More Luxury Than I’m Equipped For

Days 109-115 – Parque Nacional Volcán Masaya, Nicaragua to Cahuita, Limón, Costa Rica – 17,748 km

The Route: A) La Paz Centro, B) Managua, C) Parque
Nacional Volcán Masaya, D) San Juan del Sur,
E) Playas Flamingo, F) Nuevo Arenal, G) Grecia,
H) San José, I) Puerto Limón, J) Cahuita

When I reached La Paz Centro after the fall on the dirt road from León, I found Jess waiting for me beside her bike on the main highway.

         ‘I figured you would be a while so I sat at a restaurant and had a drink. Then I came here,’ she said. ‘Wait. Did you go down? You’re covered in dirt and so is your bike. Oh, love, did you have fun?’

Us atop Volcán Masaya

From La Paz Centro we rode along the lake and into Managua and then out again. About 20 km outside the capitol, we went south into Parque Nacional Volcán Masaya. We splashed through deep puddles that collected from the rain that struck briefly during midday as I was emerging from the soft powder of the dirt road outside León. We ascended the tarmac road to the volcano summit where the air was cool and the clouds smelled of sulfur. After a short time spent at the summit we descended again to the ranger station where we set up our tent in the picnic area. The twilight was quickly fading and the water for our pasta was nearly boiled when the night guardsman wandered over to greet us.

Jess prepares dinner

‘No se preocupan por las serpientes?’ he asked. ‘You are not worried about the snakes?’

‘We saw a sign but before they left the rangers said this was a good place to camp,’ I said.

‘Ask him what kind of snakes,’ Jess said.

‘Poisonous ones. Cobras,’ the night guardsman said. ‘They like the grass.’

We look around with the faint pale light from our headlamps. Well, now we won’t be able to think about anything but the snakes! I thought to myself.

‘There is a better place over here,’ the night guardsman said.

The new, 'no snakes' campsite

He led us to the rear of the ranger station where a large roofed patio opened to an amazing view of Laguna de Masaya and the surrounding hills. After we had hauled our pitched tent and all our unpacked gear to the new camp site, Jess returned to preparing the spaghetti while I rode the motorbikes out of the picnic area and around the narrow path so that they could join us on the patio behind the ranger station. The wind was strong in the evening and then it calmed into the night as we sat on our camp chairs, ate pasta, drank wine, and I smoked a cigar while we watched an episode of Downton Abbey on Jess’s laptop.

View from the new campsite

The next morning we rode into Granada and then south on the Pan-American through strong gusts of wind to San Juan del Sur, which is a popular surfing destination on the Pacific coast. Although I grew up in Los Angeles, it was actually on one of the beaches near San Juan del Sur that I learned to surf only a few years ago. We took a cold drink and a lunch at one of the restaurants along the beach and then after another ride through heavy winds we reached the Costa Rica border. When we got there I immediately started to get worried because it was all very crowded. We were losing daylight and the growing line of people waiting to go through immigration had backed up all the way to where we had parked the bikes.

The hordes encircling our girls

‘The hordes have our girls encircled and sooner or later someone’s going to lay grubby hands on them!’ I said to Jess as I watched nervously from our place further up in the queue.

When we returned to the bikes after obtaining our exit stamp, a man who was in line nearby introduced himself to me.

‘I think it’s great that you’re doing this,’ he said. ‘I told my son that he has to do this before he has kids and responsibilities.’

Jess at The Palms in Playa Flamingo, Costa Rica

His name was Mark and he sells real estate at The Palms, which is an ultra exclusive residence club at Playa Flamingo in Costa Rica.

‘Get in touch and we’ll see about setting you up with a night or two and maybe we’ll do a piece on it for our own publicity.’

I called him the next morning and, after a brief chat, we rode south to Playa Flamingo.

‘Go hang out by the pool and have a juice or a cocktail while I finish my meeting and work out what we can do for you,’ Mark said.

Guanacaste, Costa Rica coastline

He and his web developer, who were from Chicago and New Jersey, respectively, wore shorts and sandals and short sleeves, and they worked at desks set up in one of the unsold units in the cool air conditioning with a perfect view out over the bubbling fountain, beyond the rippling pool, through the rustling palm trees, and onto the beach of yellow sand and blue sea.

