Well a happy new years to everyone! Nothing much to report here. We are still in school and battling our way through Spanish classes. We decided to stay for a bit longer to really get a grasp on this language.

New years was a bit of fun and we ended up hanging out a while with a few other bikers who are in town. Nothing much else to report, the girls are enjoying their rest and we havent even started them since we stopped here. Mabels new piston and bore kit is nearly here thanks to a lovely overlander who picked them up in Mexico for us.

Hope everyone out there is off to a safe and exciting 2017!

As not alot has been going on travel wise, we thought we might share some of our pics from our school and from wandering around town.













We have been involved in the cooking classes they offer at the school and have so far learnt how to make tamales and tamarindos. Both traditional Guatemalan dishes and very tasty! The school also supplies us with tasty jamaica tea infused with copious amounts of local rum. A very dangerous thing!















We are enjoying learning some spanish but we are both getting to the point where we want to get back on the road! So at this stage we will do another week, our third, of Spanish and then possibly head for Antigua and El Salvador.











A kind gentleman picked up our part in Mexico and delivered it to us today. And after all of that, the company sent me the wrong bits and they probably wont fit our bikes. Bugger!

Well we are almost through our third week of Spanish classes and we are both well happy with how far we have come. I still struggle to come up with the words to build my sentences but Chantelle is rattling of Espanol like a local. It will make talking to random people who approach us in gas stations, restaurants, and carparks much more fun!





So since the last update we have had more cooking classes, taken a day trip to a massive market in a nearby town, hung out alot, studied a whole lot more, ate a bucket load of banana breads, doughnuts, and I have developed a taste for chichurrones which is deep fried chicken skin that has a similar taste and texture to pork crackling. A little bit on the moorish side!









One of the other students we hung out with at the markets managed to get pickpocketed and lost his phone to some light fingered little butt hole of a person.









I have started going through our video footage of Mexico to make a short clip, but I have 80 gig of clips to watch and wade through so that may be a while off yet. I might make that a to-do job for when we are in Antigua for a day or two.







Last night the school took us to a basketball game which was a hoot! There was a massive crowd there and the referees had to keep clearing the court of spectators as the crowd swelled and swelled in size.







We are going to stay for one more weeks worth of classes and thats it. The we head for El Salvador!









Still glad to have you all along and we do miss blogging every day!

Well that is everything now caught up! We are going to do one final week of classes as we both feel our Spanish has come along way and just one more week could really help us out.

Next Saturday we will head out early and try to make Antigua in a day. It takes 4 hours by bus so we figure anywhere between 6 and 8 hours.

Ahhhh, that feels better, thanks T&C
Next time ya late though.....bring a note from your Mum

__________________
My memory is becoming that good, I should be able to organise my own surprise party soon

Hahaha! I blame it all on Chantelle. It has to be her fault...somehow...

Is it wrong that we are getting excited to go? We really have no reason to not like where we are. It is quiet, the school is amazing and the people here are very welcoming. But the ring of volcanoes and mountains are pressing down on me with such huge weight, making me eager to jump on Mabel and flee to the next town. Its an itch that I have never been able to fully scratch my entire life. I jump from one job to another, one house to another, never fully settling in, only ever staying long enough to know I don't want to be living that particular way of life. I think I average around 2 years maximum in any job and 3.5 years in any one place. This life on the road suits me perfectly.

This feeling brings up the one concern that Chantelle and I both share for when this trip ends. What do we do? How do we try to shoe horn ourselves to fit back into the 9 til 5 life? If I think about it too much I can feel a touch of anxiety creeping in.

Before we started this trip I knew I could do at least 2 years in a place. Now I feel like I'm fighting hard if I have to stop for more than 2 weeks. I fear it is going to be an incredible challenge when the time comes. Too many times I have read stories of those who have gone home after such a trip as this and fallen helplessly into a deep depression. I don't want that. Perhaps we can find some way to work on the road and never need to return to a fully stopped form again. It seems like such an easy thing to do, but in reality it is quite hard. Only time will tell!



