The roads are certainly not what I expected. My impression of Colombia was that it had a huge biking community and the roads were set up for safe riding. The sane bicyclists are probably inside next to a fan during the day, which might be why I haven’t seen anyone riding, but the roads are some of the most treacherous I’ve ever been on. I’ve never seen so many trucks on one highway before. Sometimes there’s a shoulder to ride on but that’s the exception; not the rule and potholes/rough sections are common. It looks like they are widening/repaving the whole thing so maybe it will improve. The drivers here are as maniacal as any in Costa Rica or Mexico, especially the delivery trucks, buses and anything else transporting people. Lot’s of passing going uphill around blind curves. Military checkpoints are every 10-15 miles to keep the guerillas under control.

I broke something yesterday that really puts me in a bit of a bad spot. About 15 minutes after I filled up my fuel bottle with gasoline it fell out of the front pannier onto the road. Of course the pump snapped off and fuel was BP’ing out all over the road. There’s no way I can repair it so I’m in search of either a new MSR pump, which I doubt I’ll find, or a cheap, off-brand stove, which I *might* find if I get lucky. This is even worse now because I was hoping to be able to camp more and coffee in the morning is critical.

After riding for about 45 miles yesterday I happened upon what looked like a campground just past the town of San Cayetana. The hotel/camping part wasn’t open yet but I was welcome to pitch my tent on the back porch under a thatched roof. There was a bathroom and a place to get water not too far away so it worked out perfectly.

The guy who let me stay there didn’t speak English but his cousin was in town from Maryland and he did. We spent quite a bit of time talking about the area but it sounds like rural living in Colombia is just like every other country with high poverty rates. Having electricity is not a given (they only got it 5 years ago and people up the road still don’t), most people only have a fridge and certainly not something luxurious like an AC, indoor plumbing is rare and cooking is almost always done using a wood stove.

The poverty situation was already pretty clear after getting out of Cartagena. One of the villages I passed, Arjona, was completely flooded by the river to the point that virtually every home had water inside covering the floor. People there are too poor to move or rebuild on something like stilts so they just sleep in hammocks over the water. About the only thing not under two feet of water was the road. Even the kid’s soccer field was covered. I don’t know what kind of support they are getting from the government but I didn’t see any construction going on which makes me think they are on their own.

I was up at 5am this morning and on the road by 6:30pm. Luckily I had some bread, hard-boiled eggs (thanks Karen) and an apple since I’m stoveless. My nerves were kind of frazzled from more crazy truck traffic so I stopped in the town of Bolivar after a short day (35 miles) and checked into a quaint little hospedaje (motel in other words). OK, maybe it’s a little too quaint because my neighbors are boinking in the next room and the walls are very thin.

One thing that’s different about Colombia is that every guy that owns a motorcycle also uses it to provide taxi services. They’ll just cruise around town looking to give rides for a few pesos or hang out whistling at guys riding by on touring bikes. One thing that’s not different is if you’re around a woman for long enough you’ll invariably see her breasts. Breast-feeding–women are not shy anywhere south of the Rio Grande, they’ll pop those suckers out anywhere. The novelty has mostly worn off but when one suddenly appears in an otherwise innocuous situation, like in a store buying water, it can catch you off-guard.

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My plans to stop early and camp at Parque Nacional Cahuita were foiled. I was so looking forward to a nice swim too. According to the ranger they closed up the camping areas a couple years ago. Getting in still cost $10. Locals pay $2. Yet another rip-off. She said I could enter the park back up the highway at the town of Cahuita for a “donation”. Well let me tell you about donations in Central America. When they ask for one it’s not an optional thing. There’s a set fee and you either pay it or you don’t get in.

After riding a bit more I saw a sloth sanctuary that looked pretty cool so I rode inside the gate and then promptly turned around and kept riding. They wanted $25 to get in. Freaking zoos are cheaper than that.

Tomorrow Panama and boy am I glad.

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Crossing into Costa Rica was like someone had flipped a switch labeled “Jungle: On:. Almost immediately both sides of the road were lined by huge trees and extremely thick ground cover. Camping is going to be fun if I get the chance. I’m going to have to remember to ride with my mouth closed more. I ate like a dozen bugs today.

There are some things here I’m going to have to get used to. Apparently it’s safe to drink the tap water. I guzzled down a gallon of it already so we’ll see. That should save some money at least. The exchange rate to the US dollar is crazy. US $1 gets you about 514 colóns (the colón is named after Christopher Columbus BTW). Now I have all these bills in denominations of 10,000. I went to the bank and took out 100,000. Lunch with 2 Cokes was still US $7 though. A little pricey here.

La Cruz is in much better shape than a similar sized town in Nicaragua. The tourist dollars sure make a big difference when it comes to infrastructure. The roads in town are all paved, the sidewalks are in decent shape and the fire truck I saw looked as good as any in the States. The TV station picked up channel 10 from South Florida so I could watch some news from the homeland. I’m going to miss the food in Nicaragua though. Lunch and dinner were bland. Best food in all of Central America, including Mexico, was in Nicaragua I think.

