Costa Rica -Nik

Costa Rica is incredible! Wild life and picture perfect beaches seem to engulf the beautifully paved roads we drive. Monkeys, massive trees and colorful birds are the types of thing our eyes have to endure.

Montezuma's Revenge Continues - ROB

Well we thought it was over but henceforth it continues. Its supposed to last a max. of 5 days, we're waiting gratefully and expectantly this day will come soon. We're still chillin' in San Juan, watching the sunsets....

swingggggingggg in the shade, i love this place now for sure

Another one of my trip favourites, so far

Eating dinner, waiting for the sunset

There it is!!!! Everyone always stops what they're doing to capture it. Tonight I took a video of it, I'll timelapse it when I get a chance to download editing program...5 kb a sec...not good.

Nik pondering the descending sun

So yeah, today was a relaxing day, I took a walk all the way out to the point at the tip of the cove. Rocky walk, but well worth being able to see Costa Rica from there and the 400 foot depth of the water from that point. Ate some spaghetti again tonight, and got some druggggggggggggssss mmmm. Some more immodium should work some wonders, we got some addicting painkillers, theres actually a warning on the package, like some sort of nicotine, love it.



Heres the Rauda brother's doing there thing. See this experience allowed us an insight into the driver's we deal with everyday on our bikes. we now have the knowledge and capacity to interact and deal with such situations when faced head on with it? Haha, maybe not.


And tomorrow we're off to see the Volcano and natural hot springs of Rincon de la Vieja in Costa Rica. See you then!!!

Luxury at Last!!! - ROB

We founddddddddddd itttt. IT has come at a price, 60.00 tonight, and no rooms tomorrow (there's a giant cruise ship in the bay), but for today it is my paradise. Nik is still feeling like crap, he's been couped up in the room, but I have been out and about exploring San Juan del Sur. A highly highly recommended destination nestled in a cove on the Pacific side direectly south of Isle de Ometepe. Both fascinating spots, but I'm not sure what we're gonna do; whether or not we'll climb a volcano tomorrow and stay on the island in the lake, or find another spot here to rest up, either way I want to stay here one more night. Our hotel, the Gran Oceana, which I read about in the lonely planet book, has a cold refreshing pool, what looks like an awesome breakfast included, internet, A/C, hot shower, laundry, the most secured parking yet, one block from the beach, holy crap, what else could we ask for. OK, there's one thing, a balcony. A lot of the hotels on the beach here have balconies, and that would be ultra cool, but every other place here has no rooms, unless we share a hostel dorm with like eight other beds. No damn thanks, not after last night.

Enddded up we took turns all night waking each other up stumbling around in the dark for toilet paper. The music lasted until 12am, I don't know when I fell asleep but we "laid to rest" at like 8pm. And I guess I double jinxed myself, because a rooster caulked all night...seriously all night. Haha, anyway, the festival can continue, we just need to rest. It was an interesting party though. I also met an awesomly nice couple who'se grandfather owned the hotel we stayed at. They were from California and came down to see the festivals, shout out to your hospitality if you're reading this guys! It was nice to meet you!

So I'll throw up some pics I took of San Juan, I'm gonna try and get Nik to do something, he's definitely missing out.

Right outside hotel, but party, big music, loud DJ

Crazy fireworks right outside the hotel, blocking the street

My new cute buddy from the Diriamba hotel

Our new oasis in San Juan del Sur

Parrots included

A beautifully cold pool to relax in

This ship is gonna make tomorrow busy :(

The villas I wished we rented instead:(

The beach here breaks pretty neatly, watch your stuff, i left the camera on the beach with no one around for 500 feet, went for a quick dip, turned around and some bastard was walking right towards the camera and sat down next to it when I came back....

Our nice hotel!!!

The Rauda Brothers + Honduras is a Shithole + More Sickness TRIPLEPOST!! -Rob

Again no internet, so I'm writing the post offline. Heads up, it's gonna be a big one as I and Nik lie here bed-ridden in the WORST (but awesome) town you could be sick in today. More on that later. I think the last time I posted was after surfing, I seem to remember complaining a lot about it, well you're gonna be stuck hearing some more complaints, mostly about Honduras if you don't mind. There's usually not much good news about it anyway, unless you're north along the coast. Transito, major problemo. Let's go back to El Salvador for a sec.

