Archive for October, 2008
Wednesday, October 29th, 2008
Traveling through Colombia to Ecuador
We rode from Medellin to the Ecuadorian border in 4 or 5 days (which was WAY TOO FAST). Unfortunately, I’m running out of time to make it all the way south (.com) and don’t want to have to add the subdomain almost.allthewaysouth.com. So now, I’m in making time mode.
More views
This is Mike and his hostel Casa Blanca in Cali
Theo on the corners
We met a guy from London who gave us some good tips as he’s heading north.
Trying to get the bike out of the hotel
More…
Colombia recycles!!!
Tough view
Colombia
Colombia breakfast
She Cooked the breakfast
Colombia view
We found this in our soup at another restaurant.
Our reaction.
Panam
This was one of the landmarks that I wanted to see on the trip. Here we met two bikers that had passed us the day before. They’re on a suzuki and are from Bogota.
The Church from the mirador where we first met the Colombian Bikers.
Colombian bike theif
Here’s the couple again, with their bike
More head balancing. I hadn’t seen this since Guatemala.
Theo!
This is what we do
Ask for directions and ignore what they say and just head the direction they point.
Gas is $1.50 a gallon in Ecuador
This graffiti is in support of che “We are realising Che”
“Paramilitaries get out of our country and city!” I’m starting a collection of Che graffiti.
3 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by daveg
Monday, October 27th, 2008
Colombia
Colombia is the country that I wanted to visit the most as well as the country that many of my friends and family said I should avoid.
To the people who said not to go: Stop watching movies and TV stories about Colombia and experience it yourself.
Colombia is my favorite country that I’ve visited. The people are the highlight. Not only are they exceptionally good looking, but they’re incredibly friendly. We were sitting on the bikes and an older lady walked up to us and said “Welcome to Colombia” followed by the warmest smile. I’ve never been welcomed to another country before.
I also talked to more locals and made real contacts per day than in any other place in my trip. The people of Colombia are incredibly welcoming and open to speaking to foreigners. What is also nice is that people not only want to hear our stories and why we’re here but also share thiers. Conversations like that are really the highpoint of traveling. It is worth the 3 months it took to drive to here.
Upon arriving, we met Albert from the Turtles Head. Yes, in Colombia, not Ecuador. He’s apparently been charmed by Medellin and is going to open up a new bar as well as other business endevers in Colombia. The first night we tried to find accommodations and didn’t find anything good so Alberto let us crash at his apartment. Albert is a good guy who really contributes significantly to the international moto travelers scene, despite the crazy things he posts over on Horizons =] .
On Saturday AM, we went to pick up the bikes from the Airport. They were surprisingly at the warehouse as Copa promised and were in perfect condition. Well, they were in the same scratched and dented condition as we delivered them.
There we met the most helpful (and very beautiful, I must add) customs girl. She went out of her way to help us get the bikes Saturday even though she could have easily pushed us back to Monday. Also Theo was invited to a party by “La Bandita”, aka the bad girl of the Copa Warehouse. Unfortunately, the party was really far from where we were staying.
The next day we stayed at Casa Kiwi Hostel, near Parque Llenas, in South Medellin. This hostel is ran by Paul, an American from Seattle who decided not to leave Colombia after visiting it. This actually seems to be a common thing, as I met a couple of people with the same situation. (HI MIKE IN CALI)
Since Casa Kiwi is ran by a biker and has very good parking in a private garage on site, it is a regular haunt for motorcycle travelers. There we met a swiss/spanish couple and a german woman traveling solo. Corola, the german girl traveling on her 1990 XT has a website that you should visit here.
We were supposed to spend a two days in Medellin, but we ended up spending a week. I would have spent more if I didn’t have to go back to work in January. I really like that place and plan to go back some day.
Carola
Gotta watch out for those FARC reading the Google book. Colombia is clearly 3rd world.
Ok, well they do have heaps of chinese motos. There is also a v-strom factory there so there are TONS of Vees and Wees. What medellin needs is a good biker bar.
