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Semuc Champey To El Chol
Getting going at around 9.00am we hit the dirt road back to the main highway, the rest of the road was clean, neat and good condition so quite different form our “shortcuts” which we confirm ARE the longest distance between two points.
http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...ey/file-16.jpg The temperature was hitting 40 degrees and we were following a slow car up the long winding hill .... both fans blazing away to help Maya keep her cool but nearly at the summit she started to vapour lock and flood with our light throttle and heat buildup despite still having two bars left on the temperature gauge. She was trying to run on 2 half cylinders so I cracked her open to get some air in there which worked well, she sputtered for about another 300 metres then cleared her throat and by that time we had crested the pass and were heading down so less load and things were back to normal. Rather than sitting behind the slowjoe I should have passed them and gone which may have prevented that but either way it was fookin hot. We reached the end of the tarseal at Rabinal at 2.00pm, we tried to find a hotel so the local police took us there. The lady saw the bike (chiching$$) and that we looked a bit stuffed (chiching$$) so she hiked the price and told us with a straight face what we were to pay, we had her receipt book right in front of us which clearly said quite differently from previous customers charges.:huh Ready to take a tuck from her I inspected the room, came back put the keys on the counter as said no gracias (being polite) and we carried on. I was prepared to by ripped a little if the room was ok but it was 40 degrees C and it had no air conditioning and NO ceiling fan (fan which is standard here) so the angry dutchman came out (so did the angry chinese) .... the lady thought she had it in the bag so greed left her with an empty room, ironically no-one else was there and her previous customer date was a wee way back so all the signs were not ideal. Given it was only 2.00pm we had time up our sleeve so we carried on with the view of camping out somewhere high to get cooler air. The road was totally dirt and pretty gnarly in places and had obviously had big rains in there and with cattle etc to look out for. http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...hol/file-5.jpg Stopped for a quick Pepsi to get some sugar boost http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...hol/file-7.jpg The road was beautiful and tree clad in places http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...hol/file-8.jpg And open in others http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...ol/file-13.jpg We stopped beside a dry rocky waterfall for a photo and for the first time on the trip in total from Alaska I dropped the bike .... the ground was further away from me and being tired I just couldn’t hold her up. :eek1 http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...hol/file-9.jpg We both dropped to the ground in a pile of dust right beside a big hole which crumbled away as we stood up!!!...it was about 10 metres down before the bottom :eek1 :eek1 http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...ol/file-12.jpg Fark ... that was was close, no damage other than to my pride so we picked up Maya started her up and carried on. Was not even 5 minutes later we were stopped with road works, only a 10 minute stop but is was SO hot and I could not put the stand down on Maya due to the camber on the road so I had to sit on her and suck the heat .... the Keep Toasting Me 950 Sauna Eh :D http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...ol/file-18.jpg Soon on our way we rolled into El Chol a little town and in the middle of nowhere (well somewhere anyway) and spotted HOTEL. :clap We rocked up and Ellen checked it out, respectable price and respectable room ... that is more like it. After showering off and turning into humans we walked around town, people starring at me ... not many whitefoos come here me thinks, bought some tea which was Chicken and Chips and Tacos, total $27 Quizales which is about $3.50 for the two of us so after tea we blew the budget on three big mangos and scoffed them back out our room ... yummo!!! ... that was another $10 quitzales so $1.30 US for 3, if we can get em in New Zealand we pay about $3 - $4 each!! Cool buses in this region, one of many that we saw http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...ol/file-19.jpg No Wifi here again so time to right all this up. Off to Antigua tomorrow, 75 km of dirt roads with a new front tire waiting at the other end WOH HOH. |
El Chol To Antigua
Ok, pologies for the late update ladies and gent, Wifi VERY sporadic here is Xela so I am doing a Cafe hop to find the best Wifi to meet your needs :rofl
