Another Unexpected Detour

Day 22 - Saturday, November 23rd
San Luis to Esquipulas

Sleeping isn't really the right word for what we did during the night; tossing and turning is more like it, except turning was difficult since the beds sagged so much. The room was hot and stuffy and densely populated with mosquitoes, a snarling dog sat just outside the door all night, and a dyslexic rooster began his crowing at about two in the morning.

Normally, we look forward to the rest, but today we wanted the sun to relieve us from our night's suffering. The rain had stopped, but what it left behind was not a pretty sight, unless you have a certain favorite color. The road was a palette of browns - cacao brown, cafe con leche brown. There were as many browns around as there are in the residential section of the Cincinnati phonebook.

But the mud in general wasn't the problem. It was the type of mud. Though the terrain looked much the same as the day before, it was not. Not even the seasoned eye could tell the difference from afar. You had to be on it to feel the difference, like walking along the sidewalk on a clear winter day with great confidence until you hit that tiny patch of invisible ice.

The pace slowed considerably. Jay, Jim and Gary moved along cautiously but steadily. David hung back and took some digital photos of Alex as he became accustomed to the new slippery sensation. To David this mud was home, Georgia red clay at it's best.

At one point David zipped ahead to a scenic spot to wait for Alex to round the bend. As David stopped and put his foot down, his foot sunk into the mud up to mid-shin. He tried to pull it out but it was stuck because of the suction. He got the photo of Alex he was waiting for, started the bike back up and used the bikes 650cc's to pull his foot out.

Up ahead the others were having a few problems of their own. Jim and Gary were weaned on pavement. Stick 'em on that ol' blacktop and they can haul an elephant on their back rack, but mud is a different medium. Here was their chance to become acquainted with this slick surface, and today they had quite a few miles to do just that.

There had been some uphill and downhill runs but for the most part the road remained pretty flat. They passed a few trucks around a particularly hairy corner and then the road sloped downward to the right. Jay and Gary kept it smooth and steady but Jim got a bit too far into the slope. He tried to steer back up, gave it a little gas and the bike's mud-coated tires promptly slid out, sending Jim and the bike to the muddy ground.

His left side Pelican case, already weakened by his impact with Alex, sheared open from the force sending the solar panel and the NEC laptop asunder. Sorry, no photos of this - we decided to check on the welfare of Jim and the gear before capitalizing on this one-of-a-kind photo op. After a good wet and dirty laugh, the case, it's contents and Jim were strapped back on the bike. One quarter of a mile later, this appetizing terrain came to an abrupt end. Ain't that the way it goes?

So we finally hit great roads all the way to Morales. The pavement was brand spanking new and ready for the likes of us. We flung mud off our tires all the way to the bank where we desperately needed to change some dough.

Gary and Alex went in to ask about changing money while the others waited outside. Yes, we do change money, said the kind bank teller, from Monday to Friday. Great, said Gary, and pulled out a traveller's cheque. Confused, the teller repeated her answer. What day is it, asked Gary. Saturday was the reply. Not Friday? No, ahoy es Sabado. Well, then, where can we change money? Try the bank down the block, she said, Next!

All day long it had been Friday for us. One hundred miles of thinking "Friday"! The bank doesn't exchange dollars on Saturday but that won't bother us because itÕs FRIDAY. But it wasnÕt; it was Saturday. WeÕd spent an extra day in Belize...hee, hee.

The bank down the block had the same policy. Try the exchange house around the corner, said the teller, Next!

Outside, the others got impatient and tried the bank across the street. Next! Jim batted his baby browns and put on his best hungry puppy look for the ladies behind the counter. They ate it up. Jim changed enough money to get us all through our last night in Guatemala.

Cash rich we gassed up and hit the winding road. It was smooth and quick with the exception of monsterous banana trucks occasionally leaving slippery peels in its wake for our riding pleasure.

Jim, Gary and Jay moved ahead as Alex and David kept it to a more casual pace (what with the bananas and all). Eventually, David got a bit sleepy at the slow pace so he decided to try and catch up with the other guys. Only a few miles up the road they were stopped at a sugar cane shack where you can get fresh pressed cane juice. What a buzz!

Only seconds after David put his kick stand down Alex went roaring past trying to catch up to the rest of us. He was cruising so intently he passed right by us all, four guys and four bikes hanging roadside, waiting for him to stop and grab some juice before continuing on.

