Chronicling My Motorcycle Trip Through The Americas

2007-01-07T22:29:00.000-05:00

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Day 144 to Day 145

2006-03-28T17:10:00.000-05:00

Day 144 - March 27th, 2006: Rio Gallegos, Argentina to Rio Grande, Argentina
Day 145 - March 28th, 2006: Rio Grande, Argentina to Ushuaia, Argentina

The last stretch towards Ushuaia was very cold and windy so our morning routine consisted of throwing on as much closing as possible before setting off, and ensuring our heated vests were plugged in tightly. I was up to 2 pairs of tube socks (yep, ME in tube socks..I never thought I'd see the day!) overlapped by a pair of thermal wool socks, pajama pants under my jeans, a tank top, tshirt, heated vest, hoodie, fleece sweater, and rain jacket all crammed under my riding suit and a balaclava under my helmet to top off the stylish outfit. The rubber rain boots just added the final touch, but we couldn't have made it without them! We hit a little bit of rain, but thankfully the scenery changed from the flat plains to beautiful mountains which made the driving much more enjoyable despite the weather. It was such interesting landscape. On the mountains you could clearly see the tree line where vegetation is no longer able to grow, then above the tree line you could see the rocky peaks, and at the very tops of the moutains there were ice slates that had the same blue-green colour as glaciers. Once we arrived at Ushuaia we were greeted by sunshine finally! Ushuaia is considered by many to be the southern most city in the world although there is a bit of controversy over this because the city of Punta Arenas in Chile is quite a bit larger than Ushuaia. Some people therefore consider Punta Arenas to be the southernmost city arguing that Ushuaia is the southernmost town....but Ushuaia's sign states that it is the southern most city in the world so we stuck with that. It is in Ushuaia that you literally get to the end of the road. Once you pass through the provincial park you hit the very end of the road which is marked by a large wooden sign and a small billboard. For the entire trip this was our target and now finally WE MADE IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 142 to Day 144

2006-03-27T17:16:00.000-05:00

March 25th, 2006: Sarmiento, Argentina to San Julian, Argentina
March 26th, 2006: San Julian, Argentina to Rio Gallegos, Argentina
March 27th, 2006: Rio Gallegos, Argentina to Rio Grande, Argentina

The remaining drive across the pampas was a lot less windy, but just as flat and barren. We passed through many oil fields, but aside from the oil wells there was little else short of the occasional flock of rheas or guanacos. The distances between towns was so large that even the tiniest, most unremarkable area afforded some sort of recognition just for being there at all! In the picture to the right you can see the sign welcoming you to the town of Tres Cerros which was nothing more than one house, a gas station with a hostal and restaurant built into it, and their town monument....the painted tire. We drove a little further and came across a truck stop, which oddly enough was bigger than the whole city of Tres Cerros, but didn't really have the full range of amenities I suppose. They did have nice hot coffee though, and this adorabe little puppy named Bobby which reminded me just a little bit of my "niece" Lily! After having a bit of fun playing with the dog we had to get going again towards San Julian. Shortly after we arrived in San Julian the strangest incidence happened. On a spur of the moment penguin hunt (which turned up fruitless...or rather, penguinless) a lady began waving to me frantically and saying "Ahhh! Good trip!!!!" in Spanish. Rather confused since I didn't have my glasses on, I only gave her a slight wave and kept on my way. I mentioned it to my dad and he said "Hey, maybe its the couple from our hotel last night that we were chatting with over breakfast." I couldn't remember, but said "It's possible, but how coincidental would that be!" Later that evening, on the recommendation of the taxi driver we went to a restaurant only to hear our names when we opened the door. The lady that was waving to me earlier was indeed the lady from our hotel, and now again we ran into her and her husband at the restaurant! They invited us to have dinner with them and we found out over the course of the evening that they had taken the exact same route as us for the last few days. The next couple of days were fairly uneventful with respect to the driving as it was more flat land with little vegetation, a few flamingos, and a whole lot of wind. We got ourselves into a little bit of a snag with the distances, in fact. At 170km's we passed a gas station, but said "It is only 200 more kms to Rio Gallegos, we can make that easy" We normally have about 380-400kms to a tank plus about 40km left on reserve but unfortunately due to the high winds we used SO much gas that we were totally empty at 265km!!! We were left stranded 50km away from the nearest gas station with nothing in site but guanacos and dirt. We tried to flag a few cars down, to no avail when we spotted a luxury liner bus headed towards us. We waved frantically and much to our surprise it actually stopped! We explained the situation to the drivers and they actually offered to give us a lift! I never thought I'd see the day I'd be hitchhiking in Argentina...but at least it was the classy way to do it on a luxury line!!! My dad stayed with the bikes and I hopped aboard the bus. Once we hit the first gas station the tour bus operator was nice enough to even go out of his way to pull into the station to let me off the bus. I gave them a very hearty thank you and frantically dashed into the station's store. Thankfully since the distances are so large here every gas station sells gas containers, so I bought the biggest one I could find. The strangest thing then happened....the couple that was in our hotel (that I ran into by the lake and then again at the restaurant) were in the gas station!!! They started calling out my name when I came in! I really lucked out there because they were able to arrange for a taxi to take me the entire 50kms back to where my dad was waiting with the bikes. We were pretty thankful for all the help we got along the way!
ps. The gas is actually that blue here!

Day 137 to Day 141

2006-03-26T17:19:00.000-05:00

March 20th, 2006: Santiago, Chile to Talca, Chile

March 21st, 2006: Talca, Chile to Osorno, Chile

March 22nd, 2006: Osorno, Chile to San Carlos De Bariloche, Argentina

March 23rd, 2006: San Carlos De Bariloche, Argentina to Esquel, Argentina

March 24th, 2006: Esquel, Argentina to Sarmiento, Argentina

March 25th, 2006: Sarmiento, Argentina to San Julian, Argentina

March 26th, 2006: San Julian, Argentina to Rio Gallegos, Argentina

We made pretty good time through the southern part of Chile because the roads were amazing. Along the way there were plenty of Copec gas stations which had Pronto snack bars attached to them. We became regulars there, and whenever we needed a hot cup of coffee and a mascot to cheer us on, the little red dude in the picture, or as we affectionately called him, "Spongebob Pronto Pants" was our man. Other than that, I don't have many pictures of southern Chile. It's not that it wasn't beautiful, it's just that it looks so much like Canada that it was hard to find something "different" to take a picture of. There were a lot of vineyards and apple orchards lining the roads. You could almost swear you were in the Niagara region! After Osorno, we went eastwards towards San Carlos De Bariloche in Argentina. There is a 35km distance between the Argentinian and Chilean border which takes you winding through mountains covered in large pine trees, volcanos, and beautiful lakes. As soon as you cross the border into Argentina there is a very small town which reminded me exactly of a Swiss ski resort. There were all sorts of log cabins and chalets which housed hotels, waffle houses, chocolaterias, cafes and souvenier shops. I later found out that there was actually a ski hill nearby and that it was a bit of a resort town. Bariloche also has a bit of a Switzerland feel to it. We had dinner that night in a beautiful restaurant that resembled a chalet called La Alpina (The Alpine), which served among other things cheese and chocolate fondue. (I can hear Wendy's voice already.... "it should be called FUNdue"). We had to get a little bit used to the culinary culture here in Argentina though. My dad ordered a steak dinner and was a bit surprised when they came to the table with his steak on a plate and nothing else on it! We inquired and the waiter explained to us that if we wanted anything else on the side we had to order it separately!! Once you get used to the idea and remember to order a side dish it's actually a really good system because you can customize your meal to exactly your liking. We had a good laugh over our ignorance on the procedures first try though. Another cool food idea in Argentina is the "submarino" drink. It is really just a hot chocolate made with real cocoa, except that instead of serving it to you as a mixed chocolate drink they give you a cocoa puck in the shape of a submarine. You then dunk the submarine in your hot milk, and as it sinks it slowly melts into chocolatey goo which you can stir into the milk. How fun is THAT?! After leaving Bariloche we planned to head east towards the coast. We started our drive but made absolutely horrible time!!! We got stuck in a downpour and by the time we arrived in Esquel we were totally miserable. Driving through the plains the wind was fierce (about 40-50km/h!!) and with the rain it chilled us right through to the bone. Even the trees and grass grew on slants! We thankfully had a super gas heater in the cabana we stayed in for the evening and were able to not only warm ourselves up, but also hang our clothes infront of it to let them dry off. The next day we came across the strangest (and quite possibly the most disturbing) site. There was a sheep farm that was located 32km in from the road. All that you could see was the rickety front gate covered with dried up coyotes and wild cats. I suppose the farmer didn't like them getting as his sheep, and left them there as a warning to any coyotes that started eyeing his flock!

Day 132 to Day 136

2006-03-19T17:21:00.000-05:00

March 15th, 2006: Arica, Chile to Iquique, Chile
March 16th, 2006: Iquique, Chile to Antofagasta, Chile
March 17th, 2006: Antofagasta, Chile to Chanaral, Chile
March 18th, 2006: Chanaral, Chile to La Serena, Chile
March 19th, 2006: La Serena, Chile to Santiago, Chile

I haven't taken all that many pictures over the last while because there wasn't a heck of a lot to see in the northern region of Chile aside from a lot of sand. The distances between the cities are huge too. You could drive for almost 400km between cities (and consequently, gas stations as well!) which required some pretty good route planning. The only thing you see a lot of out here is mining operations. They mine copper by the trainload here, and also nitrates. Remember the movie "Ace Ventura, Pet Detective"? I couldn't get Jim Carrey's voice saying "guaaaaaannnno!!" out of my head everytime we passed the mines or the guano covered rocks in the ocean. For those of you who haven't seen the movie, guano is the term for the crunchy white bird poo that builds up on rocks and can be mined to use in fertilizers and various other things. In the first picture you can see the whole lot of pelicans perched happily on the rock contributing to the cause. The peculiar thing was that it looks as though it should be very hot in all that sand, but it was actually pretty crisp with the breeze coming off of the ocean. Our visors got a little fogged up with salt residue and sand as the day wore on. To give you an idea of how sandy it is, I've added a picture of a soccer field and the "green" of the local golf course. Yep, those pictures to the left.....look closely....that oil smudge in the middle of the sand is actually the golf green!! That wasn't even the driest area either! A little more south in Chile you pass through the Atacama desert region. It is officially the driest region in the world. They have not had rain for at least 400 years (likely more, its just that no one kept records before that).

Day 131

2006-03-14T17:25:00.000-05:00

March 14th, 2006: Oruro, Bolivia to Arica, Chile

From Oruro we made the last stretch of road towards Chile. There wasn't a heck of a lot on the way aside from a few small villages. We actually made one very long stretch assuming there would be gas stations along the way and came dangerously close to running out of gas. At 365km we stopped at a house to see if they knew were we could buy some gas and they told us that they would be willing to sell us some. We really lucked out that time!! We drove a little more and made it to the Bolivian border. It was the smallest frontera we've been to yet. There was only one small building for immigration and the customs building was one of those yellow school portables with a hand painted sign on it. From that crossing you drive through a neutral zone for a few kilometers before coming to the Chilean border. The scenery around the border was just gorgeous! There were snow capped volcanos reaching more than 6000 meters high with the desert scrubland at the base. Then, infront of the snow capped mountains there was a large lagoona with flamingos wading in the water, believe it or not!! We were pretty surprised to see desert, snow and flamingos all in one view! For most of the drive toward Arica you drive

through a national park which has many

more flamingo grounds, some beautiful mountains and lagoons that ranged

from cyan to azule blue. After that you must cross over the Andes to get towards the coast, where the drive becomes a bit more difficult. It is very cold high up in the mountains and in this area we actually were so high up at points that the bikes were faltering slightly. It was very foggy, and actually got so cold at one point I ended up putting a pair of previously worn socks over my motorcycle boots in an attempt to keep my toes warm. My dad got a good laugh out of that one of course!!!