They have an elevated train.
Modern cities
And securty guards who must be hunting something with those long rifles.
This guy made a rain cover for the 3 of our tank bags
See how nice they are at only a couple of bucks a pop. Not only a good price, but he said they would be ready in one afternoon.. AND THEY WERE!
Vespa skoot
2 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by daveg
Monday, October 20th, 2008
Panama
Panama!
I’ve finally crossed the Panama Canal. I don’t know if that means that I am on another continent, but crossing the Canal for the first time driving to Panama City did feel like a major milestone on my trip. There are several bridges that cross the canal, but the one that connects the PanAmerican highway with Panama City is a HUGE suspension bridge. Unfortunately there was tons of traffic and we were unable to pull over and get a picture.
Panama City is a cosmopolitan city. We had sushi 3 times (yeah, I missed sushi). I’m not sure what typical Panamanian food is, but I’m sure you can find it in Panama City as you can find anything you want there.
We stayed at Hostal Mamallena. It moved recently and was a pleasure to stay there as everything was new and the people running it really had their act together. Plus we met lots of cool people there. I still don’t have my head around what the backpacker experience is like, so it is nice to stay at a hostel and learn about their perspective.
The majority of the time we spent in Panama was spent trying to find a boat. We talked to most of the hostiles in the area and were unable to find a boat that would be able to carry two bikes safely. There were a couple of boats that _could_ take two bikes, but we would have to lay them down flat on the deck. That sounds like a Really Bad Idea.
Our only choice was to wait for a couple weeks for the Melody, so we ended up going to the airport to find an air shipper.
We checked out Girag, DHL, and Copa. DHL was unable to ship directly and we would have to crate the bike and use a frieght forwarder, so that option was out.
Girag made us wait for an hour to give us disappointing news: $1000 to ship EACH bike. That was just unaaccecptable. For that price I would spend two weeks in Panama waiting for a boat.
Copa, on the other hand, was very professional and prompt with their good news: $700 to ship the bike to Cali, Medellin, or Bogota.
Theo and I decided to ship the bikes to Medellin and we were able to drop off the bike the next day and catch a flight two days later (Friday). The total cost was about $1000, $700 for the bike and $300 for the person.
Between the time of dropping off the bikes and catching the flight, we had a chance to actually visit the Canal.
I talked to some people and it was completely uninteresting to them, but it was really amazing to me. We spent a couple of hours just watching ships. Water level up.. boat floats in.. water level lowers.. locks open.. boat floats out. It really is amazing that people were able to cut a waterway through so much land.
Between David and Panama City
I got a flat tire while driving around Panama City. Not a problem because we eventually found a tire shop and once I removed the wheel, they fixed the tire for $5.
Thanks man! I told you I’d put you on the internet
Your shop too
Current level of flare.
Panama City skyline.
I will be flying over this ^^^
?????
I’m starting a photo series on bathroom signs.
Next stop Colombia
2 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by daveg
Monday, October 20th, 2008
Costa Rica -> Panama Border border crossing info
Costa Rica, like entering, was very easy to exit. I entered the border zone and was shuttled into a packing space by the different but non-unique border helpers. There we stepped up to the first window nearest the parking space and canceled the migration stamp in our passport. Thirty seconds later we walked to the left to Aduanas. Sixty seconds later the bike permit was canceled.
Thanks CR!
Panama:
We were being herded by helpers to park towards the front of the covered area of the main border building. You actually want to park in two different places, towards the front, where Migration is.. then towards the rear by Aduanas.
Documents:
Standard Title, DL, Passport. I think we needed 2 copies of each here. I don’t remember. Just always have TONS of copies with you of everything. It makes things so much easier and faster. They have a copyshop on site though for $.10 or $.02. Really cheap.
Fees:
$2 gringo fee, IF and ONLY IF you are from the United States of America
Otherwise, I’m prety sure we spent no money.
Process:
Towards the front of the building is the Migration windows. This was very easy for Teo because he’s German, but required two steps for me. I had to first start the paperwork, then go to the bank next to Aduanas to pay for my gringo entry fee of $2.
