February 4, 2008
I usually start each update with my 7am wake up but not today. Today’s update is going to start with my 1am wake up. As it turns out the temperature continued to drop during the night and I turned into a Popsicle underneath the one sheet on the bed. Luckily they did have spare blankets which helped a little but not enough. When I finally woke back up in the morning the temperature was a little bit more tolerable but still cold, 48 degrees.
I started out at 8:10 and my plan was to make it to Lake Atitlan to meet up with some people there. I was going to meet up with Ken the guy who flew down to Panama, bought a bike and was riding it back. As it turns out a few days earlier he went down and broke his ankle. I am not sure of the whole story but as of the latest press release he was at Guatemala City airport waiting for his Med Jet insurance to fly him home and then worry about getting his motorcycle home later on. Anyway, I was enjoying the great mountain scenery riding on a dirt road now that is under construction when I came upon a traffic stop. No problem, straight to the front of the line and when it opens up it is clear sailing. The only problem is 9:45 and the road will not open until the workers stop to eat lunch at noon. I think about getting upset until I looked at everyone else there with smiles on their faces and acting like this is business as usual, and it is. I resign myself to being happy and just try and enjoy the time, besides there are worse places to be stuck for over two hours.
I spend the next 45 minutes talking with a local guy who lived in the states for a couple of years. We mostly talk about my bike as he translates everything to the crowd of people gathered around it. Out of nowhere from the other direction a line of cars comes through and everyone gets excited. The guy in charge gets on his radio to find out what is up because it should be another 1 1/2 hours until it is open. I take the opportunity to put my gear on and as soon as he is distracted enough me and one other car make a run for it before he stops everyone else. I am not sure what happened on the other end but construction is definitely still happening. I spend the next 5 miles or so dodging tractors, heavy equipment and people placing explosives for blasting the hillside. At one point I have to wait for a loader that is dumping rocks off of the side of the hill. Once past him I find out that the road curves back around and down below where he is dumping the rocks. I look back up and see him ready to drop another scoop but then he waives me on. I was just able to make it through this area but there is no way the other car will make it past, he will have to wait here until they clear it. Another few miles of dirt road and it finally gets back to pavement.
It is about noon now and I am getting hungry when I get to the town of Sacapulas. I pass a small shack of a place that is cooking something. At this point I figure it is probably good food even though it looks like a place I will get sick at. I turn around, park the bike and pull up a chair at a table. I ask the lady for a menu and she tells me Carne Asada. I guess you get whatever she and her four daughters are cooking at the time. She brings me a plate of meat, beans and rice as they all watch me like I am the side show at the local circus, which I probably am. For the second meal in a row the food was fantastic. I even have a glass of the Horchata made from the local water which scared the hell out of me but it tasted good anyway.
I spend the rest of the afternoon making my way to the city of San Pedro La Laguna on Lake Atitlan. I decide to take the long way around the lake just to see what it is like. What would take me 20 minutes to go around a lake of the same size in the states ends up taking the better part of 2 hours. I get to within 10 km of San Pedro and the road turns to dirt. No problems, I have ridden dirt before. The road was not bad until you hit the up hill sections. Here the dirt has been turned up from the trucks and it is now deep, soft powder with hidden rocks. It almost throws me off a few times but I finally make it through.
I arrive in San Pedro at 4:15 and locate the hotel that another guy from the Adventure Rider Internet group that I frequent is staying. I meet up with John who is here taking some Spanish classes for a few weeks. He takes me on a tour of the town which turns out to be mostly gringos and 99% of them are the Hippie type. I have never seen so many people with dirty hair and baggy clothes in my life. Later on in the evening we are at a bar by the name of Buddha Bar. Lucky for me it is open mic night and I get to hear all of the world’s problems, in bad song form. I got to hear one girl sing about how every man she ever loved ended up hurting her in the end. I finally had enough when some guy started singing about how we are destroying the earth, giving his political views and telling us how everything is wrong. I turned to John and said it is time to leave. I am the type of person who does not believe in telling you my problems so why in the world would I want to hear yours being sung like a damn three year old. Anyway, we head out to another bar, have a few more beers and call it quits sometime around midnight.