Day 129 to Day 130

2006-03-13T17:28:00.001-05:00

March 12th, 2006: La Paz, Bolivia to Salinas De Garcia Mendoza, Bolivia
March 13th, 2006: Salinas De Garcia Mendoza, Bolivia to Oruro, Bolivia
Our intention was to head south from La Paz towards a small town called Salinas which was located in salt flats just east of the Chilean border. The first 3/4 of the drive was an absolutely great highway. Smooth rolling curves, flat pavement, gorgeous mountains! We were amazed at what great time we were making when suddenly the road turned into foot deep potholes, mud and half finished walkways. We started to get worried and asked a few people around town how the drive was to Salinas. They told us that the roads were bad in the town, but that shortly after that they would get better, and that we shouldn't worry. Sure enough, the second we left the city the roads were smoothly paved again. We drove a little while longer and arrived in another city called Huari. When we left Huari, we found ourselves driving along a tiny gravel road that hardly resembled the double-thick line on our map. We drove a little way back and asked the first person we saw for directions assuming we were lost, but they assured us that we were heading in the right direction. We then asked how long it would be to Salinas and they told us only 2 hours. We drove back along that gravel road, stopping to confirm with every person we saw if we were going in the right direction and each time they assured us that we were on the correct road. The problem was, that there really wasn't much of a road to speak of. By the time we had asked the third person if we were still on the way to Salinas the road had narrowed to nothing more than two tire tracks in the sand, and we had crossed 6 small rivers, but by this point in the day it was much to late to turn around. Besides, everyone we talked to said it was the right highway and not to worry because the road was bad for a while, but got better eventually. We drove, and drove, and drove....or should I say "motocrossed" and "motocrossed" and "motocrossed" until we hit a giant river. If you look closely to the left and right of the picture (the one that looks like a lake to the left) you can actually see the highway ends descending into the river, and a small line of rocks between the banks that are evidently there to prevent too much of the sand from washing away when cars drive through the river. We opted to take the side-route and instead used a concrete walking bridge to drive over. We kept trekking on until suddenly we heard the rumbling of thunderclouds. The sky began to get very dark and large raindrops began pelting down on the bikes. We gave it full throttle trying to outrun the rain since it looked like blue skies ahead, and as soon as we were out of the rain we stopped the bikes to put on some warmer clothes. We bundled up the best we could, but unfortunately my heated vest was out of commission as a result of a broken wire which caused a hot spot in the vest. It not only melted through the outer layer of the vest, but also my sweater, t-shirt, and tank top before finally leaving a sizeable char mark on my bra. My dad was nice enough to offer me his heated vest instead, and just as we were gearing up the rain caught up to us again! We tried to outrun the rain a second time, but by this time the clay road was turning to a thick slippery orange goo full of barely visible potholes. It was also quite dark out now so it was becoming increasing difficult to see. After battling the driving conditions for an hour we came across a village consisting of a few mud shacks. We stopped and asked a lady how far it was to Salinas. She told us it was only 2 hours away. We were a little worried that after driving for a full hour it was still apparently 2 hours away, but thought perhaps she was mistaken. We would just ask the next person we saw to clarify. The problem was, that we didn't see another person for 2 hours. When we finally came across the next tiny mud shack village we asked the first person we saw how much time we had left before we got to Salinas. She told us 3 hours. This is when the panick really started to set it. It was not only getting dark, and storming on and off, but there was no sign of Salinas and all we knew was that we were supposed to be in Salinas anywhere between 3 hours from now and 1 hour ago. The conditions must have gotten the better of me because the next thing I knew I blurted out in a desperate tone "Well, can't we just stay here? Maybe someone has a llama barn we can sleep in or something...it will just be for one night!" My dad had a good laugh over that one and said that we should just keep trucking along slowly and eventually we would get there. We drove for another hour, now in pitch darkness on whatever remained of the road in hopes that we would eventually find the elusive Salinas, when we came across a checkpoint of some sort. A lady was manning the checkpoint with what I can only assume was her pet alpaca. I certainly hope he wasn't the "guard alpaca." When we stopped at the gate a few more people poked their heads out of the booth to see what the commotion was all about. Slowly the lady came walking up to the bikes, the alpaca shuffling hesitantly behind, and rather inquisitively asked us where we were headed to. We used the opportunity to ask her where Salinas was and we were pretty surprised when she said "this is Salinas". I looked into the total darkness and succeeded in seeing nothing aside from the gate that was blocking our path and the alpaca curiously tilting its head from side to side each time I looked around. We asked if there actually was a hotel in this city as we were promised over and again. She said that there was a hostal in the plaza of the city. Now totally baffled we thanked her and drove a few feet up the "highway" in hopes that the mystery city would suddenly emerge. We stopped at an adobe brick house and asked where the hotel was. Just as the lady suggested, we were directed to the plaza, but again we saw nothing. We drove a few more feet up the road, stopped at another adobe brick house and asked once more where the hostal was. Yet again we were told to just drive to the plaza, but this time we were given directions. He even told us the "good road" to take to get to the plaza. Thank goodness we didn't take the bad road because the "good road" turned out to be a narrow street that was undergoing renovations to install a sewage pipeline and therefore had a giant gorge carved into the middle of it leaving only 2 feet between the hole and the the walls of the houses. We carefully shimmied our way down the narrow path and in pitch darkness arrived in the plaza of the city. The only light in the whole village was coming from one dimly lit neon bulb at the entrance of the hostal and another one from a street vendor's booth. Although everyone we talked to was really friendly and strangers would wish you a nice evening when passing by, the utter darkness gave the eerie impression that people were lurking in the shadows. My dad went into the hostal to ask about lodging and they told us that they had a room available for the night for $1.10. The price was good, but of course that meant that the room probably was not, and since they were the only place in town we didn't have any options left. We were pretty tired at this point, so just about anything would do, and "just about anything" was what we got. To get to the room you had to climb a concrete staircase up to the landing which was little more than some scaffolding made out of bits and pieces of metal piping and rebar welded together. The floor of the landing consisted of wooden planks laid on the piping with little concern as to minimizing the gaps between the boards. The room had only two small single cots and a wooden coat rack in the corner with the same wooden planks as on the outside landing for a floor. The windows were cracked, the doors didn't lock and the bathroom was communal to half the people in the village. A hot shower would have been so welcome after the strenuous drive, but I got one look at the mildewy rags bundled up in shower area resting in a nest of hairs and changed my mind. Then I also realized the shower area was in no way seperated from the leaking toilet and used-toilet-paper-garbage-can area (flushing paper is highly discouraged), and definitely scrapped the idea of the shower. Besides, there was no covering on the window in the bathroom and the door not only didn't lock, but also didn't close properly anyways. I figured using the tap would at least be safe but as soon as I turned on the tap water came shooting out of a pipe that was located directly on top of the faucet but for some inexplicable reason was facing the side of the sink instead of the basin thereby causing water to splash all over the floor and not even remotely close to the sink. By the time we unloaded all of our luggage and got used to the idea of our surroundings we mustered up enough courage to order some food. We only had one small bun in the morning, and after such a hard day of riding we were pretty hungry. We were pleased when the owner plopped down some hot coffees followed by bread, two piping hot bowls of alpaca soup and some sort of alpaca/carrot/rice mush. It actually tasted rather good and after chowing down heartily we worked on our coffees. My dad made a bit of a face when he got to the bottom of the cup because there was a large coffee grind in the bottom of his cup. As he spit it out onto his plate I began laughing uncontrollably when I realized the large coffee grind was, in reality, a large fly. I suppose when things get that bad all you can really do is laugh about your luck, so my dad joined in and we both ended up laughing until we had tears in our eyes. After we finished our borderline mental breakdowns it was time for some sleep. I pulled back the wool blankets and realized you were given one flat sheet which could either be used to cover up the dingy mattress or as a clean barrier between the blankets that had probably been on that bed unwashed for the last two decades. There were no pillowcases either. I decided that for my own mental well-being I would use the bottom sheet to cover up the mattress and pillow, add extra reinforcement over the pillow with my rain suit, and sleep in my riding gear to minimize contact with anything in the room. I'm still not sure if the room was actually worth the $1.10, but then again, I was about ready to sleep in a llama barn, so I suppose it was at least a step up from that.
After a less than stellar sleep we were ready to hit the road again. We had some bread and coffee for breakfast...minus the flies this time....loaded up the bikes and started towards the Chilean border from Salinas. Unfortunately after battling the road for a good 15 minutes we rendered it futile. We were told it was only 3 hours on that road to Chile, but as we learned yesterday, that didn't really mean a heck of a lot, plus we were now wondering if there would even be a proper border when we got to the frontera. In addition, not only were these roads bad, but they also had a heck of a lot of climbing involved. After some deliberation we both agreed to cut our losses and make the 4 and a half hour trip back towards La Paz. We found a little bit of a shortcut to get to Huari, which would save us about 9 river crossings, so we cut our total down from 27 to 18 (that only includes rivers that actually had water in them at the time and omits any that had dried up between rains)!! There was a catch...of course! One of the rivers we crossed in lieu of some smaller ones was a very deep one and we had to blast through it full throttle since the waterline was coming dangerously close to the muffler. The other catch was the river full of quick sand. I had just crossed the first stream of water, and slowed down slightly to turn my wheel to cross the second. As soon as I lost my momentum my bike started to sink in the sand. I tried to give it one quick rev of the throttle in hopes I'd pop out, but all that succeeded in doing was sinking my bike tire further. I put my feet down in the sand to try to see if I could walk the bike out only to find that my feet started sinking into the sand. Suddenly I found myself up to calf level in the muck with sand running into my boots and every time I tried to dislodge my feet all that happened was that I sunk deeper! In a panick I let out a huge "eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! I'm siiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiinnnnnnkkkkkiiiiiiiiing!!!!!!!!" to my dad. One look at my bike, and me encased in the muck and my dad just burst out laughing. Using my dad as a support beam I yanked myself up out of the sand and then finally got to assess the damage myself. I got one look at the rear of the bike sunken all the way past the chain and all I could to my dad was "Uh oh. What now?". He replied with "Well, we don't have a rope and there isn't a sign of anything for miles....first we take a picture.....then we'll figure out how to get out of this mess." We unloaded all the luggage to lighten up the bike, and tried a few times to push or pull it out to no avail. I suggested trying to get some rocks under the wheels somehow so that the bike had a base. My dad said we should put a large rock under the kickstand first so we could try to tilt the bike over and dislodge it a bit, then use rocks under the wheels so that the tires had grip. We gathered up a bunch of them, and began the process of carefully tilting the bike over to one side, shoving in as many rocks as we could, then switching sides and repeating the process. It actually worked rather well, and after a few minutes of that we had the bike ready. All we had to do then was walk the bike over to the other bank and we were home free!! I took as much sand off of the bike as I could before loading it up and starting on my way again. Thankfully the aforementioned deep river was the next thing we hit after getting stuck in the sand, so a lot of it probably washed off in that crossing. We stopped for the night in a city called Oruro, rather than heading to La Paz to save some driving. Oruro isn't a very tourist town so we got the usual strange looks at every stop. We spent some of the evening wandering around the market. All of the local markets are sectioned off according to what they sell. The organization of some areas is pretty self explanatory, such as the meats section, the fruit juices section, the pharmacy street, or the clothing block. Other areas are a little less clear. Some of these include the padlocks/paperclips/walkman booths which don't belong in the hardware street, or the whistles/wooden frogs/glow in the dark plastic ants tables which are for some reason separate from the toys area. While we were trying to figure out the organization scheme we stumbled across the most peculiar booths we'd seen yet. The ladies working at the booth would take a sheet of dot matrix printer paper. They would then place various items on it including such things as salt or talc pucks that had images embossed in them, dried egg noodles or beans, small balls of llama fur, herbs, and the clencher, teddy bear golden graham cookies. We inquired and were told that it was for medicinal purposes. We then asked what the shrivelled up alpaca fetuses and dried armadillos were for. The lady told us very sternly, because they are pretty, and then rolled her eyes at the idiocy of our question.

Day 126 to Day 128

2006-03-11T17:31:00.000-05:00

March 9th, 2006: Puno, Peru to La Paz, Bolivia
March 10th, 2006: La Paz, Bolivia
March 11th, 2006: La Paz, Bolivia

On a last minute whim we decided that we would visit Bolivia before looping back west towards Chile. Our plan was to drive south along Lake Titicaca and then cross over the lower part of the lake towards Copacabana, Bolivia. The first part of the drive was absolutely gorgeous. On Lake Titicaca there are still indigenous people that live on floating reed houses. Even in the slightly more modern areas, traces of this can still be seen by the presence of reed boats alongside more modern fishing boats. While driving along the lake we stopped at a very small roadside comedor (diner/eatery) where we purchased some fresh-out-of-the-ocean fried trout and potato soup. The diner was very primitive, consisting of a few stools lined up beside a tile tabletop, with no real kitchen to speak of. There was merely a few pots boiling away on small propane stoves right beside the eating area, one tiny sink to clean up with, and a roll of toilet paper on the table to use as a serviette. Once we chowed down we were feeling ready to finish up the rest of the trip towards Copacabana. We stumbled upon a market where local goods were traded and sold, such as livestock, vegetables and bread. The lady pictured here went rummaging through a few bags of pigs (yes, bags) until this little piglet caught her eye. While my dad was inside taking that picture I watched a lady purchase two sheep then proceed to load them up into the back of a hatchback taxi with the rest of her family in tow. The strangest site, by far though, happened just as we were leaving the market. We were just exiting the lot when a minivan came up beside us loaded full with llamas. There were llama faces peering out the rear window, heads peeking out all the open windows, and to boot there were llamas sitting on the cargo rack ontop of the van held down by a net! What a site that was!! After a good laugh we drove on towards Copacabana, or so we thought. We were stopped at a police checkpoint where they informed us that Copacabana was about 40 minutes back! We thanked them for correcting us and drove a little while back to our proper (and totally unmarked) cutoff point. While at the Peru-Bolivia border we ran into a couple that had flown their BMW bike over from England. They were touring South America and had already been to many of the places that we planned to visit. Then, as luck would have it, a few minutes after they left we ran into 3 Brazillians that were travelling on Honda 250s. We decided to drive with them towards Copacabana, but once we arrived in the city they kept going. We weren't sure what was going on so we kept going as well. What a mess that led us into! Although the scenery was just gorgeous, the road was horrible! It was an unpaved, rocky, totally torn up road that wove up and down through the mountains. It was offroading at it's finest, really...well, at least until my bike died. My bike overheated causing steaming coolant to come spewing out of my bike in all directions so we gave it some time to cool off, refilled the coolant reserve with some water from the lake and headed off again. We made it about 500 feet before my bike overheated again. We suddenly realized that the radiator fan wasn't kicking in. A local kid watched us inquisitively as we began dismatling the bike to figure out where the problem was. We checked the fan's fuse first, but it looked fine. We looked over a few other things briefly, but unfortunately we didn't have much testing equipment at our disposal in such a remote location. We realized we'd just have to let the bike cool off for a long time, keep a few bottles of lake water handy, and head back towards town when it cooled off a little later in the afternoon. After waiting a sufficient amount of time we began our journey back towards Copacabana, but upon arrival figured it would be best to head to the capital city of La Paz instead while the temperature was still cool, and where we would have a much better chance of getting the bike looked at. The journey to La Paz was a pretty interesting one. It consisted of a 45 minute drive to a small town where you then have to cross a lake by ferry. After driving our bikes onto the ferry the men driving it started frantically bailing water out of the bottom before starting up the engine. Then, while it was crossing the lake you could feel it buckling and twisting in all directions, all the while hearing the creaking of the wood. The floor of the ferry was nothing more than a few large planks laid down side by side, not even nailed down or secured in any way. I was petrified on my bike, but I can imagine it would be even scarier on a tourbus or truck which also had to cross over on the same boats and seemed to lean at much more precarious angles than the bikes did! Once you arrive on the other side there's another 90 minute drive before you finally arrive in La Paz. By the time we arrived it was already dark and we had to fight our way through a local street market before finding a hotel. The next morning we drove to a local motorcycle shop where we got my bike repaired. Upon closer inspection it actually was the fuse that was broken. We didn't see it the day before because the fuse didn't actually burn out, as is generally the case, but instead had a tiny hairline crack through the filament, probably caused from the vibration from that awful road. We did a few more routine maintenance items and my bike was as good as new. The following day my dad brought his bike into the same shop and did some routine maintenance on his as well.

Day 125

2006-03-08T17:32:00.000-05:00

March 8th, 2006: Cuzco, Peru to Puno, Peru

Our drive from Cuzco to Puno was a little on the chilly side, but very beautiful. We stopped at a market which was located at the highest point of the road. The natives sold alpaca and llama products, including some nice snuggly scarves which we couldn't resist purchasing. It was only later that we realized our genuine baby alpaca scarves were 70% acrylic. Alpacas and llamas are the only animals which can live at such high altitudes...including plastic llamas apparently, but then again, what else do you expect for 3 bucks! A little lower down in the mountains we saw a man herding some sheep as well. When he smiled we saw a mouthfull of greenery from the coca leaves that he was chewing on. He carried a little transistor radio with him, and he seemed to be very proud of it, so we took some pictures of him with his radio. We also got a few pictures of a baby alpaca with some of the local children at the market. If you look very carefully in the pictures, often the children will have sun damage on their cheeks and ears because the intense UV rays. In the background you can see the snowy peaks of the higher mountain ranges.

Day 124

2006-03-07T17:33:00.000-05:00

***Machu was such a great sight, I dedicated this section soley to pictures from that day. There are new pics posted below as well! Enjoy!***

March 7th, 2006: Cuzco, Peru

Getting to Machu Picchu is quite the trip! There are no roads to Machu Picchu anymore (they have washed away), so the only way of getting there is on foot, or taking the train to a city called Aguas Calientes, and then boarding a bus for the trek up the mountain thereafter. On the afternoon of the 6th we were informed that they were all out of backpacker class tickets but that we could return to the station at 5am the next morning to see if there were any available then. We woke up bright and early at 4:30 in the morning, took a cab to the train station and were upset to see a large sign saying they were still sold out of tickets. Not willing to give up that easy, we decided we might as well just ask...what harm could it do? Much to our surprise they said they did have two tickets available for us! We got our stuff packed up for the day trip and boarded the 6:15 train bound for Machu Picchu. We stayed right on schedule until suddenly the train came to a screeching halt. Unfortunately our train had a collision with a cow that had wandered onto the tracks, and it took them a few minutes before the tracks were cleared. The train takes about 5 hours to arrive in Aquas Calientes (plus however long it takes to remove a dead cow from the tracks). From there its another 25 minutes bus ride up the side of the mountain to the actual site of Machu Picchu. The bus makes the ascent along a very narrow road making hairpin turn after hairpin turn. Below are some of the many, many pictures we took of Machu Picchu. Although the journey to get there is fairly tedious it is well worth the time and effort. It is really an amazing sight!