Ok, El Chol To Antigua First things first we had to get Maya out of the market that had set up earlier in the morning, luckily it wasn’t tight and they all thought it was pretty funny. http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...tigua/file.jpg http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...gua/file-1.jpg The road started out as dirt and we had sporadic tar seal of race track quality here and there mainly in towns then back to dirt and with the occasional bordred bridge thrown in. http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...gua/file-7.jpg The entire road was being revamped with heaps of work being done, the entire side of a main town street blocked of with concrete formwork, concrete trucks, workers, screeds etc so they were paving a huge section of the road. http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...ua/file-10.jpg http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...ua/file-11.jpg There were newly constructed bridges and detours everywhere which made for interesting riding, this didn’t stop us from getting lost and having a grande tour of a small town through streets no wider than a small car.... it was great fun. http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...gua/file-4.jpg http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...ua/file-23.jpg At one stage we were stopped completely by a big digger hacking up the road and were mobbed by little bikes....when the truck left and the road cleared it was like a MotoGp start with bikes fizzing off everywhere trying to get out front ... it was hilarious to watch so we calmly took off giving them all the lead until they reached top speed then we blazed on by like they were standing still ... the look on their faces was funny. http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...gua/file-2.jpg That is Valentino getting the right line out on the right :rofl http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...gua/file-3.jpg Carrying on down the hill the road was that of a freshly laid supermoto circuit and beautifully finished. http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...gua/file-5.jpg Arriving in Antigua we set too trying to find economic accommodation but first I went and found Taz @ Moto Mundo which I did, for those wanting to find him easily the GPS coords are in the above post. Taz is a great guy and seriously helpful, he took us to a hotel that was reasonably priced and had solid Wifi. We could not park Maya in there so Taz said no prob leave it at his shop .... easy. We got settled in and had a walk around town splashing out of a MEGA frappe, it was beautiful. Tea that night was spent with Dan and Elaine some travellers we had met at Utopia lodge in Semuc Champey... they trustingly lent us $100 Q as we had left our money behind, the restaurant is called Por Que No and the food was excellent. http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...ua/file-24.jpg The climbing rope to get into the loft http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...ua/file-30.jpg http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...ua/file-28.jpg REAL food http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...ua/file-25.jpg Next morning I went back to Tazs workshop to spoon off the stuffed MT21 and spoon on a shiny new one. Also on my list to do was place a fine mesh in front of the radiator to stop fine mud clogging the radiator fins, Kiwi fix will do :clap. http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...TM/file-48.jpg That evening we meet up with Dan and Elaine, Dave and Jana at their hostel for happy hour drinks and a Dave Burger, good times, good chats. http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...a/Antigua1.jpg |
Antigua ... Time To Look Around
Not going to write much as the pictures do more of the explaining, the first photo is one I should have put in the last post of our HUGE Frappes so when we hit Antigua again these are on the list
http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...gua/file-1.jpg Antigua is a fairly "gringo" town with many foreigners there, felt kinda funny but to be honest I really like it. It is a very nice place with the old town typically tidied up and revamped. The church in centro http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...tigua/file.jpg There small emblems cast into the footpath for moto parking, something we hadn't seen before. http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...gua/file-2.jpg Very old building having suffered major damage, not sure if it is old age or if the civil war took its tool http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...gua/file-4.jpg A very typical street in old town, makes for interesting riding especially when they get wet :eek1 http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...gua/file-5.jpg Local markets selling all sorts http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...ua/file-13.jpg Locals selling their goodies http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...ua/file-23.jpg The place is alive with brightly coloured buildings, this is very typical here at least in old town http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...ua/file-10.jpg We are looking forward to going back to Antigua to have a better look around and meet up with Julio and go on some local rides, also we "should" understand a lot more Spanish which we are really looking forward to using to get in the depth of the Spanish speaking countries rather than just getting by. |