What Alex didn't know was that the turn-off we wanted was only only a couple of miles up the road. If he missed the turn he could go all the way to the the coast, far from where we wanted to be. If he somehow saw the turn (if, that is, he had any idea where we were going) we'd catch up to him and all would be well. We knew, however, that if he hadnÕt seen us, he sure as hell wouldnÕt see the turn-off, so Jim did his best spaghetti western bike mount and tore off to catch him.

Gary, David, and Jay finished their liquid sugar and went down the road to the turn-off; the hastily conceived plan was to wait for Jim to return with Alex. Once upon a time, the sign at the turn-off might have had words and/or arrows, but now it was completely blank. Since Gary and Jay had the only maps, they knew it was the correct place to turn and were now doubly sure Alex had continued unknowingly straight ahead.

Gary, David and Jay waited and waited and waited. Jim drove and drove and drove, trying to catch Alex who thought he was trying to catch us.

After about 45 minutes of sitting beneath a broiling late-afternoon sun, impatient, pissed-off, and yes, a little worried, David, Gary and Jay decided to take off for la frontera. We would just have to all hook up at the border. Or maybe by some freak chance, Alex had stopped at the turn-off, Jim had found him, and together they had gone on to the border themselves. Yeah, right. And our bikes are Harleys.

The three drove for 30 minutes over a small range of hills keeping an eye out for their buddies the whole way. They stopped at the outskirts of the first small town to discuss their options. Gary and Jay felt bad about leaving the last turn-off instead of waiting as planned, so they turned their bikes around and went back. David went to the local Shell gas station and waited there.

The station manager, only 21, female, and very cute, teaching three greasy, rough-looking Guatemalan men how to pump gas, quickly warmed up to David. She spoke Spanish very clearly and slowly, giving David enough time to look up words in his dictionary. She also spoke a bit too loud as most people do when they fear being misunderstood.

Gary and Jay, imagining they would never see Alex and Jim again, go whizzing by them heading in the opposite (but correct) direction. It turns out it had taken Jim 30 miles to catch Alex; traffic and construction made the whole detour take over an hour. They all hightailed it back to meet David who was still trying to speak Spanish with the Shell station manager.

By this time sunset was only an hour away; not enough time to make the border crossing. Esquipulas, another 30 minutes away, would be our home for the night.

We had a lot on our minds during that ride to Esquipulas. How we'd like to kill each other for letting such a dumb thing happen was foremost on our list. Who to blame for it, and how to lambast them was important too. But during the ride to Esquipulas, watching another wonderful sunset sky of swirling purple and red and grey and seeing some goats with strange triangular wooden things dragging around their necks, we cooled off a bit and decided to let it go. A huge Pepsi Cola billboard welcomed us to town, making sure we knew just what the most important drink in Equipulas was

The first shop in town was a motorcycle shop. But again no bolts. Jim and Alex found the motel du jour which was a bit too much like the night before in San Luis, but what parking! We packed all the bikes into a cinderblock garage with a big metal door and two guard chickens.

Gary offered to treat the bunch to a free dinner ala credit card because he's a nice guy and because weÕd already run outta cash (despite the days bank transactions). While going to the restaurant (on foot, for once), we noticed that anybody who is anybody doesn't go by foot in this town. The streets were a sea of mopeds and small-bore motorcycles. It was an opportunity we couldn't pass up. After all, we were trying to immerse ourselves in the local culture, right? That's when we pulled out THE BIG BEEFERS, except for David, who stayed back to work on his bike in the auspicious company of the guard chickens then went to bed early.

The rest of us ventured boldly out into the night. Within a few short blocks, the Beefers were crowned the kings of the town. Our retinue grew with each cobbled block; in all truth there existed no bigger bikes in Esquipulas. We found the local hang-out and the nights main event: a dance in the local gymnasium. Jim was super smooth and stole all the ladies. Jay, exhaused, went home. Gary and Alex found solace in the company of two friendly more mature (older) ladies (on a moped of course), and without delay the foursome biked to a wedding party where the dance partner ratio was more in their favor. And so they danced 'til well past midnight.

Only the senile caretaker of the hotel could disclose who returned last and at what time.

Miles - 225

Day 23 - Sunday, November 24th Esquipulas
Guatemala to Tamara, Honduras

It is a real damn shame we had to hit the road so early. We hadn't had a chance to see this unique city in the daylight. Things may look cleaner and more attractive, romantic even, at night but the detail is lost. In particular, walking around last night we hadnÕt seen the graveyard in back of this towns main attraction, the church.

As big as a football field and built upon violently rolling hills this graveyard shouted the brightest paint colors money could buy. We supposed the stacked cement boxes held entire families together for their long slumber. Unfortunately we hadnÕt time to examine it more carefully, for we made our broad observations from the road at dawn, 100 paces away at 30 miles per hour.