Kids in Costa Rica don’t like getting passed on their bikes either. 3 of them were walking up a hill when I rode by. Having none of that, they jumped on their steeds and rode right behind me for a good mile before the smallest kid gave up. The other 2 didn’t last much longer. I gave them some props because they actually hung in there a lot longer than I thought.

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My worries about crossing from El Salvador were unfounded. The border agents spent quite a bit of time examining my passport but they didn’t say a word about the missing entry stamp. I handed over my $3 to the Honduran customs people and sped off.

Some police stopped me at a “checkpoint” not too far after crossing. There were 2 of them but only the younger one came over to talk to me. The other older, chunkier officer didn’t get up the whole time. At first he wanted to know where I was going so I told him. Then he asked to see my passport. He flipped it open and looked at it for 10 seconds before giving it back. For the next 5 minutes he basically just looked at my bike while letting all the cars/trucks go by without so much as a second glance. I knew something was up at this point and this was confirmed when he pointed at my bike and said, “mucho dinero” and then clearly checking out my gold necklace. He asked for my passport again and read off my name for me immediately followed by a request for a $10 exit fee. I looked at his name tag and read his name (Roberto, R) and then asked if I could have a receipt. I guess saying his name and asking for the receipt did the trick because he waved me off and went back to looking for more bribe money suspicious vehicles.

Rained all day and quite hard for a good bit of it. I was warned to stay away from one motel here (Hotel Bonsai) so I found a place called Hotel Kali that is amazing. All new furniture, clean bed, great wifi, AC and friendly owners. No hot shower. Only $14 and change. The place last night was bad. Spotted 3 cockroaches, one was so big I thought it was my bike moving across the floor. The AC was horrible and I ended up turning it off at 1am because it was so loud.

I’ve been reading all these weird books lately: An Inquiry into the Nature and Wealth of Nations, The Earth as Modified by Humans, Youth, The Invisible Man and The Science of Human Nature. I downloaded War and Peace but I can’t bring myself to stare at the screen for that long. Grabbed them for free using the Stanza app for my swell iTouch. I kind of wish I had a Kindle…

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Given that I’m less than a days ride from Guatemala I was thinking about some of the differences I’ve noticed between Mexico and Belize. Other than Canada these were the first 2 foreign countries I’ve ever been to. Since I was only in Belize for a relatively short period of time I can’t judge too much but the couple things I noticed were that the major roads in Mexico are much better than in Belize, the trash problem is nothing in Belize like it is in Mexico and the people in Mexico are far more vocal in their greetings (honking/waving/whistling although when you do end up talking to someone in Belize they are extremely friendly). Couple other things: people don’t drink the tap water in Belize, Snickers bars can be found in most road-side stores here, there are a lot more private vehicles on the roads, shower curtains are standard and all toilets have seats on them. No flushing toilet paper here either–use the garbage cans for waste. Hot and cold water taps are rarely labeled and never on the same side in both countries. Chinese people seem to own almost all grocery stores and a lot of the restaurants in Belize.

I went over to grab some dinner tonight and realized that I’d forgotten to account for the time zone change when I flew back into Mexico from Florida. So for the last 2 weeks I’ve been an hour ahead of everyone else.

Monkey Bay ended up being a mess. A group of students staying there were up until 1am (my time) making a bunch of noise and then these stupid dogs started barking at 4:30am. The place they stick you to camp was also overrun with fire ants.

I haven’t mentioned the World Cup but let me tell you it’s all people talk about here and every TV has it on. When Mexico was playing last week at 7am or something like that every bar/store I passed was full of people watching the game. It’s just crazy yet I still couldn’t care less about soccer.

I’ll be in town for the next 3 nights hanging out and waiting for Karin and Marten’s arrival on Sunday night. There’s lots of things to see here so there’ll be more posts.

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Other than a lot of sugar cane fields there’s not too much in the way of scenery. I miss hills. On a positive note the people here are extremely friendly. I’ve had more fist-bumps from strangers on the street then I ever have. And the food… it is sooooo good. Had this garlic pepper shrimp tonight that was awesome. Most of the restaurants are air conditioned which is great because then I don’t have to chase nasty flies away from my dinner. So other than the stinking road and that things are a bit more expensive I like it here.

Orange Walk Town is pretty neat. It seemed from reading different web sites that it would be really touristy but its not that way at all. I even found a place (Baba’s) that changes Mexican pesos. There’s a decent-sized river that runs through town that you can travel up to see the ruins at Lamanai (used to be huge Mayan city). I’m going to skip it because staying an extra day for the US $40 tour plus the cost of the motel (US $35) is way too much.

I sure miss having detailed GPS maps like I did for Mexico. I’m using the Garmin WorldMap v4 and it only has major highways on it. That didn’t help when it took me 15 minutes to find my way out of Corozal this morning.