‘I’m seeing where these guys go to work every day and I can’t imagine going back to a South Sudan or a Liberia or the like,’ I said to Jess as we sat for lunch at a restaurant a small walk up the beach.

‘We need to find an eco-lodge or mountain cabin estates for you to work at,’ Jess said.

‘Yeah, I’m not so much a beach person,’ I said, ‘but I could handle working someplace like this if the eco-lodge idea doesn’t pan out.’

Then we noticed that two big motorbikes had pulled up and I went over to take a look. One was a R-1200GS – the big sister to ours – and the other was a road-worn KTM. The riders were Canadians and it seemed that – as a certain type of snowbird – they spend the winters riding their bikes in the warmer parts of the Americas. Now, they were spending a month riding around Costa Rica, mostly off-road, drinking beer, and trying out random activities, like most recently, kite surfing. The one riding the R-1200 had brought his collage-age daughter along and she was riding pillion over all the dirt roads and through all the river crossings and she was in good spirits, having shed her riding suit for a bikini. After lunch we arranged to meet at a bar in town called Las Brisas but they must have had a change of plans or couldn’t find it because that evening we drank alone.

‘Are we not doing enough extra things like that?’ I asked Jess that evening over a beer at Las Brisas. ‘Should we be stopping more to learn kite surfing and things like that?’

‘They are doing one small country for a month so they can take time to stop and go off-road and do other things. We are doing 17 countries in six months. Also, we don’t own restaurants or whatever it was that they said they do that they can ship their bikes to a new place every year and ride around for a month,’ she said.

She was right of course but I admit there are moments when I forget my gratitude at being able to do this amazing trip and I feel like there is always someone who is doing more or better.

Mark really came through for us and he put us up at The Palms for two incredible nights, which were by far the most luxurious of this or any previous trip.

‘It’s really more luxury than I’m equipped for, I think,’ I said to Jess as we were packing up our bikes to continue the trip. ‘Once a place is clean, reasonably spacious, and maybe has a balcony or somewhere nice where I can sit, the rest is kind of lost on me. I mean, I don’t know what to do with the microwave and the mini-fridge in the bedroom when there’s already a full kitchen downstairs.’

‘Not me,’ Jess said. ‘I could get used to it and enjoy it all.’

Getting lost looking for the campsite

From Playa Flamingo we retraced our route back to Liberia and then we turned southeast past Bagaces and Cañas to Laguna de Arenal in the mountain country beside Volcán Arenal. The highway that encircles the lake was a fun ride for the curves and the ups-and-downs but the scenery was rather underwhelming because the view of the lake was mostly obstructed by tall trees and hotels. In Nuevo Arenal on the north side of the lake, we followed several dirt roads looking for a campsite that Jess had read about and for which we obtained imprecise GPS coordinates.

‘According to the GPS, we’re supposed to ride over the lake to that sort of island there,’ I said when we had stopped on one of the dirt roads just before it makes a sharp descent and disappears into the lake.

The girls parked at the campsite

We doubled back into town and I asked after the campsite at a local restaurant where, incidentally we had the best meal since leaving Mexico, and by shortly before sunset we had found the stretch of public land beside the lake that we had been searching for. It was down a short, somewhat muddy dirt road off the main road where we reached an abandoned restaurant and a tarmac strip that led down to the lake for launching small boats. As I neared the end of the tarmac beside the lake, I suddenly and quite bizarrely lost my balance as I was turning onto the sloping grassy plain where we would set up camp. The bike and I went over and, although we were both without any new bruises or scratches, I felt like a proper clown and all the more so for doing it under the eyes of several local hipster-looking bicyclists.

Jess makes camp, while I photograph

When I had the bike back up, I took the duffle off and told Jess that I was going to follow another dirt path down to the east along the lake to where there looked to be a more secluded spot. When I came back in a few minutes, Jess said, ‘Did you go down again? I heard your engine rev.’

‘Yeah, it’s a muddy downhill slope there and when I tried to pull out of it and get onto the grass, I went down against the high slope beside the path.’

‘So we’ll camp here then, right?’ she said.

One after the other I pulled the bikes onto the grass slope and parked them beside a place where the slope was more gentle and suitable for pitching the tent. While I brought the bikes over, Jess had been carefully surveying the land.

