Born to Ride Born for Adventure: March 2011

Mexico land of Tacos, Speed-bumps (tope) & 36 wheeler trucks

Guatemala into Mexico

Mexico have gone big on "Wind-farms"

After I made contact with Stan & Marco and heard they were 5 hours behind I decided to go through the border find a hotel and wait there for them.Arrived at the border town of Hidalgo, very busy place, narrow streets, got a bit lost, turn round and found 2 friendly policeman on the side of the main road, asked which way to Mexico, they answered in Spanish of course, which I understood to be follow me, well with lights flashing I was escorted to the border post, and met a couple from Vancouver Island with there 2 daughters in an Kombi camper, they had been on the road for about 8 months and were heading home " Going Nowhere Slowly" Spoke to them and got some good ideas on where to visit in Mexico. Rode off after the quickest crossing to date, found a hotel in Tapachula ( As per Marco's posted, second crossing) to wait for Stan & Marco. Woke up early, made my way to breakfast, to find the Canadian had also booked into the same hotel, invited me to join them for breakfast and we continue our chat from the day before.

Heading North to Texas

Coming through the border post from Guatemala to Mexico was a breeze we thought half a hour tops. Till we arrived at a town called Tapachula where we got stopped again and we had to go the whole hog again of importing the bike plus had to pay $35 by credit card or put a deposit down of $300 cash. My card didn't work deliberately ??? so I had to borrow from Stan & Lindsay dollars, which is refundable on leaving Mexico. For some reason on Lindsay permit was printed for 35 days, Stan's for 30 days and mine only for 7 days or loose my deposit. That same day we left from the border at 2pm and still managed to ride 300km's. Next day on the road by 6am. heading down the coast. The first 150km's was straight and the next 120km's turned out to be very twisty on the coastal road. Decided then to turn inland and head for Oaxaca, well we had to then do 250km's steep up-hill and hundreds of bends & curves, does any of you know the Franschoek Pass, this was it, a little bit tighter and 180km's longer. Took us 6 hours of concentration, the 100km's before this was "Long Tom Pass " 3 hors. That evening we were "Dog Tired" and ready to go to sleep at 9pm even without a night cap.

Posted by Marco.

Day of Drama

After spending a few days relaxing in Antigua, we packed-up our bikes, said good-bye to the hosts of the hotel and a couple we met from Costa Rica, Corne & Gabriela who then walked us out to our bikes to say farewell and take photo's of us riding off, Marco & Stan left, I got caught in traffic, lots of one way roads, so I took the one we used on a number of times to leave Antigua, stopped to fill up the bike, moved off to were I thought the guys were, only to find nobody waiting. Well my first mistake. "Golden Rule " of biking if lost close to starting point return to it, which I didn't. Not thinking, I rode further out, to the start of the double high-way, waited again, then went still further out, to no avails, then thought maybe I should ride still further out to the start of the high-way which I thought was the way to Mexico, arrived at turn-off, took it with-out looking to closely, called "Mixco" only to find I had ridden into a very doggy area, well with-in no time at all I had a police escort, which showed me the way out.Returned again to start of double high-way and waited again. After a few hours wasted waiting, I think I panicked, and decided to ride on on my own "Wrong Decision " Stan & Marco had return to the hotel and waited, waited & waited, then found Corne & Gabriela, who then took the photo of me to the local police station and reported me missing.
Meanwhile I rode on towards Guatemala City, asked a guy in a car the way out and he said follow me, which I did, found road out and rode on it for about 30km's, came down a hill to find a traffic jam of trucks and buses, did the normal story of zig-zigging between them and worked my way to the front, only to find a huge protest in progress, burning tyres and hundreds of police & army guys moving the protesters away, got through and carried on towards the Mexican border, when I arrived I was able to contact Stan and heard what a huge mistake I had made. They had waited until 1pm and then also decide to move on to the border. While I was riding, to think of it now I recall a few police officers giving me a second look but nobody stopped me.