Day 121 to Day 123

2006-03-06T17:34:00.000-05:00

March 4rd, 2006: Chalhuanca, Peru to Cuzco, Peru
March 5th, 2006: Cuzco, Peru
March 6th, 2006: Cuzco, Peru

On the 4th we did the last leg of the journey towards Cuzco. It was pretty windy again, but I think we were starting to get a bit lower in the mountains so it wasn't quite as cold as the day before. The roads were just as winding though, and no journey would be complete without a few hazards along the way. Of particular interest was the rockslide/river going across the highway combination, and the half-road-missing/overhanging-rocks/falling-into-raging-river points along the way. Despite it all we finally arrived in Cuzco safe and sound. On the 5th we decided to meander around Cuzco and see what the city had to offer. We had breakfast on a nice balcony overlooking the central square. There was a procession of university graduates who took it in good spirits when they were bombarded with water balloons. The nurses in white uniforms proved to be a favourite target of the water bombers, which sent them scurrying in every direction. The only people who were immune to the firing were the military. I suppose I wouldn't be messing with a whole fleet of men with large guns either. After the parade cleared out, tourists seemed like good targets. Out of self defense we bought three balloons for ourselves. This turned out to be a big mistake. Now we were prime targets. The balloons started coming from all directions and within a few minutes we were totally covered in spray foam. Not ones to be defeated, we promptly purchased some monster spray cans of foam and a few bags of water balloons. My dad and I had a pretty good team going until he betrayed me. While I was posing for a picture he pointed right at me and yelled "FIRE AWAY!" whereby I was attacked from all sides. Unfortunately the worst of the damage wasn't even documented since we decided to pack the camera up safely in layer upon layer of plastic bags before declaring all out war. The festivities really took on a free for all when the tourists started forking out the dough for ammo. It was about 5-8 balloons for 30 cents or a can of foam for a buck, depending upon availablity (as the ammo ran short the price went up....supply and demand economics at its finest). Eventually, in "Survivor" style, mini-alliances started forming. A pick- up truck loaded with passengers in the back drove by loaded with cauldrons of water and the passengers had buckets to throw it at you with. After one particularly bad defeat, my dad sprayed the entire windshield with foam so the truck had to stop. As soon as the truck stopped a clever kid opened the driver's door. With hoots and hollars everyone soaked the inside of the truck with buckets of water and a healthy layer of foam. They fled the truck and started to attack with any buckets and cans of foam they had left. The mess in the truck was horrendous, but it didn't keep them from coming back with reinforcements and a fire extinguisher filled with pressurized foam. We spent the entire day in the square partaking in the Carnival festivities.

Day 110 to Day 120

2006-03-03T17:35:00.000-05:00

***Hey Everyone!! Sorry for the monster-posting but all this typing is going to take a lot of time, and I am much too lazy to separate it properly! Enjoy the novel!***
February 21st, 2006: Loja, Ecuador to Macara, Ecuador
February 22nd, 2006: Macara, Ecuador to Sullana, Peru
February 23rd, 2006: Sullana, Peru to Chiclayo, Peru
February 24th, 2006: Chiclayo, Peru
February 25th, 2006: Chiclayo, Peru to Chimbote, Peru
February 26th, 2006: Chimbote, Peru to Lima, Peru
February 27th, 2006: Lima, Peru to Chincha, Peru
February 28th, 2006: Chinca, Peru to Nasca, Peru
March 1st, 2006: Nasca, Peru
March 2nd, 2006: Nasca, Peru
March 3rd, 2006: Nasca, Peru to Chalhuanca, Peru

On the 21st we did more driving through the Andes. We stopped at a little roadside hut where the ladies were hand sorting peanuts. The ones that were unfit for beernuts were thrown to the pigs. At one point in the drive we came across a section of road that was totally washed out from a mudslide. Someone was kind enough to paint a very professional warning sign warning passerbys of the danger. We stopped to take a picture of this cute little pig snuffling around the road, and while we were stopped sure enough some rocks came tumbling down! We decided it would be best for us to get a hasty move on. In the afternoon we arrived in a small town near the border called Macara. We didn't notice parking near the hostal, but they assured us that they had secure parking for the motorcycles. After we unloaded our luggage we asked them to direct us to the lot, and were a little surprised when instead they directed us to a shoe store across the road where we could lock up the bikes overnight. We were approached by an Ecuadorian boy from Chinese decent who wanted to improve his English. He had a whole series of questions for us from the benign to the bizarre. Later that evening while we were sleeping, he wrote us a letter outlining some questions he thought of while we gone, one of which was if he was more attractive with his glasses on or with his glasses off. The next morning he presented the letter to us and asked us to fill in the blanks for some of the questions. After completing that activity we crossed the border from Ecuador to Peru.
This was by far one of the easiest border crossings yet. There was not a border rat or coyote to be found! What relief! Everything seemed to run through official channels and the border guards were friendly and effiicient. A few stamps later and we were on our way. We wanted to stop for a bite to eat, but shortly realized that there isn't a heck of a lot along the way in Peru. We finally came across a truckstop of sorts in the middle of the desert. Fresh lemonade was the house specialty along with goat and fish, which were available for your viewing pleasure hanging from various clotheslines throughout the restaurant. They didn't have running water, but they set up a lemon shaped water jug which you could use to wash your hands. We decided against lunch there, and settled for two lemonades instead. We wanted to take a few pictures of the people working in the restaurant, and the owner insisted we take a picture infront of the hanging goat meat. We continued on our way until Sullana. It was brutally hot, and while battling the gridlock traffic my front tire...again! Fortunately there was a vulcanizador (tire repair shop) right around the corner, so we didn't have to go too far to get it fixed. It turns out that the patch we had put on previously had come loose. I think we have a faulty patch kit since it's the second time this has happened. The total cost for the repair was 1 sol, which translates to approximately 30 cents. A bargain, if I do say so myself! We also purchased some new patches and glue off of him for another buck and a half, which he guaranteed us would work. We asked if anyone there knew where a hotel was, and one of his other customers told us he'd gladly drive ahead of us and show us the way. After we unloaded our gear, Jan bought him a beer for his efforts and we sat around on the hotel stoop watching the taxi drivers battle for dominance. They have three wheel motorcycle taxis here, essentially mechanical rickshaws. There are no stop signs or stop lights, so the idea is to treat the intersections like 4 way stops, but often it ends up in a game of chicken instead. The close calls were too numerous to count, but yet, we only witnessed one mini fender bender which did no damage to the taxis involved. After the sun set and the traffic died down a little we walked to the central square to see the town. We started talking to some local people who were operating a carnival ride for kids. It was a Jeep that drove through town, covered in lights, playing dance music, with cartoon character carts behind it and a man in a giant Barney suit dancing in the front car. Unfortunately the Barney-mobile had a bit of a hard time starting so we pitched in to push start the Jeep. For our efforts we were rewarded with a free ride. Two fully grown gringos on a Barney ride stick out just a little bit, so we had quite a few sideways glances along the way. It was a bit of a hilarious situation for all involved, and we couldn't stop laughing the whole journey. On the 23rd we had a long drive through a whole lot of nothing but sand and garbage. Occasionally a sand dune that formed on the road would break the monotony, and keep you from falling asleep. After a few hours of driving through nothing there was a truckstop. Goat was on the menu again, and even though it seemed a hit, we stuck to crackers and bottled water. A car full of Peruvians who were on their way to Lima also stopped at the restaurant (probably because it was the only thing in sight for 100 miles). Occasionally we would stop to take a picture and they would pass us, or they would stop for a drink and we would pass them. The isolation must have been getting to all of us because we turned our leapfrogging into a sort of game and would wave wildly each time we saw one another. We ended up staying in Chiclayo one extra day so we could get our laundry done. We also had to attend to the matter of our fried Chatterbox adapters since we were totally unaware of the fact that Peru runs at 220V, and as such plugged them in unknowingly until the room reeked of molten plastic. Thankfully we found a booth at the local market where we could get our original Chatterbox adapters fixed, and then it was off to the ferreteria (hardware store) which had step-down adapters so we could then plug them in safely. We have quite the interesting hookups going! Later in the day we went to the Sipan Tombs Museum which contains all sort of Incan and pre-Incan artifacts salvaged from tombs in the area. After that we went to the Tucumen pyramids. Erosion due to rainfall has worn the pyramids down badly so they do not look like the pyramids that we had seen in Mexico, but in certain spots you can actually see the individual adobe bricks that these pyramids were created from. While visiting the pyramids we befriended a bald dog...well, almost bald. He did have one little tuft of hair on his hind, and a few sprigs of hair between his eyes. We asked what happened to him and the museum staff told us that he was born like that and that they are apparently quite a few dogs that are like that in the region. We took some pictures of our motorcycles at the base of one of the pyramids, since the area isn't actually closed off in any way. You can go right up and touch the pyramids, and a few people were actually herding their goats around the base of it when we first drove over on the bikes. We continued our drive south on the 25th and after hours of nothing but sand arrived in Chimbote. It was a fairly uninteresting town with a waterfront that reeked like urine and fishing boats. We left there as soon as possible in the morning and continued the drive towards Lima. The traffic on the highway was brutal, and once we passed the downtown core of Lima we were both ready to quit for the day. We saw a fairly upscale looking neighbourhood and took an exit there, but it was fairly residential and we were having a bit of a hard time finding a hotel. We flagged down two french guys driving a Harley and asked them if they knew where a nice hote was. They told us to follow them, and they brought us to a nice little bed and breakfast in the region of Lima called Miraflores. I was rather happy there because they had a turtle and particularly chatty parrot in the garden. The next morning we woke up to the sound of the parrot belting out a whole medley of tunes. After that, it was more driving through sand and sandy mountains. Today was a little nicer though since we could actually catch glimpses of the ocean, and at times the landscape had an almost Mars-like look to it. Eventually on our drive we came across a really interesting building in the sand. We drove down a little road, took the back route around the building, greeted some people that were walkin along the path, and then blasted over a rickety cement footbridge leading up to the building. It looked rather old and we decided to ask the man what the building was for after driving out what looked like a parking lot and some narrow gates. It turns out that we had blasted right over some Incan ruins through the back route, and the gates that we exited through were the entrance gates to the ruins. What we through were brake waves in the sand were actually the ripples of the adobe bricks. I gather this will be some pretty bad Karma for us! On the 28th we drove to Nasca, which is known for the Nasca lines. The lines are up to 15km long, and run from one central viewing point to various areas in the desert towards drawings. They are said to have been celestial signs, but one tourist there was convinced that it was the work of alien beings. We were able to view three of the drawings. We could see the tree, the nine-fingered monkey, and a lizard, which most unfortunately, had the highway running through it. After we took a few pictures we got onto the highway which ran right through the lizard and headed towards town. We stopped at a chicken place for lunch, and to our surprise a fully loaded KLR650 in Aztec red bearing a Canadian flag pulled up followed by a 250 Super Sherpa (essentially a KLR250). After some short introductions we found out that the couple on the bikes (Caleb and Liz) were doing the same trip as us, and were from the Ottawa region. What a strange coincidence! We all stayed in the same hostal that evening and shared some of our stories of our respective journeys over dinner. Their journey didn't go quite as smoothly as ours, but they seemed to be enjoying the trip regardless and had some great war stories to tell. (www.ridetheamericas.org) Although our evening out was fun it got the better of me later when I came down with a killer case of food poisoning. We had to stay in the hostal the next day since I wasn't able to ride, and pretty much slept for the entire day. I felt a little better on the 2nd, but we once again were defeated on our attempts to get towards Cuzco. We left with an impromptu travel companion, but unfortunately his bike wasn't able to handle the high altitudes and couldn't muster up more than 25-30km/h uphill. To top it off a fierce hail storm moved in. It was brutally cold, we were soaking wet, and I was still feeling a bit off, so we finally cut our losses and decided to return to back to Nasca for the evening. Unfortunately due the weather conditions, and in his haste to get to a warmer altitude our friend took a corner a little too fast and crashed his bike. He was very fortunate to have a good thick layer of warm clothes on which gave him some padding against serious injury, and was wearing a helmet at the time. His bike had a few bent parts and scratches, but he kept his spirits up and we later enjoyed recollecting the stories of the day over dinner. On the 3rd we made one more attempt at it, this time flying solo. We passed through the area where the hail had struck and decided it would be a good time to stop for a snack and a few pics. Oddly enough it was fairly warm and extremely sunny this time around, but the hail was still a reminder of the previous day's journey. Later the warm sunny conditions proved too good to be true and we just about froze our tails off in the highest regions of the mountains. The roads took us snaking around mountainsides, climbing up and down. At times it could be a little scary driving along the sides of the mountains with nothing protecting you from plummeting off the side if you took one wrong turn! It was a long way down too! One of my favourite parts of the journey was seeing the alpacas in the mountains, well, that was when they weren't running out on the road infront of you! At very high altitudes they are everywhere! There is a huge alpaca reservation in addition to the many wild ones, and as well, the going rate for alpaca fur is pretty high (about $300US per kilo) so natives in the mountains often farm them. The farmed alpacas will have different coloured wool ribbons hanging from their ears to designate which family they belong to. We stopped to talk to one lady who was herding her alpacas which had just recently been sheared. I'm not sure if they look funnier with their fur or without! The distances between towns in these mountains is pretty large, so we started to get a little worried about finding a gas station. Thankfully, we found a village where gasoline was sold, and bought a few gallons. We were pretty tired from our long drive, but the town of Chalhuanca was having a Carnival festival in the evening and we wanted to see what it was all about. We maneuvered through the small streets to a field where there were two large trees decorated with balloons, streamers and plasticware which were in the process of being hacked down as part of the festivities. The local people welcomed us with glasses of chincha (recall the funky maize drink), and a hearty pelting of water balloons, confetti, flour, talc powder and soot. We were then grabbed and pulled into the circle of people dancing. Everyone joins hands and dances in a circle around the tree while singing to traditional music. Later, couples break off and do a dance infront of the tree together with a very large ax. Then they take turns taking swings at the tree. The dancing and hacking continues until someone makes the final chop and the tree comes crashing down sending people scattering in all directions. The person who makes the final chop becomes a bit of a celebrity and is cheered on by all! Then everyone runs in, snaps off branches of the tree, and they dance around in celebration. We were completely muddy and pretty soggy, but despite it all we had a total blast!

Day 109

2006-02-20T17:36:00.000-05:00

February 20th, 2006: Cuenca, Ecuador to Loja, Ecuador

We took our bikes out of the lobby of the hotel this morning and did a bit more driving through the mountains again. I got a flat tire on a small piece of wood and we had to do an emergency repair on the side of the road. The bike was teetering precariously on the rocks we had propped it up on since the rocks were so soft they started crumbling away! We were pretty scared that the bike would tip over when the rocks finally gave way so we had to do a very hasty repair. It only took us a few minutes and we were on our way again! Other than that episode it was rather uneventful as far as storytelling goes, but the scenery was just breathtaking, so I will leave the pictures to do the explaining again today!

Day 108

2006-02-19T17:37:00.000-05:00

February 19th, 2006: Chunchi, Ecuador to Cuenca, Ecuador

On the morning of the 19th we drove from Chunchi to Cuenca. It was very European feeling and we got some killer ice cream in a Dutch inspired restaurant. I also snagged a pair of runners at Payless Shoes. Go figure! There wasn't anything too eventful happening, but the city was pretty nice, so I'll just post these pictures up and leave the posting at that!