Sunset over Laguna de Arenal

‘There are lines of huge ants going all over,’ she said when I had carried over my duffle with the tent in it. ‘In the Michael Crichton book that I’m listening too right now, one of the characters gets stung by a wasp and it lays eggs that hatch in his arm. So I’m not sleeping next to any ants or other insects.’

Eventually we found a suitable location. It was on a gentle slope a few meters up from the lake and away from the army ants’ lines of march.

We quickly had the tent pitched and we arranged the sleeping gear inside. Then, in the fading light of the evening, Jess erected one of the fishing poles, I tied on a hook, she baited it, and she made a good cast into the deeps beside the reeds where we expected the fish might be. She had a few strikes but then, after she got caught and broke her line, she decided to quit for the lack of light.

Fishing in the drizzling rain

It rained during the night and it drizzled throughout the morning. While I bathed in the lake, Jess took up the fishing pole and tried her luck again. At first there were a few bites but then for a long time there was nothing as she sat fishing under the persistent drizzle and the thick clouds that hung low over the lake. At one point as we stood together watching Jess’s bobber float along the surface, we looked out to see two forms swimming one ahead and beside the other.

‘I think it’s a giant water snake,’ Jess said.

‘I don’t think it’s that,’ I said.

We saw it again some time later when it swam up not 10 meters from where we stood at the shore. It raised its head and stared straight at us with an expression that was completely bewildered.

‘I think it’s a sea otter!’ Jess said.

It was and it more than made up for not catching any fish that morning.

Volcán Arenal

Later that day, we went for lunch at the German bakery in Nuevo Arenal where we met the tall, thin, long-hair German owner named Tom and we had excellent bratwurst with our scrambled eggs. In the afternoon we continued east along Laguna de Arenal and then past the volcano of the same name. The Volcán Arenal cut a striking silhouette against the cloudy sky but with so many hotels, restaurants, and spas along the highway it felt a bit too much like an amusement park and we were happy to push on. As sunset closed in we hoped to find a hotel at Quesada or Zarcero or finally at Naranjo but we had no luck. In the darkness past twilight we pressed on along a winding, though fortunately lighted, mountain highway to Grecia where we found a hotel. It was all booked up but they had one studio in the back beside several apartment units. It looked unclean and probably unsafe but at eight o’clock at night all we needed was a bed and a shower – in that order.

The next day we went through San José, which is Costa Rica’s capitol and then we went north along the mountain highway that winds its way through the densely forested slopes of the Parque Nacional Braulio Carrillo. The highway was good tarmac and it traced a finely curved route through the national park so that it should have been great riding. Unfortunately, it was bottled up by heavy 18-wheel trucks that were transporting products for export to the port of Limón.

The beach at Parque Nacional Cahuita

We rode through Puerto Limón where the humidity, the pace of life, and the look of the people had a distinctly more Caribbean feel than what we had yet encountered since we had stuck to the central highlands and the Pacific coast through most of Central America. Past Puerto Limón we reached Cahuita, which is a small beachside town beside a small national park of the same name.

Here we took a hotel room, changed into bathing suits, and went for a dip in the sea until the cool breeze that followed the sunset finally chased us out.

That First Jolt

Days 101-109 – Cobán, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala to Parque Nacional Volcán Masaya, Nicaragua – 16,837 km

The Route: A) Coban, B) Antigua, C) Guatemala City,
D) Juayua, E) La Libertad, F) San Salvador,
G) Quezaltepeque, H) El Boquerón, I) Playas Negras,
J) Tegucigalpa, K) León, L) La Paz Centro

From León, Nicaragua Jess took Ruta 12 going southeast and I set out on an unnamed dirt road going east toward Lake Managua and Momotombo Volcano beside it. When I first left the tarmac the earth was hard-packed with scattered rocks and gravel. It was fast going as I skipped passed the rural houses, overtaking a few trucks carrying farming supplies and produce. Further out a light-weight, off-road motorbike overtook me and this pricked at my pride. I tugged on the accelerator and shifted up a gear and continued accelerating until I remembered that my bike was at least twice the weight and then heavier again for the loaded panniers and duffle.