Lost the Plot

Wow thought the blog was about the biking "Journey" not a fashion photo shoot, mind you it does remind me a lot of the photo a few years ago of " Clive Rice" posing in the nude with the cricket bat

HEAD CAM BACK OF LAKE ATITLAN,GUATEMALA

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Day trip to Guatemala City

In SA called a "Kalahari" here the Basic Model

Had to make a trip into the city, had heard all the stories about bike hijackings and so on, left early to avoid the traffic, did the 40km trip in under 45minutes, straight to the BMW dealership were we had booked my bike in for a service & oil change, new speedo drive, mine packed-up about 5000km's ago, the 2 Honda's ordered new back tyres as well. Alex the service manager was waiting for us, bikes booked in and we took a walk around the very up-market shopping centers in the area .Meet the owner of the dealership who is in his 70's and still rides to work everyday and has a large collection of BMW bikes, pics of one below. Also Imagen going to the BM dealership in the waterfront and having a guard with a pump-action shotgun watching your every move.

Stan's new-look & more obserations

No "cats" to be seen, very few. Many dogs. Fruit along the road that caught Stan's attention "Papaws" 500cm long by 15cm wide longest his seen on his many travels. Pineapples larger than the size of a rugby ball, and bright orange in color, millions of banana's. All of a sudden 40gallon metal & plastic drums for sale on the side of the road, not one or two but hundreds in Nicaragua & Honduras, and than none after that (for storing water he thinks??? )
Beers he tasted (Cerveza) : Argentina Quilmes & Iguana : Peru Trujillo : Nicaragua Victoria : Costa Rica Silver & Pilsen : Guatemala Gallo

Very happy after hair-cut & slave with a long blade razor

More to follow (observation we hope, not beer names)

"Antigua" what a find

Antigua is one of the most beautifully restored towns that we have visited on our travels, it was completely razed in an earth-quake in the 17th hundreds and slowly rebuilt, retaining much of its traditional character and has been declared a World Heritage site. It is surrounded by 3 Volcanoes, one of which is still active. Read a very interesting quote in a travel book I was reading. "Its a place where power lines run underground, building codes are adhered to, rubbish is collected, traffic diverted and stray dogs "disappear" mysterious in the night" The central plaza hows a fountain dating also back to the 17th century. We found a great hotel with a center caught yard, roof garden with great views of the town, laid-back relaxing feel, friendly owner who allow us to park the bikes inside the foyer as per photo. Did a walk around town today, lots of markets selling Maya dresses, shirts, masks, jewelry (jade) and of course Guatemalan T/shirts.

Day off in "Antigua" Guatemala

Volcano on the left still active "Volcan Pacaya 2552m"

Check-out my backpack & bone in my mouth

Hotel's roof garden

Bikes parked in foyer of hotel

On the road from Puerto Barrios to just past Guatemala City

The road became once again very busy with lots of trucks and buses, very few private cars seem to do the intercity routes, passing a long line of trucks I pull in behind a truck to have the biggest "Brahman Bull" giving me the eye, well we chattered for a while, asked were I was from, told me he had been bought by a very rich stud farmer and was on his way to his new lush green pasture home, well that's what I would have liked to have heard, not that he was on his way to the slaughterhouse.
Talking about trucks, you see the biggest trucks here, all with there own sleeper cabs, Freight-liners, International's, Mack's and my Favorited Kenworth. At the borders you see miles & miles of trucks waiting to cross over, most of the drivers have bought hammocks which they slings under the trailer body's and sleep while their "Fixer" does the paperwork for them. At every border you have a bunch of guys hassling you to help with the crossing, called "Fixers" sometimes it is a blessing in disguise because the different windows are far apart but you must always pay them for the service.At the Honduras border post we had a kid of about 10 years old helping us, took all our passports, bike papers and drivers licences off to have photocopies made, well after about 15 minutes we were very worried, only to see him come running back from the Nicaragua side, were he had made us all the copies that we required.