I usually start each update with my 7am wake up but not today. Today’s update is going to start with my 1am wake up. As it turns out the temperature continued to drop during the night and I turned into a Popsicle underneath the one sheet on the bed. Luckily they did have spare blankets which helped a little but not enough. When I finally woke back up in the morning the temperature was a little bit more tolerable but still cold, 48 degrees.
I started out at 8:10 and my plan was to make it to Lake Atitlan to meet up with some people there. I was going to meet up with Ken the guy who flew down to Panama, bought a bike and was riding it back. As it turns out a few days earlier he went down and broke his ankle. I am not sure of the whole story but as of the latest press release he was at Guatemala City airport waiting for his Med Jet insurance to fly him home and then worry about getting his motorcycle home later on. Anyway, I was enjoying the great mountain scenery riding on a dirt road now that is under construction when I came upon a traffic stop. No problem, straight to the front of the line and when it opens up it is clear sailing. The only problem is 9:45 and the road will not open until the workers stop to eat lunch at noon. I think about getting upset until I looked at everyone else there with smiles on their faces and acting like this is business as usual, and it is. I resign myself to being happy and just try and enjoy the time, besides there are worse places to be stuck for over two hours.
I spend the next 45 minutes talking with a local guy who lived in the states for a couple of years. We mostly talk about my bike as he translates everything to the crowd of people gathered around it. Out of nowhere from the other direction a line of cars comes through and everyone gets excited. The guy in charge gets on his radio to find out what is up because it should be another 1 1/2 hours until it is open. I take the opportunity to put my gear on and as soon as he is distracted enough me and one other car make a run for it before he stops everyone else. I am not sure what happened on the other end but construction is definitely still happening. I spend the next 5 miles or so dodging tractors, heavy equipment and people placing explosives for blasting the hillside. At one point I have to wait for a loader that is dumping rocks off of the side of the hill. Once past him I find out that the road curves back around and down below where he is dumping the rocks. I look back up and see him ready to drop another scoop but then he waives me on. I was just able to make it through this area but there is no way the other car will make it past, he will have to wait here until they clear it. Another few miles of dirt road and it finally gets back to pavement.It is about noon now and I am getting hungry when I get to the town of Sacapulas. I pass a small shack of a place that is cooking something. At this point I figure it is probably good food even though it looks like a place I will get sick at. I turn around, park the bike and pull up a chair at a table. I ask the lady for a menu and she tells me Carne Asada. I guess you get whatever she and her four daughters are cooking at the time. She brings me a plate of meat, beans and rice as they all watch me like I am the side show at the local circus, which I probably am. For the second meal in a row the food was fantastic. I even have a glass of the Horchata made from the local water which scared the hell out of me but it tasted good anyway.
I spend the rest of the afternoon making my way to the city of San Pedro La Laguna on Lake Atitlan. I decide to take the long way around the lake just to see what it is like. What would take me 20 minutes to go around a lake of the same size in the states ends up taking the better part of 2 hours. I get to within 10 km of San Pedro and the road turns to dirt. No problems, I have ridden dirt before. The road was not bad until you hit the up hill sections. Here the dirt has been turned up from the trucks and it is now deep, soft powder with hidden rocks. It almost throws me off a few times but I finally make it through.I arrive in San Pedro at 4:15 and locate the hotel that another guy from the Adventure Rider Internet group that I frequent is staying. I meet up with John who is here taking some Spanish classes for a few weeks. He takes me on a tour of the town which turns out to be mostly gringos and 99% of them are the Hippie type. I have never seen so many people with dirty hair and baggy clothes in my life. Later on in the evening we are at a bar by the name of Buddha Bar. Lucky for me it is open mic night and I get to hear all of the world’s problems, in bad song form. I got to hear one girl sing about how every man she ever loved ended up hurting her in the end. I finally had enough when some guy started singing about how we are destroying the earth, giving his political views and telling us how everything is wrong. I turned to John and said it is time to leave. I am the type of person who does not believe in telling you my problems so why in the world would I want to hear yours being sung like a damn three year old. Anyway, we head out to another bar, have a few more beers and call it quits sometime around midnight.
1 comment:
Brrr Kommissar! Glad to hear there are people in the world that sing karayoke worse than me :) I love looking at all the photos of where your traveling - Looks like it was a beautifl day at Lake Atitlan and the town of San Pedro La Laguna. Good luck crossing the border into Mexico. Continue to travel safe!!
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