Volcán Momotombo from dirt road

         Further out I rode passed planted farms and fields of grazing cows. Here the road began to change. The hard-packed earth petered out and the dirt became like powder and was lighter than sand. Suddenly the powder was very deep and carved into channels from heavy trucks and tractors that had recently passed. I had to fight against my instinct not to brake and slow into and through the worst of these stretches, and also to relax my grip on the handlebars and let the front tire glide lightly ahead of me. Are you sure you really enjoy this? I asked myself. I didn’t know how to answer myself for a half-kilometer or so until I had passed through several difficult stretches and I began to breathe normally and remember my riding skills. As I relaxed, I gained in confidence and I could feel the improved traction from the new Heidenau K60 tires that we had put on in Guatemala City. Yes, I really do enjoy this and I want more of it – a lot more than I’ve gotten so far in the trip, I finally answered myself.

Not more than 30 seconds after reaffirming my enjoyment of off-roading, a deep rut of powder caught me by surprise. It twisted my front tire out from under me and sent Penny and me crashing to the ground.

Guatemala highlands

After spending New Years Eve in Cobán, Guatemala, on New Years Day we made a full day’s ride into Antigua and then the next morning a short hop into Guatemala City. We went to the BMW and had new tires put on the bikes. We had wanted to change to more aggressive dual sport tires as far back as Mexico City but, when we couldn’t find a set that we liked and when we were told that in Guatemala the prices wouldn’t be quite so startling, we opted to push on and get a little more life out of what we had. In Guatemala City we decided on the Heidenau K60s, which are rather aggressive dual sport tires, especially as we do most of our riding on the tarmac. Normally this would result in a very short lifespan for off-road tires but the Heidenaus are made from a particularly stiff rubber compound, which allows for good, long wear on the road. Unfortunately, as we read, it also makes them a bit slippery when pushing hard in the rain and completely rubbish in any kind of mud.

Jess in Guatemala City main plaza

         From Guatemala City we made straight for the border riding easy until we had acclimated to the new sound and feel of the tires. We determined that the deep, chevron pattern of the tread makes the bikes vibrate at low speed but this goes away upwards of 40 km/h and they felt plenty stable at our level of aggressiveness in the curves. We crossed into El Salvador at the Valle Nuevo-Las Chinamas border where we traversed a long, narrow bridge that was damaged so that Guatemalan national police were only letting one vehicle proceed at a time. In El Salvador we quickly picked up the Ruta de las Flores at Ahuachapan and took it south for about 30 km until Juayua. The Ruta de las Flores (‘Flowers Route’) is a stretch of highway in northeastern El Salvador where there are supposed to be wild flowers in bloom along the highway.

View from Ruta de las Flores

         ‘This must not be the right month for the flowers,’ Jess said when we stopped at one of the lookout points.

         ‘It wasn’t when I passed here last time either and that was in March,’ I said.

Juayua, which is along the Flowers Route, is famed to be the gastronomic heart of El Salvador and we were lucky to arrive on a Saturday because the town plaza bustles with visitors and enticing food stalls on the weekends.

         During dinner we met a young couple who had come from one of the nearby villages for a night out away from their children.

Me under Chorro de la Calera waterfall

         ‘We are very good for making babies in El Salvador,’ the husband explained.

‘It is very good for making twins,’ the wife quickly added.

‘Maybe you will make one while you are visiting,’ the husband said.

         ‘No, we will be sleeping in separate beds until we reach Honduras,’ I said.

The next morning we hiked down the mountain slope upon which the town lies to the Chorro de la Calera waterfall. It was Sunday and we went early so that we missed the large crowd of visitors that would arrive after a good sleep-in or a mid-morning mass. As we dipped into the shallow pools and sat under the massaging rush of the waterfall, we only saw a few sporadic tourists and an evangelical preacher who had brought his flock to be baptized in the clear, cool water.

Riding through tunnel along El Salvador coast

         That afternoon we continued the ride south on the Ruta de las Flores and then from Sonsonate we went to the Pacific coast and followed the coastal highway as it snakes along the cliffs above the sea. At La Libertad we went north again and rode through the city center of the capitol, making a stop to see the cathedral and main plaza. In the early evening we left San Salvador going north on a winding, narrow highway to Parque Nacional El Boquerón where there is a scenic volcano with a deep crater at its extinct center. We had hoped to find accommodations near the park to make a visit first thing the next morning, but we found only restaurants and too much traffic to warrant doubling back into the capitol to find accommodations. Instead we continued going north passed the volcano and descending into Quetzaltepeque, which we reached in the full darkness of night. There we found only an auto-hotel outside of the town and, despite my reservations, we decided it was time to give up the search.