We woke up to our first cloudy morning and it couldn't have come at a better time because we were both way burnt. Obviously Nik was worse, but it caught up to me in the night only after I finished making fun of him. Sore but focused, we drove to the capital, San Salvador; a short drive of maybe 30 minutes. I thought I had the directions perfect in my head, but as usual, when you're faced with immense craziness coming from all sides, things seem to get turned around. The trusty compass has saved me from worry on many occasions, but in major cities, theres usually mass confusion. This was no different, we had to get to the Kawasaki dealership and I ended up missing it by two blocks. 112 blocks later we ended up in Mejicanos, not a spot a traveler goes unless he wants to meet the local Marreros (that was actually where our hospitable amigos the Rauda's brothers lived and we would end up there anyway, but we had to get to the dealership first). Alright, an hour an a half later, we found it (by luck of incremental streets a-la Manhattan). Slow start to the day, but the guys at the shop were SUPER helpful. More helpful than we could ask for. English, friendly and cheap, can't beat it. Place is called Moto Imports and I would highly recommend it. List of things we had done:

Nik

• new front tire (purchased in stock) with new tube
• new rear tube (I think I mentioned it was half as narrow as it should've been)
• brake fluid front and back
• tuned

Me

• new front tire (one I carried with me)
• new chain (the one I brought with me was too short, goddamit online purchases always screw me)
• new sprockets front and back (ones I brought)
• tuned

So we left them there for the night, and one of the four brothers, Alex, came to pick us up. Who are these guys you might ask? Steph, my fiancee (hi lady!!), her mom's cousins kids (second cousins I suppose?). Four of them live together in a house/salon which is pretty massive for a change from what we were used to. They were more than happy to take us in for the night and show us around. I have a major language barrier, which is major suck, because they are great guys and I'd lvoe to get to know them better than I do now, but Nik was there to fill in the gaps and help us out. One of the brothers, Carlos, speaks a bit of english, that helps, but when a bunch of guys go out and go for 37 beers together, theres really no language barrier at all (yeah I actually remembered how many). Great time, no hangover, super lucky. Its awesome when you order a beer, and a beer comes in a litre jug for 3.25.

Anyway Steph, they treated us like kings like you said they would so we treated them to our entire time together, it was awesome.

They weren't ready to give up, but constant travel is draining and we weren't able to keep good company until 3-4 in the morning like they wanted, so we slept only to find out in the morning everyone was up and gone to work already. How they do it....Alex wished us a goodbye and we took off for the worst day of our trip!!!

First: the dealership.

No problems here. Total charges were 211.00. We calculated it would have cost us almost 600.00 bucks in Canada because of the labour. Awesome. Went to eat a double header: Wendy's breakfast + lunch in one so we could get as far as possible without stopping. Fat fkn chance.

Second: El Salvador exit/Honduras entry.

Alright, everything positive I said about borders, forget it. There is definitely a reason people hate it, and our story will tell you why.

I dunno if I mentioned that our awesome friend in Guatemala exit, he had a good friend to help us though the border again for no charge (like his friend..but now I realize the first time's always free, thats how they get you hooked). Anyway, the first guy to rush us at this hectic border informed us it was indeed the friend and we'd have no problem, "follow me!!". Everyone's running, pointing us in directions. About 4-5 of them. They clear us out of El Sal. Migracion.

Time check: about 2pm.

We get to Aduana exit, money changers rushing us, guys have all our documents running about. "you need 1500 liempras to enter Honduras". First of all, what the fuk (pardon), too expensive, its a country we'll be in for an hour transit and we need to pay almost a hundred each? Well, no falling for it next time. Here's where it gets complicated...really complicated. We don't have enough money, the bank is 15 minutes backaways, but our bikes are exited already, we can't drive. Trick number one: A friend/brother of the other helpers offers you a drive to the bank. 45 minutes later, me sitting in a piss-trench waiting for Nik, he comes back, the "ride" was 25.00....american... Fool me once, shame on you....