So we now have 3 days to go! We recently discovered a chocolate factory almost right next door to the school where they hand make chocolate right in front of you. It is brilliant and the chocolate is unlike any of the main stream stuff that is available in most shops. I love Cadburys chocolate but I have to say this San Pedro stuff is just a tiny bit better. And at just over $AUD1 a stick its crazy cheap! Today we bought 6 sticks of the stuff and Chantelle was invited to help package her specially made chocolate up!









A big bonus for me of being in our place has been the amount of Cornflakes I have been able to have! It makes me very happy and I have been eating three and four bowls of the things everyday!

T - Alright!!! Guess what? We finally left San Pedro today. There was big smiles all round as we packed up our little bikes for the first time in for weeks! Oils checked and new sparkplugs in. Nothing could stop us now.



Except the reluctance of the bikes to start. Normally both bikes fire up with one swift kick in the guts, but not today. I jumped and jumped and jumped on Mabels kickstart but the little witch was having none of it. Eventually I succumbed and flicked on her choke, an item I havent used since Australia, and then she hesitantly squeaked and moaned into life. Fuel fumes were purring out of her tail pipe and I eased the choke off. Which prompted her to splutter, fart and die.

A few more kicks though and some good rebs to clean out her dirty throat and she was happily, by happily I mean grumpily, ticking over and warming up while I tidied up the last of my packing. Similarly Rosie was also reluctant to start and sat there pouting and pouring clouds of fuel packed vapour into the air. They must have been enjoying sitting in the garden, swanning about like royalty. No time for that now girls. We have to climb some mountains today!



C - The final week of the school was another intense week which saw us delving into past and future tense.. so many words and conjugations to remember!!! We participated in the activities again, watching a documentary about sustainable rural development, listening to a talk on environmental sustainability and then cooking tamalitos con frijoles! Last night we were particularly blessed to be invited to observe a traditional Mayan fire ceremony. Our time at the school was wonderful and I can highly recommend this school as a great place to learn Spanish and also learn about Mayan culture. The school is just far enough out of town that it is peaceful, the gardens are beautiful and back right onto the lake, the teachers ware kind and patient and all the activities are super fun! Corazon Maya is the place to check to out if you are keen on learning Espanol!







Despite enjoying the school so much, I was super excited to be back on the road again! It was lovely to go through the now rusty routine of packing up and preparing the bikes for take off.







T - We headed on out of town. It was brilliant. Oh to be back on the road again! We had thought to head to Panajachel again for the night. Chantelles RST Adventure boots were pretty well wrecked and really hadn’t performed well since she bought them. The toes were peeling up, the soles were so thin you could almost see through them and they were definitely not waterproof anymore. After an exchange of emails with RST Chantelle now has some new replacement boots coming, free of charge. They are likely to be shipped via UPS into Antigua which will take roughly 3-4 days. So we may have to hang about next week a little while we wait.

The ride up the mountain was great! Slow and steady we went. Mabel having a chug and a gasp every now and then, possibly thanks to the extra weight I may have gained, and in 1 hour and 20 minutes we were over the top and on the Pan Am.





We reached the turn off for Pana but because we were enjoying the riding so much we decided to just roll on to Antigua some 150 kms away. The bonus for the little bikes? It was basically downhill the entire way.

We stopped along the way to admire the scenery and chow down on some breakfast in a lovely little road side stand that really went all out to feed us. For $4 each we ended up with a huge serve of eggs, beans, coffee, sugared bananas, tortillas, tostadas, some little sandwich things stuffed with cheese, and a biscuit for our coffee. So good!









C - It was wonderful having a small interaction with the family who prepared our breakfast! The school did pay off afterall! The breakfast was amazing, along the view, and my theory of plastic tables and chairs still holds true!

T - We pulled into Antigua under threatening skies of grey and soon found a hotel, very expensive though, with hot showers and wifi. Oh but the wifi only worked in the reception, oh and only works on mobile phones and tablets apparently!