Jess impresses herself with her new riding muscles

The older couple who owned the auto-hotel were a bit surprised by us because their usual clientele are mostly men and their mistresses from the nearby town who drive in, deposit money in the sliding cupboard, and then carry on in private for a couple hours before leaving just as anonymously as they came.

‘Love, you look quite ill at ease,’ Jess said when we were installed in one of the stand-alone cinderblock units at the auto-hotel.

San Salvador main plaza

 ‘I don’t have a problem with going to a hotel to have sex,’ I said, ‘It just irks me that one would go to a hotel that exists solely for having sex. It feels to me somehow less sleazy if you just go to a regular hotel even if you don’t intend to stay the night. Also, don’t you think that, after that first jolt of excitement when you get in and start going at it, when you stop a moment and think, “what kind of a sleazy dump am I doing this in?”’

‘Well, it seems clean enough,’ she said, ‘and much better than that place we stayed at when we crossed into Guatemala and we decided to sleep inside our sleeping bag liners.’

View from highway through El Boquerón

‘Yeah, it’s not necessarily physically dirty because you can imagine how much bleach they use on these sheets,’ I said. ‘But look around. There are no windows. There’s a cupboard so that you never have to see anyone to pay for the room or get room service. The room service menu that’s posted on the wall includes condoms, lube, and feminine hygiene products. The bed frame is built into the ground so that it can’t make noise or buckle during sex. There’s a toilet paper dispenser beside the bed, for god’s sake! And there’s this.’

I flipped a switch on the wall above the bed and a terrible, deafening music came piping in to fill the room.

Me beside 'El Gigante' crater at El Boquerón

‘Obviously to cover whatever noises are being made inside,’ I said.

         I felt claustrophobic in the cinderblock room with no windows and I slept uneasily breathing in the air that smelled faintly of cheap bleach, old linens, and stale sex.

         The next morning we returned south on the same narrow, winding highway so that we could make a visit to El Boquerón and see the view into the volcano. From the parking lot it was a brief ascent on foot and then a short skirting along the rim before descending along a different path back to the parking lot. We rode further south back into San Salvador then east along the Pan-American for long stretches through mostly flat, dull country occasionally broken up by fine views of Volcán San Vincente and Volcán Chaparrastique. Finally, at San Miguel we went south and hit the Pacific coast again at Playas Negras where we found an empty but not abandoned hotel where we got a room with a sea view. Here we swam alone in the sea as if on our own private beach. Then we showered and we watched the sunset and then we ate an enormous seafood dinner of lobster and shellfish apparently caught fresh off the beach that morning. After dinner I smoked a cigar and we drank wine and listened to the waves crash on the shore.

View of Volcán San Vincente from Pan-American

         The next morning we crossed into Honduras and we quickly entered a beautiful countryside of dry, rolling hills. Further onwards we began to ascend into the mountains and the landscape became more lush and verdant. At the height of the ascent we encountered thick fog and light rain so that we rode slowly with our emergency lights flashing. Then the wind began to pick up where there were breaks in the mountain ridges that had shielded us. At one point, the ridge fell away on both side and the narrow highway seemed like a bridge connecting one mountain ridge to another. Just here the wind picked up very suddenly and very sharply so that what I saw was like the wind tearing long rends in the thick veil of mist and those rends struck Jessica hard and lurched her sideways.

Jess and enormous seafood dinner

It is sometimes worse to see first how difficult terrain or conditions affect your riding partner because this can make you tense up in anticipation and even overcompensate when your turn comes. If you are riding at some distance behind, then you will have time to get over this momentary reflex and regain your composure. But if you are following close behind as I like to follow Jessica to capture photos and enjoy her figure, then you will probably hit the difficult bit at the apex of that first jolt of anticipation.