Day 107

2006-02-18T17:38:00.000-05:00

February 18th, 2006: Salcedo, Ecuador to Chunchi, Ecuador

Today we drove through the mountains from Salcedo to Chunchi. Only a few minutes after we left Salcedo we saw the much talked about yet elusive cuy. Cuy is the Spanish name for "guinea pig". Those little critters that you see roasting on the spit are indeed sizzling guinea pigs. We, of course, couldn't help but dig in!! We particularly liked the little rotisserie unit they were spinning on. Okay, okay! We actually had roasted pork, not cuy, which is what you see us snacking on in the pictures. Aside from being a little apprehensive of eating them, the guinea pigs were $12-15 US each! To put that into perspective, our dinner in the evening was $2.50 which included two bowls of soup, a plate of meat, rice and beans, and two fresh papaya juices. No wonder it's a delicacy....those suckers are expensive! This particular restaurant also offered a typical drink of some sort called chicha, which is made from fermented maiz (corn), rice or yuca (kind of like potato). The closest thing that I can say it resembles is perhaps a cross between the taste of apple cider and mashed up corn, and the texture of pear nectar. In doing some additional research on it, I have just read that in some rural parts of Ecuador the fermentation process is augmented by human saliva. "Chicha makers (typically women) chew the ingredients and spit them back in the pot to brew". That truly concerns me a great deal, as I was just about to comment on my sampling of chicha out of an old Shell oil jug from a native out in the rural parts of Ecuador. It tasted much worse than the chicha from this morning...horrible, really, and packed a bit of a fermented punch to it, but I didn't have the heart to refuse her offer. Perhaps my kindness would have been ditched had I know that saliva was high up on the list of ingredients. In the mountains there is still predominately native populations. They wear the traditional clothing, which is often very ornate and colorful, but can be dark colors as well. They generally wear hats, but they seem to differ slightly in shape and colour between regions. We were very surprised at how small the natives were. Often fully grown men and women would be well below should level. We were told that perhaps their diet might have a factor in that. They plow the fields manually with bulls, and mules are used for labour as well. At this particular area we stopped to see them planting some type of grain after they dug through the soil with an old wooden plow. The plow consisted only of a metal tip that dragged through the soil. We talked with them for quite awhile, but it was difficult to understand at times because they do not actually speak Spanish, but Quecha. There are many differences between Quecha and Spanish, but a few things are universal, such as smiles and gestures, I suppose. After we said our goodbyes we continued snaking our way through the mountains. It began to get really cold up there and we were so high up that we started driving through the clouds. It was beautiful at first, but soon after we entered the clouds, they turned from mist to a blanket of fog. We were not only cold, but we were now soggy too, and our visors had fogged up as well. We had to ride with our helmets open so that we could see properly, and then the blanket of fog turned into rain. To add to the dismal scene the dogs in the mountains rarely see motorcycles so they absolutely honed in on us when we drove by. I counted 17 dogs that were dangerously close to becoming speedbumps, but that count only started after I clicked into the fact that a lot of dogs were chasing me. Since it was pretty slippery it was very dangerous to dodge them, so we just had to hang on to the steering the best we could and hope to outrun them. I also took over my dad's bad luck with animals and had an encounter with a suicidal donkey that decided to jump out infront of my bike. Thankfully I anticipated his move and was able to dodge him in time. But, by far, the highlight would have to be that it is currently Carnival in Ecuador. Carnival is some sort of festival that they have here, that is totally beyond my comprehension but somehow involves kids throwing water at people. I can see that might be fun in the hot lowlands, but a water balloon in the neck at a 100km/h when you're desperately trying to keep warm and dry on a motorcycle is not exactly cause for celebration in my mind! We stopped in the very first town we could find. It was probably the smallest town we have stayed in so far. They actually had only one hotel..which wasn't a hotel so much as a very small hostal. It was pretty spartan, but anything was welcoming by this point in the day even though I was really hoping for a hot shower so I could warm up a little!

Day 106

2006-02-17T17:45:00.000-05:00

February 17th, 2006: Quito, Ecuador to Salcedo, Ecuador

On the 17th we left Quito, and back tracked a little bit north so we could official say we had been to the middle of the earth. At 0 0 0 degrees latitude there is a giant monument with a globe on top and lines painted on the paths leading up to the monument which designate the latitude. We stood with one foot on each side of the lines, so we could tell people that we've been in both halves of the world at the same time. My dad had a fun time trying to synch his GPS with the latitude showing on the wall. It was a rather eventful stopover since there were a few busloads of children and one very memorable family visiting the site. An older lady from Ecuador that was visiting the site with he family walked up to me and started saying "ahhh!! MILAGROS!! UNA CHICA... MOTOCICLETA!!!" (miracle! a girl! motorcycle! was the gist of what she was saying) She shook my hand, and even gave me a big hug followed by a kiss on the cheek. She was so friendly and her entire family kept waving like crazy every time we looked back at them. Then, when a group of the school kids walked by my dad said "Buenos Dias" to them and suddenly all in unison the entire group responded with a very excited "BUENOS DIAS!!!!!!!!!!" followed by nervous giggles. It doesn't appear that they get a lot of tourists in Ecuador, so the kids were very excited to practice their English on us by saying "Hello!" and "Where are you from?" every chance they got. We were taking some pictures infront of the monument when one of the children noticed and said "photos!! PHOTOS!!" Suddenly all of the kids were pushing and shoving to get infront of the lens. I also stepped in the group for one of the pictures. All the children were gathering around and a few of them tried to hold my hand or grab onto my shirt for the picture. It was really cute, and I think "those two strange people on motorcycles" will give them a little something to talk about when they get back from their school trip. After we had seen all there was to see we headed back south through Quito again, towards Salcedo. The drive ridden with stinky smoky diesel buses and trucks. Some even had two or three mufflers to disperse the smoke in all directions. Further into the drive, once we were a little outside of the city it was a much more pleasant drive. We drove through some pretty high mountains, and even saw some snow capped peaks of the Andes. In Salcedo we found a very nice hotel called Hotel Jarfi. They were nice enough to lock our bikes up beside the hotel so that they would be safe ovenight. We spent a good part of the evening chatting with the owner and the man that worked in the restaurant. Later in the evening we took a walk around the center square of town, and I snapped a few pictures of the cathedral which looked lovely all lit up. Then we headed back to the hotel and talked a little more with the owner and his son. The little boy wanted to see the pictures of the cats and dogs on our computer. It was hilarious because my Spanish is still horrible so I had a lot of difficulty communicating with him. We resorted to facial gestures and giggling, instead, and he tried to teach me a few new words. I showed him how to scroll through the pictures on the computer, and later he made a very colourful picture in Paint. We had a great time, and the next day we took some pictures infront of the hotel with the owner, his son, the man that worked in the restaurant and his bike.

Day 102 to Day 105

2006-02-16T17:46:00.000-05:00

***Hey everyone! I'm on a roll now! There's more postings below too, if you haven't checked the site lately***

February 13th,2006: Flew from Tocumen, Panama to Quito, Ecuador
February 14th, 2006: Quito, Ecuador
February 15th, 2006: Quito, Ecuador
February 16th, 2006: Quito, Ecuador

On the 13th we finalized the plans to begin the South American section of our trip. We brought our bikes to the Girag Cargo Airline terminal in Tocumen, where we got some snazzy official badges that allowed us into the terminal area. We just had to show them off to the camera, especially since the last two days we showed up we skipped the security checkpoint by mistake so we never got the official badges. After the paperwork was completed we had to disconnect the battery, and then

drain the gas out of the tanks. When that was finished the bikes were loaded onto a skid whereby we waved them a sad goodbye and hoped like mad that we'd see them again in Quito, Ecuador. In the cargo area they had a brand new, plastic wrapped Maserati, so we felt a bit better knowing that the car would be more likely to go missing before two worn Kawi's. Another great highlight of the day was when the "snack truck" showed up. A man drives around the city with the rear gate of his minivan open, whistles a very distinctive whistle to alert everyone of his arrival, and you then you can pick what you want from the trunk. We bought two large orange juices out of McDonald's-orange-drink-style coolers, which turned out to be pretty darn tasty and sure were welcome in the sweltering heat. When we were finished at the cargo terminal, Nestor, the operations manager from Girag drove us to the Tocumen International Airport. It was very nice of him to drive us there, and we were very pleased with all the service we received at Girag. He even helped us bring our baggage into the terminal! Once at the airport we arranged the tickets for our own flight to Quito, Ecuador. We flew Copa Air, which is a division of Continental. The flight only took a few hours and we arrived in Quito, shortly after 9:30. The next day it was Valentine's Day, which they have in Ecuador as well. First thing that morning we headed straight to the Aduanas area of the airport to pick up our motorcycles. What a commotion that turned out to be! We spent a greater part of the day just trying to figure out where the offices were! The next day we went back again, this time to more seriously inquire about where our motorcycles were. After the ordeal the previous day, we smartened up and enlisted the help of an aduanas agent, his boss, and a lady that worked in the aduanas area where our bikes were apparently being held captive. Another full day of getting photocopies, running across town, and arguing with customs officials still got us nowhere. We were now up to 75 papers and photocopies thereof, and still no bikes, but we did get one little slip of paper with some cryptic numbers on it in return. Finally on the 16th, we asked the guy who's secretary was giving us hassle about what papers were actually required, joked a bit about eating Mickey Mouse, and shmoozed him into getting things into order a bit quicker. He was the key to the whole process, being higher up in the foodchain. What took 2 days of arguing previously was now done in 15 minutes over the lunchbreak of the secretary, who ended up in a cat fight with the other ladies in the office for not having things done properly. 86 photocopies later we finally had the papers we needed, and the last step was now picking up the bikes in the airport's storage units. The guy working at the storage unit said "What??!! You did all of this without an agent?!" "Yeah, and it only took 3 days!! Sheesh!"

Day 97 to Day 101

2006-02-12T17:52:00.000-05:00

*** Hi Everyone! Sorry for the delays in posting...We were busy booking flights and arguing with custom officials for a few days (I'll get into that ordeal later), and thereafter we were in some "interesting" places where Internet is not quite as available as elsewhere in the world. Sorry for the novel which follows, but it's been an eventful few days! ***

Day 97 - February 8th, 2006: San Jose, Costa Rica to Neily, Costa Rica

Day 98 - February 9th, 2006: Neily, Costa Rica to Santiago, Panama

Day 99 - Febrauary 10th, 2006: Santiago, Panama to Tocumen, Panama

Day 100 - February 11th, 2006:

Day 101 - February 12th, 2006:

After the bikes were all fixed up it was time to head towards the Panama border. We drove high up in the mountains. It was fairly chilly up there so we stopped for a hot cup of coffee at a small restaurant alongside the road, where the man working there agreed to take our picture. You can see the altitude (3100m) painted on the wall behind us. That evening we stopped in a small town close to the border and stayed in some funky cabinas that had a Chinese restaurant/reception desk combo. Over dinner I had what was supposed to be an authentic Chinese tea which turned out to be lukewarm water with gelatinous looking leaf globs floating in it. At first glance it was hideous, but thankfully it tasted much better than it looked. In our cabina we encountered the scariest looking shower insofar. There was a breaker switch which had exposed wires leading up to a PVC pipe with one metal knob of the kind generally seen only on outside taps. There was no showerhead, so only a solid stream of water came out of the pipe. End result? One very intimidating shower that didn't have hot water in the long run anyways! Thankfully it was fairly hot in that particular area of Costa Rica so the cold shower was bearable.

The next morning we were off to Panama. As per usual the border crossing was a bit of a headache. At this one in particular we had an even more difficult time since the border official was unable to decipher which photocopy of our documents went with which of the original documents, even though he could have simply matched up the names on the papers. He also did not understand that when we gave him two different bike registration papers, two different licences and two different insurance copies that it meant there were two different motorcycles. While my dad was off arguing with the officials a Panamanian police officer approached me and began to ask me questions about the motorcycle. I figured it was more trouble with the paperwork, but he started off with the usual first question of "how fast does the bike go?". The answers that I give never seem to be fast enough so I've gotten into the habit, instead, of just pointing at the speedometer (maxes out at 180km/h) and letting them draw their own conclusions. The second question, of course, is "how big is it?" (I guess size really does matter!) Although 650's are average, or even on the small side for Canada, most motorcycles here are no larger than 250s, including some of the police bikes. After asking a few more questions the police officer was on his way. We had heard that the police could give you trouble in Panama, but the officer was really quite friendly, and even thanked me for talking with him upon departure. When we finalized the papers we had to put our bikes through an insecticide spraying machine, (which resembles the wax part of the drive-through carwash) and drove away from the border reeking like pesticide. The drive through Panama was suprisingly desolate. There was not much after the border aside from a few houses, some gas stations and the occasional restaurant. It was a gorgeous drive, though, and we only had one obstacle along the way. A tree had fallen onto the road blocking the cars from passing. Of course, it only took a volunteer with a chainsaw, a few hands to clear the way, and one good semaritan to act as traffic cop before we were on our way again. In the afternoon we stopped at the only restaurant we had come across in a good couple of hours. We only noticed it after we passed by it, so we had to quickly make a U-turn infront of a no U-turn sign to return to the restaurant, whereby we realized that the car that was approaching was a police officer. He gave us a quick wave and was on his way. Phew! The lady at the restaurant was really friendly. She told us about her family, and also asked us lots of questions about Canada. We showed her a Canadian quarter and she said it was nice that there was a "chivo de navidad" on it (ie a christmas goat). She also seemed to our choice of the pelican on the loonie. She knew a lot about Princess Diana, and asked us our opinion on why Prince Charles would marry an ugly woman. She also told us that the drinking water in Panama was just as good as the bottled water, and gave us some samples to prove it. She was very kind and wouldn't leave our glasses empty after that! She even refilled our water bottles for the road, and we have to admit the gesture was very much appreciated! Shortly after we left the restaurant we noticed some very small shacks alongside the road. They were little more than a few poles, pieces of tin, or some plastic sheeting, but all were actually places that people lived. There are still very many Natives here in Panama. They wear very colorful dresses and intricately beaded collars around their necks. The Native population does not speak Spanish. The lady at the restaurant had explained to us the differences between certain words. We drove a little longer until we hit a very inviting hotel. The La Hacienda was a fairly sizeable and grandeur looking place, but the rate was reasonable by North Amercian standards and they even let us park our bikes up on the main entranceway so they would be safe for the night. Another highlight of the room was of course our 2002 TV which resemebled a giant soccerball and was even designated as the name in "TV for exciting sport". After Santiago we headed towards Tocumen which is where the cargo airport is located. We got a little lost on the way (ie were totally befuddled) and stopped at the Corridor Norte office. A police officer of some sort (there are about a handful of different departments with different functions) escorted us through the city and showed us the fine art of 'traffic weaving', 'cutting people off' and 'ignoring all traffic signals' while a concert of horns took place behind us. After we got to the main toll highway into Tocumen, he pointed us in the right direction and asked for a few bucks for gas. We were more than happy to oblige given we'd probably still be battling our way through the city to this day without his assistance! One thing that struck me when we passed by Panama city was that there seems to be a huge disparity in incomes here. There were giant skyrise buildings with all the amenties, condos and shopping malls, and directly below them just off the side of the highway is a small population of people that I suppose never relocated from the area when it was being built up. They have little hand carved fishing boats and live in little more than shacks. We stayed at the Airport Hotel in Tocumen, since we had a lot of asking around to do regarding shipping our bikes to Quito, Ecaudor, and we figured the location would benefit us even if the hotel wasn't quite worth the price. After we went to the cargo airport on the 11th we had a bit of time to kill so we got our laundry done at a small shack on the side of the road. We sat there for some time watching all the buses go by. All of the buses are painted in wild colours, have tassles hanging from them, and sport interesting names like "Amor Amor", "Siempra Mas", or "The Terminator". We even saw a "Fiddy Cent" bus which drove by blaring music, came complete with a picture of the rapper painted on the back doors and had ever shade of neon imaginable on it. On the 12th we made another trip back to the cargo airport to sort out a few more details, but we had a great part of the day to relax. We stopped for a bit of lunch in Tocumen, and my dad was the attempted victim of a pickpocketing. A man approached us wanting to sell us real Hugo Boos (no, that's not a typo..it really was genuine Hugo Boos!). The cologne, of course, is only the first introduction to his scam. He then pulls out the real gold chain, but it is a very secretive bargain so he must show you the necklace on your lap instead of placing it on your hand or the table, making sure to keep his hands moving at all times in hopes he can make a grab for the wallet. When we pushed him away he realized that it wouldn't work, so he tried to sit down beside my dad in hopes to get nice and cozy with him finally getting an opportunity to steal the wallet. Fortunately our scumbag radar was on full alert and the only opportunity we gave him was to walk away empty handed. After our eventful lunch we took a trip to the Panama Canal at Miraflores. We watched a short movie on the making of the canal, toured the museum and watched some very large boats make their way through the canal. The pelicans would sit and wait on the gates so that they could catch all the fish that became disoriented as the gates opened and closed. The Dole banana trucks pics are just for you Wendy. I know you would have laughed at Bobby Banana and his crazy antics. He skateboards, he plays soccer and he dances too! He's a banana of all trades.