Antigua To Xela
An uneventful ride once we got out of Antigua, we had a local who decide he wanted to fit in where we were behind a truck and he literally pushed us out of the way, I tooted our spastic horn then blew passed him leaving him stuck behind the trucks in a cloud of diesel. :D CC beats arrogance! :clap
We did have a wee moment on a corner when we hit heavy rain with a greasy patch and coupled with our shiny new rubber was a bad combo, only 1 km down the road a car had lost it and tried to jump the centre island too..... the island won BIG time :eek1 The road was absolutely mint condition and winding around hills and valleys so a nice ride http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...ela/file-2.jpg The road just before Xela took us up to 3031 meters or 9944 ft for you imperialist, this of course took us well into the fog zone and thus cold, at one stage we slowed right down to about 30 km/hr as we could not see a thing. http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...ela/file-1.jpg Xela was nice and cool on arrival... 20 degrees!!!!! .... cool .... listen to me :rofl:roflI must be getting acclimatized and I have to admit during the rain it dropped down to 13 degrees so I turned on the heated grips as I was wearing my summer gloves.... gettin soft. :evil We found our escuela (school) and found out where our host family is, they have courtyard so Maya is safe which is essential. |
Quetzultenango Semana Uno
Xela Week One
Starting at escuela (school) is a whole new experience after not being there since 20 years young ... now at 46 years young here I am again...don’t think I will get the cane this time tho. I was introduced to my teacher Dayma, she was very fluent in English to the tune of 0, luckily her Espanol is fantastic. So with deafening silence we started ...... ummm ....... yeah.... my name is Andi and I am a moto bikeaholic OK, we did get going after a slow start, luckily with spending 4 months in Mexico and 3 weeks in Cuba I had a basic knowledge so I could pick up the ball and run with it which was our saving grace. At first I thought it was a complete disaster with her not talking english then when I thought about it I was there to learn Spanish so “sink or swim” here I come, luckily I could swim albeit a little but it was enough to understand her and start making ground. Me wif my skool book ... just like a mug shot in jail :D http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...lan/file-2.jpg And Ellens http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...lan/file-1.jpg With the first day finished I am surprised I got home cos my head was not on my shoulders and thankfully autopilot took me home to a good feed waiting for me. To be fair I had mixed emotions, one of accomplishment, one of stepping outside my comfort zone, one of total torment and misunderstandings so apparently I had a very successful day. Another student who had been there for 5 weeks said if you go home feeling you know it all you have stuffed up, these words are very very true. Fast forward to Friday to the end of the first week that went faster than my first date with a hot chick I feel in my mind that I have actually achieved a huge amount, not knowing it all and coming home every day with a saw head and having to focus hard to answer simple questions I know I am going forward. Ellens teacher Kartie http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...lan/file-4.jpg Action shot with my teacher Dayma http://i1263.photobucket.com/albums/...lan/file-8.jpg There is also the aspect that we are living with our Guatemalan host family who speak 100% Spanish only so the Kiwis have been teaching them Chanish and Spinglish (known as Spanish to the educated people) coupled with smiles and larfs which go a long way. All in all a very successful week so obviously I have no clue what is going on. |
I think it's a great idea to do the immersion Spanish studies. 6 months from now I'll be in Guatemala looking for a school. Would you recommend the school you attended?
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There's "no replacement for displacement".well ?Great to see your update.
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Cheers Ellen |
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We had one dude ride around us on the outside of a corner on soft shingle on a CG125 with semi knobbies, he did take a wee tank slappa but full cred he held it and rode it out. We were not going fast as I was looking out the window but it would be fair to say he was travelling at a reasonable pace. |
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We just missed you guys, we arrived in Antigua Monday!!! Leaving tomorrow to near the Mex border, oh well maybe some other time some other road we can have a beer!
Gino & Fiona www.ginoontour.blogspot.com |
Damn
Well that is a bugga, would have great to have caught up with you guys, you will love Mexico it is a great place.
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