Playas Negras at sunrise before a run and a dip

This is how I was when I hit the bridge of highway between the two ridges where the sharp gusts up the valley tore rends in the mist and threw it against Jessica. When my turn came, my grip was stiff on the handlebars and, in a moment of terror, I felt as if the wind lurched the bike sideways against the direction of travel. It was over as quickly as it began and then we were both back within the shelter of the mountain ridge. When my heartbeat had finally slowed back to normal, I thought, I’ll be damned if I’m going back again for a photo!

View of CA-6 through Honduras highlands

We spent the night in Tegucigalpa, the capitol of Honduras, while it rained outside so that, once warm and dry, we opted to order pizza rather than venture out again.

         There is a lot to see in the north of Honduras. The vast Mayan remains at Copan Ruinas is the main attraction but I had seen that during my first motorcycle trip in 2010 and Jess is not much for ‘old places that have mostly fallen apart and don’t really do anything.’ I also visited the four main cities along the Caribbean coast – Puerto Cortes, Tela, La Ceiba, and Trujillo – and I didn’t think much of them except that from La Ceiba you can reach the Bay Islands where there is excellent scuba diving and there is – or at least was – a quaint hostel on a secluded stretch of beach east of where the highway ends at Trujillo. But I had been to these places before and we decided that it was quite the roundabout tour with so much distance left to cover before we would lose the favorable conditions of summer when we finally get to the Southern Hemisphere.

I enjoy local chocolate drink in Nicaragua

         So the next morning we left Tegucigalpa going east to Danli and from there we entered Nicaragua at the Las Manos border crossing. After the border we went south past Estelí, skirted along the flatlands beside Volcán Momotombo, and finally reached León close on sunset.

         After the fall on the dirt road between León and La Paz Centro, I was quick to regain my feet and determine that I was without injury. After another moment I was struggling to get the bike upright. After several feeble tries I realized that either my adrenaline had abandoned me to exhaustion or that I never had the strength I thought I had to begin with. I looked around and discovered that there was no one as far as the eye could see in any direction. This gave me a mixed emotion because at first I was glad that no one had seen my fall but then I realized there was no one to help me up again. I thought how I wished that Jess had been riding with me to help me get the bike up even if I probably would have stopped many more times to help her up as well. Well, that’s why it’s better with a partner, I told myself. But anyone someone will surely come along eventually, I thought. But you aren’t going to sit on your ass waiting while your bike lays in a heap, are you? I scolded myself.

Sky, field, and Volcán Momotombo

Then my mind must have cleared from that first jolt of excitation because I remembered how easy it always was to right my bike when I went off-roading without the luggage. So I unstrapped the duffle bag that sat atop the passenger seat. Now, with the center of gravity so much lower and a critical 30-40 pounds lighter, I went at it again and this time I managed. It was ten minutes or so while I looked the bike over, brushed myself off, and replaced the duffle, before I set off again.

Penny on Leon-La Paz Centro dirt road

As I continued on the remaining 15 kilometers, there were plenty more powdery stretches and with these came a few close calls. Are you sure you really enjoy this? I asked myself again before I met up with the tarmac just outside La Paz Centro. Are you really sure? There was a last patch of deep powder that gave me a scare before my accelerating rear tire regained traction and then I was onto hard-packed earth and light gravel again.

Yes, I’m sure, I told myself and I knew that I would not have to ask again.

Under a Persistent Drizzle

Days 93-100 – Loma Bonita, Oaxaca, México to Cobán, Alta Verapaz, Guatemala – 15,213 km

The route: A) Loma Bonita, B) Heróica Cárdenas,
C) Palenque, D) El Naranjo, E) Melchor de Mencos,
F) Belize City, G) San Ignacio, H) Sayaxché, I) Cobán

It was Christmas Eve day and we were passing through a large storm system that was expanding across the states of Tabasco, Chiapas, and Veracruz. It rained heavily all throughout the day and, also, Carretera 180 was rutted and potholed so it was very slow going. When we finally left the highway and pulled into the flooded streets of Heróica Cárdenas, it was dark and raining and we were plenty exhausted. It had only been 290 km from where we started the day in Loma Bonita, after fighting the roadblock at Valle Nacional the day before, but we eager to treat ourselves to a nicer-than-average hotel and room service on Christmas Eve.

Jess rides under gray skies in Mexico

         The next day I found a convenience store open during my morning run so I stopped to buy a variety of chocolates. When I returned to the hotel room, I interrupted Jess’s call with her sister to send her to the bathroom while I stuffed the chocolates into one of my (clean) riding socks.

