Double Posting All the Way!!! Whooaa, Its Almost a Triple Post!! --Rob

Blogging again, how can you tell there's no TV here. Well, I'm only doing this because Mr. Dam so kindly reminded me that I didn't post the picture with the huge rooms. We'll.........

Living room!

One of four bedrooms, completely empty.

THERE....now, lets keep it real. I said huge, you gotta remember the places we've already stayed. We're used to 60 sq. feet. not 1500. It makes a bit of a difference. Anyway, now that I've already started posting, might as well throw up some pics I took tonight and from Niks camera last night. I missed the sunset unfortunately, but I did come close..take a peek.

Nik and the expensive watermelon lady! Mind you, damn good. P.S. You're no longer in the cold Nik what's with the winter coat.

Completely normal road hazards

Massively impressive food, this place is the best we've eaten! A 750ml vodka, a 7-up, 3 redbulls, this meal, and 4 beers for 39.00US.

Dig right in!

Bit too much sun today Nik?? You should hear him suffering right now haha..

All I want to do in El Tunco is eat and post!

Just after sunset on the beach!

The famous pig rock of El Tunco. Obviously I am looking at it from the wrong angle.

Our dinner audience; they sat on our feet while we ate. Cute fellers.

Again, we dominate this place by ourselves.

Don't eat the shrimp here, this man catches it from the swamp...and it smells. He can't hide in the dark from my shutter speed!

30 second exposure makes nighttime daytime.

But nighttime is pretty nice.

And a video I added tonight onto Youtube showing what Atitlan looks like from the beach!



I also apologize, looking over the massive post, my punctuation and grammar suffered immensely. I'll be on the lookout from now on, so stop judging me. :(

Alright, no more posts for a bit. We gotta focus on getting to Leon as fast as possible. Want to make it to Diriamba for the San Sebastien festival on the 20th! Wish us luck, we're gonna try to get out of El Salvador, into and out of Honduras and into Nicaragua and a 200 km ride to Leon all in one day! Let's do this!

Finally! Some Sun!! ....Too much sun..... - Rob

Figured I'd post a bit about the sun and surf here in La Libertad. No pics (see post before) until I bring out the camera a little before sunset. Our room here is a bit boring...no TV, we miss our Warner Bros. station with terrible commercials but awesome shows.

QUICK< SOMETHING I FORGOT. MORE BORDER CROSSING ADVICE.

Guatemala - El Salvador (Southern most border).
- Buildings are all together, very easy to navigate. Exiting Guatemala proved a lengthy process, but it was made easy by my friend (see post before tambien). We joked and laughed with him until our paperwork was done and off we went to El Salvador. Exiting cost us 10 Quetzals and 2.00 US.

- Pass a checkpoint, into El Sal. El Salvador is by far the easiest crossing. It still took a long time, but we only had to get through Migracion, Aduana and a few copies (0.40US). Everything else is free as El Salvador is part of the CA-4 Border Control agreement (guatemala..don't see how tho, it wasnt free and easy; el salvador, nicaragua and honduras) which makes life a little easier.

So far we're lucky, no lines at any border. We typically go early and I'm pretty sure it's not busy season, I hope I didn't jinx myself.

Anyway, the road coming up to La Libertad was hot and chocked full of semi's going slow. Once we hit the ocean things got interesting: massive dark and cold tunnels, and a ride that would hone anyone's cornering skills in any type of vehicle. At least 30 switchbacks tucked us into our bikes as we climbed and descended over and over again next to the ocean. Very cool.

When we got to El Tunco, we drove right by it. All the beaches here have very small entrances into what are like small communities. Inside are restaurants, bars, hotels, hostels. There's pretty much a 50/50 population of locals to white people here. So lots of conversation to be had because it's nice to be able to talk fluently in native tongue once more (its very draining struggling in broken spanish all the time). We asked one laid back girl what hotel was best, and she pointed us to the Tunco Lodge. Decent place, woman said 50 bucks a night, what we expected to pay by the beach, but a young kid took over and showed us around, then said the price was 40. Awesome deal! ...So we thought. Talked to a guy later that night who's staying here for 8.00. Well, now that we have our sunburns, we're gonna look a little more local and a lot less foreign so hopefully we can get some deals soon. Doesn't mater, we're happy. We have a pool, cheap food, and a/c. Lots of people to talk to, a huge surf population and a backpackers destination. We celebrated with a beer at the beach bar; 8 later and we chowed down on some much needed spaghetti. Total bill: 8 beers, 2 huge spaghettis, 20.00. Awesome again! I love this place.

