Shorts are getting a new zipper same day for US $1.87. Emailed Tubus to see if they could ship me a new front rack. It’s under a 10 year warranty so maybe I’ll get lucky. They also ship anywhere in the world. Went by a bike shop and picked up 2 spare tubes (they had Presta valve ones which made my day). The mall the bike shop was in is very modern with lot’s of cool stores (not that I need anything).

The issue with pictures not inserting into my posts correctly has been solved. The plugin called xml-google-maps was the culprit. I disabled it which kind of stinks because now I can’t see my GPS info on the post. There don’t seem to be any other Wordpress plugins that read in gpx files either.

06/29 The 18 miles to get here had to be some of the toughest 18 miles of my entire trip. Tunnels would be great here. Or bridges. Those would be good too. Or the ability to turn down gravity so my bike wouldn’t be so heavy. The grade of the hills was bad but like yesterday, had it not been for the traffic, they would have been manageable. An amazing number of people use the collectivos (buses) here. At least one of them would pass every 15 seconds forcing me to ride straight up the hills instead of side-to-side. That got tiring after a while. These flat bed trucks the size of dump trucks are also popular ways of getting around. Every time one goes by I’m shocked by the number of people squeezed into the back.

Here in Coban I’m sitting at 4378 feet which is pretty sweet because the weather is perfect and the humidity is at the point that my clothes aren’t soaking wet all day. I’m pretty sure Coban is the provincial capital. The city is pretty big but is much more developed then I expected. The sidewalks always tell a good story and they are all the same here. I’m sure I’ll be spending some time wandering around. Crime might be a bit of an issue. All of the small grocery stores are behind bars so you have to tell the guy what you want from the window. Haven’t seen that before. I found a really good fast food chicken place called Pollo Pankys (I think that’s right). The lady who served me even used hand sanitizer before helping me. If you saw the condition of some of the places I’ve had chicken before you’d understand how noteworthy this was.

I’m sure I’ll be here for a couple days. The bike rack needs to be replaced, I need to get the zipper on my shorts fixed and I’m going to ship a couple things back that I haven’t been using (head’s up Dad). The (heavy) water filter is going back–I have a UV one that I can use if need be (and so far I haven’t), the rainfly from my hammock that I kept to use as a rain shelter is gone and I’m going to see if I can track down a smaller sleeping bag. Having one rated to 0 degrees is overkill for these parts.

I might have to knock having a sore butt off my list of chronic ailments (OK that was the only one). This stuff I ordered in Florida call Bag Balm is supposed to be used to keep cow udders from chafing but a lot of long distance cyclists use it too. It’s freaking amazing. I don’t think the FDA approved it for use on the human ass but they should. I haven’t had a sore fanny since I got back to Mexico 3 weeks ago.

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06/28 Guatemala has the most brutal hills ever. Lot’s of side-to side riding. It takes longer but the energy savings is worth it. Of course traffic has to be light and that didn’t always work out so I’d have to wait out the occasional line of slow-moving trucks and buses. I even tried pushing my bike for the first time and I made it like 10 feet. It’s even more work to push it up hill so I’ll stick to riding.

Called it quits before getting to Coban. 3900 feet climbing with these hills was too much for me. Camping next to the road is very difficult here or else I would have stopped sooner. The land is all private property (fenced in) and people are all over the place either working the land or just walking/riding along the road.

At one of the small stores in town I asked if I could camp down by the soccer field and got an OK. No fire ants which is awesome considering my feet look like they have chicken pox. First time camping on actual grass in a while.

Looking at my map I’m in for at least two more big climbs tomorrow. The scenery in the highlands is worth the hard riding and I’m still glad I came this way. Not too many gringos make it to this part of the country based on the crowd that forms whenever I stop for water/snacks. That’s also a big plus because the locals in touristy areas are nothing like how they are out here.

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06/27 Worst day ever. Started off very early with heavy rain all night. Barely got any sleep (loud in tent). Next up were fire ants which chewed merrily on my feet while I was packing my gear in the rain. Finally on the road I hit a water-filled pothole and destroyed my front rack. Half an hour after that my rear tire went flat. Had it filled 90% of the way and it went flat again. Got a decent sunburn. Found a hotel in town, opened my toiletry bag and discovered that the tube of BenGay had ruptured and was all over everything. Jumped in the shower and was electrocuted by the shower head.

The funny thing about today was I had a feeling this morning that it would be a really bad day. I should have stayed put. This will be hard to believe but I didn’t swear or throw anything all day.

The front rack is a major, major problem. The bottom half bent under the weight of the pannier when I slammed down into the pothole. It’s actually a miracle that only one spoke was broken. Glad there are 35 more. I spent the next hour taking off the front fender and trying to straighten the rack back out. Of course bending medal that’s already damaged usually makes it more damaged. Now one of the weight-bearing bars is almost ripped right in half. Getting someone to weld it might work but I’m only going to try that as a last resort. The one bar isn’t the only one that’s damaged. I took almost everything out of the pannier and managed to make it here without it failing completely. There’s no way I can ride off-pavement and that’s another problem because the next part of my route after Coban tomorrow was supposed to be gravel. I’m also down a front fender which makes riding in the rain a mess.

I’m hoping that Coban has some sort of bike shop that could at least order me a new rack and fix the spoke. If it doesn’t I could probably fix the spoke but I’d have to order the rack from the States which would cost a fortune.

The flat tire sucked because now I’m down to 2 spare tubes and it’s harder than I thought to find ones with Presta valves. The one that went bad was the last from a batch of 3 I bought in Mazatlan. All three ended up wearing out at the inner seam.

Camped out last night in the back yard of the people that run the local restaurant. The lady spoke a little English which made things a little easier (even though I could have gotten through it in Spanish). She even offered to let me stay thanks to the weather but I set off to see how bad of a day I could have. It ended up not raining the rest of the day until literally 10 seconds after I got to the motel.

Mega hills today. One of them was the steepest I’ve ridden up on any major road. Traffic was light so I rode up it side-to-side and would have made it all the way except for one truck that messed it up for me.

Rode through some amazing scenery over the last 2 days. There are some beautiful national parks in Guatemala and I was lucky enough to pass through one of them–Ceibal. That place had the biggest trees and ferns I’ve ever seen. The mountain range called Sierra Chinaja was equally impressive. The mountains aren’t extremely high but they are entirely tree-covered and rise up from the jungle like huge pillars.

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Pictures are here. Once again the site breaks when I try to include them in the post. Argh.

06/25 Had a little rain to start the day. Lasted about an hour and then it mostly just drizzled. Luck was on my side because an hour after I arrived in town a nasty thunderstorm rolled through. I was safe and sound in my US $4.99 motel room so it didn’t matter. The place is called the Plaza Hotel. The room isn’t bad–2 beds, cable TV, a fan, space for my bike and it’s pretty clean. The shower/bathroom are shared but I can live with that for five bucks.

I’m running into a few places where the people don’t speak Spanish or English so it takes a little more non-verbal communication to be understood. There are something like 22 spoken languages in Guatemala so it was just a matter of time. Even the word for water (agua) is different. I had to show a lady the little bit left in my bottle so she’d know what I wanted. Food is so cheap here too. Lunch was a big plate of rice, beans and chicken tortillas plus 2 Cokes for US $3.

I forgot to mention the parrots at the hotel in La Reforma. They spoke to everyone sitting near them at the restaurant in Spanish. “Hola! Hola!” over and over again. They also made a barking noise when they got hungry.

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