Tegucigalpa to Caribbean Sea

Left the town in Honduras with the longest name early to try and avoid the morning traffic, our human GPS (Marco) up front, he has an uncanny way of finding his way out of huge city's with ease, after a few minutes we found the way-out and headed towards Puerto Cortes, which is on the Caribbean Sea in the Bay of Honduras. Ascending a long hill on the outskirts of the town, which had lots of roads works in progress due to heavy recent rains, lots of landslides and road wash aways, a bit of mist & light rain, on the other side the 2 Honda's came into there own, pulling away from me, I now have a large amount of res peck for there 750cc engines, the 2 of them are like kids again when the road becomes twisty, you just see 2 bikes glued together going threw the bends & Curves as one.Arrived in the town of San Pedre Sula just before lunch, but decided to carry on to the sea and try and find a sea-food joint. In San Pedre Sula drove down the main road of about 10km's full of very American takeaway outlets, in that block we passed 3 Burger King outlets. In Puerto Cortes, our human GPS took us straight to the docks and a restaurant that reminded me a lot like "Panama Jacks" in the early 90's were the owner & his wife do everything them selfs, served us the special of the day, great line fish and some other fish which I can't remember the name. He came from Italy, fell in love with the spot and settle in Honduras a few years ago. After lunch we headed to the border and after a trouble free crossing arrived in Guatemala and spent the night in a sea side town of Puerto Barrios at a family run guest house, owner still wore a gun on his hip, lots of stories around about hold-ups & rob biers but we have only found very friendly people were every we have been and stayed.

Gremlins & technical hiccups

We had similar problems of late, I put it down to bad internet connections on route, but if the problems persisted I think the best suggestion would be buy your own "Google" space.
Re feed-back, I believe the original group was moving to fast "North", but I'am amazed to hear that after 6 days, the other 2 are only hours behind us, makes you wonder hey ???

Hotel in Granada & our Kayak trip around the lake

House connecting 2 Islands together, boat parked under living area

Taking a quick "nap"

Stan's Observations

In Panama and heading out of Nicaragua there are signs (Retorno ) these are recesses on the freeway that allow one to make an 180degree, if you missed a exit off-ramp without any obstruction to traffic either way. Another thing on the entire trip of over 20000km's we have not come across any incidents of "Road Rage " everyone does there thing and gets on with the job of driving. At times the traffic is abit of a Mish/mash, but always sorts itself out
Stan will add more "Observation" @ a later stage.

20th March Granada to Tequcigalpain Honduras

Posted by Marco 21th March

Had breakfast @ 7.00am, bikes loaded already and we left at 7.45am from the hotel after spending 2 great relaxing days in Granada. At the T/junction we turned right, then the 5th left and headed straight for the Honduras border.The weather was great with a good tail wind and even after stopping for our regular coffee break, we still made good time and arrived at the border before lunch time, much to our surprise the group of "Globebusters" all 14 of them had already arrived and were doing there paperwork already, when our turn came after standing around for an hour the lady decided to take her lunch break , so which was supposed to be an easy crossing, still took 3 hours of standing around waiting.
When we carried on the road surface in Honduras was a lot more pothole than before,and the landscape as similar to the Lowveld back home, later that afternoon we found a great hotel in a town with the longest name so far. After talking some of our normal usual nonsense, we walked down the road and had a nice selection of fast food outlets to chose from, chose a chili outlet, it must be a very violet country Honduras because each filling station, food outlet or bank a surety guard with a shot gun at the ready watching over the premises, Road blocks along the way are also manned by policeman with sub-machine guns as well, although we were not stop once, after been told about the heavy police presents along the way, even went out and bought more reflector tape for our bikes after been told the police fine you heavily for not having it on the bikes.It was an unenventfull day. Stan to get rid of his foreign currency must have bought more than 2kg's of sweets, which will last for about 2 days of riding, he claims they keep him awake while riding his bike, quite a sight to see him riding and unravels the sweet papers with his teeth and then still gets them past the helmet into his mouth.