We now have what seems to be enough to get us through the Hondruas entry (we were told no banks in Honduras will change money....sign number 2).

Its hectic, really hectic. The confusion helps scammers and extortionists work their magic. We have no documents on us, they're all with them, and we get to Migracion. We park, Nik starts walking around to see whats up. "20 minutes, you exit". Kape. I sit on the bike for an hour, two hours...

Time check: 5pm.

People are still scrambling, documents in about 6 different people's hands. Nik pays 700 Lempiras each (35 bucks) for the entry, but they tell us theres still a lot to do. Here comes the fun part. The super friendly's tell Nik that because the bank is closed we have to pay at another location. Wheres this?? Back room of the photocopy building. Fool me twice....shame on me. Nik immediately storms out, tells me about the situation, I tell him to ask the officials what we're supposed to pay if anything else at all. This is when all hell breaks loose. They get close to our sides, real close, we still have no documents. We're refusing to give them any more money, and after arguing for what seemed like way too long, they brought us past the "Fumigation", also closed, and at the checkpoint a hundred meters away. More people scramble at us, we're way outnumbered, and they are demanding we pay them, yet the number increases and increases. Now its 900 more Lempiras each, 100 more each than last time, and more than what we had. They knew we had money, and they said we couldn't pass unless we had the banks stamp, which would come in the morning and he'd keep our documents until then. I get my official transcript somehow out of his hand and the idiot tries to grab it back. At this time, Nik's furious, I'm getting there too, and everyones yelling. Nik was telling them we didn't mind paying for their services, but that they can't fuk us (I leave out the c because its more text friendly :P) for all our money. Anyway, by this time Nik's looking for the police to intervene, and the official seems to take a 50/50 side. It started to get dangerous, Nik grabbed all our documents out of the bastards hand, I looked over at the other official, and he waved us to get the hell out of there. They were yelling more money, more tips, we had none of it.

Time check: after 6pm.

We ended up getting to the police checkpoint, we shaken a bit, and it shows. Even though we're nervous, they are joking with us a bit, and we get through no problem. Lesson learned......NO HELP EVER AT CHECKPOINTS EVER. Its not that hard to do it yourself, and you won't end up screwed. Total cost: In the midst of arguing, Nik handed over 7 or 8 American, I handed over 200 lempiras, 100 more to confuse him to get our documents back. Not too bad...but yeah, lesson learned.

Third: Riding in the dark.

I read that to enter Honduras you did need to get to a seperate bank to pay another entrance fee or some other; plus we didn't have fumigation. So I was a bit weary about checkpoints, plus the fact it was all in the dark. It had to be done, our transcript had one day on it. Honduras sucks. Sitting here now, theres nothing good to say of it. The border was gross, the infrastructure is terrible, garbage everywhere, dust everywhere, potholes the size of cows (which, navigating through in the dark is an awesome activity), and bad food. How bad? Well we're both visiting the gentlemens room every twenty minutes. Shivering, aches, etc.etc.etc. NO SHRIMP. Anyway, long story short (I tend to make my stories too long) the ride went ok. No problems, we managed to sneak by two checkpoints quickly without chase, and we made it to Nicaragua border. We will try our hardest not to ride in the dark again, everyone else uses their high beams, flashing you every....single...time....

Fourth: The last push.

Honduras exit; help is offered, help is refused. "Free, no money". Don't care, leave us alone. Another official tells us to follow him, we really have no choice, we're going that way anyway. Migracion was 15 seconds. Aduana. Not so much. Problem with riding at night is that truckers drive at night. Their paperwork is much more complicated to fill out and there's 10 in front of us.

Final time check: 10:30pm.

We're finally the only ones left there. I think we had to pay migracion 200 Cordoba's, but we needed it for hotel, so we paid 200 Quetzals, bad exchange rate, real bad :P. If it wasn't for the truckers, this border would have taken us 10 minutes.

We found a hotel right by the border, safer in Nicaragua, and had a semi-decent sleep. Was pretty cheap, 12 bucks each. The hotel room, we considered, was the upgrade, the suite, of the Escuintla hotel. A/C, bigger + better beds, but everything else the same.