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I was prepared for a long day but it never came to that thanks to a sign that I hadn’t seen in almost 6 months — a campground. I checked my GPS and saw that it was right next to a lake so I jumped on the dirt road hoping for a nice, lake-side spot with a little store stocked with cold beer. That dream ended quickly but it was just because tourist season is over so most things are shuttered up for the summer including the little store and the restaurant that sat empty. The guy pointed over next to some mangroves and said I could pitch my tent there. After setting up camp I went for a nice, relaxing swim in the turquoise waters of Laguna Bacalar, the second largest lake in Mexico.

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Tulum is way more touristy than I would have expected. I mean there’s a 7-11 here for Pete’s sake. I did indulge and had lunch at a Subway. It’s been a while. There are lots of gringos here and just about all the people in the service industry speak a little English. Thankfully, the tourist crowd here is not at all like the weird hippy hostel crowd that dominated San Cristóbal. Most of the people are with families or are probably on a day trip down from Cancun.

After lunch I settled into a motel (with internet!), took a shower and hopped in a taxi over to the ruins. This section of coastline lies along the Caribbean Sea and it’s pretty stunning. Lots of rugged shoreline and white sand beaches. The ruins are from a city that dates back to 1200 AD. The site is very well maintained and aside from the location I wasn’t quite as enamored with this place for some reason. Not quite sure why. Maybe I’m just bummed about the pant leg.

Update: For some reason the site layout goes berserk when I add certain pictures. The rest are all here.

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Just got back from hiking through the Coba archeological site. It was founded all the way back in the 7th century. The entire area encompasses 19 square miles although the main clusters of buildings are within a mile of each other. I still ended up walking at least 4 miles. You can rent bikes or hire a pedal-driven taxi cart but the raised causeways (called “sacbeob“”) to the different areas are under the forest canopy so there was lots of shade and I preferred to walk anyway. One of the sacbe actually leads to another site 62 miles away making it the longest known Mayan road.

All of the buildings were completely enclosed by the rain forest, much more so than any of the other places I’ve visited. The highest structure, Nohoch Mul, rose well over the tree tops offering a great view. Of course climbing up to the top wasn’t a problem but when I got there I stepped down off a rock to take a picture and almost twisted my ankle right off. It smarts pretty good and tomorrow I’m sure it’ll a lot of fun to ride on.

Staying at the only motel in town. Its not too bad although prices are always higher in touristy areas (or if you have the only motel). It was $300 pesos which isn’t horrible for a very clean room and decent shower. I did have to chase a scorpion around the room for a bit but I finally caught it and let it go outside. First time I’ve ever seen one. There’s some toilet paper stuck under the door now so it can’t get back in.

Sticker shock of the day was a bottle of sun screen (FPS 50 / ~8 fl oz). Cost US $15. I knew I should have picked up more in the States. The pharmacy also had some more malaria tablets which I’ve been looking for since I got back.

Broke 13,000 miles.

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The place I stayed was a pit though. It was like a zoo in my room. The bug count after 2 nights was: 1 moth, 1 monster cockroach (not kidding–it was so big I could see the different expressions on its face as I chased it), 1 smaller but equally repulsive cockroach, 2 long worm-looking things, many ants and a big, cute lizard. To top it off, the first night it felt like things were biting me while I was laying in bed. I ended up unpacking my tent, laying it on top of the sheets without using the poles and crawling into that. That lasted almost all night until I woke up in a panic because my arms were trapped in the netting and then I couldn’t unzip the door in the dark.

When the sun gets a little lower I’ll venture out and take more pictures–I’m enjoying the AC but this town has a bit of character and needs exploring. When I first got here I detoured off the main road to check out a monastery built by the Spanish back in 1560. Then it was into the centro area where I saw signs for the Cenote De Zaci. A cenote, for those unfamiliar with them, are sinkholes of various sizes whose roof collapsed thus creating reservoirs. All of the towns in the Yucatan are built around their own cenote since they are the only source of fresh drinking water on the peninsula. They are also very sacred and the ancient Mayans used to chuck people into them as human sacrifices so their gods would be happy. About 50 skulls were found in the cenote at Chichen Itza. The one here in Valladolid is smaller but it had a lot more going on visually. Birds were flying around, people and fish were swimming in the water and huge stalactites hung from the roof.

I stopped at another place a few miles outside Chichen Itza called the Balankanche Caves but never got to go inside. Unfortunately the folks that manage this place aren’t very business savy. It was 9:30am on a Monday when I got there. The parking lot was empty and no one else was around aside from the 3 guys working there. A sign said the 45 minutes tours leave on the hour assuming that a minimum of 6 people were in a group (no self-guided tours available). One of the guys said if just one more person showed up he’d take us down at 10am. Ten o’clock rolled around and of course no one else showed up. I waited 15 more minutes and left. Not sure why they didn’t take my $70 pesos and run me down there by myself.

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