Once you get the proof of payment, you hand it to a lady walking around who gives you a sticker for your passport.
Then go back to the window and get the official entry stamp.
Return to the Aduanas window towards the back of the covered area. Get entry paperwork here. It was quick and easy to get the paperwork.
Once you get that paperwork, you need to complete it by getting a signature by the Customs Inspector.
For me, I had the paperwork for both bikes and he signed the forms then gave them back to me. In spanish, he started asking for a propina, or tip in order to not search the bikes. What is funny is that the beginning of the time I was joking around with him in Spanish then when he took me to the back office to sign the paperwork he got serious.
Then he asked for money and all of a sudden, I forgot how to speak spanish. He kept saying that he wanted money in several different ways and I kept looking at him confusedly. He then looked at me and smiled and said, “You understand exactly what I’m saying, quit lieing”. With that, I chuckled and walked out of his office with the signed papers in my hand.
Lots of CamoPolice
Strange police building
This is a pretty bad picture, but the roads in Panama are fantastic.
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Saturday, October 18th, 2008
Police problems in Costa Rica
On my way from the Allegro Papagayo to Liberia I encounted problems with the police.
What I thought was just a normal checkpoint to verify paperwork was actually a speed trap. This was no problem for me as the speed limit was 60kmh and I was going around 60kmh. Or so I thought.
Since I thought it was a check point and I wasn’t pulled over, I opened with my big smiling DaveSpan (which is actually pretty good these days). I presented them my documents then they presented me with a radar gun showing “81 kmh”.
There was NO WAY that I was going that fast. But, they had it on radar and argueing with police never seems to work. I knew what was happening: They were after their own share of gringo dollars.
Usually when I get pulled over by police, I speak absolutely ZERO spanish. “No fumo espanoll”. But since I didn’t realize this was a ticketing opportunity, I just had to keep speaking it.
Interestingly enough, my level of comprehension decreased significantly once I realized what was happening.
Mustashed police man: “You were going 81 kmh, you should be going only 60 kmh”
DaveSpan: “*cock head sideways*, eh?”
Mustashy, in broken english: “You too fast *showing me radar*”
me: “No entendus”
Musty, back in spanish: “You need to pay a $80 fine. You can pay it at the bank + 30% more, or you can pay it here, $80″
Me: “No tuvos dinnero, only plastico”
Musty repeats what he said in spanish a couple of more times, then in broken engrish.
I keep repeating the same thing too, it is like we’re stuck in a loop.
I tell him, “Yo go to the el banco and pagar”
I then go to show him my fake wallet becuase I knew I had only a tiny amount of money.
He sees $11 US, and says while reaching towards my wallet, “That will be fine, just slow down”
I’m shocked. He grabbed at my wallet and I didn’t know what to do. I guess I was happy to done with the situation by only paying $11US, but my policy is to not pay a bribe under any circumstance. ARGH.
He leaves and lets me go on my way.
I email Theo this and tell him to drive VERY slow, slower than posted, and to expect to stopped by police.
Interestingly enough, he gets stopped by the EXACT same cop and has to pay a small bribe too.
This is the first time after being stopped MANY times by police looking for a little something-something from the rich guy on a bike. Even crazier is that it is the first time the Theo had to pay in something like 30 counties.
2 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by daveg
Friday, October 17th, 2008
Costa Rica at the Allegro Papagayo then Liberia
Costa Rica in the majority of ways does not give the vibe of Latin America. This is because of the huge level of US and other foreign development. That being said, my disclaimer should be that I was told that I went to the wrong places in Costa Rica because everywhere I went was fairly touristy.
Speaking of tourism, one of my goals for the trip was to be a proper gringo tourist for 3 nights at an all-inclusive resort. I figured Costa Rica was the place to do something like that. Enter Hotel Allegro Papagayo:
I drove here after staying in Liberia for one night.
Sticker shock.