Day 96

2006-02-07T17:57:00.000-05:00

Day 96 - February 7th, 2006 - San Jose, Costa Rica

The next morning we went to the mini storage unit to pick up the bikes. We loaded them up and were about to head towards Panama when I realized my rear brake felt funny. I looked down to see the aluminum bracket was broken! (See the circled areas on the picture below) My bikes was tipped when we tried to get it over the cement lip into the storage unit, so the damage to the bracket definitely happened back then. It's rather unfortunate that we didn't notice it at the time since it is much easier to get parts in Canada than in Costa Rica, or anywhere further south for that matter. Because of our discovery we had to change our plans pretty quickly and headed for the Kawasaki Dealership in San Jose as opposed to the Panama frontera. Unfortunately, the part that we needed was not very common, so therefore wasn't in stock

and, we were told, it would take approximately 3-4 weeks to ship to San Jose.

Instead, the people at the dealership assured us that they could weld the bracket. At first Jan had some concerns, but they prepared the bracket remarkably well, and for a price that couldn't be beat...around $22, tax included. The people at the dealership were fantastic. It was pretty important to have the brake fixed that day since I didn't feel comfortable driving the rest of the trip without it, so we were very grateful that they offered to fix it that afternoon. They dropped everything to help us out, and even gave the bikes a good wash after the work was done. We were on our way in less than three hours, including a lunch break at Denny's. We highly recommend them! While at the dealership we also met a fellow KLR driver who happened to be a professional photographer. He generously offered to take a few pictures of us infront of the dealership and with our bikes. We don't get to be in the same pictures very often so it was nice to have someone take some shots of the both of us. His shots are shown below.

Day 95

2006-02-06T18:00:00.000-05:00

Day 95 - February 6th, 2006 - Toronto, Canada to San Jose, Costa Rica

It was snowing for two days before we were set to head back to Costa Rica for Part Two of the motorcycle trip, so I suppose we couldn't have picked a better time to return to the sunshine. We left for the airport early due to the bad weather we had the night before, but it turned out to be clear roads and little traffic the whole way so we arrived at the airport way ahead of schedule. The assistant at Continental Airlines told us that he could get us on an earlier flight out of Toronto, and that it would mean more time for us on our stopover. We agreed, and shortly thereafter the man disappeared behind the counter with my passport for an extremely long period of time. We were actually starting to get a little bit worried that we were going to get yanked off to customs, but in the end I everything turned out okay and we made our way through to the security clearance area. Ever since the episode with the shoe bomber you now have to remove your shoes in the airport and run them through the x-ray machines, along with the rest of your carry-on luggage. My revenge for the inconvenience is passing the customs official my worn-each-day-for-3-months-in-hot-sun-motorcycle-boots which I can assure you are not the epitomy of pleasantness at this point. After we cleared security we waiting at the gate for our plane to arrive, and were quite shocked when it did! It was so tiny. Then at boarding time we had to exit the terminal, and run across the tarmac to get on the plane. It was extremely windy and you could feel the plane shaking on the runway....before it was even running! The plane fired up and the pilot came on the speakers shortly after explaining that the flight would be delayed indefinitely. His exact words involved "miscommunications with air traffic control" and "hope for the best"...not exactly the most reassuring words to hear before takeoff!! We also happened to be sitting in lucky number Row 13. (Okay, it said Row 14, but it did come after Row 12, and so it technically was the 13th row). The pilot came on the speakers again and clarified that due to high winds at the Newark, New Jersey airport where our connecting flight was scheduled, our plane would need to wait until further notice to take off. On our second stretch of the journey we had a very friendly man seated next to us, but two obnoxious passengers across the row from us, one of whom was actually caught smoking in the airplane washroom and denounced infront of the entire plane by the pilot. The mostly empty 40 of rum in their seat storage probably had something to do with it. By the end of the day we were totally exhausted. As soon as we got to the hotel I crashed.

Day 84 to Day 94

2006-01-09T18:03:00.000-05:00

Day 84 - December 30th - Jaco, Costa Rica

Day 85 - December 31st - Jaco, Costa Rica

Day 86 - January 1st - Jaco, Costa Rica

Day 87 - January 2nd - Jaco, Costa Rica

Day 88 - January 3rd - Jaco, Costa Rica

Day 89 - January 4th, Jaco, Costa Rica to San Isidro, Costa Rica

Day 90 - January 5th - San Isidro, Costa Rica to San Jose, Costa Rica

Day 91 - January 6th - San Jose, Costa Rica

Day 92 - January 7th - San Jose, Costa Rica

Day 93 - January 8th - San Jose, Costa Rica

Day 94 - January 9th - San Jose, Costa Rica to Toronto, Canada

As promised, here's some of the pictures from the last stretch of the trip before our return to Canada. These pictures are from January 4th, when we made the drive from Jaco, Costa Rica to San Isidro, Costa Rica. We ended up on a bit of a back route, and came across some interesting sites. The scaly guy is Godzilla, a monster iguana who was taking a break to sun himself on the road. Not the optimal place for a rest, if you ask me, but at least all the commotion with our picture taking caused a few people to take a second look and avoid turning Godzilla into a speedbump. They actually eat iguana in a lot of places in Central America, but we tend to stick to much more conventional meals. For breakfast we usually would have the "desayuno tipico" (typical breakfast of Costa Rica). It involves, of course, gallo pinto (rice and beans), a side of your choice, and about a gallon of hot sauce if seasoned correctly. Oddly enough, at this particular restaurant I got a "Taurus" mug for my coffee, which just happens to be my sign. My horoscope for the day probably involved strange events and adventure because right after breakfast we crossed a pretty questionable bridge. Although the top beams look pretty sturdy, I think the base of the bridge has seen better days. The base is made up of flattened metal beams that appear to be held on by an occasional rivet or perhaps a blob of cement, and very little else otherwise. I finally realized where the term "keep your head up" comes from. Looking down at the gaps could be a bit frightening at times, so it literally was best to keep looking up! Also, this step is important for cars, as these two people realized when they ended up nose-to-nose in the middle of the bridge. I couldn't help but laugh at the situation unfold as neither driver wanted to back down. Although my Spanish is lacking, I'm fairly certain the words exchanged were not pleasant. The car's driver eventually gave up, begrudingly backing up and allowing the bus to pass, once again resigning himself to waiting impatiently for a gap in traffic when he could cross. The dueling cars episode happened on the second of the bad bridges. After those two bridges we got to tackle a third bridge that put simply, ended. The bridge wasn't in use, and was reduced to little more than one base. Since no one bothered to repair the bridge (or on second thought, perhaps one was never actually finished in the first place) the highway was diverted through the river. We weren't sure what to think of this, so we hovered around the riverbank for a few minutes deciding what our next course of action would be. After two tour buses and a jeep crossed successfully, and egged on by a bus full of Canadian tourists, we figured we'd "take the plunge." My dad was the first to tackle the river, so the pressure was on to not be the one doing a face plant in the mud. The river stones were slippery and the occasional large rock would pull the bike in awkward jumps, but we both made it across fine, albeit a little soggy in the boots! By the time we arrived in San Isidro they were dried, just in time for the rain to start. The next morning we left San Isidro for San Jose, and had a beautiful drive through the mountains. We passed through one small town where some houses were built right up on the riverbanks and actually overhung the river. Our drive took us a few thousand meters up so it becomes very cold due to the altitude, but the scenery is beautiful so it makes it much more bearable. After we reached San Jose our days were filled with planning for the trip home and loading the motorcycles into the mini-bodega (mini-storage). Then it was back home for a well needed Timmies!!!

Lessons Learned

2006-01-03T14:48:00.000-05:00

The only thing worse than trying to scrape a dead bee off your helmet visor at 120km/h is realizing the bee is not dead and that the bee is not stuck on the the outside

Iguanas are nature's little way of saying "slow down"

"Waterproof" is a term that is open to interpretation. Waterproof riding boots can double as sponges when in a pinch.

Stop is merely a suggestion. So are any other traffic signs for that matter.

Dogs like motorcycles and will chase them..... relentlessly.

Geckos are cute in the Geicko commercials. Geckos are not cute when they jump on you when you're stuck fumbling for your keys in a dark hallway.

Cleaning your helmet is very important. It doesn't do anything to protect the helmet itself, but ants sure seem to love baked on bug guts and will come from the far stretches of any hotel room to snack on these delectable morsels.

Coffee is a "sometimes drink". Guzzling an XL Timmies at 4 in the afternoon is a staple in Canada....coffee at 4pm in the afternoon here gets you some really peculiar looks and giggles from the kitchen staff.

Day 73 to Day 83

2005-12-29T18:06:00.000-05:00

Day 74 - December 20th: Jaco, Costa Rica
Day 75 - December 21st: Jaco, Costa Rica
Day 76 - December 22nd: Jaco, Costa Rica
Day 77 - December 23rd: Jaco, Costa Rica
Day 78 - December 24th: Jaco, Costa Rica
Day 79 - December 25th: Jaco, Costa Rica
Day 80 - December 26th: Jaco, Costa Rica
Day 81 - December 27th: Jaco, Costa Rica
Day 82 - December 28th: Jaco, Costa Rica
Day 83 - December 29th: Jaco, Costa Rica

This is one of the longest times I have gone without a posting but since we've been hanging out here in Jaco killing time before our visit back home in January there hasn't been much going on. We wake up most mornings, have a coffee and fruit plate at the Banana Cafe for breakfast, and then spend the majority of the day running small errands or reading by the pool. We have had two major adventures since arriving here, though. Our first adventure this week came in the form of heading up the mountain to see a waterfall. We stopped for a drink at the waterfall entrance, but ditched the plan of the waterfalls for a bike ride through the mountains. What a bike ride that turned out to be! We climbed and descended, snaking our way through the mountain. It was muddy and slippery and we realized after one particularly bad slope that we were at the point of no return. Even if we had wanted to there would be no way to climb back up that mountain with our bikes slipping and sliding in the mud and the ruts. Thankfully after that area it got a little better, and shortley thereafter we began to see ATV tracks. A couple minutes passed and we came across an ATV tour coming in the opposite direction. After seeing that I had a little bit of a giggle when I realized that even the ATV tour turned around before the rough patch we hit. Our other adventure came in the way of a 5.1 magnitude earthquake which shook us out of bed on the morning of December 28th. A 5.1 magnitude isn't enough to do any damage to the buildings, but it sure is an eerie feeling and gives you quite a rattle. We have finally booked a flight home and will be returning on January 9th. On time for your birthday Mom! We will stay until February 6th before returning to Costa Rica to continue on our journey. I can't wait to see everyone!! Until then, my posts probably won't consist of much aside from reading, tanning, swimming and eating. Just like a relaxing vacation should be I suppose.

Merry Christmas Everyone!

2005-12-25T18:08:00.000-05:00

Well, it's hard to believe that Christmas time is here! In Nicaragua they were in the festive feeling back in November, but there is a decided lack of Christmas decorations here in Costa Rica short of a few spartan sprigs of tinsel lining a store or two. As such, it only scarcely feels as though it is the holiday season. Even pushing your way through a Wal-Mart at 6pm Christmas Eve would seem like a welcome festive experience right about now!!! So, as hectic as it can be there, I hope, as you are all nestled infront of your Christmas trees, eating Christmas dinners that don't involve rice and beans, and are safe from the snow outside that you're thankful for all that the holiday season has to offer. Yes, even the cold!! I miss everyone, and I hope that you all enjoy the holidays! I'm sorry that I can't be there to join you for them! All the best in the New Year, and I look forward to seeing everyone when I come back in January. We are still not sure of the exact dates, but we'll post the information as soon as we know! Best Wishes, Merry Christmas, and a Happy New Year to All!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 70 to Day 73

2005-12-19T18:09:00.000-05:00

Day 70 - December 16th: Guapiles, Costa Rica
Day 71 - December 17th: Guapiles, Costa Rica to Vara Blanca, Costa Rica

Day 72 - December 18th: Vara Blanca, Costa Rica

Day 73 - December 19th: Vara Blanca, Costa Rica to Jaco, Costa Rica

Another day was spent doing not much of anything in Guapiles, aside from hanging out with our new found friend, Fito. Fito is the squirrel that lives in the lobby of the hotel. His diet consists mostly of ketchup, strawberry filled Twinkies and milk, but he also had the occasional french fry, pear juice, or swig of beer. Even when the lobby doors were open, Fito would still stick around, and while you would were typing away on the computer he would jump on your shoulders and investigate. Unfortunately, poor little Fito happened to have an "accident" on the printer, but thankfully they're pretty sturdy nowadays so it seemed to be fine thereafter. The next day we continued on our way towards Vara Blanca. We arrived early in the afternoon and had some time left in the day, so we rode up to Volcan Poas. It's another active volcano with a large lagoon crater inside of it. According to the sign, the average water temperature in the lagoon is 40 degrees Celcius, but it looks much hotter than that because of the steam emanating from the water. Also, to the left of the crater there is an open vent stained yellow from the sulphurous gas, which you could hear hissing and rumbling away. Behind the new crater, you can see the old crater at the base of the mountain. The mountain is covered in trees, but the new crater has not a trace of greenery around it, I don't know how long ago the last eruption was, but it seems to take a great deal of time before things start to come back to life. To the left of the crater is a whole area where you can see all the cracks and crevices where the lava oozed down the side of the mountain. On our way to Vara Blanca we also passed a large waterfall, which was absolutely gorgeous. You could stop on the side of the road there and walk right behind the waterfall. There were some street vendors that sold fruit, and we tried a delicious fruit which I have yet to find out the English name for. It's a large orange fruit filled with a blubbery gooey bunch of seeds inside. You crack open the shell, slurp up the blob, and crunch on all the seeds inside the goo. It tastes similar to a lychee, but looks a lot more disturbing if you accidently get a booger pod on your shirt. Also on our way, we got stuck in a killer Central American style traffic jam. Those dang cows...they always seem to get in the way of everything! The following day was also a fun filled eco-adventure. We went to La Paz Waterfall Gardens. They have an enormous butterfly emporium. It is the size of a standard American football field. There are all sorts of butterflies flying freely, and at times they will even land on you as you're walking through the dome. They have an observation lounge where you can see butterflies in various stages of their lives, and while we were there one finally left it's cocoon to fly freely in the emporium. After the butterfly emporium you walk to the hummingbird gardens where there are numerous feeding stations set up. The hummingbirds are so accustomed to people observing them that you can walk right up to the feeders and see them drinking the nectar. Many times you would hear them swooshing by your head as they darted by to one of the feeders, as well. We overheard a tour operator telling his group that the birds go through 50 pounds of sugar each day! They must keep the ratio of the sugar correct in the feeders too, because if they add too much the birds are prone to cavities in their beaks. Once we were finished in the hummingbird garden we toured the stables. Apparently even the cows eat the black bean sauce here...wink wink. We were given a super cup of coffee at the ranch house, and having perked up were ready to see the frogs. The frogs have their own building, but they do not actually keep them in cages. The bright orange/blue and neon green/black frogs are actually highly poisonous. If so inclined you could probably give it a try to see just how poisonous they are, but we refrained from doing so. It is actually pretty interesting that they are allowed have a poisonous frog exhibit in the open, because you can really see the frogs up close in a much more realistic atmosphere, and I suppose they figure that if you're stupid enough to touch a poisonous frog knowing full well that it's poisonous, then you deserve whatever happens to you next! After the frogs it was off to the grand finale.....the five waterfalls of the waterfall gardens. The last one that you view, is the one that we walked underneath the day before and worked on our dives. Our next step is to actually dive into the water, but that's just a technicality, really. From the platforms in the gardens you could now look down at the waterfall from the top, hear the crashing of the water, and see the force of it rushing down. The waterfalls were just gorgeous and although the mist was fogging up the lens, I managed to get a few clear shots. The next day we had another exciting eco tour. We left Vara Blanca, for Jaco and came across a bridge that my dad remembered from a previous visit to the area. Looking over the bridge you would get a perfect view of giant crocodiles baking in the hot sun. Peeking over the first side of the bridge we counted 17 crocodiles ranging in size from 3 feet to about 6 feet. When we looked over the other side of the bridge we counted another 20, and were shocked to see even larger crocodiles than there was on the other side. There was a giant crocodile, probably betwen 10-15 feet long soaking up the sunshine in a mud flat. It actually gave me the shivers a little bit. A crocodile that size looked like he could swallow a person my size whole!