We wandered through the large market nearby and then went and checked out an art gallery and museum before wandering the streets until dark.

















We found dinner in the grounds of one of the large churches here and paid less than half the going rate for equivalent food in one of the many expensive restaurants located in the city.









Tummys full we retired to our room where we hatched out a plan for tomorrow. A trip down to the coast to the small town of Monterrico.

T - One thing we discovered very early into the trip into Mexico was that we would either have hot water and no wifi or amazing wifi and no hot water. This was exactly true to form at last nights hotel. We had absolutely no wifi at all and yet we had the most amazing shower since the USA. Amazing water pressure and scalding hot water was just the perfect way to end the day, and to start today!

After we drained the hotels hot water system we packed the bikes up and gave them their daily checking over. Both of them needed some air in the tyres and after that it was time for us to go. Thankfully they both started right up true to their old form today!

C - I do not think we can convey just how precious it is to have both hot water and good pressure…. We ran the hot water out last night and this morning so we could both enjoy scalding hot showers!! It was blissful and like a little slice of heaven! Never again will I take a shower for granted….

Although we enjoyed wandering around Antigua yesterday, we both felt being stopped for up to a week was not something we would enjoy at this stage. We both enjoyed the ride so much yesterday that we just wanted to keep moving. So off to the coast we decided to go.

I really can not thank RST enough for their willingness to assist me with my boot situation. I have had numerous issues with my left boot in particular and it is nice to see that an adventure company is able to support riders on the ride. So thanks RST, I am very much looking forward to my new boots!!

T - We set the GPS to take us to the town of Monterrico. Unfortunately the maps on the GPS ended about 15 km short of our destination. I think its time to add the next few countries onto it.



The ride was very uneventful today, with us basically sitting on a major highway out of Antigua and all the way to the coast. Two lanes in both directions meant that masses of traffic were constantly flying by us in both directions. The road was in great shape except for a few nicely placed topes and we made good time.

At one point I saw a fella sitting on the side of the road next to his very old and very abused looking motorcycle. He had a flat tyre. We did a u-bolt and in my very broken very badly spoken Spanish I offered to help him if I could. Unfortunately his bike was tubeless and not only did I not have a tubeless repair kit, but I also only had 17 inch tubes. I was willing to try to give him a tube to help him along the way but he told us that there was a tyre repair very nearby and that he would be ok. He thanked us with a handshake and a toothless smile and started shoving his bike up the hill.

Apart from that we basically just rolled along until we made it into Monterrico just on lunch time. It seems like a nice little town and has a few local tourists here. We found a nice cheap hotel fronting the beach with a swimming pool, wifi and no hot water.







We had a little feed when we arrived before we enjoyed a swim in the massive pool and then headed to town to find some more food. I have been having this real hankering for hamburgers today so not only did I have one for lunch, but I also had one for dinner! Chantelle ordered a burrito which came out as two massive tubes of meat and salad wrapped in half an acre of tortillas! Both meals were amazing and crazy crazy cheap.












C - Thankfully, Todd is able to eat until there is no more food left, so he shared my second burrito and we managed to finish everything!!! Amazing food for about $10AUD for both of us.



The town of Monterrico is quite lovely, with a vibrant, lively atmosphere. We understand that the tourist population here is mainly wealthy Guatemalans, rather than international tourists. This is was evident when we arrived at the hotel to a pool full of Guatemalans, all laughing and playing in the cool waters. The hotel definitely had an atmosphere to it when we arrived!! Although, the hotel emptied out after the late afternoon check out time.. I guess most of the families were back to their city life to head for work and school tomorrow.













T - Then it was back to our room where we have just polished off the last of our rum and are listening to “la Bamba” blaring from the nearby restaurant. We are going to stay here tomorrow night as well and then we shall head back to Antigua if the boots are heading that way, or we will head for the border to El Salvador. Our plan at this stage is to loop through El Salvador and then up into Honduras before we make more of a bee line to Panama. I can’t believe I am saying that! Panama! We hope to be there in about 4-6 weeks and begin the task of sorting out shipping, riding, rowing, flying, smuggling or carrying our bikes around, through, over or under the Darien Gap. Anyone want to join us and attempt to ride through it? Joking of course!! Or are we….

