Archive for August, 2008
Friday, August 29th, 2008
My exact location of the robbery
This is more/less the exact location
Message Details
Esn : 0-7381807
Type : Track
Latitude : 14.621
Longitude: -91.2599
Time: Sat 23 Aug 2008 12:33:54 PM CST
The google map for that location is:
http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&geocode=&q=14.621,-91.2599&ie=UTF8&ll=14.624365,-91.263471&spn=0.008679,0.021973&t=k&z=16
7 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by daveg
Tuesday, August 26th, 2008
Officially waiting for passport and replacement cards in Antigua
I first tried to get my new passport yesterday at the US Embassy, however there was a plane crash where 8 Americans died so they were closed to all non-emergencies.
After being rejected by the Embassy, I decided to have an American day. I figured after a month and a half I deserve a little US “culture” aka “American Corporate Multinationalism”.
I had breakfast at McDonald’s and dinner at Applebees. The McDonalds in Zona 10 of Guatemala city is extremely nice. The menu is quite simaliar as the United States, but the facilities were arms and legs better. They even had an option of renting a more formal dining room for coporate events.
Applebees was a surreal experience. The menu was identical in the US, even the advertising slogans were in English but the food descriptions were in Spanish. I had the 8 oz house steak with sides of Mac-and-Cheese and Onion rings. They even had free refills of coke! It was expensive, but worth it mostly because I met two Guatemalecos who I ended up hanging out with most of the night.
Whats funny is that in the US, I’d never go to either restaurant by choice :).
Today I woke up early and went to the Embassy. Word of advice to anyone who needs something done there: Get there first thing! I’m so glad I did. The whole process only took 3 hours but I could see it taking all day if I was even 30 minutes later. I met two girls from the United States who I told them I might mention them in the blog. Ra(e)? (ray?) (rachael?) and Alice(Alicia?) (Sr. Gonzales?), HELLO FROM MY BLOG. Now you two must leave a comment! They had their bags stolen from them at Lake Atilan but fortunately didn’t have a direct confrontation with the thieves. Unfortunately, they lost alot more in material value. Anyway, it was nice to talk to some friendly folks.
I’m now back at the Universal Language School in Antigua. While my passport processes, I’m going to hang out here and take two hours of Spanish a day for a week. I need to make the best out of this waiting for papers game.
Update: My credit cards are at Julio’s business in Guatemala City!!!!!!!!!!
I love Chase and WaMu!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Not only did they get it to me in 2 business days, but it was at no cost to me!!! Thanks Julio for helping me out again!!!! (I’m “!!!!”).
6 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by daveg
Sunday, August 24th, 2008
Tough day riding around Lake Atilan
Today was a beautiful day and I decided to take the long way to San Pedro. I drove from Panajachel south around the lake. The views were so fantastic that I had a hard time trying to find the best place to take a picture to capture the view.
I was doing my usual thing of stopping every once and a while and getting directions. The second to last time I stopped for directions I was in Santiago Atilan. I asked the guy if I was on the correct road to San Pedro and he said yes. As I was about to take off, he told me to “Cuidado”. Usually people tell me to have good luck or good travels, etc, but this time it was cuidado. I asked him, Porque? He responded with a single cognate:Banditos.
I just said gracias, and continued on, but was trying to pay more attention. I guess I’m used to people saying that, but never from immediate vicinity locals.
After another 4 or 5 miles, the pavement stopped. There were some people hanging out at the last tienda and I confirmed that I was heading the right way and one guy said cuidado. Again, I asked “porque”, and he said because the roads were not paved.
I drove offroad for another 2 or 3 miles, perfectly sunny day, and the dirt road was in OK shape (even took a picture).
There was a long straightaway and from both sides of the road two men dressed in camo with a balaclava covering thier face jumped out of the jungle and pointed their guns at me.
They ran towards me screaming to stop with their guns still aligned.
The men arrived at the bike (now 3 men, one came from behind) and started screaming at me asking for my dinero. I complied as they had one gun touching my forehead through my visor and another gun pointed at my gut.
I was in a state of complete panic and but managed to put the bike in neutral. They kept screaming for my dinero, I handed them my fake wallet and coin purse.
