07/06 If I remember one thing about Guatemala it’ll be that the roads are crazy but the detours are crazier. I’d planned on getting to Uspantan in one day. That didn’t happen. My legs have never been as sore in the last 2 days as they’ve been on my entire trip. It’s like I have lead weights strapped to them toward the end of the day. Karin and Marten warned me that the average grades were 11%–they weren’t kidding. Here’s a good description of grades: “A 5-8% grade represents your typical hill that is visually obvious as a climb. A 3% grade is your average onramp while 10% and above appears wall-like from a distance.”

Had it not been for a tiny little village that appeared just in time I would have spent the night at the side of the road. Fortunately they had a perfect spot for me to pitch my tent under a nice dry roof outside a boarded up store. I was quite popular too. At one point there were at least 20 people watching me set up my tent. Some of the braver kids came over and asked about my bike/trip but with my lack of Spanish it wasn’t a deep conversation. Lucky for them it got dark when I started washing off the grime.

When I left Coban I thought I’d be riding on dirt the entire way here. 2 different road maps even confirmed this. The first 20 miles ended up being dirt/gravel but, to my surprise, the rest of the way was paved. Normally I love riding on dirt roads–my favorite part of Alaska was a 3 day ride on one however having a gimpy front rack has made riding off-pavement very stressful. I can’t go very fast on downhills either which means constant braking. At this massive landslide where they detour you down this wickedly steep and very rough gravel road my hands were numb from having to clutch the brakes so hard.

Speaking of landslides, there are a lot of them on this highway. I’d say one at least every 1/4 mile. A few of the big ones were cleared enough for traffic to get by but if only one lane is blocked they usually just leave it.

I had a good laugh today but I should mention that my understanding about why this happened wasn’t clear until a couple days later when I had a chance to research why exactly some Mayan women were so distrusting. Young women not talking to men because they’d appear unchaste I knew about but outright fear was new for me. Anyway, these two girls, probably around 10, came bounding down the hill from their house to catch a bus or something. The first girl makes it down to the road, starts to cross and stops dead in her tracks like a deer caught in headlights. She had turned to see if cars were coming and saw my big old gringo self lurching up the hill about 20 feet from her. The look on her face was priceless. And then, faster than I’ve ever seen 2 girls run from me, she and her sister raced back up the hill and hid inside the house.

It’s actually kind of remarkable how similar the indigenous Maya populations are here and in Mexico but I guess that shouldn’t be surprising. No one likes their picture taken (I always ask–unless there’s absolutely no way they can tell and I’m not being disrespectful) and guys will always whistle/yell/give you a thumbs up or, God bless them, honk right next to you as they pass. Girls under 13 will almost always run (giggling) from you and girls over 13 stare straight ahead and rarely look at or talk to you. The indigenous women either just look at you like you’re going to steal their kids or they do the exact opposite and wave and greet you.

True story that happened in one of the remote mountain villages here in Guatemala that was the tragic result of a simple misunderstanding compounded by typically negative religious influences: it was in 2000, this Japanese tourist (male) and his guide (Guatemalan man) were stoned to death by the villagers because he tried to comfort a crying child. His actions (reaching out to touch the child) didn’t go over very well especially with recent rumors that a meeting of demonic, foreign cult members was to take place in the next few days that would include the kidnapping and sacrifice of local children. In a lot of remote Mayan villages rumors still circulate that foreigners (especially women) kidnap children to sell them, or sometimes just their internal organs. Needless to say there’s still some distrust that’s more than a little evident. I found this very detailed article about what happened.

GPX Track