‘Ok, you can come out now,’ I said.

‘Oh, love, you got me a stocking!’ she said.

We got a late start that morning but me managed to cover the 200 km to Palenque through the drizzling rain. It was a good enough place to spend the afternoon of Christmas day and it put us within easy striking distance of the border so that we were able to finally cross into Guatemala the next day. It was another gray, wet day as we moved through the process of exiting Mexico and then entering Guatemala.

Jess rides under gray skies in Guatemala

At the border we came to a checkpoint where we showed our passports to a federal police officer. Then we pulled passed and parked our bikes at the customs office. Here we locked our helmets to the bike and retrieved our folder of documents and photocopies from our panniers. Then we went into the customs office where we cancelled the temporary vehicle importation permits and received a notification that Banjercito, which is the armed forces bank of Mexico, would reimburse the several hundred dollar deposit that we had placed as a security on each bike when we entered Mexico six weeks before. Then we went to immigration and they verified that customs had ‘liberated’ our passports of the vehicle restriction and then they stamped our passports that we were free to leave.

More gray skies in Guatemala

We went back to our bikes, retrieved our helmets, and then rode the short distance to another checkpoint where the federal police confirmed that our passports were ‘liberated’ and that we were stamped out from Mexico. Then we pulled into the customs office at Guatemala where we presented our documents to obtain a new vehicle importation permit and from there it was on to immigration.

After completing our ingress into Guatemala, there was only an hour or so of daylight left. We covered the 30 km under an intermittent drizzle to arrive in El Naranjo where we had been told there were the only hotels for about 70 km. El Naranjo sits at a break in northbound Route 13 where a river cuts the highway. So it naturally becomes a waypoint for those traveling to the villages in the far northwest of the country or making a visit to Parque Nacional Laguna del Tigre. Here there were several hotels along the principal road but they were all very dirty so we chose one and slept that night in our sleeping bag liners rather than under the bed sheets.

Jess and blue skies in Flores, Guatemala

The next morning we rode east across northern Guatemala under a persistent drizzle. We stopped for lunch at Flores, which is a small island in the middle of a narrow appendage of Lago Peten Itza, and here there was a break in the rain and clouds and we enjoyed a beautiful, sunny sky. Flores is near the spectacular Mayan ruins of Tikal so it is a popular stopping-off point for tourists. After Flores we continued east, bypassing Tikal because I had seen it twice before and because Jess could not be less interested. By the end of the day we had covered 250 km and we reached Melchor de Mencos – again under a gray sky – on the border with Belize.

More gray skies and a pig in Guatemala

The next morning we left Guatemala, crossed the border into Belize, took out a vehicle permit and local insurance, and set off towards the Caribbean coast. By the evening we had traversed the 125 km width of the small country under gray, drizzling skies and we arrived arrive in Belize City by evening.

The next day there were three falls.

The first fall of the day was Jess’s and it happened in a patch of mud a few minutes down the Coastal Highway. We had left Belize City that morning under a drizzle and after going 50 km west we detoured south onto the Coastal Highway in the direction of Dangriga. After Jess’s fall we decided that slick mud and our balding road tires were not a good match so we doubled back to the Western Highway and continued in the direction of Belmopan.

Jess rides Haulover Bridge into Belize City

         The day’s plan had been to visit Dangriga, which would have been at the end of the 70 km Coastal Highway passed several lagoons and a forest reserve, and then to take Hummingbird Highway back to near Belmopan in the center of the small country to where we would take a cave tubing tour. But now the unsuccessful detour had spoiled our timing to make Dangriga and be back in time for the tour. Also, the gray skies and persistent drizzle had soured our appetite for the tubing.

         ‘Somehow the thought of getting wet in an inner tube is more appealing on a sunny day even though we’re already wet from the rain,’ Jess said over lunch in Belmopan.

         ‘I know it,’ I said. ‘As we’re riding along and it was gray and raining, I keep thinking how it’s like being back in Liberia and it just makes me want to ride through it and get somewhere else.’

Jess rides passed Penelope on the Coastal Highway

         That’s what we decided to do – if the weather wasn’t going to oblige us then we would go somewhere where it would be more cooperative. After lunch we continued west to San Ignacio. This is one of the most popular cities among tourists to Belize, an easy enough place to find a hotel room, and a short hop back to the Guatemala border the next day.