Watched the sunset over the ocean, incredible and went back to the pool and back out to dinner. We had fried fish which was much better than I thought it was going to be, another 4 beers. After a stupid bet that if I ate the fishes eyeballs Nik would buy a bottle of vodka, we found ourselves swallowing Vodka and redbulls and 7-up all night. Well...Nik's night ended early, I talked to the Tyler guy from Canada for a couple more hours and polished the entire bottle of vodka..Good thing we're by the ocean, hangovers only affect me in-land.

Woke up to hammers banging at 7 am, had some french toast for breakfast and decided we'd get some surf boards. I'm not going to take pictures of my wounds, but after three hours we decided to give up and try at another destination. The waves here are slightly forgiving, but the shallow rock shelf make it dangerous. The board popped me in the head, I've got multiple scratches on both arms, deep cuts from jagged rocks on both feet and hands. Surfing is a rough sport....not to mention arduous. Everytime we'd attempt a wave and then fall, 4 more would knock us 300 feet to shore (we're on point break) and we'd have to start paddling all over again.

A Canadian surfer girl sat down with us and basically gave us a free lesson, nice of her, she was probably just afraid we'd kill her if we went back out. Anyway surfing's done....we're toast, Nik's burnt, and we've been sleeping the day away haha.

I'm hungry for food and pictures, I'm going scrounging.

MIA At 3000 Feet - Rob

It's been an unexpected while since I've been able to post. At the time of this entry in fact, I have no internet. I'll be uploading this one the next time I get some wireless, but it's a little bit hard to come by around here. Here? Roach motel tonight....we really had no choice, we've travelled the past two days from San Cristobal to here in Escuintla, Guatemala, one of the few mistakes we have made on this trip so far. More on that later (as ants crawl on the bed and people since and dance outside the room making all kinds of noise).

I can't even remember where I left off, the past couple of days have been quite the blur. The last I remember posting about was the cold, the damn cold that seems to follow us through these mountains. The rain has passed completely, we have been graced with mostly sunny skies sicne that one day. If I can think back to where I left off, we travelled the farthest we had yet on this trip through that rain. 670 kilometres in one day. Along the way we met a traveller from Alberta fully loaded for a round the world trip. He had he would try and make it to San Cristobal with us, but I doubt he has our stubborness and persistence. We did make it, through, hmmm if I can recall, by passing through 7 TOLLS. Yeah, 7...lucky number, our wallets ran dry three times with the unexpected stops. It ran us a total of $50.00 US, our whole daily budget, just to drive from city to city. I only once we ran through our last toll did I realize that Libre meant free and Cordo (or something similar) meant pay up. As I rode through tropical rainstorms I wondered how the hell most of Mexico's inhabitants can afford routine travel. Let alone Canada (basically no toll roads) in the U.S. Tolls are FAR less expensive, and to take "La Ruta Libre" would mean countless more kilometres in detours and far less impressive roads. We'd pay 15.00 to travel one section of road that would have potholes a foot deep and 3 feet wide. You hit one of those and guarenteed you're not coming out on two wheels. Gotta also account for the whole-lane puddles and nearly no visibility. It was not a pleasant ride but we knew where we had to go, so I compain now, but we sucked it up and rode on. When I do get to upload pictures, I'llshow the better half of that ride we talked about last post.

San Cristobal – not quite as impressive as I read about, but we didn't tour around the whole town. There is a lot of poverty here off the main drag (San Juan etc.) and we found ourselves looking for a hotel in the wrong side of town. We stayed directly in the square at the foot of the historical distract in a place called the Alcatraz Hotel. Funny....because the temrperature in the room/outside felt like the icy waters of that very prison. Nice place though, $25.00 a pop, we came to accept it, because it is more of a tourist town. We found a delicious chinese food chain I wasn't at first so sure about, but if I do see it again, it'll be my first stop. The town has pretty much everything you want, giant supermarket, chain auto shops, and for us a much needed "Laundaria". We were down to our last set of clothes...haha who am I kidding, we wore all our shitty clothes twice before we got them cleaned. The problem here was that it took our laundry lady until 1 pm to finish the clothes. We worked on the bikes, did an oil change, I readjusted my chain again, and goofed around in the sun until they were ready.