Alright....thats two days down, finally today (a bit uneventful). I also apologize for the multiple uses of brackets, I'm a bracket whore to explain the story a little better without sounding redundant. We woke up early as usual , I can't seem to sleep past 7 anymore. We drove looking for breakfast...nothing for over a hundred kilometres. By this time, my stomach starts convulsing/tightening, not from hunger but from some unknown pain. We finally find an On the Run, I thought it was a Canadian only convenience store, but it was a pleasant breakfast besides the "on the run" to the gentlemen's room multiple times. Stomach by this point feels like a love grip machine, and a body builder is testing it out. Past Leon (couldn't find tooooooooo much interesting, it's an alright place), and onto this road that seemed like it was going to lead to another trip through Atitlan (read posts about Guatemala). Half paved, half potholes, I wasn't sure where the hell we were. After about an hour we popped out 5 km from Managua, thank god. We both lie down on the pavement at a gas station trying to recouperate to no avail. Only another 25 mintues to Diriamba. Well, we made it, struggled for a hotel, no really fancy ones here either I guess...we really wouldn't mind paying more for luxury once in awhile but we just can't seem to find it. After 4 hotels, we settled for one right in the middle of town. Its 8.75 a person US. For the price, we can't go wrong. It has what we need, and we actually made it for FIESTA SAN SEBASTIEN!! Its a huge party every year at about this time, that goes on all day and all night long. Everyon'es in the streets, parades, costumes, music. Sounds like a great time... if you're not sick. I went out to take some video, but Nik's doing really bad now, the worst of mine is over. Hopefully he gets better sometime in the evening, but we can't rest here. There's 30,000 watts right outside the hotel, endless parades and people yelling, and fireworks shelling us constantly. Damn, it sucks missing this party. At least we made it to where we needed to go. Haha, it keeps getting louder and louder. Poor Nik again. OH AND THOSE FUKN ROOSTERS. They are now my worst hated animal on the planet.

SO THATS MY RANT!! I'm sorry you had to sit through it, heres some pictures to make everything cheery again!!

P.S.

Update on Nik. I think mine's past, I have an iron stomach and it's battles hard against any type of poison. I'm lucky for that, that's a Landon gene. Nik not so much, his progressed from what we thought was traveler's diarrhea to food poisoning once againnnnnnnn. He's totally out of it and having it attack him from both ends.

It's hard to imagine the toll this type of trip has on your body, but we're figuring it out for sure as we go. If we're not always hungry, we're dehydrating. If we're not sick, we're extremely tired. I don't think theres been a single day on this trip where I've felt normal, as if I was at home. With a huge budget, and resorts and nice hotels, this might be different, but a trip opn a budget is dangerous to the body.

List of things to now completely avoid.

• Any ice in drinks (for some reason locals love putting ice in the damn drinks, even when you tell them not to. Please stop).

• Most seafood (unless fried). We had shrimp and chicken last night and I don't think it was the chicken.
• Any local drinks (we also had tamarindo last night, one of my all-time favourite drinks). The drinks are made with local water and we have to start avoiding that (I'll keep to freshly squeezed orange juice).
• Any undercooked meat and fresh uncooked vegetables.

I'm gonna try to stick to fast food more often. These rules seems so simple, but its hard to follow when a lot of the food is prepared all together, or served mixed up. Time to get more smart...right Nik? Oh, he can't hear me with his head in the toilet.

Alex Rauda and his awesome campanion Campion

How cool would it be to have an Avacado tree in your house?!

My new pal

Steph will love this picture of her buddy too

The view of the Volcano from their rooftop

The big party of San Sebastien!

These are the bastards that crowd you and take over your life for a few hours...these poor suckers got it too

Me waiting for Nik for a good hour at the Honduras border

Late night Nicaragua border wait times

On this trip, things sometimes get up close and personal

Volcano you could see for a good 50 miles all around

Canadian only my ass

Oops, supposed to be at the top, but last but not least, awesome dealership, hands down to these guys!

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.