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.