They then started to grab all over my body and ripped my sunglasses off and went straight for my traditional money belt.
The guy on the right kept prodding at it and was waving the gun at me shouting and motioning for me to give them the contents.
My money belt was then ripped from my body.
Then they started ripping through my tank panniers taking nothing as they weren’t interested in my rain gear.
Agian, they started grabbing around, this time in my tankbag and found my camera. They then asked for my phone. I have no phone, and I kept saying that repeatidly.
Satisfied with my response, they ran back into the jungle.
I continued straight for 100 yards… but realized it was another 15KM to San Pedro on an unknown dirt road.
I decided to just turn around and fly through the area figuring they were happy with their grab so I could go to the nearest town.
Standing on pegs, I hauled it through the dirt and paved back into town. I am writing this while I am now on hold canceling my credit cards.
Next, I get to have the fun of filling out a police report, getting replacement cards, and new passport.
Their take was the above cards & passport, 40$ USD, 60 quetzales (<$10), and my favorite saftey/sunglasses. I’m glad they couldn’t figure out how to get into my mapbag ontop of my tank bag to get my GPS tracker. They were swatting at it likes cats at a laser pointer, but didn’t take the time to open it. Though it was in tracking mode, so it would have been funny to see if any tracks would show up.
Strangly, they threw my fake wallet back in my jacket. They took the Q60 that I had in the money part, but I had stashed another Q100 and US$5 in the card pockets.
Oh well. Other than the massive inconvenience of time of replacing my cards and passport, the thing that sucks the most is that I had 3 days of pictures on my camera that I didn’t download. So Kim and Tyler, if you want to make the website, you have to email me pics!! It is such a shame because I had a great video riding ziplines through the jungle and looking at the lake!
I should have paid attention to the locals and spread my stuff out even more. argh…… I don’t believe that I had both of my ATM cards in the same place. Atleast I have enough money stashed in other places to be fine for a very long while.
I still love Guatemala and of course plan to continue my trip south.
Unharmed,
dave
32 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by daveg
Thursday, August 21st, 2008
Antigua Guatemala
So I was originally going to stay in Antigua just to climb Pacaya, but I ended up finding a really nice guest house, similar to a bed and breakfast or hostel at a spanish school. The people I met here are great AND they had WiFi. So I may as well as stay a week. That is the nice thing about a long trip, you have the time to be flexible. I’m way behind my original timeline. My original timeline was kinda a joke anyway. After being on the road for a month and change now, I know that timelines are always a joke. You never know what you’re going to see and who you’re going to meet, so why even bother planning. The only solid date I have is: Christmas at the tip of Tierra del Fuego.
Anyway, I was quite surprised when I was checking out these accommodations to see two other HUGE bikes (for the area) with Washington plates. Basically, for the first hour of staying in Antigua, I was trying to figure out who had the bikes. I soon met Nathan and Lindsie. They rode here all the way from Washington on vintage Japanese motorcycles. Well, 1980s Japanese bikes atleast. HEY NATE, IF YOU READ THIS, COMMENT ON YOUR BIKE TYPES. I FORGOT! So yeah, I’ll replace that with their bike types.
They got to have twice the adventure that I’ve had. While we both had the excitement of riding this far south, they had the added complexity of getting a vehicle that is 20 years old this far. Their brief story is that they are riding to Panama or however far south they can make it in 6-8 months. Right now they’re hanging out in Antigua working at the only Irish pub in Guatemala as bartenders. Check out their blog here.
Oh yeah, I bought a Machete!!!!!!!!!! I’m now ready for jungle camping. Well, maybe not, but atleast I can look cooler on the bike.
This is Riccardo, from Italy. He’s webprogramming his way through the Americas. He’s peligroso tambien.
Here is Elvira, my spanish teacher. She always addresses me as usted. Guatemalans are so formal!
Last Sunday I went for a bike ride with Julio, esposa, y amigo. I’m out of time, so I’ll try to update this text later. But here are the pictures from it. We road almost to the El Salvadorian border on CA-1 and then to the coast at Monterico.
We had to take a small wooden ferry powered by a 15HP outboard motor.
Later that night at the Guest House, we had a big dinner with great food and premium boxed wine.