         In San Ignacio the second fall of the day happened and this time it was mine. Jess was riding ahead and we were scouting the narrow streets for a suitable hotel, when a car door opened right in front of me. I saw it and I had just enough time to hit the brakes and swerve the bike to avoid the driver as he exited the vehicle while talking on a mobile phone. But the sharp turning of the handlebar against the forward momentum caused the wheel to lock and the motorcycle went over. The man continued to talk on his phone as he watched me get to my feet.

Jess rides across bridge into San Ignacio

         ‘What are you looking at? Come and help me!’ I said angrily and probably shouting because my voice sounded dull through my helmet and earphones.

         He offered one hand to help right the bike while with the other he kept the phone to his ear. It was enough to get the bike up and onto its kickstand. After a few moments when I was seated on the bike again and ready to ride off, I looked back over to him. He had stepped onto the sidewalk still with his phone to his ear. I made a sharp gesture to him with my hand to match the words that ran through my head. He signaled to me to wait a moment. Even angrier, I made another, sharper gesture and then I wasted no more time and rode off to catch up with Jessica.

         We rode through San Ignacio but we couldn’t settle ourselves on any particular hotel and I was still angry and need to ride off the anger. So we rode out of town in the direction of the border and shortly we found a reasonably priced lodge where we rented a cabin surrounded on three sides by dense forest.

Our log cabin in the forest near San Ignacio

         Here at the lodge outside of San Ignacio is where happened the third fall of the day and again it was mine. Beside the cabin was a flat grassy area, which would have been perfect for parking the bikes and not having to carry the luggage far. But between the cabin and the parking area was a steep, muddy slope, which I was foolish enough to tackle and especially with my bike fully loaded.

Whenever there is a difficult stretch that Jess is uncomfortable to do, I ride my bike through it and then come back for hers. I always do it in this order so that, if the attempt proves to be a disaster, it is me and my Penelope who will get the worst of it.

I rounded out of the parking area, which itself was uncomfortably muddy and, as soon as I started down the slope towards the cabin, the narrow treads of both front and rear tires filled with mud and the motorcycle collapsed under me. The fall was so complete and downhill facing that it took two staff members from the lodge to help Jess and me to right the bike, which continued to slide down the mud slick even as we tried to lift it. Finally it was upright but it was still facing downhill and only by clenching the brake levers could I keep it in place.

Jess and Moxie on the river barge at Sayaxché

‘Let’s unload the bike here and then it will be easier to turn it around,’ Jess said.

The unloaded bike was incomparably easier to manage and, after a few close calls and throwing a lot of mud, I had my bike back up the slope and in the parking area beside Jess’s. We left the bikes in the parking area and carried our luggage to the cabin.

It did not rain overnight but the next morning the sky was still gray. We had caught Belize and northern Guatemala at a bad moment and probably we hadn’t given either a fair shake but we were happy when we crossed back into Guatemala and began riding southward into the highlands. That afternoon we reached Sayaxché where there is no bridge over the Rio de la Pasión. Here we took a barge over the river and Jess went down on the steep dirt path before boarding the river barge. I had boarded my bike onto the barge and she was already back on her feet beside her collapsed bike by the time I had dismounted and looked back, expecting her to pull up behind me. I started to run back to her but then I reduced to a walk when I saw that someone among the drivers waiting to board behind her had helped her to right the bike.

‘You rushed yourself because you were nervous with so many of them waiting behind you, right?’ I said later that evening over dinner.

 She nodded guiltily.

‘Take your time and don’t let anyone rush you,’ I said and then I laughed. ‘And I have to stop rushing to help you when you fall because I always forget to take a picture!’

A visit to the public cemetery above Cobán

There was no rain that night but, unfortunately, there was still one more day of it before we reached Cobán where we stopped for New Years Eve. That evening the skies filled with the noise of small firecrackers. We added our own very modest explosions fired from the terrace beside our hotel room and we drank wine to celebrate. After a difficult first half of 2013 in Liberia, the second half had been something quite amazing. This appreciation of how far we had come in a year and the clear skies that brought an end to the rain the next day were as good as any introduction to the New Year that we could have hoped for.