I pulled up to the Allegro Papagayo and tried to get a room. The price was INSANE! They really like to have a double standard for “nations” versus “non-nationals”. They first wanted to charge me $180US a nigh!!!! That was unaccectable. Instead of storming out at the horrific price, I tried to negotiate. After about half an hour of going back and forth between front desk minion and manager we settled upon a rate of $120 a night. Still way too high, but hell, I had a goal to accomplish.
Thats the room that I stayed in. Well, thats the room that I slept in or watched Discovery channel in English. They had tons of english channels and I was really torn between mythbusters and having free drinks by the pool.
Overall, I was unimpressed with this kind of travel. It was completely isolating. Usually I’m able to talk myself into all sorts of conversations, but people here weren’t interested. The bulk of them were British people trying to stay fall overdrunk the whole time while turning their white skin into a shade of see-look-at-my-lobster-skin-i-went-on-holiday-red.
I really only had one good convesation and tons of crappy all-you-can-eat buffet food. The food was terrible. I would have rather eaten at a comedor on the side of the road than the crap that they threw in the feeding troughs at the buffet.
If it wasn’t for their excellent cable TV and beautiful beach that I roamed alone, I would have left after one day. After traveling around Central America on a motorcycle where each day is an adventure, roasting next to a pool with a bunch of drunk people is my idea of fun. So much for my vacation away from vacation.
What is nice about the influence of tourism and gringoism is that Costa Rica really goes out of their way to protect the environment, unlike most other CA countries. The rivers were clean and there was not the obvious clear-cutting and mineral extracting like I’ve seen throughout my trip. Costa Rica is beaufiful, especially the drive from San Jose to Panama.
I had a Glandslam at Denny’s!!!! Look at all that food!!!
Theo’s comment was very European on Denny’s, “No wonder Americans are so fat”. Yeah, he’s right.
I spent most of my time in Liberia. I spent over a week there waiting for my replacement computer for the one that I fried while I was trying to replace the power supply. Here is where I stayed. It is Hotel Los Angeles, in Liberia. I highly recommend it.
After spending several days in Liberia, I found this restaurant, Los Comales, by the recommendation by the guy who did my laundry. This place was awesome. It was traditional tico food. Not only was it tastey, but it was also cheap. I was back to eating my $2-$3 dinners. That is much better than when I was dining in the center of Liberia at $10 a meal. Ouch.
After a week, I met up again with Theo. We started riding to Panama. He’s really out of control with his photography”
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Thursday, October 16th, 2008
Nicaragua to Costa Rica Border by Car or Motorcycle info
Nicaragua to Costa Rica border crossing
This was a needlessly frustrating border crossing because of gaming going on between the border “helpers” and the police.
In order to leave Nicaragua you need to first cancel you motorcycle permit, then cancel your own immigration permit.
To cancel the moto permit we had to complete a scavenger hunt. The mission was to receive the signature of a customs official and a police officer.
Usually this kind of thing is very easy as those kinds of people are all over the place. We were constantly offered help, especially by this english speaking guy who’s name I forgot. We’ll call him TVGuy. He’s TVGuy because he learned english exclusively from watching TV– no proper classes or travel.
Anyway, TVGuy met us at the first building when entering the border zone saying, “I help you free!”. He kept saying this and I kept saying that we didn’t need any help. He persisted as did I.
We drove slowly to the Immigration buildings to the left where our friend was there waiting for us. He handed us a sheet of paper that needed the two signatures of police and customs to correctly export our bikes out of Nicaragua.
So I started the hunt to find signatures. The first once ways easy, there was a uniformed customs guy standing right next to us when we parked. He looked at the bikes for .3 seconds and signed. Customs guy, Check.
Once TVGuy saw us get that signature he walked quickly away.
I was struck by him walking away from us and not towards us like usual. One by one, he started talking to the police and mount pointing towards us. Mouth pointing is what people do in Central America instead of using hands or fingers to point. Try it with me. Pucker your lips and scrunch your mouth and eyebrows in the direction you want to indicate. It is REALLY funny the first few times you see people’s faces move like this.