While we wait for Chantelles boots to arrive, around 3-4 days, we thought we would spend a second night here in Monterrico. Its a very chilled out little place and we both are enjoying it after the hustle and bustle of Antigua. So the decision was made and early this morning Chantelle went and paid for another night.



We basically spent the day lounging in the pool, wandering on the beach, lounging in the pool again and eating. Life is just getting so damn hard. Having to stop and wait again for another package to arrive is a pain for me as I really want to spend some time riding again. But we have vowed that once we have the new boots we will hit the ground running and head straight over the border and into El Salvador for a couple of days before we zip up into Honduras. We have started to put some ideas together to get around the Darien Gap. At this stage we have two options. Put our bikes into a shipping container, or fly them. We considered an attempt to go through the Gap, but unfortunately after a ton of research over the past little while we neither have the time nor the knowledge to attempt such a thing. Though it would have made for an interesting adventure for sure.









We wandered down along the beach this afternoon and we were lucky enough to be able to witness the release of hundreds of baby turtles into the sea. There is a cool little turtle sanctuary here and it would have been great to have found some time in our ‘busy’ schedule to go and check it out!













Then it was back to our room as the sun went down where after a dinner of Doritto sandwiches Chantelle and I played tag with each other in going to the toilet all night. It seems that something we had at lunch time was in a hurry to escape and before we knew it we had blasted through 3 rolls of dunny paper. Ugh. Chantelle definitely had a worse dose than me and she ended up spending most of the nice either sitting on the toilet or kneeling in front of it. We think we may end up staying here tomorrow too just to rest and drink water all day. Oops, I’ve got to run because Im starting to run……...

T - Well I woke up next to a very pale, very tired and very sweaty Chantelle this morning. She was feeling a little better and we cautiously started to pack up and prepare to head back to Antigua. About halfway through packing Chantelle had to rush off for the toilet again and then basically collapsed back into bed and passed out sound asleep. I decided that we might just stay another night! That wasn’t a hard decision to make. The room was nice, the internet was strong and the pool outside was gorgeous, and it was really quite cheap for Guatemala, which we are finding to be a very expensive place in comparison to Mexico.

I snuck out for breakfast thinking that if I could put some stodgey type food in my tummy that it may help to settle the gurgling and bubbling that I could feel. I laid into a massive order of pancakes with fruit and jam and a huge glass of lemonade. I felt full and a little better.



About an hour later it all went pear shaped. While Chantelle slept the day away I was constantly running for the toilet. My tummy was very unhappy.



I want to share with you the fun little experience of this, what we have coined the Guate Squat. If you get a queasy stomach then this is your chance to stop reading!

I lay there in bed, my stomach curling into large hot knots, uh oh it was time to race for the toilet, again. I had barely got my pants down to my knees and sat down when the nastiness inside me came screaming out like liquid death. I clenched my teeth and braced with my hands against the wall as hot lava, smoke and steam poured out of my tortured bottom. Then the worst part, the stench seeped up through every gap between my flesh and the plastic seat of the dunny. I tried to squish my buttocks harder down into the seat to create a smell proof seal, but to no avail.

As the stench hit my nostrils, a smell akin to that of rotting whales wrapped in old seaweed, my stomach heaved and rolled and my breakfast threatened to escape the way it went in. But there was no way I was going to put my head into a bowl full of toxic waste. I flailed around behind me with one arm, searching for the flush button. Eventually I managed to push it down and then instantly regretted it. By staying sat on the toilet the splash back pounded upwards and coated my behind in the terrible nastiness that lay in the bowl. Ugh. This couldn’t get any worse!

After using half a toilet roll, which incidentally seemed to be made up of sandpaper, I gingerly placed the last icky piece into the toilet paper bin. No flushing paper here. As the bin was filled to the brim I had to really push this little ball of muck down to stop it rolling onto the floor. This had the risk of me getting a smear of poo on my hand, but luckily that didn’t happen!