Day 68 to Day 69

2005-12-15T18:14:00.000-05:00

December 14th, 2005: Guapiles, Costa Rica

December 15th, 2005: Guapiles, Costa Rica

Well, after our crazy adventures with the rain and fog over the last few days we decided to take it easy. As such I spent yesterday bumming around the hotel waiting for the weather to clear up a little and my dad took a trip to see what the town had to offer. Today we went into town to get some stuff for our bikes, and spent the afternoon lounging around the pool. Since I have no exciting pictures to show, or stories to tell, I figured now was the time to pull out the special edition material.

These are a few pictures that I like to call: "Central American Death Traps"

Manholes, Grates and Ditches....covers are optional!

Road Work At It's Finest!

The infamous 'suicide shower'

Day 59 to Day 67

2005-12-13T18:18:00.000-05:00

Day 59 - December 5th: Granada, Nicaragua to Ometepe, Nicaragua
Day 60 - December 6th: Ometepe, Nicaragua to San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua
Day 61 - December 7th: San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua to Liberia, Costa Rica
Day 62 - December 8th: Liberia, Costa Rica to La Fortuna, Costa Rica
Day 63 - December 9th: La Fortuna, Costa Rica
Day 64 - December 10th: La Fortuna, Costa Rica
Day 65 - December 11th: La Fortuna, Costa Rica to San Jose, Costa Rica
Day 66 - December 12th: San Jose, Costa Rica to Cahuitla, Costa Rica
Day 67 - December 13th: Cahuitla, Costa Rica to Guapiles, Costa Rica

***Once again we've had a bit of a time finding Internet so there's quite a few days worth of postings here! We are safe and sound, and I'll get back to all your emails as soon as I can! Thanks!!!***

On Decemer 5th we took the ferry across to Ometepe Island. They certainly cram the vehicles on the boat. The mirrors were just about touching on two trucks, and we had to drive our bikes in straight, then have them lifted and flipped sideways to fit on the back. After Rex's and Dan & Bonnie's bikes were loaded on the ship there wasn't quite enough room to have the rear gate fully closed, so it was left part way open for the entire drive across the lake. It's quite clear that safety regulations are just a teensy little bit more lax in this part of the world. Once you arrive in Ometepe you take a cobblestone road that leads you around the base of Volcano Concepcion, the active, and larger and of the two volcanos. The scenery is just amazing on the island. There's a nice little laguna, a perfect view of Lake Nicaragua, and at most points along the drive both volcanos are visible, one on each side of you. Volcano Concepcion is a perfect conical shape which gives it the true feeling of being an active volcano. We stopped for a few drinks at a hotel close to Santo Domingo, which was a very nice little place, but it was 5 km's of dirt road and rocks to get there. Another fun day of offroading was had by all! The hotel had palm trees with some bright orange berries growing on them which seemed to be a favourite with some beautiful blue birds. They resemble blue jays, but they are much larger, have a longer tail and are an even more vibrant blue. A mother was feeding her baby bird, and both of them even made an appearance at our table in the restaurant. After we left the hotel, we backtracked a little to Charco Verde, which again, took us along another dirt road. This road led us to a small hotel, right on the edge of Lake Nicaragua. There was a gorgeous sunset, and I was eager to try out the kayaks the following day, but we cut our visit in Ometepe a little short after one night. The cabina we rented didn't have towels,soap or hot water, there was mouse poo on the back of the toilet, a giant spider in the room, and worst of all monkeys rummaging around the entire night which were so loud you could swear they were right in your cabin. There were giant frogs there as well which came out in the evening, but they were rather cute so they didn't bother us at all. (He looks small in the picture but he was about the size of a squirrel!) First thing in the morning we figured we would head back across the lake on the ferry. We had a tiny bit of rain before boarding, but it cleared up just in time for us to board. It was certainly a full load! Two cattle trucks, a giant load of bananas and the bikes squeezed inbetween. The boat was leaning to one side due to the banana truck, and the load was so heavy the boat was 2 feet below the normal water line! That was enough to already give you the jitters, but the frantic maneuvering to tie down all the trucks and bikes this time, in addition to the hail mary by the cattle truck driver was enough to really make you wonder what was going on! It turned out to be a fine trip, with only a few more waves than our previous trip. Our original plan was to get a place to stay in Rivas, but we didn't have very much success finding a reasonable hotel there, so we kept on driving until we saw signs for hotels around the San Juan Del Sur area. San Juan Del Sur is a quaint fishing village. It has a small beachfront lined with a few houses, a marina, and tons of little straw hut restaurants. On December 7th we woke up to a downpour, so we figured we would get some breakfast in town while we waited for the rain to clear up a little bit. We had a nice breakfast in a little straw hut restaurant, and a perfect rainbow formed over the ocean. It was stunning to see. Once the rain cleared up we took a walk along the beach to investigate a large steel boat that was ashore. Much to our surprise, there was a man living on the boat. He informed us that during the last hurricane, several months ago, the anchor chain broke and his boat was washed ashore. He told us he had plans in the making to dig it out with a backhoe and drag it back out to sea, but it appeared that maybe the funds were in short supply for the time being. Once we said our goodbye to the captain we went back to our hotel, packed up and took to the roads again. Our intent was to drive close to the Costa Rican border, but due to a slight miscalculation, we suddenly found ourselves at the border. We figured that we might as well just go right on through since we were there anyways. Thankfully the border crossing was one of the better ones, and with about two hours time we were whizzing through Costa Rica. We didn't have a map, so we just drove through until we hit a larger town where we could find a hotel, get a bite to eat, and buy a roadmap. The town we ended up in, Liberia, had a few very nice hotels and I have to admit that it was great to be in a North American equivalent hotel. For dinner we had fast food from the "Food Mall" and splurged on TCBY super sundaes. A killer for a diet, but it was like buying a little slice of back home! The following morning (December 8th) we continued our volcano chasing and headed towards Arenal. We took a rickity little road out towards the volcano but after almost 10 km of dirt, mud, rocks, and steep uphill climbs we decided to stop the journey and head closer to the town of La Fortuna instead. We originally wanted to find a place close to the volcano because in the night you can actually see the glowing lava oozing down the side of the mountain, but we figured the road wasn't worth the effort. We could just as easily find a place closer to town, and then rive the bikes out in the night to see the lava. We found a really cute little hotel on the side of the volcano that doesn't ooze (so cute, in fact, that the towels were folded into a swan shape with flowers decorating them). The hotels here are a little cheaper since you can't see the lava from here but it was so cloudy during our whole stay so we wouldn't have been able to see the top of the mountain anyways. Instead of viewing the volcano on the 9th Jan took a little snooze and I went to the "mariposaria" to see the butterflies. On my tour I was told that the butterflies feasted on a combination of pineapple, banana and beer mush. It seemed a bit of a strange mix to me, but I was told the beer aids in the fermentation of the fruit, which is apparently beneficial to the butterflies. They have some really beautiful butterflies here in Central America. The vibrant blue butterflies are actually the same butterflies as the brown ones that appear to have an eye on their lower wing. The blue is only visible when they are in flight and or when they are basking in the sun with their wings open. Many of the animals here are amazingly colourful. The birds can be anything from lemon yellow, to turquoise green, to royal blue to cherry red. The frogs are lime green with orange toes, and we saw lizards that were completely camoflauged except for a vibrant turquoise tail. After the mariposaria I took a quick trip through the orchid gardens. In Canada orchids are so expensive, but here they're like weeds! They grow all through the forest on the sides of trees and even have to be scraped off of the hydro lines. I added some of the pictures here. (Rachel, maybe your mom would like these orchids!! I think she'd be in her element here!). After our relatively relaxing day, we decided to be a bit more adventurous, and on the 10th we went to the Arenal hanging bridges. It was a really great trip. You walk along a 1.9 mile trail through the rainforest complete with suspended bridges that hang as high as 100 meters over the forest floor at some points. While you're walking along the suspended bridges you can see through the bottoms of them since they are just metal grating with chainlink fence sides, and they bounce and sway a teeny bit with each step you take. It gives you the impression that you're walking along a rickety bridge that's about to give way, just like in a jungle movie! We saw a few lizards and trees full of monkeys along the path, but unfortunately these monkeys were a little too high up to get a good picture. You can see the volanco Arenal very well from one of the bridges along the trail as well, and we even heard it rumbling and bubbling away that afternoon! Since the clouds didn't seem to be letting up we figured we'd never get a look at the oozing lava, and made for the hills again the next morning. The clouds turned out to be even more bothersome to us on our drive! On our way to San Jose we had to cross over a mountain range, and once we got high up in the mountains we were driving through cloud soup. You couldn't keep your helmet visor closed or wear glasses either because the mist would fog them up, so we had to rely on our not-so-great eyesight in addition to not being able to see two feet ahead of you! To make matters worse the majority of people have no daytime running lights and many people didn't even have their lights on. That could definitely be a factor in the seven car pile up that we had to bypass. What a mess!! I had to dodge a chunk of a Mazda Miata's bumper that dislodged from the smashed up car while it was being towed away. Once we got a little closer to San Jose it cleared up nicely, though, and after we found a hotel we took a walk through the Central Park. They had a nice lake with a waterfall, and a clever little sculpture of what one can only assume is a giant dog poop. The park used to be the airport, but now the control tower and terminal have been transformed into an art museum. There are very interesting trees in the park that shed their bark to reveal bright green, orange and yellow markings underneath at this time of year. I still have to research what kind of tree these mysterious things are! Our hotel in San Jose seemed to have a bit of a cockroach "issue" so in the morning we packed up our gear and headed for the Carribean coast after carefully checking our luggage for unwanted stowaways. It was our first very rainy day, and was more reminiscent of a monsoon than an ordinary rain shower. Since we've had so much good luck with the weather, we figured it would eventually let up and therefore failed to throw on our appropriate rain gear. We were very wrong in our assumptions and ended up soaking wet from head to toe. Our jeans soaked up the water and it dripped right down into our riding boots filling them up like makeshift buckets. The dye from our gloves stained our hands and our fingers were totally pruney within a short time. When we came across a little cafe with an overhang we drove our bikes almost right into the restaurant and stopped for a coffee to warm up a little. Once the rain let up a tad (from monsoon to downpour) we hit the road again. We arrived in Limon like drowned rats, but ad a horrible time finding a decent hotel, and were rather uncomfortable with the town, so we left the city in search of a more suitable town to stay in. Unfortunately there is not much of anything between Limon and the next town aside from a few small (and relatively questionable-looking) cabinas along the ocean. Once we found a relatively less questionable-looking area of cabinas we decided to call it a day. Our cabin was a little "rustic" and didn't have hot water, but it was comfortable enough for us. We were both so soggy and tired that sleeping on a concrete floor in some hay probably would have seemed like a suitable alternative to more driving. In the morning (December 13th) we were undecided as to whether or not we should keep on heading further south along the Carribean side towards Panama, or head back, since accomodated weren't quite what we expected. In the end we decided to investigate Puerto Viejo for amenities and then head back if it wasn't what we were looking for. Puerto Viejo had a bank, which we were in need of, but other than that, it didn't leave a very good impression on us. We cut our losses and headed back in the direction of San Jose, only to once again be pelted with rain.

Day 58

2005-12-04T18:19:00.000-05:00

Day 58 - December 4th: Granada, Nicaragua

The first Sunday in December there is a special finale to Masaya's festival of San Jeronimo so on the 4th of December we once again went to Masaya, this time with Dan, Bonnie and Rex. Stages were set up in various areas of the town, and we spent some time touring around watching the dances. It was another enjoyable afternoon. My dad decided that it would be fun to walk around donning a Santa Claus hat, which got many laughs from the locals, since no one else over the age of 4 had one on. In our festive and spontaneous spirit, we decided to try some of the local fare. It consisted of a corn tortilla topped with a rubber slice of cheese, which is then covered in something that tastes a bit like sauerkraut, smothered in mayonnaise and sprinkled with some sea salt, all served up in a sandwich baggie. We thought eating mayonnaise that was baking in 30 degree sun for half a day was daring, but we obviously need to learn a few lessons in bravery. This guy proved that no precautions are necessary to set off fireworks...just hold it and hope for the best. Fireworks seem to be the past time in Nicaragua. It's unbelieveable how many are set off. Fireworks aren't only for the evening here either.... all through the day you can hear them going off whether it's in the sunshine or a torrential downpour. I still haven't actually figured out the "why", though. There just doesn't seem to be any reasoning behind the constant day and night bombardment of mini-bombs. The guy working the administration at the hotel mentioned something about Christmas...but that was back in November, so it seems a little premature for the celebrations. Another peculiarity about Nicaragua is their manner of greeting you. I had a bit of a giggle when someone walking past me said "Bye!" in a "Hello!" intonation. But then it happened again, and then shortly after that someone walking by me said "Adios!" in a "Buenos Dias!" sound. It turns out that they commonly interchange 'hello/goodbye' and "buenos/adios". The only thing that I have to figure out now, is if I say hello to the goodbye or goodbye back!

Day 52 to Day 57

2005-12-03T18:20:00.000-05:00

November 28th, 2005: Granada, Nicaragua
November 29th, 2005: Granada, Nicaragua
November 30th, 2005: Granada, Nicaragua
December 1st, 2005: Granada, Nicaragua
December 2nd, 2005: Granada, Nicaragua
December 3rd, 2005: Granada, Nicaragua

Original Men... my favourite flavour of nachos! Mmm....???? We're still here in Granada! My morning routine now consists of waking up, AfterBiting all my mosquito bites, throwing on whatever articles of semi-clean clothing I can scrounge up, and heading over to Kathy's Waffle House for a giant cup of coffee to start the day off right. Perhaps that's why we've been here so long....the coffee has a hold on us! I suppose the to-die-for strawberry pancakes don't hurt either! The waffle house is pretty much 'Gringo Central' in the morning because they have "Americano" diner breakfasts which I think most gringos start to crave after eating rice and beans for so long. On the 28th of November we spent the day in town visiting the San Franciso Cathedral museum and drinking by the poolside with a couple that we met at the waffle house. On the 29th we loafed around town again, and I swam my 100 laps in the hotel pool while Jan caught up on his CNN. As such, the only semi-productive thing I did was take two pictures of a lizard that was eating bugs outside of our hotel room. Not only are the little guys incredibly cute, but they're good to have around because the mosquitos are pretty bad here in the evening......I'm just thankful, though, that I haven't gotten anymore fireant bites! On the 30th we probably spent the day loafing again, because I have no pictures to show for the day and I don't remember what we actualy did. Oddly enough, we have met quite a few motorcycle travellers over the course of the last few days. Dan and Bonnie (2nd and 3rd on the left) are travelling to Panama, Rex (between me and my dad) is following essentially the same route as us, and Alan (far left) will be travelling the world. It is always nice to meet people along the way that share a common interest, and it's been so great sharing information and stories about everyone's experiences along the way! On December 1st we snapped out of our semi-comotose state, and took a trip to Lake Nicaragua for a tour of the islands with a few of the people we recently met. The 'captain' maneuvers through some of the over 390 islands in the lake pointing out many of the small privately owned islands with unique houses constructed on them. My favourite island of the entire trip, though, was uninhabited aside from a small group of Howler and Cappuchino monkeys! We bought a few bags of cashews from a vendor before setting off on our excursion with hopes to feed the monkeys, and sure enough one brave monkey with baby in tow jumped right aboard the boat! Being quite the resourceful little guy, the monkey first grabbed a bag of cashews out of my dad's hands, and while he was munching down on those dug right into a bag of beer cans looking for more loot. After that he went to the back of the boat, perched himself on a seat and grabbed more cashews out of our hands while we took some pictures.A quick thump on the boat's tarp roof by the captain was his queue to exit, and he promptly jumped back up into the trees. As much as we've been enjoying our stay here in Granada, we've made a firm decision to leave on Monday to continue our travels before we become permanent affixed to the hotel lounge chairs, never to be found again. While we were still on our productive streak we figured we might as well use December 2nd to go to San Jorge and figure out the ferry schedule to Ometepe. We drove to San Jorge with Alan since he was set to take the 2:30 ferry out that day. On Monday we'll be making the trip back to the San Jorge again, boarding the ferry with our motorcycles, and heading to the island of Ometepe as well. The island is actually made up of two large volcanos...one of which is still an active volcano which apparently hisses and burps every now and then. We were told it was a must-see on our route.

