -> inbox
Grammatical corrections: faatnaat at hotmail dot com -> trash can.
