PowerCycle

06/22 I’m just tearing through the countries now. Hola Guatemala! The pants exchange went fine this morning but my plans for an early departure were foiled. It was funny because I actually woke up on my own at 5:45am. Still had to hang around until the store opened at 9am.

The border crossing was a little messed up. The lady who took my departure fee seemed surprised that I didn’t have a stamp on my passport for my bike. She waved me through but I figured I’d better ask this time. At the customs counter in Guatemala they stamped me in for 90 days and said I didn’t need to get anything special for my bike. Works for me. I found a guy to exchange my Belize dollars for some Guatemalan Quetzals and was off.

The first couple miles after the border crossing are unpaved and I thought I’d be riding on gravel all day. I wouldn’t have cared because riding on gravel isn’t as hot as riding on blacktop; you just top out at 10 mph because it’s bumpy. The gravel eventually gave way to smooth pavement which turned out to be a good thing because it started getting a bit hilly. There were a couple more sections of gravel along the way but only for a mile or so. It’s been a long time since I climbed over 2100 feet in a day but I didn’t do too bad thanks to some well-placed little towns where I could get some cold water. My handy new umbrella also provided some shade at one impromptu stop where there were no trees.

The scenery is pretty nice looking. The land doesn’t seem to be nearly as developed (crops) as Belize. There are lots of cows and horses running around. The people I passed all waved and I had lots of honks and thumbs up from passing cars. The kids that saw me all yelled “gringo” which was cute. One kid yelled, “Give me a dollar!” in perfect English. The garbage situation isn’t bad at all. Couple bad places here and there but nothing like what I’ve seen. One thing they do differently here is they sell water in plastic bags the size of sandwich bags (1/2 liter maybe). My skills at opening the bag and dumping the water into my bottles without spilling any is going to need some work.

Staying at the El Muella for US $25 (AC/internet). It’s right on the shore of Lago Peten Itza. Tried some local beer called Gallo. I like it. Good sunset over the lake to end the evening.

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06/14 You better Belize it! I’m officially in Central America now. Crossing the border was painless. The lady just asked where I was going and I was on my way. It sucked having to pay an exit fee of $20 US just to leave Mexico but what can you do. Once into the country I followed the road about 7 miles to the town of Corozal. It’s a pretty quiet place on the shore of Chetumal Bay which opens up into the Caribbean Sea. I’m happy to see there are lots of Chinese restaurants here. Haven’t eaten at one in a while. Drank some new beer–Belikin it’s called. It has a Mayan temple on the front and it tastes pretty good.

On the road into town I saw a dead Tapir, the largest land mammal of the American tropics, so I can add that as my first exotic road kill. Hopefully I’ll see some live ones. And Toucans…there are a lot of them here. Actually Belize has so many things that can seriously mess you up that I’ll have to be careful. There’s even an ant that’s described as causing “waves of burning, throbbing, all-consuming pain that continues unabated for up to 24 hours”. No more dropping Oreo cookie bits and seeing how many ants I can summon during a rest break.

It’s weird speaking English to everyone again. Belize is the only country in Central America where English is the official language. The population of Belize is pretty mixed: Mestizos comprise about 34% of the population, Kriols 25%, Spanish 15%, Maya 11%, and Garinagu 6%. The population is small, only 320,000 so it enjoys the lowest population density in Central America but sadly it has one of the highest population growth rates in the western hemisphere. When will people learn?

Stayed in the lake-side town of Bacalar last night. Didn’t have anything exciting to report so I didn’t write up a blurb about the day.

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04/14 Arrived in the very well-maintained town of Hopelchen and found a decent motel (Hotel Los Arcos). There’s an internet cafe next door so I went over to check for some news on my sister. Unfortunately the news wasn’t good but this web site isn’t supposed to be my diary so we’ll just call this the worst day of my life and leave it at that. Barring any other changes in her condition I’m still planning on heading up there when I get to Cancun.

Lot’s of farmland today. I was surprised to see a white guy wearing a straw hat driving a tractor down the road. It was such a strange sight that I turned around and took another look just to make sure I wasn’t seeing things. When I made it to the town center I was even more surprised to see strangely dressed white people all over the place. Turns out they are Mennonites and are quite harmless from what I hear. Apparently the Mexican government hooked them up with some free land so they settled into the area and started growing whatever it is they grow (I think the fields I rode by were corn).

This state is definitely the second worst in Mexico as far as the amount of trash along the side of the road. Number one was Guerrero. There are even a couple large garbage dumps although that still didn’t keep some morons from dumping their garbage right at the entrance to it.

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04/13 3 hours of riding around and I finally found a place to stay. Maybe I was getting a little picky but it seemed like everything was over-priced or just a little bit scary. None of the places I looked at were even in the central historic district. At 3pm I tracked a place down near the edge of the city and took my first bus ride back into the touristy area.

Campeche is a very cool place. It was founded back in 1540 and its the oldest Spanish city on the Yucatan peninsula. With no natural land or sea defenses it was an easy target for pirates so a wall, 26 feet tall and a mile and a half long, was built. The wall ended up getting torn down to make way for the growing city but the original gates and bastions still stand.

There are several very large supermarkets here and I went a little crazy buying things. One thing I picked up from a hardware store was a 5″ pair of vice grips. Since I break bolts all the time now maybe I handle some field repair work.

I’m going to change my route to try to get to Cancun a little faster. My sister is still in a coma but she’s stable so I’m going to push on and try to get there in a week. From there I can fly up to Calgary and know that all my belongings are in a safe place.

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