Day 49 to Day 51

2005-11-27T18:39:00.000-05:00

November 25th, 2005: Granada, Nicaragua
November 26th, 2005: Granada, Nicaragua
November 27th, 2005: Granada, Nicaragua

On the 25th we were going to take a boat tour around the islands in Lake Nicaragua, but unfortunately we were so busy that we ran right out of time! After eating breakfast, swimming in the pool, lounging around the pool, eating lunch, and then contemplating what we might do for dinner we just couldn´t fit it into our schedule. (Looks like we´ve official made our transfer to CAST - Central American Standard Time)!!! On the 26th we headed down to the waterfront to finally take that boat tour we had been planning. Unfortunately there was something that was bugging us..... literally. We were surrounded by bugs. Not just a few, or even a swarm...there was just a solid thicket of bugs. They were in our hair, all over our skin, going up our nose and getting sucked into our lungs with every breath. It was absolutely horrible, so we had no choice but to head back. If you click on the picture to enlarge it, you can hopefully see them. The "grainy" look to the picture, or the appearance of a blizzard is actually the swarms of bugs! It was like nothing I´ve ever seen before! Needless to say, the rest of the afternoon was spent by the poolside where we were safe from the pests. On Sunday morning there was a small group of musicians that came by our hotel with a statue of Maria. They play a song for you, and you donate some money, or even flowers to decorate the shrine. we went to Masaya to once again see the mythology and folklore festival. As I mentioned in a previous posting, people dress in very ornate costumes and tour the city with their marimba bands. We found out today that the houses they visit are by volunteer basis, and after the dancers complete their show, the hosts at the houses provide food and drinks for the dancers as well as anyone else that has come along to watch the show. We were stopped by the owner of one of the homes and offered a wonderful rice dish, a bun and a glass of rum & Coke. We didn´t want to oblige, so we declined their offer, but the owner would not take no for an answer, and even offered us more food and drinks when we had finished our meal! They were extremely friendly and generous people, and we talked with them for some time about the festival and about life in Canada. It was so nice of them to welcome us into their home and treat us so kindly. They even waved us goodbye as we left to tour the rest of the city. After leaving there, we went towards the old market and came across another troop of dancers, this time in devilish costumes. We toured the city with them for a little bit of time, before heading back to the market to watch the traditional Nicaraguan dancers. The costumes of the dancers are very ornate, and I only wish that I could do the music justice in print. The random picture of Barney beating to a pulp was from a children´s birthday party taking place in the market. We thought it was too great and just had to add the picture.

Day 48

2005-11-24T18:40:00.000-05:00

November 24th, 2005: Granada, Nicaragua

Today I got to play Tarzan on a canopy tour. We took our bikes halfway up the volcano Mombochu to the national park entrance, and from there we took a rickety truck further up the mountain to the canopy tour base station. After you pay your fee they get you all geared up in the harness, which turned out to be quite the invasive procedure. Two of the guides work on you, doing up buckles and snaps all over the place!! Then they give you your "brakes" which are actually a pair of work gloves with a big pad of leather crazy-glued over the gripping area, and a dorky helmet which wouldn´t protect you from a stale marshmallow flying at your head let alone a crash into the middle of a rainforest. Then the fun begins. You start off climbing up to an extremely rickety platform that they build around the top of a tree. From there, they give you a 5 second lesson...in Spanish...of how to do the jump. They buckle you up to the cable wait until you muster up enough courage to take your feet off the ground, and then "wooooooooosh!!!!!" you zip along a cable until the next platform. I was a little light on the "brakes" so I built up quite a bit of momentum before the tour guide had to catch me at the end. Then the real fun begins! They do the "Superman" twist on the regular jump. You´re strapped on the cable by your back, face down, with the tour guide behind you wheelbarrow race style. It is great because you get to see more of the forest, but it is also very scary since you aren´t able to hold on to anything, and your guide is fully in charge of your braking. You better hope your guide isn´t hungover the day it´s your turn to plummet headfirst into a tree! After that it was the upside-down jump. This was probably the most "interesting" of the jumps solely for the reason that in the picture it ended up looking more like a lesson in Kama Sutra than an innocent rainforest tour. Overall we were taken on 17 different jumps through the forest. It was an exhilirating experience and I´d definitely suggest it to anyone that is up for a little adventure. After the tour was over we stopped at the mariposa (butterfly) emporium. It was very small, but the butterflies were just beautiful and I couldn´t resist taking a few pictures. I have decided that I must visit the butterfly conservatory in Niagara Falls when I return....who´s in? The rest of the pictures from today´s posting are of the "old hospital" in Granada. It is a truly remarkable building which has such great potential (minus the trees growing out the side of it, of course). Apparently there are plans to restore it and make it into a hotel underway, so it would be interesting to see, down the road, if that takes shape.

Day 46 to Day 47

2005-11-23T16:21:00.000-05:00

November 22, 2005: Granada, Nicaragua
November 23, 2005: Granada, Nicaragua

Yesterday was a very uneventful (ie wonderful) day of lounging by the pool and suntanning, so I´m sad to admit that I have no pictures to post, or no exciting stories for the day, aside perhaps, from me getting bit by a fire ant in what will remain an undiclosed area which was a lot more painful than you´d expect! Today we hit up the local wafflehouse in the morning for some killer strawberry pancakes, wandered around town taking pictures, and then spent the afternoon heading to Lagoona Apoyo once again. Over breakfast some very helpful ladies informed us that there was in fact a real road to the Lagoona! The road made today´s journey much smoother than our previous one and we had a few drinks under a straw hut right on the lagoon´s edge which was very relaxing. The water was incredibly warm in the lagoon. In the tourist guide it states the temperature is usually 85 degrees Fahrenheit in the lagoon. As tempting as a dip was, we didn´t want to ride the bikes back soaking wet so we decided not to take a swim.

Day 44 to Day 45

2005-11-21T16:29:00.000-05:00

Day 44 - November 20th: Leon, Nicaragua to Masaya, Nicaragua
Day 45 - November 21st: Masaya, Nicaragua to Granada, Nicaragua

ooo Hope you enjoy this posting, and in addition, I´ve added the promised pictures to the last posting as well, so I hope you scroll down to enjoy the updates (if you can handle them!) ooo

We left Leon on November 20th and began our trip towards Granada. Although it wasn´t our planned destination, we stayed in a town called Masaya for the evening. We arrived in Masaya sometime in the afternoon after taking an "accidental detour" and were suddenly surrounded by a parade of people singing and dancing in fancy costumes. Apparently every Sunday for a few months people dress up in traditional mythological clothing and complete with their own Marimba band, they will march through the town from house to house doing dances. Everyone gets really into the dances and cheers the performers on. It´s really an incredible site. It also turned out to be good luck that we ended up staying in Masaya because shortly after we booked into a hotel there was a torrential downpour. A tropical rainstorm at it´s finest! Our hotel was right at the entrance of the Masaya National Park, so the following morning we decided to take a trip into the park to see the volcano. The volcano is an active one, and the last erruption was in 2000. Unfortunately, due to landslides you can´t get to the side of the volcano where you can see the lava bubbling, but you still can go right up to the top of the crater where you can view the gases spewing out the top. It is an amazing view to see, but after a short time the gases start to irritate your throat, and the smell of the sulphur is very strong. They suggest in the tourist card that you don´t stay up there longer than 20 minutes. After the first crater, we also climbed a little higher to another crater which was now inactive, and had filled up with trees and greenery. Our drive today took us towards Granada. We first stopped to find a little volcanic lagoon called "Lagoona Apoya". It was quite the drive down a really out of the way road, but it was a real motocross adventure! The view of the lagoon made the driving worth it all!

Day 40 to Day 43

2005-11-19T16:31:00.000-05:00

Day 40 - November 16th: San Salvador, El Salvador to (Middle of Nowhere), Honduras
Day 41 - November 17th: (Middle of Nowhere), Honduras to Leon, Nicaragua
Day 42 - November 18th: Leon, Nicaragua
Day 43 - November 19th: Leon, Nicaragua

Our November 16th drive to Honduras was horrible. We left early in the morning and again battled the stinking fuming diesel trucks. After half a day of driving my dad's shirt was totally black from the exhaust fumes. We got to the border around 9:30 and were litterally swarmed by the border vulchers. They are at every border crossing from Guatemala down, but they were by far the worst in Honduras. They speak a little English, and insist that for $2.00 US or somewhere around that price, they will tell you what paperwork you must fill out and how much everything costs. Unfortunately, they rely on the fact that most people don't speak Spanish fluently, and will tell you that you need to pay the border officials more than is actually necessary. Often the translators will tell you there is actually a cost to services that are in fact free. Then they split up the difference with the border official behind closed doors, and to boot tell you that you need to pay them a few extra dollars for their services. Thankfully my dad's Spanish is pretty good so we have managed to go through every border crossing without their "help". At the Honduras border, though, there was no bank, so my dad had to take a cab back to a bank that gave out American dollars, and then return to pay the small import fee for the motorcycles. By the time the whole affair was completed it was nightfall. Driving at night in the middle of Honduras was already bad enough, with the flurry of bugs plastering our visors and the dangers of driving at night in a country where headlights are optional, but then we were held up by assaulteros demanding money...... in other words, the POLICE! The one officer told me he had to see my license. Then he told us we had to pay $20 per tire to cross. My dad simply said "No". The officer then said that he would need to hold my license until we paid up. My dad calmly held out his hand, and left it there for quite some time, until the officer again insisted on the $80. My dad then said "That isn't my property, or your property, it is the property of the Government of Canada, so if you'd return it now we'll be on our way" again holding out his hand. The cop looked a little baffled, but a lot pissed off, and then looked to the other officer for backup. The other officer gave him the "you're on your own buddy" shrug. Disgruntled, he then gave us back our documents and we once again raced on to try to find a suitable hotel. Then off in the horizon there was a gleaming beacon...an oasis in a barren dessert.... a...well, you get the idea... there, in the middle of nowhere was a hotel, and not just any hotel.... a fancy one with lots of well dressed guests and a perfectly trimmed Christmas tree in the lobby. We had to pinch ourselves to make sure we weren't dreaming. The rate was reasonable too, and we found out a little later, that we were the third guests to EVER check into the hotel. The reason for the well dressed guests was that there was a grand opening party for the hotel that evening. It was the very first night they had been open! Even funnier was when we went outside to look over the entrance and there was a gathering of cops outside. My dad turned to one of them and said, in Spanish, "Hey, you look a little familiar...." at which point the guy looked totally taken aback and made a VERY abrupt departure. Turns out that our little friend from the police checkpoint was there with the higher ups and likely didn't want to deal with the reprecussions of that. After that evening we decided that Honduras wasn't for us and that we'd move on to Nicaragua. We passed 2 more police checkpoints on the way and again they both wanted various sums of money for various reasons, and again we told them no and didn´t have to pay. At the Nicaraguan border there were the vulchers waiting again, but it took MUCH less time and was much less of a painful experience. We stopped for some lunch at little comedor where the staff was very friendly, and we managed to get a few pictures of the family. We ended up in a small town called Leon. It is very nice here so we have decided to stay for a few days. Over breakfast the most bizarre thing happened. A blind man had stopped at the entrance of the restaurant. Shortly thereafter a man came walking along and bumped right into him. A few harsh words were exchanged and the man who had been waiting said "What´s wrong with you? Can´t you see I´m blind?" to which the other man responded "Are you trying to make fun of me because I´m blind?" They both assumed that the other person was mocking them, but it turned out that they both in fact were blind, and it was just a unlucky chain of events that they ended up bumping into one another. It took both of them a few moments, and the realization that they both indeed had blind sticks, to realize what was happening, whereby they promptly had a little laugh, shook hands and apologies were exchanged. Equally bizarre is a trip to the grocery store. The theme of our trip there was testicles and Bimbos.... I´ll just let the delectable pictures speak for themselves, but be warned, enlargement of the pictures isn´t for the faint of heart! I think I´ll stick with the subway store instead...as quaint as it is! For our last evening in Leon we went to the local cultural arts centre and watched a Classical Guitar Orchestra. It was a very nice evening, and the guitar music was great.

Day 39

2005-11-15T16:33:00.000-05:00

Day 39: November 15th - San Salvador, El Salvador

***Hi All! Sorry it has taken so long to get the last few postings up. We were quite a busy bunch this past week and didn't have Internet access for most of the week. I have put up postings for Day 33 until present all in one go, so enjoy!***

Today was a pretty interesting day. We decided that we'd drive up to the crater of a volcano and take a peek. We drove up and up and up a mountain until we were about 2km from the crater, when the roads just got way too bad to continue. They were apparently being repaired, so I shudder to think of what the road looked like before it was fixed! We cut our losses and headed back down the volcano until we found a "mirador" (a lookout or viewing area). For the everyday low price of 50 cents per person we couldn't resist stopping there to see the view. We stayed for quite a long time and chatted with some local men who offered to buy us a drink and some sardines on tortillas. I passed on the sardines, but did try some fresh coconut juice and coconut meat from the shell which was rather nice. Jan had some of the sardines on a tortilla, and then hilarity ensued when he figured he'd also try a chili that they were eating. We stayed for a few beers, got in trouble by the policia when we tried to ride off on our bikes after.........okay, not really, we actually just posed the shot....but it makes it sound so much more adventurous! The men we were talking to had quite a good laugh when we tried to suggest that the police also owed 50 cents a head for use of the mirador.

Day 38

2005-11-14T16:34:00.000-05:00

November 14th, 2005: Guatemala City, Guatemala to San Salvador, El Salvador

This morning when we left it was drizzling a little bit, but as the day progressed it kept getting more sunny. Rain definitely puts a damper on riding, so it was nice to be spared from the bad weather. We arrived at the El Salvador border around noon, and started with all the paperwork. The passport stamping process wasn't too lengthy, but we did have to wait quite a while for the bike import papers to be put in order. Fortunately the border officials were incredibly friendly and they helped make the process much easier. They assisted us in whatever way they could, and I even was escorted to the market by one of the officials to help me find a Guatemala and El Salvador flag sticker for my bike. Though the search turned up fruitless, it was a really nice gesture. We talked with them for quite some time.... unfortunately my Spanish is absolutely atrocious, and I could barely respond to most questions without sounding mentally incompetent, but it was a great learning process and it made for a few good laughs. Their conversation made the long wait quite a bit easier for me and it was much appreciated! After we left the border we stopped at a little roadside stand to get some fruit. We bought a whole bunch of bananas and some oranges for only 1 US dollar. Not a bad deal, at all! Then we were offered a sampling of other goodies on the cart, some of which it took us a while to figure out. Of particular interest to us were the lychees....just because they look like a demented gooey eyeball on the inside, but a hairy red ball from the outside. Or perhaps it was just the diesel fumes getting to us by then!!