Now the game was in play. Every time we walked towards a cop, he strolled the other direction.
I eventually caught up to one cop and he looked at me like he had never seen one of these papers before. Interesting.
I looked again for more police and did not see any, where when we first got there, I saw 3 or 4.
Funn enough, TVGuy came up to me and asked if I needed help. Needing to go to Costa Rica and not wishing to spend the rest of my life sitting in a border zone, I accepted it. I knew something was up, but had no choice.
Curiously he was able to find a police officer within 10 seconds and we were off to the customs building to get our permit canceled. We were done in 10 minutes.
Here’s the step by step:
1. Pay toll to enter border zone if you’re gringo
2. Park at building to the left
3. Get sheet of paper that shows your bike was inspected by a customs and police officer
4. Get said sheet signed
5. Ignore the huge line of people at the migration and go directly to the Aduana office
5. Show them your old permit, passport, and signed piece of paper
I don’t remember if we had to pay any fees to leave. My guess is yes in addition to the “helper” fee of “only 5 dollar for 3 bikes, good deal”. Yeah, great deal. Thanks TVGuy.
If Nicaragua felt like a border crossing from the 70s, CR was fully mordern and uninteresting.
Documents:
Title
Drivers license
Passport
Canceled permit from Nicaragua
Fees:
Mandatory insurance for around $8-10US
Fumigation for $5?
Steps:
1. Get bike fumagated
1. Immigration inside the building to the left. Second or third door on the left once inside, past the bank
2. Buy insurance at the sketchy looking first door on left. It should be $10 or so
3. Go to little shack on the right across from the Migration building and get the permit
Yeah, that border was way too easy. It was an indication of what to come.
2 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized by daveg
Tuesday, October 14th, 2008
Nicaragua
Nicaragua is a country I’d like to return to and spend more time exploring. Because of my need to respect the timeline to make it to Tierra del Fuego, I needed to really start making some miles through Central America. As a result, my understanding of Honduras and Nicaragua is very limited.
I was in Grenada, Nicaragua for a few days. Grenada is like Antigua but without cobble stone roads and busloads of gringos. In Antigua, there are tons of horses offering “romantic carrige rides” (that have poop bags) through the Spanish Colonial city. In Grenada, the road is their bathroom. The beautiful scenery is disrupted by the stinch of horse shit.
With sufficient mouth breathing, Grenada is a beautiful town. Many of Managua’s rich come here for the weekends. It is very well developed for tourism offering a variety of tours. We went on a boat ride of Like Nicaragua.
Getting to Grenada was pretty easy. Our original plan was to go to Leon, but the road from Honduras to Leon was _very_ slow. While the road was paved, it was not maintained. There was a reasonable amount of traffic on the road, but because of its condition, we did not feel safe driving it. My understanding is that the road went on for 3 hours of complete dodging of potholes. It is really interesting to watch cars (and probably bikes too) drive down this road because of the massive swerving required to not have your tire swallowed up by the road. It looks like there are some seriously drunk drivers. Well actually, there could be some seriously drunk drivers. You never know.
However, the main road to Managua / Grenada was great:
Once in Grenada, we stayed at El Club. Lonely Planet described this place as “sleep where you party”. That is what we did. There we met the owner Marco who very generously hooked us up with a great room and rate.
El Club is a boutique hotel that has a modernly decorated bar in the front and a hotel in the back that exuded modern elegance. This place was nice. Check out my room! Thanks Marco!
In Grenada, I continued the tradition of not shaving myself.
After a couple of day in hip luxary at El Club, we headed to Costa Rica.
Because I had no computer at the time, I have no idea about the border crossing except that it was fairly painful.
Here are some misc pictures I took through Nicargua:
This is Bryn’s camera mount. He tapes his camera to his arm. It is actually a brilliant idea and the footage he gets is pretty good.
Here is a giant wind generator on the coast of Lake Nicaragua. I found it interesting that they were pursueing alternative forms of energy when they have such greater social problems like individual security.
This is the view of Theo from my bike. Look at all that stuff!!