It is so cold here!!
3 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by daveg
Wednesday, August 20th, 2008
Lava!!!!
I’m staying in Antigua now at a language school. My original intent was not to study Spanish here, but just to visit the volcanoes and stay in Antigua just long enough for that. More about that my next post.
The first day I went to a tour agency and booked a trip to Pacaya. The cost was something like $15 USD for a tourist bus up to the mountain. Then we needed to pay another $6 to enter the park and have a guide escort us up. Not that you needed a guide, but most tourists are happier with a guide.
The group I went up with was a mix of UK’ers/Irishers/Spanish and about 3 other Americans– all fairly young. This was a good group to go with the mountain with because we were all in OK shape, so there wasn’t much waiting. It was nice to be the slow one as opposed to my other guided tour where I was always waiting around.
They picked me up from my guest house at 2pm and proceeded to fill the crappy bus with gringos. The bus was clean but pretty old. Loaded with people, it took about an hour and a half to two hours to get up the volcano. I could have done it on the bike in about 30 minutes. It. was. a. slow. ride. The views were beautiful though.
We hiked for an hour and broke through the forest and saw this:
!!!!!!
So I was pretty excited at this point to be on another volcano. My last volcano encounter was in Hawaii on the big island. To get to lava there, it was an hour horizon hike across a lava field. This time, it was an hour up a horse shit filled track. Almost immediately up arriving at the lava fields, you were on top of this:
LAVA!!!!!!!!!!!
The red glowing stuff is molten rock. I’m pretty sure I sacrificed some eyebrows with the previous shot.
Goal Accomplished: Stand within 1 meter of Lava and get a picture.
Volcan shot 1:
Volcan shot 2:
Shot one or two is going to go on my wall. I spent so long trying to take that picture with my crappy point and shoot balancing on a barbed wire fence that I lost my tour group and had to run down the mountain to catch up.
It was a great hike up and I’d like to do it again, but at night this time so I can get the full effect of a glowing lava field.
!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! lava!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
4 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by daveg
Thursday, August 14th, 2008
Landslide Video
I wanted to put this up before my Guate post, but I had some encoding issues:
2 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by daveg
Thursday, August 14th, 2008
Guatemala City
With the help of Julio, I successfully made it through Guatemala City. I got to the city in the afternoon and Julio, who Billy met through Advrider, was kind enough to meet me with his car to navigate me through the labyrinth of Guate.
Driving in Guatemala City is well.. crazy latin america big city driving. Cars everywhere, bikes every, pedestrians everywhere, and don’t forget the occasional speedbump or pothole. The good news is that they have some lane discipline, so as a bike, it is pretty easy to split lanes. It would be easier if my bike wasn’t so fat. Those side cases make it very difficult to stick with the 125cc local bikes. The hardest thing about navigating is that they don’t have any major highways going through the center of the city.
For instance, you’ll be cruising on CA-1 (The Transamerican Highway) and it just… turns into an 8 lane road with lights and the aformentioned all over the place. It splits a bunch of times and I can never managage to stay on CA-1 (which turns into Calle 10).
Guate is divided into Zonas (zones). Each zone has its own but consistant grid system of Avenidas (Avanues), Calles (Streets), and ocassionally Diaganols (can’t remember spanish word, may be a cognate). So once you find the right zone, it is actually _very_ easy to find your address.
Back to the story. I met Julio at McDonalds. Well, he went to the McDonalds that was on CA1 that he described, but I somehow missed it and ended up at another one on Avenida de las Americas. Fortunately, I have a Satphone and we eventually hooked up and had some fries. Its been YEARS since I’ve had McD’s fries. Man they’re good. Especially after eating rice and beans or chicken, rice, and beans for every meal.
He led me to BMW which I had almost passed as I was looking for the “right” McDonalds. At BMW, they were to change my chain/sprockets, change my oil, and also tighten my handle bars which became a little loose on the way south. If it wasn’t for all the Spanish, I would have sworn I was in the US. Around the city, you mostly see tiny Japanese or Chinese bikes, but obviously at BMW, all you have are BIG huge bikes. Almost every bike there was a big 1200 GS.