Night life in Granada

We pick-up a flyer advertising a "Jazz" evening at a local restruarant, so off we went early to get a good seat, order our supper and waited for the music to start, after an hour or two, asked the waiter when the jazz was going to start, only then to be told sorry it had been cancelled. Took a walk around the block and found one of the most enjoyable packed road with lots of sidewalk cafe's, coffee shops and even a Irish pub. Took a table and got involved with locals watching there hero, a local boxer fighting for the title against a guy from the states. Well the Nicaragua won and the whole place stood up and went mad.
20th
Up early, enjoyed a huge breakfast of freshly made mixed fruit juice, fruit salad, coffee, fried eggs with tomato & onion relish on top and to end flat-jacks. Then waddle away and pack our bikes and made our way North towards Honduras.

Rivas To Granada Nicaragua

Wow what a find Granada is a beautiful city with about 79000 pop. and is on the Northwestern shore of Lake de Nicaragua and has access to the Caribbean sea via the lake and also has the most amazing restored colonial glories, with elegant craved portals, great central courtyards and a place to just sit back and relax, we found a nice quite hostel in one of the restored parts of town, where the owners have bought 2 old colonial houses and turn them into a very relaxing boutique hotel, complete with central courtyard, pool and great rooms, all with different names, Stan's & Marco called El Olvido, my single room is called Virginia. The place really gives you the chill-out feeling, so have book-in for another night. The town has a central square, with eating places, a few
expensive looking hotels, horse carriages to take you on a tour of the town.
Booked to go on kayak tour of the little Island on the lake, saw the home of the rich & famous,yachts tide up on the moorings, different variety of birds and a lots of water hyacinth which is clogging up the water-ways between the islands.

Rincon de OsaTo Puntarenas and further North to Rivas

After we missed the other 2 at the unplanned early lunch stop, we carried on passing the "Old Jet" as per pic and waited on the the way to the town of Jaco for them. Passing large Palm-oil Plantations on a good new road up the coast arrived "Jaco" which has great surfing breaks and board builders on the side of the main road. From there we carried on to Puntarenas and found a great hotel with a pool and nice out look of the sea.
Decided not to take the ferry crossing, so continued up to Liberia and the Nicaragua border.
At the border the Costa Rican side was a breeze, when one arrived at the Nicaragua side, you are shunted from one window to the next, first your bike gets fumigated again 3.50 Us, then police check your passport and you get a stamp for 12 Us and fill in a form, then to customs to check luggage (didn't check ours) and another stamp, then off to another window to get the bike papers checked, Marco & Stan went through without a hassle, when she saw me, I think my size intimated her, found a fault on bike papers, which had Steyn LJ and passport had full names, so her answer was I was not the correct owner and would not let me into Nicaragua. The more a said I was in transit and needed to go through the more she pushed my paperwork back at me. Luckily I went into the next office and asked if any body spoke English and found a nice officer who did, explain my problem and he then spoke to the customs lady, who still insisted that I go to the back of the long line of people. Then had to pay 5 Us for road tax, 12 Us for insurance 1 Us for another unknown tax, Then the Stan saga begins, his bike number plate was checked in Cape Town by customs and at all the other border posts that we been thru on route, only to be stopped at the Nicaragua entry post by an very observant border guard to find out that his number plate on bike reads NZD & on his paperwork is NDZ, well he was luckily enough to meet a local fast talking guy called "Charlie" who had to grease a few palms & his own to sort Stan's problem out and after a hour or so we were on our way North again. Stopped off about 40km's from the border a great Lake side resort looking towards Isda de Ometepe and the two volcanoes, the resort also turn out to be a baseball academy and was training about 40 young .Nicaragua guys in the art of playing baseball which is Nicaragua main sport, then boxing and then only soccer.