Mexico City and south on a bike
My Diary - Guatemala
13/03/07 San Ignacio to Flores (83 miles)
Quite a few hills today and very hot. Boarder crossing O.K. After the boarder the road was very rough dirt for about 16 miles and the lorries made huge chocking dust clouds. Then came rough tarmac until El Cruce. From here I took an alternative route to Flores via the North shore of Lago Peten Ixta through the villages of El Remate and San Andres. The road was close to the shore with good views, nice and rough dirt and some steep hills. Got into Flores after dark at 7:00. A very hard day.
14/03/07 Flores (Rest day)
Lots of resting today. Had a look around Flores which is a small island in Lago Peten Ixta reached by a 250m causeway from the shore. There are some great views but the town is a bit spoilt by tourism. It must have been a very special place before touristification took hold. Got some new books to read
15/03/07 Flores to just past La Ceiba (86 miles)
Had a bad stomach during the ride in the morning - had to make use of the emergency roadside jungle toilet facilities. Crossed the river just before the town of Sayaxche by ferry. I had a race with somebody for 4 miles or so: He followed me for a while to check out how strong a rider I was and then surged passed on a climb, I stayed behind but kept his pace for a while then blasted past him on a hill and I never saw him again. Mostly flat today but getting a bit more hilly towards La Ceiba. Saw some very interesting Indian villages around here: The houses were solidly constructed of deep hardwood planks with thatched roofs. They seemed to live a fairly simple existence and many were washing themselves in the roadside ditches in the evening. I stopped in the Indian village of La Ceiba to try to get accommodation. Soon about 20 people were all gathered around the gringo on a bike. One of the men showed me a room in his house, but he was trying to rip me off, so I camped a just beyond the village in a bit of jungle that showed signs of being the source of the roofing material. Very hot today.
16/03/07 La Ceiba to (just before) Rubeltzal (47 miles)
Some proper mountains today and nice and green. Very nice dirt road after the town of Ruxruja, but very difficult going due to steepness and looseness of the surface. Front right pannier broke both hooks today and fell of on a descent. I changed the broken hooks for the ones I had had made in Oaxaca. Kept on riding into the night as I could neither find any accommodation or a suitable place to camp. There were houses on every flat piece of land until 7:30 pm at the top of a pass. It was just off the road with no privacy. Lots of people called to me as they walked past. As I was cooking some pasta I had bought in a small village shop, I noticed lots of little dark bits floating in the boiling water and that the pasta tubes were a bit ragged. I checked the remaining pasta in the bag and found it was full of live weevils. I was so hungry I ate the pasta anyway, picking out the weevils as best I could. It rained very heavily in the night and then water started pouring in through the roof. I rigged up a system to support the middle of the roof to help it shed the water more effectively using a couple of spare tent poles and a plate. I rested the plate on my stomach and used it as a base for the tent poles which propped up the roof. It worked fairly well and I even managed to get some reasonably good sleep. The rain was also blowing straight through one side of the tent so I put my rain coat over the upper part of my sleeping bag. Oh what fun...
17/03/07 Rubeltzak to Coban (46 miles)
Had some breakfast with an Indian family just down the road. Pushed through the chocked streets of the village of Campur on its market day. The market was on the main street through the village which caused complete chaos with busses and trucks inching their way through the mud and the hundreds of people. From the junction to Lanquin there was tarmac and fairly easy going from here to the town of Coban. Had a nice Chinese meal.
18/03/07 Coban (Rest day) (Total miles 1761)
Changed the chain on the bike. Feeling good today
19/03/07 Coban to Uspantan (50 miles)
Tarmac to San Cristobal Verapaz then very rough and muddy road untill just over the bridge crossing Rio Chixoy. I had some good fun on the long steep descent to this bridge overtaking lories and pick-ups. Got to Uspantan where school children were surprisingly unused to gringos (and therefore would shout gringo, gringo or guapo) for such a sized town. I found a room for 40 quetzals.
20/03/07 Uspantan to (about 10 miles north of) Santa Cruz del Quiche (43 miles)
Fairly easy ride to the town of Cunen, then a very difficult climb out of Cunen. Near the top of this climb I met a cycle touring couple: Kurt and Davrina from Switzerland and Ireland, respectively. They started in Ushuaia and are nearly at their destination of Cancun in Mexico. I found out from their website that they got married along the way in Costa Rica. There was a huge descent, with many switchbacks into the town of Sacapulas, then a long steep hill out of the town. At the high point of this road I camped in a nice pine forest well hidden from the road. I had pasta (without weevils). A hard day.
21/03/07 Santa Cruz del Quiche to Panajachel (45 miles)
Mostly downhill to the town of Quiche and not too difficult a ride to the town of Chichecastenago. The road then dropped into a deep canyon and I spent much of the rest of the day climbing out of it up very steep roads with many hair-pin bends. It rained heavily for a while today and I felt worn out and fed up until I started the descent to Panajachel on the shore of Lago de Atitlan. The sun came out and there were great views of the lake and the volcanoes surrounding it. I saw many Indians wearing traditional clothing in Solola and Panajachel.
22/03/07 Panajachel (Rest day)
My plan of hiring a motorbike and riding around the lake fell through as the owner of the hire company said parts of the routs were unsafe due to armed robbers and he was not willing to let me take the bike there. Finished reading one of my books and started another. Feeling very tired.
23/03/07 Panajachel (Rest day)
Took a walk to the beach, but mostly read. Finished my other book.
24/03/07 Panajachel to Esquintla (70 miles)
Took a small road out of Panajachel along the eastern shore of Lake Atitlan to the village of San Antonio Palopo. From Palopo the road was dirt and after a mile or so it became so steep that I was unable to ride it, and was barely able to push it up either - it was a desperate struggle to get to the village of Escondido. After this I noticed my right calf muscle was twitching badly again. I took a tarmac main road down to Patulul (A very big descent to 300m or so). I had intended to follow a more direct route which was shown on my map, but I found out that this route was impassible due to a bridge over a gorge having been destroyed 20 years ago! I decided to stay on the main road leading to Guatemala City and stay the night in Esquintla. The rest of the day was a fast flat road with very heavy traffic and heavy pollution through farmland used for sugar cane production. Esquintla was a bit of a hole.
25/03/07 Esquintla to Antigua (25 miles)
A very hard day today - uphill all the way with about 1500m height gain. I felt really tired today. I stopped to lie down on the grass verge to have a rest and after a few minutes was bitten on the neck by something. I got up and looked at my shoulder and found it was covered in ants. On the way up I passed between Volcan Agua and Volcan Fuego. I arrived in the colonial city of Antigua (Former capital city of the whole of Central America at 3:00. Later that evening there was a huge religious procession in the streets. The streets were filled with clouds of incense smoke and crowds of onlookers.
26/03/07 Antigua (Rest day)
Took a tour bus to Volcan Pacaya. Walked for 1.5 hours up to the lava flow. I and other people were walking right up to and even hopping over the red hot lava flow. I enjoyed this excursion.