1 pm and we're on the road. In terms of Mexican road signs, I'm very pleased. Never did I have to rely on my map to figure out where I'm going (I'm the navigator of the trip: Man with the Maps). The signs always point you in the right direction, but I do have a damn bone to pick. When a road sign gives you a distance, say for example, 200 km to San Cristobal, why when you approach the next one 40 km later, it tells you 212 km to go. This is evident EVERYWHERE. Everytime you think you get somewhere, the next sign will put you 30km behind schedule. Regardless, we had time to make up, we had to get through the Guatemalan border yesterday.

The road out of San Cristobal rose even higher. We're getting on 3500 feet and still climbing. The ride was again spectacular, the Chiapas region is beyond my favourite area to ride. Constant climbs and descents, a great strain on my chain, but who cares, these rides are what motorcycle enthusiasts only dream of. Full hairpin turns at a 15-20 degree slope for 30-40 km. The pavement and road conditions were perfect with barely anyone on the roads. The termperature rose as we approached the border...ha the border, this is always the fun part. So the Frontera (border) towns are busy, I can't explain to you how busy, but it's basically a line of people two deep, both sides of a single lane road. You're also contending with of course traffic, 18 wheelers, motorcycles, the works, on a road that climbs at such an angle it's even hard to walk up. I heard from Central America advice on ADVRider that you can sneak through Mexico exit and go right into Gaute. Not true....must've been old. We were told immediately to go back 4 km to the Mexican migracion to get our exit stamps. It was getting dark fast, and no one....trust me, no one travels Guatemala roads at night. We figure there's no rush, even if we did clear the border we wouldn't have gotten far, so we, along with our bikes "exited" Mexico and dropped into a hotel right beside the Migracion. Again, the only people there, and for 200 pesos, theres no way to go wrong. Locked parking, and a whole house to ourselves, incredible. This place (look for the many pictures at the end of the post) had like 4 oversized (WAY OVERSIZED) interconnected rooms upstairs with a whole enormous wrap around balcony, all to ourselves. "Let's get dinner", we agreed suspiciously.

Not much around other than the post, and its dark. We walk up to the store for some beers, and decide instead to get dinner first. One slightly fellow told us in english that they had beers there. When we walked to get dinner instead, he insisted they had beers, and "you know what, I'll show you where to get some beers"......"wat", I look at Nik. The little feller points over to the darkest corner by some houses, and asks us to follow him over there to get some beers. This was our first encounter with, well we thought he was friendly, dunno what he wanted, but whatever it was, he didn't get it, not from us anyway. Got some local burritos, I loved them; Nik not so much. I'm a newb to burritos, maybe it was the cheap beer that helped it so gracefully wash down. With nothing to do, we fell asleep playing crazy 8's and reading Robb Reports. No internet and no english channels that we were used to everywhere else so far.

Didn't matter, because we were up at 6 to be the first to hit up the border. We hurriedly packed our bags and were the first ones there, luckily.....because it still took well over an hour. Again, we expect this with the knowledge we have. I know for me, when I was planning this trip, the borders scared me the most, but this is our first true crazy border we crossed, and there really was nothing to it. But since it helps to understand it better, I'll point form it again.

1. After Mexico exit, we first went to Migracion. He looked at our documents for 2 minutes, gave us our stuff back, and off we went. Too easy.
2. Going to Aduana, fumigation man stops us and tells us we need it "after", we tell him. Aduana consisted of filling out entry form, correcting the documents they print (make sure to check the VIN's, they seems to most often screw up the numbers), and after 45 minutes here (the printer broke for the copies), he sent us to the bank (right beside the Aduana) to pay the 55 Quetzals.
3. Officer checks your forms, and off we go. Too easy.
**We did have to use a moneychanger, there are no moneychanging banks around our checkpoints, it was 3:2 exchange rate from the buggers......

The best part, well, I don't know if I can say best, but officials seem to treat you with the upmost respect. They push you to the front of the line anywhere you go, interesting. Makes up for all the shady looks and/or "monster" comments about our height (I guess it doesn't help we're 6'4 and 6'5, 1-2 feet taller than most locals).