Guatemala City is a truly modern city. It wasn’t like in the country where I saw lots of dust, roaming dogs, people selling stuff everywhere, and just general chaos. There may be parts of the city like that, but the places that I hung out in weren’t. It was just like any big city anywhere in the world, but with a hint of Guate style. Big buildings, people dressed with style infinitely greater than my own, high end specialty stores, Landrovers, BMWs, Marriots, Quiznos, McD’s, Pollo Campero, and smoking hot Guatemelecas all over the place.
In Zone 10, which is one of the very wealthy zones, it is significantly cleaner than even the nicest parts of NYC. The streets are perfectly clean and the sidewalks are well kept. The prices reflect this, but are still inexpensive for what you get by North American standard. If you want the international big city experience, go to Guatemala City. Oh yeah, tons of people speak english too!
Anyway, Julio again led me to a backpacker hostel where I stayed the night and met some really cool people. The next day I went to the Archelogical museum with Linda, an Aussie. Whats funny about the name Linda is that in spanish Linda means cute. So she has lots of fun with that name here.
For the previous few days I was pretty sparse with the photographs. This is the only one I took in Guatemala City. It is for Mark: I found your friend in the museum:
After a false ready (they misunderstood that I wanted an oil change.. but it was ready the next day as promised before 10) I picked up the bike.
CLEAN. My bike was CLEAN. I had never seen it so clean. Not even when I bought it. I’m not really a clean bike kinda guy, but who doesn’t like a sparkling bike. Here’s a pic after it just got rained on:
The bike was so clean that when I kicked the kickstand, it flew right down to the gound. I thought they pulled off the spring and forgot to reconnect it. No. They just removed all the miles worth of grease and road grime. Not only was the bike clean, but all the work they did looked great. It isn’t like there is alot to inspect, but the oil was clean and all the other parts were nice and tight. I highly recommend BMW of Guatemala. They speak English there too.
Like the new flare?
I only stayed at the back packer joint for a night. While it was great to meet fellow travelers, it was way overpriced. I was paying $35 for a private room with a community bathroom. They had real hotwater which was a plus, but it was expensive for a shoeboxed sized room AND they had no parking for the bike.
I walked a few blocks down the street and across the Holiday Inn ($65 USD/night) I found Hotel Torres. This place was great. The first sign of greatness was when I peaked into a window there were two KLR 650s, an Africa twin, Honda Shadow, and a host of other smaller bikes. I don’t know where my camera was hiding.. but I wish I had a pic of the owner of the hotel’s fleet. He has some great bikes and other toys too.
The hotel itself was only $35 a night BUT it was HUGE HUGE HUGE! Private bathroom, giant room, cable TV with 30 channels in English, WiFi, and in the middle of Zone 10. If you’re visiting Guatemala City, find the Holiday Inn and stay across the calle at Hotel Torres. Tell George that the Texan with the BMW sent you.
I think the main reason why I’ve liked Guatemala City so much is because of Julio and his wife. They’ve been so kind to show me all over the city and take me to some really nice meals. The first night was a delicious pizza place. Guate pizza is good in general, this one was exceptional– Premium ingredients, moderately thick crust cooked in a wood fired brick oven. The second night was at their house. Julio used to run an italian/french restaurant on Lake Atilan, so needless to say the food we had was great (pasta). The third night was fondue. My previous mulitple week track of chicken with rice and beans was finally over and a welcomed relief. The food in Guatemala City is so great and diverse. The diversity is what I like the most. It is probably the thing that I miss the most in the US. I love having Mexican one night and Japanese the next. When traveling through the countryside, you just can’t do that. Much as you can’t do that in the US when in rural America. I know on my American road trips I get tired of fried food. Thanks to Julio and his family for your generosity.
They both rode with me the long way to Antigua. It can be an hour and a half ride but we took 3. We headed towards the coast to Esquintla and had a scenic ride through yet ANOTHER climate zone of Guatemala. For a country that doesn’t cover alot of square miles, there is tons of ecodiversity here.
3 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by daveg
Friday, August 8th, 2008
Mudslides and mechanical issues
Landslide and well… ignore the last blog entry about mechanical issues
Before I start on how I need more mountian riding experience, let me just say that below is the worst hotel ever. Never stay there. The operation is shottily put together and while the restaurant closes early, the bar is open late.