The following pictures are by Theo Schlaghecken. Please visit his blog and if you’re feeling generous, donate to his paypal account that he’s using to fund projects helping children who he meets around the world. Most recently he built a playground in Guatemala. Seriously, buy a few kilometers. I mean, it isn’t like he’s selling miles, you can afford a few KM, right? All of his pictures are copyright Theo Schlaghecken and are only for use by his sole discretion. Without him, I’d have no pictures of myself!
Here Pop, I lit a candle for you a month ago in Nicaragua.
My current level of flare.
This guy is working hard on the boat ride we went on in Lake Nicaragua
Sad doggle.
Honduras money changer.
I’m happy to be in Honduras. Yeah, I noticed I didn’t have a post from Honduras. It is because we went through it in 2 days and I don’t have any good stories or insight. Basically we were trying to make it south and in order to get to the nicer places in Honduras, we would have had to tack on a couple more days of driving. The part of Honduras that I drove through was beautiful rolling hills. Everyone had Aunt Sandra’s haircut! I didn’t realize it was a Honduran thing.
More death heaters. Even in nice hotels.
Theo is happy to be in Nicaragua.
Inside El Club, Nicaragua.
More Inside El Club, Nicaragua
Wheels roll THAT way.
Grenada
Lake Nicaragua
Grenada
Nicaragua, like Guatemala, had armed guards all over the place. Almost every store had a guy with a sawed off shotgun.
Another potholed shot. That road was wild!
1 Comment » - Posted in Uncategorized by daveg
Thursday, October 9th, 2008
A Little Trouble in El Salvador with LOTS of pictures
It was great riding with two other people, especially two other people who were patient enough to wait for me at the Salvador border for 3 additional hours.
We drove for about 30 minutes away from the border and the sun was starting to set so we decided to follow a recommendation that Theo got from a dutch backpacker he met at the border to head to a beach house at Barra de Santiago. We found the turn and it was an allweather gravel road for 7 km.
Earlier, we had decided that we weren’t going to take any dirt roads because of what happened to me earlier in Guatemala. When I saw the gravel road I became very paranoid about driving down it. In an attempt to overcome this paranoia– illogical and unfounded for El Salvador, I suggested we can give it a shot. “We can always turn around”.
El Salvador is regarded as a much safer country than its neighbors Guatemala and Honduras. I was positive there was no danger in this area. I needed to get over my robbery and challenging myself with something like this what I needed. As the cliche goes, lightning never strikes twice?
So we started driving down the gravel road. All-weather means that the road is in good shape and you can maintain a good clip, we averaged 30mph with no problem at all. The terrain was flat and lined with unending fields of sugar cane on both sides of the road. The whole time I was anxious, but I kept saying to myself that it was only paranoia. There was the occasional car or pedestrian on the side of the road. It was just a gravel road, not a remote mountainous road like in Guatemala.
The Pacific ocean started to appear on the screen of the GPS. We were almost there and no problems! Success!
Barra de Santiago is a dusty little beach town. There were gated but humble beach houses lining the main road. As we passed people they started as if they had never seen a trio of biker-gringos before. It was fun being the center of attention in a sleepy little town like this. We asked a local where the hotel was and followed the directions further down the coast and eventually ended up driving the last 100 meters in soft sand. Too bad I traded in my knobbies in Guatemala City!
Capricho Beach House was a nice little place. Theo worked his negotion magic and knocked a few dollars off the $35/night price. It was a steep increase from Guatemla, but it had air conditioning.
We had a great dinner of a whole fried fish and pan sautaed vegetables then went to bed.
The next day we loaded up the bikes and started driving back. Navigating was not a problem because there is only one road out of town. My paranoia had subsided even further because I chatted with the hotel señora and she said the road was safe.
After about 10 minutes of driving 30 mph on the all-weather road I stopped to let Theo and Bryn catch up. Snapped a few pictures and a truck where the bed was used to haul around a bunch of standing locals like livestock stopped and flagged Theo to come to the window and talk.