The ride through Guatemala was very similar to Chiapas, with the exception of more towns and rougher topes. It slowed us down at the beginning, but after taking out some money and getting some gas, we sped up towards Lago de Atitlan. As I was taking a video of one of the crazy roads with a ton of switchbacks, a couple of police wave us over (this is another one of my fears on the trip) but he just asked us where we came from, where we're going, and to have a good time. Super friendly amigo! So, not to jinx us, but we've been lucky. No military checkpoints (they all seem to be northbound), no corrupt cops and friendly locals. Fingers crossed, we just began.

Anyway, by this time the constant hills are taking a huge tolls on my chain, and I'm driving the bike with the upmost care. I don't know the best method to prevent it from too much tension, but I've been riding with low revs (around 2500-3000 rpm at all times) as it seems to not jerk the bike back and forth, which is what the chain tension seems to be doing before this. All's well...so far...hope I make it to San Salvador Kawk. Dealership. We get to Lago Atitlan....like eveyrone says...beautiful..The pictures can only describe it, my weiny words are insignifcant in comparison. There are a ton of white people, an awesome local yelling out that we should buy some cocaine and skunk from him (laff) and turquoise waters. Mind you, if you've ever been to the Florida Keys in the dead of summer, expect similar smells.....not so nice, I wouldn't try swimming in this water. We had a pineapple on the beach and proceeded to get to where we are now, a helluva lot slower than we anticipated.

We came to a fork, and unlike Mexican road signs, Guatemala seems not to care where we have to get to. Both destinations were not on my map, and both looked semi-promising. The one we didn't chose (put my foot in my mouth) ended up what seemed like the wrong direction. We followed the water...

**IF YOU ARE EVER IN LAGO ATITLAN AND NEED TO GET TO CA-2 DO NOT FOLLOW THE WATER***

I didn't take pictures, because I wasn't sure we'd get out of it. I took a small video but it pales in comparison to what the ride would be like. It starts off decent, a lot of nice villas and more white people. Then the road gets narrower...and dustier....and sandier...and more inclined. After about 45 minutes of riding, the road became what appeared to be impassable by most vehicles. There was no one else on it but us, and a lonely villa, and it climbed. It basically rose 2000 feet in the matter of two or three kilometres. Even without the luggage, I have never rode my bike that hard. Nik has already told you about the fall (since I'm posting this first I'm guessing). I wish I could explain it better, but I'll let you know more if my bike falls apart before I get a tune-up. Just when I stopped Nik to ask him if we should turn back......I seriously throught we'd have to go all the way back and go the other route (it was harder going down), the path popped out onto the main road...wow. So we gunned through the coffee route of route 11 and CA-2 and made it to Escuintla. I thought for some reason this town was a landmark, a place to see, but I wish we had a few more hours to keep riding. I wouldn't recommend a stop here, we found only one hotel after riding for twenty minutes. The traffic is insane here, it is not a tourist town by any means. There is a market, but we dare venture out here, there is no key to our room. It cost us 130 Quetzals (15 bucks), no hot water, beds with mats upon bricks, and ants crawling everywhere. Mind you, we have 70-some channels, some of which are in english, but I'm very looking forward to moving on tomorrow. Yes, tomorrow, La Libertad, our first look at the Pacific, and a much anticpated stop along our trip. A lot of riders avoid El Salvador, but if you stay in the tourist towns, it'll be like any other country. Safer than Mexico, and Mexico was like a daycare (almost..). Besides, I have to meet my fiancees family!

These waves were massive for the Caribbean. The wind was relentless.

Hey, if you're handicap, Veracruz will do everything to make life as comfortable as they can for you, just watch out for the potholes.

The historical part of town (museum)

Veracruz Centro

My favourite vehicle of the trip so far. Plentiful, yet I've never even seen these in Canada

But I've seen this beast before.. Note the ceaseless and cold downpour to San Cristobal

I told you, cold...

A fellow Canadian traveler whose name escapes me now. He's from Alberta and heading anywhere his 800GS takes him. So awesome!

As soon as we enter the region of Chiapas, magic happens!

Skies clear up, beautiful mountains

And climbing 3000 feet looking out over the area.

This is the Cristobal mascot; he wasn't as friendly as he looks.

In Cristobal our hotel was pretty (if you go to this place and wonder where the hell any of the hotels are, keep going past the "Cristobal Centro/Historico" sign..we took a long time to figure this out.

Cold air, breath is visible at all times of the day and night here.

Quick and easy oil change. The bikes have a hard time not stalling (full idle for a long time) at this height. We wonder what the Andes would be like.