Worst Hotel Ever.
After getting a unintended very early start at 5:15am after some jackhead goes around asking EVERY person in the hotel if it is their toyota truck parked. I was planning on waking up at 7 because I got to bed to late because of the music continually blasting from the bar. If I’m up and the sun is out, I may as well get on the bike.
The town that I stayed in was small enough that I was able to just follow the general flow of traffic to find the major road out of town. I’m making good time still engine braking. After about 25 minutes of driving I come upon a HUGE line of traffic almost a 1/2 mile long. Since I’m on a bike and in Latin America, I just filter past each car. Usually when filtering, you have to avoid oncoming traffic. This time it was not the case. Strange.
I soon realized why there was no one coming at towards me: Huge landslide. For the last month, Guatemala has recieved tons of rain. Last night was no exception. It rained for hours and a big portion of the muddy hill now covered the road.
See the big truck on the left? He couldn’t make it through. This is when it pays to be on a bike. I hit the gas and stood on pegs and flew past the mudhole. The problem was that I had a bit too much speed.
I was trying to avoid the yellow van and drove into a deep rut of another truck and dumped the bike into the mud. Ouch. No damage to me or the bike. The thing about dropping a bike fullily loaded with luggage is picking it back up. Fortunately there were tons of laughing Guatemalans who offered to help out.
The guy in blue kept making jokes that I needed to pay him “Fiva dolleres” for the help. Something about me being a rich gringo.
I don’t actually look that dirty in this picture, but trust me, I am. Every time I got gas the attendant said something about me dropping the bike. It was still obvious once I got the bike powerwashed. It was too chilly for them to powerwash me.
So I continue to Guatemala City covered in mud as I think I need urgent bike work done on my brakes. Yeah. well, about 3 hours into the ride I decide for kicks to see how far I need to push the lever to see when the brake engages. I step on it and the bike starts to slow. Great.
On one hand, I’m very happy to have a rear brake again. On the other, I feel like an idiot for lining up some help for what I thought was an urgent situation in Guatemala city with one of Billy’s advrider friends who he met on his last trip.
The reason why the brake stopped working was that it got too hot. I thought about that and believed I gave it sufficient time to cool down (maybe 30 minutes? ) then I never tried it again that day and for the first 3 hours of riding today.
Lesson learned. Engine brake when in hills. Julio who not only helped me find the BMW dealer in Guate city, but also took me to dinner gave me the best tip for mountians: Ride down the mountian in the same gear that you would ride up
On my way to Guatemala City on CA-1, I witnessed a brief vista to Lake Atilan and the volcanos:
I can’t wait!!!! Lava!!!!!!!!!!!!!
5 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by daveg
Friday, August 8th, 2008
Map of my route so far
Thats the route so far. There are some gaps, but that is just where I’m missing data.
I’ve also updated my “Route” page over on the right. I’ll try to keep it updated every few days. I could use a google map, but they’re just so slow on my machine.
Comments Off - Posted in Uncategorized by daveg
Thursday, August 7th, 2008
Offroad in Guatemala, if only for a couple of hours
I left Coban at 7am. For the first time in the trip I took the advice that I’ve heard from a few other people (like Billy, I think) and instead of spending 20 minutes trying to find the right road out of town, I payed a taxi $3 to let me follow him.
This is going to be my new way of getting around cities. It was great. He put on his hazards and I just tailed him a bunch of turns until we got on the road that was heading to Xela.
My plan today was originally to go to Xela and start my immersive spanish class. Thats not what ended up happening.
I was making great time as there were hardly any other cars or trucks on the road. There were tons of switchbacks as I am still in mountian country, but then I made it to San Critobal and things changed.
After distilling the right road by asking lots of people, I finally found the main road out of town heading to Xela. All of a sudden the nicely paved asphalt road turned into this:
The road wasn’t as bad as it looks. But I was glad to have knobby tires on the bike. Things were going well. There were only a few sections where landslides took back the dirt that were a little hairy.
They were doing work on the road. Some sections of dirt were so good I could make it to 30 or 40mph without bouncing around too much.
