PowerCycle

08/22 Honduras is shaping up to be my favorite country for the simple fact that they don’t use coins anymore. Makes for a much lighter load in the handlebar bag. Crossing over was a breeze. The normal gang of money changers were on me pretty fast to convert my Guatemalan quetzals to Honduran lempira. The exchange rate is 1 US dollar to almost 19 lempiras so I have these lemp bills in denominations of 500 that I’m finding hard to get change for and that’s in a big touristy town.

The road so far in Honduras has been in perfect shape. A couple landslides here and there but they only made it a little way into the lane. Great views, especially just before and then past the border. I even saw a flock of wild parrots next to the road. My picture taking has been hampered by the horrible lighting though. The near constant cloud cover and haze are washing out all my pictures. Even the ones at the Copan ruins were terrible.

The ruins weren’t my favorite but it’s hard to write anything bad about an archeological site. It’s impressive enough that they even managed to pull the jungle back over the last 100 years so people can visit it. About 20 buildings were destroyed by the river before they diverted it in the 1930′s and they are still working hard to keep mother nature at bay; tarp and siding cover nearly all the intricate pieces outside, even the very elaborate stairs on the main temple. I did get to see some Scarlet Macaws up in the trees and a huge rodent thing that I didn’t get a picture of.

I didn’t write anything for the last couple nights because nothing exciting happened. A nasty downpour hit when I was a few miles outside Jocotan. My clothes are still drying out from that one.

Based on my un-scientific calculations I’m going to be 2 days over the 90 day limit on my passport by the time I get to Costa Rica. It’s possible to get an extension but that sounds like a hassle so I’m going to try and make it in 28 days. That’s with almost no rest days and no time for mental, physical or bike breakdowns. I also have to catch up to Karen and Marten before they lose me.

[osm_map lat="14.04" long="-88.023" zoom="7" width="400" height="250" gpx_file="http://www.powercycle.net/maps/leg2/082010-082210.gpx"]

08/20 Took the day off yesterday and did some shopping. The market set up along one of the streets wasn’t very big but it had some smaller things I’ve been looking for. Wandering around eating ice cream and checking out the stalls was kind of relaxing after my somewhat stressful week. I also discovered a banana that had gotten lost in the bottom of my pannier. I think it got lost some time ago based on the smell. It was a rather nasty mess to clean up but it gave me an opportunity to get rid of some food that had been unused for quite a while (why I buy Spam and never eat it I’ll never know).

The road to Ipala was a dream. There was very little traffic, the road surface was perfect, the hills were almost all a nice grade that required almost no effort to climb and the scenery, especially along the Volcan de Ipala, was incredible. I took some pictures but they turned out bad so I deleted them. The houses alongside the road were kind of unique as well. Many of them had paintings drawn on the outside wall facing the road. The theme was mostly local stuff like the lakes and rivers but some had paintings of cows and horses on them too. The people was amazing too. I think every single person I saw waved or honked.

Rain was threatening so when I got to Ipala I rode around debating if I should keep going. Being able to ride faster than 5 mph for a few hours gets me pretty far pretty fast. That would have messed up my plans for the next couple days as far as where I wanted to be for the Honduras border crossing so I stayed put.

GPX Track

08/18 I’m happy to report that nothing bad happened today. It wasn’t for a lack of trying though. This guy pulled up on a motorcycle and we started talking about yours truly. He was nice enough–he’s a teacher and was proud to show off pictures and videos of his students that he had on his cell phone. He warned me that the road ahead was dangerous (people variety) so he offered to ride in front for a while. Had he not shown up I doubt I would have noticed anything different about the people along this stretch of road. Everyone waved/honked just like they always do. I think he was blowing things out of proportion a little but the company was nice.

Dirt roads again but thankfully only one crazy hill that I had to walk up. It was rideable in a past life but water erosion had done a number on it. It’s amazing to me how many kids there are in what I thought would be small villages. Riding by the schools is fun because 50 kids come running up to the road to watch me go by. On the ride up a small hill one brave little boy ran up behind me and started to give me a push.

I jumped off the dirt road a few miles out of town which I celebrated by getting my bike washed at a car wash (for free.) I need to make up some time to get to Costa Rica so I’m hoping the road stays paved from here on in. The last thing I want to be is an illegal alien.

Monjas is a nice city. Not too many touristy things (OK none) but it’s very clean and there are lots of services. Great pizza restaurant too. The hotel even has wifi. The owner also let me wash my sleeping bag. Some moisture must have been trapped in the waterproof bag because it was smelling a little moldy.

The family I stayed with in Ayarza isn’t on the internet so I’m not sure if we’ll stay in touch (I’m bad for phone calls) but I’ll always remember how generous they were. Not only did they take a complete stranger into their house for 5 nights, one of them even drove me to Guatemala City twice. Even though I could only carry on a conversation with Tony everyone else was friendly and made me feel welcome there. Even their psychotic dog stopped trying to kill me toward the end. One of their chickens owes me its life for saving it from the dog too.

GPX Track

08/15 There’s supposed to be this annual thing were it stops raining for about a month right in the middle of rainy season. Someone forgot to tell that to mother nature though. It still rains every afternoon and today its been raining since 10am. It’s market day in town so I went out before the rain started and browsed the stalls. I didn’t really need anything but it was nice to get out of the room and it’s good to buy some things from the locals (food, since I can consume an endless supply). It really sucks when the weather is bad for the once a week market because I suspect it keeps people at home and sales are probably pretty low. Or maybe they are used to it so it doesn’t matter. I don’t know.

The population is small so there’s not too much to see apart from the stores on the main street. I get stared at a lot so I find it a bit awkward to be out just walking around. There are a lot of guys riding horseback which is a bit unusual. There’s an internet cafe here but it hasn’t opened yet. I went in yesterday but the connection died after 10 minutes.

Something got in my eye while I was sleeping last night which had me digging around for 30 minutes. Still not sure what it was. It’s better this morning but I was freaking out a little because I’d read about a bug getting in a guy’s eye and laying eggs which almost caused him to lose sight in it.

I haven’t asked Tony’s brother if he’ll give me a lift back to Guatemala City to pickup my wheel on Tuesday morning. Hopefully he’s OK with it because I’d rather not have to to catch a 6am bus and then have a 5 hour ride ahead of me. By car it only took 3 hours.