Our border hotel, all to ourselves.

Our view, which I kept thinking were clouds as I was not used to scenery so looming.

My favourite pic of the trip so far, its just creepy...and it smelled really bad. Burning garbage is a favorite activity of the locals.

This is really close to being my favourite pic..You really don't want to take one step back, its a long way down.

A look at Lago de Atitlan

I was being serious too, this is actually a hairpin curve too.....watch the brakes!

Las Pinas son fantastico!!

Couple more pics, because its so beautiful.

Nik making non-english speaking friends. 

Cool view of the Atitlan Volcano (tours available, but time was of the essence).

We're hurried to make sure we could get the best hotel in Escuintla.

Unfortunately...there was only one hotel, and it was a dump of a town.....Note the blood stains / ants everywhere.

This is my new friend. I was told to watch out for helpers at border crossings. He immediately came up to us offering help, we really had no choice as he followed us around and kinda took over. We were really skeptical whether or not he'd hold our documents until we paid him (I've heard amounts from 50-hundreds of U.S. dollars). Although we tipped him 20 Quetzals, he never bugged us for money and made everything so smooth getting out of Guatemala. He even offered me a beer!! He gave us contact information of his friend who also offers help at the Honduras border! So cool.

Our little resort in El Tunco, La Libertad (Yes, I now have internet).

The moon looks much bigger in person.

Mountains and Waves -Nik

Guatemala! What a drive! most extraordinary ride of my life. We just wrapped around the mountain over and over again up and down (which is awesome on a bike). It was such a difference entering Guatemala. The thing that struck me first was Toyotas. Almost everyone drives one 90%+. We spent a night at Esquintla where we hit the a new low in hotel; cinder block bed, ice cold shower and ants. I had to seal the edge of the windows with toilet paper as to keep the mosquitoes out. Leaving early in the morning we made it to the border of El Salvador and headed to our surf spot; El Tunco. The place we are staying at, tunco lodge is great and cheap. Food here is awesome! Waves are fair and the beach is stunning. Tomorrow we going surfin! Wat!!!

Much better but colder -Nik

Hey! I feel soo much better! I(heart)antibiotics. Getting out of Veracruz was a challenge. Poor weather caught up to us and got us soaked on our way to San Cristobal for the first few hours. Once we got up in the mountains into the cloudbank things took a turn for the best. If there was scenic drives before well this second half of our daily journey topped it right off! Ñ*¨[ Amazing.. Some of these sights where like storybook landscapes as we climed steady to 3000ft to San Cristobal. We entered the small town (still probably 1m ppl) and got lost for a while but found a quiet hotel with freezing floors. It does not get warm here. The locals are all dressed in jackets and this morning we where able to see our breath just to give you an idea. Chille! We got planning to make it to Guatemala this morning but might not make it since we are waiting on laundry which was overdue.

Winter All Over Again - Rob

Gonna have to be a quick one today, were getting our washing done in San Cristobal de las Casas, and itll be ready at 1pm. Were gonna scrounge around and see whats up in this town. Ill post pictures of yesterday, we had both the best drive and the worst drive of the trip so far. One road....190 kilometers...straight. Awesome. Better yet, pouring rain, most of the day. Best part..cold. It was a terrible ride in to Chiapas, but I remembered hearing from somehwrer how beautiful it was, and that is an understatement. From the entrance sign, it is the difference from being in the prairies to being in the Rockies. Beautiful cliffs, panoramas, you name it. One problem, you climb high, and you climb cold. And when youre wet, your frozen. I never knew San Cristobal was at 3000 feet elevation, but more on that later. Were off to look for some meracado somewhere or another (mnarket). Need some fresh fruit, and some fresh clothes.

Huge update next time I get wireless.

Countdown - Three Days

A VERY quick post tonight just to say things are about on track, we're leaving Tuesday morning for sure. Just a few things to tidy up (ie. our boat is leaving without us and we're forced to last minute search another one across the GAP), but I want to spend time with my wonderful family before I go, so I'm posting this as an introduction to spamming my blog all over Facebook etc. The adventure begins, and the nerves set in. Here we go :O

Also updated the packing list on the blog tonight....to what we REALLY need, as opposed to what we might have needed.

This would be a picture where everything is going as planned (4000km in 4 days) ; I hope this trip we get to do the same thing