These guys told me I only had 15km of dirt left until I hit pavement. They were also nice enough to smile for my gringo photo. I’ve noticed that when I speak spanish through my helmet I kinda sing it.
I have a video that I’m going to put online from this section of road if I ever figure out how to transcode into a youtube friendly format from my cam.
After an hour or two of offroad riding, the road gradually changed to asphalt. It’d be dirt on the straights, but paved (sorta, lots of pot holes that’d swallow a car) on the corners and steep grades. I finally found 3rd gear again and was realy starting to have fun when I noticed my rear brake was kinda squishy.
I kept pondering if I was stepping on the brake harder and harder to slow down. Once the road turned to total asphalt I stopped and investigated the squishyness. I had almost no brake pressure in my rear brake but I didn’t really see anything leaking. The only liquid I saw _could_ have been water or brake fluid. As I write this, I should have tasted it or smelled it to see if it was water or fluid.
See the little black cover? That was filled with liquid. It kept falling off (well, I keep knocking it off with my boot). I don’t know. All I know is that when I step on my rear brake lever, I get very little stopping force. The reserviour has plenty of fluid in it, so maybe I have air in the line.
So for those of you who don’t have a motorcycle, here is the deal. When you stop a motorcycle, you operate each brake independantly, kinda like a bicycle. Remember those? The actual stopping of the bike on a paved road is about 70-30, front-rear brake. A non-functioning front brake is game over in the mountians. You would only be able to ride a few miles an hour on the steep parts in order to keep from rolling off the hill. On the immobalization scale a front failure is a 9/10.
The good news for me is that a failed rear brake is only a 6 or a 7/10. It is annoying and needs to be fixed immediately, but can be addressed when you get to it. In Houston, I wouldn’t even worry about it. I’d get it fixed, but I’d still drive to work. In Guatemala, things are a bit different.
A failed rear brake when driving offroad is 10/10. You can’t ride the bike safely. When riding offroad, all stopping is done with the rear brake and you only use front if you have good traction. That is the problem: If you lock your rear brake, you skid.. lose a little control of the rear, but it is managable… and you will eventually stop with your rear wheel skidding. Lock your front break offroad? You’re on the ground, rubber side up. When the front skids you basically lose steering and the ability to keep the bike balanced. You can sustain a small front skid as long as you quickly release the brake when you feel it.
I’m sure people do it, but I can’t imagine riding off road without a rear brake.
All that to say: I need to stay on good roads until I get my bike fixed. I want to go to Xela and stay for a couple of weeks and have the freedom to do whatever I want on the bike. I was planning on going to Guatemala City eventually to visit the BMW dealer to get them to change my chain and sprockets. Eventually is now tomorrow.
It is somewhere between 3 and 6 hours to Guatemala City from where I am now.
I’m at some small town (<10,000 people, but they have an internet cafe) at a nice hotel. $11 USD a night. That is pretty expensive for what I'm used to paying but the girl said it had a private bathroom, hot water, and cable tv. All of this may be true, but none of it actually worked when I arrived at the room.
The first thing I do when I get to my room is start washing my close. I go to the sink, turn on the water, nothing happens. I go downstairs to get them to turn the water on. 5 minutes later, I’m washing away. I then want to watch some cable tv. No remote. I had to wait another 5 minutes for the remote. After a few minutes of TV, I get hungry and want to roam the town a bit. I have no key to lock up the room. When I ask for the key, they tell me that I need to put a $4USD deposit for it. ???? OK. Strange. Anyway, the day goes on and I get home after dinner and a brief visit to the internet cafe. Shower time. No hot water. So that is where I am now. Waiting “cinco minutos” for the last hour while I write this rambling content.
^^^ a new style death heater
One more ramble. This town stinks. I mean literally. Everywhere smells, not just by the trash that is on the street. The actual street smells. This town is very far from being an “Eco Tourist” destination, despite how beautiful it is and the fact that it is on a river. Speaking of the river, earlier I saw some guy dump a bag of garbage in it. Nice. While I was returning to my room tonight, I saw another guest pop out of his room with a styrofoam togo container and just CHUCK it over the balcony into the river. Great. I felt guilty about tossing my gum into the river earlier.