Not speaking spanish, Theo was eventually able to distill that there was a problem: There were 3 people waiting in the sugar cane fields to rob us.
Crap.
The guy in the truck uses his cell phone to call the police. The police say they don’t have a car to come help us.
We’re on our own.
This conversation was happening all without my participation.
I was chit-chatting with Bryn and started talking to two farmers who appeared out of the sugar cane field. With machetes in hand, they started telling me how dangerous this road was and that I needed to “Cuidado”. Heart! Starts! Racing!
The New Updated Plan which was decided by the guy in the truck was for him to drive 60 mph along this gravel road and us to stay as close as possible.
I learned of this plan when Theo screamed, “GO! GO! GO! GO!” as the truck first passed me with Theo in its wake.
As the paranoid guy who’s moment arrived, I read this for what it was– trouble. The second the truck flew by and GO was screamed, I fired up the bike and was inhaling Salvadorian dust within seconds. I was so terrified by the farmers’ warning that I had no problem overcoming any fear of riding 60mph offroad. My senses were acute and I was ready to get the f’ out of there.
We cleared the remaining 5 kms in 2 minutes.
Once the main road came into view, the truck slowed down and we pulled over and said we were safe now.
Theo, the truck, and I were at the road, but no Bryn.
Crap.
10 seconds later, Bryn showed up. Phew.
Theo, Bryn, and I had a brief screaming-through-helmet conversation of wtf is going on. In his German accented english he screamed “Three people wanted to rob us!!”.
We exchanged a few looks and decided we needed to get out of the area.
Half an hour later we stopped and filled up with gas and talked about what happened.
We headed to Playa de Tunco, a much more developed surfer town near San Salvador, and spent a few nights there relaxing at the beach and a nice hotel.
On the way to Tunco, in El Salvador. As unpleasant of an experience as nearly being robbed was, this drive was almost worth it.
Pregnant man buried in the sand in Tunco
The following pictures are by Theo Schlaghecken. Please visit his blog and if you’re feeling generous, donate to his paypal account that he’s using to fund projects helping children who he meets around the world. Most reciently he built a playground in Guatemala. Seriously, buy a few kilometers. I mean, it isn’t like he’s selling miles, you can afford a few KM, right? All of his pictures are copyright Theo Schlaghecken and are only for use by his sole discretion. Without him, I’d have no pictures of myself!
Me in Guatemala. Check out the new shades!
The infamous Julio, aka Guaterider on advrider. Thanks agian so much for showing me Guatemala!
Bryn, from New Zealand. He speaks english but I could barely understand the words coming out of his mouth. I caught on eventually, but it took a few days. He’s in Colombia now shooting his latest motorcycle video.
Theo posing with Guatemala coffee. This is where your best cups come from!
Unripe coffee
Traveling for 3 months through Central America is tough work. Seriously.
10 Comments » - Posted in Uncategorized, texas by daveg
Wednesday, October 1st, 2008
Wasting Time
Welp, I’m leaving Liberia tomorrow and I have no computer.
I thought I gave appropriate respect to “Latin American Time” in the country that is least latin of all my travels, but I apparently did not. My laptop was supposed to be here on Monday or Weds. Respecting time as they do here, I figured it’d be Weds. Well, apparently it is maybe Thursday or Friday. I’m done with Liberia. I’m getting my money back, but there is no way to get back the time. A six month vacation seems like a long time but it is not enough when you can burn a week sitting in one town rotting alone in a hotel room watching movies on TNT or Discovery channel in Spanish.
So now I’m going to resume heading south. Hopefully we’re going to go to Atena, Costa Rica and stay at some friend of Theo’s guest house for a day. THEN I’m going to make another attempt at getting the same laptop on Friday in San Jose. The US did its part and got the laptop to San Jose on Monday AM, but apparently its been stuck in customs for 4 days. ARGH!!@#
Anyway, I’m at a Jesus Freak of an internet cafe, so I should probably stop writing writing so I don’t get kicked out and the “iProtectYou” alarm stops going off.