Much of our trip has been like this. We drive right by so many amazing sights with no time to explore, like passing a beautiful garden and not stopping to smell the roses.

The Honduran border opened at 7am. WeÕd heard this could take a while so we planned to err on the side of caution and be there with papers in hand when the gates opened. As usual, we arrived half an hour late. Getting out of Guatemala was relatively quick, not too expensive, but a bit confusing so we utilized the services of our first tramitador.

At first sight tramitadors appear to be sharks with a taste for foreign currency. They "help" the nervous tourist navigate through a maze of customs and vehicle paperwork, fee payments, translation and anything else to make border crossings "easier". We may have passed through a few of these borders successfully on our own already, though with a lot of stress, but maybe despite their rough exteriors they might teach us something about this process.

Between the two border posts of Guatemala and Honduras was a half mile of heavily forested no-mans-land. It was a place of total silence and tranquility devoid of human presence. We cut our engines and coasted silently down the hill - and into the throng of the Honduran tramitadors.

Past borders crossing hadn't prepared us for the chaos of the "Honduran Border Experience."

How many of these is this going to cost?!

Gary pulled up first and insisted on an English speaking tramitador. We coerced him into telling us up front what we could expect to pay. His first price, around 570 limpiras ($47) per bike, well exceeded what our prior research had unveiled, which should be more like 480 limpiras. Some items in the tramitadorÕs breakdown looked suspicious, overblown, even downright unnecessary. David befriended a visiting inspector from the capital who brought it down even further to 420 limpiras.

Like Theseus from ancient Greece, we steeled ourselves and entered the labyrinth, our trusty tramitador beside us, ready to face the Minotaur of the Honduran border process. We marched determinedly from window to window and office to office, from one corrupt official to another. We bargained, begged, and put our foot down... we even short changed them. But when Jay gave one officer a 100 limpira note expecting 50 back in change, things took a turn for the worse. With money in hand the officer doubled the price and kept the change. Jay almost hit the roof, but Gary calmed him before things got ugly. When the dust finally settled, we were only 335 limpiras poorer but had put ourselves and everyone else through the ringer. We had undeniably done well and were eager to begin the dayÕs ride in a new country.

Honduras is an absolutely gorgeous country. The second largest in Central America (next to Nicaragua), this country is very mountainous and densely covered with pine forests. Some tropical vegetation reminded us we were in the tropics but sometimes it felt like the Pacific Northwest of the USA.

So far, these were the best free roads weÕve encountered. It was a biker's dream come true - serene, smooth and wide with sweeping curves. When the road was good it was great, but when it was bad it was missing. Fortunately, we were warned by signs: 'Fallas a su derecha', 'Fallas a su esquierda' (fallas to your right, fallas to your left)... and in this way we cha-cha-cha-d through this magnificient landscape for over 200 miles.

Fallas, we quickly learned, are huge holes in the road like empty swimming pools that could easily devour a bus. These we carefully circumvented. Fallas could also be short sections of unpaved road, maybe 50 yards of gravel or dirt. These types of fallas didn't slow us much but the bigger vehicles meandering slowly through them were a major speed buster.

This day was the race between the Tortoise and the Hare. Eager for some fun, Jay, David and Gary sped off to carve out those delicious curves. Gary succeded in touching his right side Pelican case to the ground in one particularly tight curve. (Once is enough, says Gary.)

Jim and Alex, slow but steady, never fell far behind and at the end of the day their consistant style equaled the others' go fast/stop often pace. We met up in the final mountain pass to Tamara, a small city just shy of Tegucigulpa.

Alex's headlight and taillight fuse blew early in the day which wasn't really a big deal. In fact, most local motorcyclists don't even use their lights in the daytime. It took a while to figure out why oncoming drivers would flash their lights at us, but eventually we figured out they were trying to let us know our lights were on! For a long time, we thought they were just being friendly or showing us their Riding to the Moon team spirit. But in regards to Alex and his inoperative lights, with the full moon replacing the sun, being on the roads was a dangerous predicament. The rest of us sandwiched him in the middle of the pack for the last few descending mountain miles, illuminating his path while protecting him from being rear-ended. Also during the day, a rock kicked up by another vehicle had smashed through David's headlight cover, but the bulb was miraculously still intact and working.

With not much else to do, we wandered around outside the hotel, gazing up into the night sky and being rather mellow. The moon was full and it was nice to think that our loved ones were sharing this wonderful sight far away to the north. The end to a great day.

Miles - 302