As I was about to pull my pants back up and head back to bed my bladder decided it needed to empty out. So I took care of that too. Well I thought I did. Just as my undies came back up and covered everything I was suddenly busting to pee again and barely managed to get my pants down before 4 pitiful little drops came out. What the hell is going on?

I stood there half naked, pants around my knees, next to a bin full of dirty toilet paper, squeezing out 4 drops of pee while a fever ripped its way through my body. I was without a doubt, the most miserable person on the planet. I just wanted my mum to pat me on the head and say everything will be ok.

20 long minutes later I staggered back to bed and lay down just as the next lot of cramps and pains started up in my tummy, signally the need to scurry back to the toilet and repeat the whole thing over and over and over again.

That night I made it to a nearby deli where I managed to buy some plain potato chips and some cookies for dinner before racing back to my new ceramic friend.

C - Thankfully, I slept through the whole day, just waking up occasionally to hear running to or from the toilet. I was not interested in food all day, just sipping water each time I woke. I think I managed to stay awake from 6pm through to 8.30pm before it was time to drift back into the land of sleep.



T - Hopefully I feel better tomorrow and we can go to Antigua.

T - That was a long night. I couldn’t sleep a wink. I rolled around all night sweating up a storm and driving Chantelle crazy! Thankfully though the fever started to ease around midnight and my journeys to and from the dunny had trickled to a stop. Literally no more trickling!

I eventually managed to get to a few good hours of sleep and when we woke up today both of us felt ready to pack up and ride back to Antigua.

C - After spending 36hrs going no further than the bed and the toilet, it was nice to wake up and feel confident that I no longer needed to be within 5 steps of the toilet!! I was definitely not ready to face food yet though.





T - We hit the road at a reasonable hour and soon we were weaving back through the mayhem of local traffic. Instantly the misery of the last couple of days was gone and it was replaced with a massive grin on my face. There is something a bit naughty and a bit fun about squeezing up the middle of the road between buses, trucks, tuk tuks and chickens.



We passed through a few small towns but nothing to really make us want to stop and grab any photos. One place had us gunning for the outskirts as there seemed to be something going down. There was around 100 Federal police officers marching down the side of the road and big groups of people yelling loudly. Some type of protest perhaps? Not wanting to get caught up in it all we skedaddled out of there.

After the long uphill slog we soon arrived back into Antigua where we found our hotel and then had to go find parking for the bikes. We picked this hotel because it advertised parking on site, but in actual fact there was no parking available, not even for our small bikes, unless we wanted to leave them on the street overnight. No thankyou! One public secure parking garage quoted us $15 Aussie a night to park the bikes, but we had to leave them parked on the street til 6pm and had to have them back out on the street by 10am the next morning. Ouch!

Eventually the hotel helped us out and we were given some parking space in the backyard of a friend of the hotel owners behind huge locked gates and tucked away out of sight. Job done.

We then spent a few hours chilling out and had a wander into town for some dinner which we enjoyed while watching the nearby volcano erupt in massive bursts of fiery red lava. So freaking cool!





C - It was so very cool to watch the volcano! I have never seen an active volcano before, so we spent some time just chilling out on the edge of a fountain, watching the volcano do its thing! I also managed to eat half a chicken sandwich and down some coconut water.. Things are looking up!! Given we eat at local restaurants and very rarely venture into the tourist oriented places, I think we have been pretty fortunate to only get sick a few times each so far. It never lasts long and despite how unpleasant it is, you know its going to be over as soon the demon escapes!









T - Tomorrow we stay put. Hopefully we don’t have to wait too long and then we are out of here!

PMSL @ the descriptive prose of a dunny runner
Stay well guys & happy Australia Day to yas

__________________
My memory is becoming that good, I should be able to organise my own surprise party soon

Cheers!!!

Today we are missing home. Australia, we miss you so much!