Day 37

2005-11-13T16:37:00.000-05:00

November 13th, 2005: Guatemala City, Guatemala

When it rains it pours. We woke up this morning to another flat tire. Thankfully it was only the front tire this time which is much easier to fix, but it still wasn't the honey on our Cornflakes either. No doubt that tube had punctures in it as well from the same tire iron. We filed down the tire iron, and added 1 more tire change to the final count. On the plus side, we're such experts now, that we fixed that baby in 2 minutes "flat" (pun intended...again). After changing the tire there was little time left to cross the border. Also, it was Sunday, and most things seem to be closed or not at full capacity on Sundays, so we figured we might as well spend another day in Guatemala City and make for the border on the 14th.

Day 36

2005-11-12T16:38:00.000-05:00

November 12th, 2005: Guatemala City, Guatemala

We spent a day in Guatemala City so that we could pick up the tires for our motorcycles, and I could learn a valuable lesson in bike maintenance. We started off changing the front tire on my bike, which went rather smoothly aside from the fact that all 3 of my dad's glasses are broken so with his poor sight he put the tire on with the incorrect rotation. We promptly corrected that and changed the remaining 3 tires, which took the greater part of a day. We were all finished up and ready to pack it in for the day when much to our dismay we realized that one of the rear tires was flat. We removed the tire and checked the tube, where we found three puncture holes. We had a little bit of a burr on our tire iron which wreaked havoc on the tube. We repaired the tube and finally we were able to relax for the day. Overall damage - 6 changes (4 changed, 1 rotation changed, 1 tube patched). You can bet that after all that work we were pretty "tired" (pun intended) We had an awesome bowl of soup at the local Chinese restaurant, which had the mandatory armed guard outside. It is unbelieveable the number of armed guards you see in the city. The taxi driver that brought my dad to the tire store actually put his cd player face in his pocket, locked all the car doors, and checked the trunk of the cab before going into the store with my dad to pick up the tires. It seemed a bit extreme considering outside of the tire store there were 4 armed guards, but it was fairly common in the city. There was even an armed guard outside of the Guizno's plaza! I'm not sure if it is actually anything to be concerned about here, but the razor wire draped over everything it really doesn't put your mind at ease! Oh, and one really weird thing, you can get McDonald's delivery here! They bring it to you on a motorcycle. Same with Domino's Pizza too! I think that would be entirely too convenient for Canada or the US...driving to McDonald's is the only fresh air some people ever get!

Day 35

2005-11-11T16:40:00.000-05:00

November 11th, 2005: Rehuetlan, Guatemala to Guatemala City, Guatemala

After the complimentary breakfast our journey towards Guatemala City began. Bill and Steve still planned to go to Escuintla, but we thought it would be nice to ride together for the first part of the trip before having separate. The drive was pleasant, a few potholes aside, and we made rather good time to the split in the road where we were set to part ways. We all stopped for some barbequed chicken (and corn tortillas....a given, if you've been paying attention) in a small town before saying goodbye. While we were stopped we noticed a teensy problem with my bike. I hit a very small, but also very deep pothole earlier in the day. As soon as I hit the pothole I knew it was quite a crunch, but I didn't have a flat, so I figured the bike was okay. Upon closer inspection we saw that I had bent both rims. We still needed tires, as well, because the dealership in Oaxaca turned out not to have our tires in stock. When we got into Guatemala City we tried to find tires without very much success. Fortunately came across a Kawasaki/Volvo dealership where the staff was more than willing to help us with our predicament......that is, after an initial hilarious moment when Jan broke the ice by falling backwards in the middle of the dealership after a chair collapsed underneath him. Laughs were in full supply by all! They allowed us to use their shop, including the hydraulic press so Jan could press the rims back to shape. Unfortunatetly, they didn't have the tires we required in stock, but were kind enough to refer us to another store which had two sets in stock and even went so far as to draw us a map to get there. A definite bonus when you're lost in a new city! They went out of their way to accomodate us and truly provided amazing service. We can't say enough about them!

Kawasaki
Grupo Los Tres S.A.
Boulevard Liberacion 1-87, Zona 9
01009 Guatemala, C.A.
Phone: (502) 2386-0101
keklund@grupolostres.com

The rest of the afternoon ran much less smoothly for us, when we had to battle through the worst traffic we've come across insofar. It was total gridlock. It literally took us hours to get a few blocks down the road, and the whole time we were sucking up black smog from diesel buses. Then we got lost looking for a hotel until night fell. We were frustrated, tired, and really cold since the temperature seems to drop quite a bit in the evenings here. We found out, only the next day, that the traffic was a bit of an extraordinary event, and wasn't in fact the norm. Apparently a bomb of some sort went off somewhere in the city and that was the cause of the commotion. We're lacking a lot of details, but I figure sometimes ignorance really is bliss!

Day 34

2005-11-10T16:41:00.000-05:00

November 10th, 2005: Pijijapan, Mexico to Rehuetlun, Guatemala

On our way towards the Guatemalan border, and throughout many areas in Guatemala we passed through more areas that had been damaged by the hurricane. It humbles you to see the destruction that nature can cause. Massive boulders were carried huge distances, entire trees were uprooted and got stuck along the base posts of bridges, sections of highways were literally washed away, and entire railway bridges came loose and were pushed partway down riverbeds. Although it has been a few weeks since the hurricane, and temporary roads have been built to accomodate the traffic, it will still take an incredible amount of work and time before the region is repaired. Even then, some of the areas will likely be altered beyond repair. Rivers have altered course and now bypass the bridges that they were originally set to go under. We stopped in a small town in Chiapas to buy some water from a local vendor, and slowly more and more of the town emerged looking over the strange newcomers to town with the bikes. We bought some peanuts off of some street vendors and managed to get a picture of them. They seemed pretty surprised when they saw the image of themselves on the screen of the camera. Shortly before hitting the Guatemalan border we stopped again at a gas station to tank up and get a little breakfast (other than peanuts). Unfortunately the heat got to me a little bit and I started feeling really queasy. After a bout of sickness and a little rest in the shade, I felt a little better, and we all figured it would be best if we kept on our way towards the border. As soon as we got to the Guatemalan border we were swarmed by people wanting to exchange money, or show us around the town and what steps to take to get your paperwork done. It was all a little overwhelming and I was still not feeling the best. My first few minutes in Guatemala were spent yacking my guts out in the passport office. Unfortunately, that was pretty much the highlight of the border crossing experience! We got our passports stamped after I emerged from the washroom, and then moved to the next station which was something to do with immigration. We filled out a small form, paid some fees and were off to the next station. At the third station we had our bikes sprayed against insects. Oddly enough, insects must only be found on the underside of tires because that's the only place that they actually sprayed the bikes! Apparently the insects also don't stick to shoes, bicycles, stray dogs, donkeys, or taxis because they were all allowed through without "the dip". We paid again for that service...thankfully it was only 18 quetzals (aka 18 quesadillas for the Spanish illiterate), which is only about $3. Now we were off to get the import papers for the bikes. At our fourth stop, the import officer told us he'd be "right back after a bit of lunch" and "should" be back in an hour. We had to wait on a curb for two hours for him to return before we could go any further. Finally he returned, we filled out more paperwork again and we were on our way through Guatemala. Steve and Bill wanted to make it to Escuintla, and our goal was towards Guatemala City because we still needed tires, but it was starting to get a little later in the day and we decided it would be best to find a hotel before nightfall so we stopped in a nice city called Rehuetlan.

Day 33

2005-11-09T16:43:00.000-05:00

November 9th, 2005: Juchitan, Mexico, to Pijijapan, Mexico

On the last posting I was a little tired from our drive and forgot to mention the funky tequila factory we stopped at! At first we thought it was only a restaurant, but it seemed quite large to be only a restaurant considering it was at the intersection of two highways with nothing else around. We ordered our breakfast and were asked if we wanted to sample some of the tequila that was made there. I'm not usually one to turn down a free drink, but unfortunately I'm not a huge fan of tequila....especially for breakfast. The service was stellar there though, and we were able to take some pictures of the tequila being made from start to finish. At this particular location, a man would tap an empty Coke bottle on the wooden axel behind the donkey. When the donkey heard the "bonk" from the bottle he would start walking in a circular track, and in doing so pulled a large stone wheel around which crushed up all the cactus leaves. The man behind would scoop out the cactus sludge with a pitchfork and throw the cactus sludge into barrels. The donkey now and then would take a little break to snack on the cactus slop. The alcohol was then distilled in very primitive looking cement vats, but where it went after that was a mystery. Perhaps they didn't want anyone to see how the worms are added for fear no one would drink the tequila again! You could actually purhase a plate of the tequila worms fried up for an appetizer at the restaurant, and of course, they also had the regional specialty of crickets/grasshoppers as well. We spent the rest of the afternoon driving a fairly pleasant route littered with hundreds of the cactus plantations which are for use in tequila production. The latter part of the drive was really windy so I we were mighty tired when we got to Juchitan. That night I finished reading "The Alchemist" (excellent reading Kyla, thanks again!). I actually couldn't have read that book at a more appropriate time. Without giving away the ending, the main character must figure out a way to turn himself into the wind, and I had to keep reminding myself of the book while I was driving the next day. Our drive was so incredibly windy the morning we left that the bikes were blowing all over the place. We would be on approximately 45 degree angles at some points, and the problem was, that the wind wasn't consistent either so you were constantly correcting. The area is always that windy too. The posted speed limit (normally 90-110km/h for that type of road) was permanently posted at 30 km/h, and all the trees along the roadside were completely bare and windswept on one side. It was pretty strenuous, but thinking of the book helped me to relax a bit along the way and stay focused. Our goal was to make it close to the Guatemalan border, but it was getting a little bit late in the day, and we were a bit strained from the wind so we decided to stop in a small town called Pijijapan. Coincidentally, while we were there we met up with two Canadians who were also travelling by motorcycle. Even more coincidentally, Bill happened to live very close to my dad, which is very strange since he lives so far out in the country. His friend, Steve, was travelling from Newfoundland. We all had dinner together at a little tacqueria in town, and decided that we'd make the trip to Guatemala together the next morning.

Day 31 to Day 32

2005-11-08T16:44:00.000-05:00

November 7th, 2005: Oaxaca, Mexico

November 8th, 2005: Oaxaca, Mexico to Juchitan, Mexico

We spent another day in Oaxaca because we were going to get our bikes serviced. In the morning we decided to kill some time by visiting the ruins on Monte Alban. I have to do more research on these ruins, but in the meantime I'll just let you see the pictures to appreciate them. After we returned from the "pile of rubble" we figured that we'd save ourselves the money and instead make a trip to town to get some oil and do the bike servicing ourselves. It was much cheaper, and we had a bit of a fun afternoon making a Clorox bleach jug oil drip pan, and searching for petrolium to clean out my air filter since the technician who serviced my bike last completely smothered my air filter in grease. We finally solved the Caramilk mystery as to why my bike was running not as efficiently! On the morning of November 8th we headed more south, and ended up in Juchitan. It was really cold in the morning, got brutally hot the lower in the mountains we got, and then it was so incredibly windy the last stretch of the trip. I thought a few times I was going to get blown right off the road, and now I have aches in muscles I didn't know I had from straining to keep upright! Not much else to report....but mainly because I'm exhausted and not quite sure what's all happened today anymore!

Day 30

2005-11-06T16:46:00.000-05:00

November 6th, 2005: Oaxaca, Mexico

My excuse to return one day happened today. It's about time for an oil change, to check for some new tires, and also to look for an air filter for the bikes, but since it's Sunday, the shop was closed today. We decided to stay one more day so that we could hopefully get what we needed at the shop tomorrow. It's a little hit or miss if they have the correct parts or not, but Oaxaca is one of the largest cities we'll be in until we hit Guatemala City. We had breakfast in the city square and later we watched the orchestra play infront of the cathedral. It was a fairly large gathering, and the local news crew was there to tape the event. Unfortunately my dad was still feeling a little off from the bad taco, so we thought it best that he have a little catnap in the afternoon. I spent the afternoon reading The Alchemist (Thanks for the books Kyla! So far they have been great reading!) in one of the outdoor cafes in the square. That is, of course, after updating the website and sending off a few emails! It was a pretty relaxing day, and the square is an excellent place to 'people watch'. My only complaint is the minimum $1.50 US price tags on coffees and cappucinos. I was quite surprised by the price of everything in Mexico. I had assumed it was going to be much cheaper here, but many things are much more expensive than you'd think. Of course, prices do tend to be inflated in the more tourist areas, but even some taco huts in the middle of nowhere with permanent prices painted on the signs tended to be a little steeper than you'd imagine them to be here. And the stinking grasshoppers were 80 pesos! That's about $8.00 US! It seems to be a regional specialty around here! I don't know what the "big bowel" was...I'm hoping it was just a typo for bowl, but hey.... who knows anymore!

Day 29

2005-11-05T16:47:00.000-05:00

November 5th, 2005: Puebla, Mexico to Oaxaca, Mexico

We left Puebla a little later in the day than we usually set off. We had to wait until 10 for our laundry to be finished, and figured some breakfast at "The Italian Coffee Company" was in order. It's a lot like a Starbuck's or William's except that nothing tastes quite as nice as in Canada or the US . Fresh ingredients seem to be in short supply for the most part in Mexico. Even at McDonald's you can only get some sort of liquid soybean oil type creamer stuff for your coffee....milk or real cream is out of the question. (Unless it's ice cream at McD's which is 100% todo leche de vaca...100% total milk of cow) . In most other places you get either a packet of CoffeeMate, a big jar of coffee whitener sitting on the table, or milk made from skim milk powder (which leaves funky floaties in your coffee, but at least tastes a bit better than the powdered stuff). It seems to be a bit of a theme here. No matter how great and grandeur anything looks, everything always seems to be a little bit off. You can step into the fanciest bathroom with marble sinks, and yet, there might be no hot water...or it will take 10 minutes for it to get hot...or there's no pressure...or the pressure's so bad it will sandblast you raw....or the shower leaks all over the floor into the toilet area. You can step onto a perfectly architectured street with beautiful cobblestone roads, but expect a few stones to be missing here and there which likely ended up as car blocks in a shop, and of course some metal rebar must be poking out at the perfect angles to snag you when you least expect it. After breakfast, we went to the town square to get our motorcycle boots shined, and then once that was done we were on the road again. The early part of the drive ended up on a 'libre road' (free road) which was under construction. It caused a massive traffic jam, but thanks to our trusty dual purpose bikes we pulled off onto the side of the road and tested out some of our best motocross moves. We went whizzing by the traffic jam dodging stray dogs, pedestrians, piles of bricks and an endless supply of taco huts, but in the end it was worth it. After we bypassed the traffic jam we stopped for gas, got some drinks, called home (hi Mom!) and yet we STILL were ahed of the people that we passed. The traffic jam conditions are only worsened by the fact that to drive in Mexico a prerequisite is to have absolutely zero patience. You woudln't be able to see the end of the traffic jam, and people would still try to pass just to get one or two cars lengths ahead...but of course, no one would let them back in, so they'd be stopped on the side of the opposting traffic blocking off things more. The only solution then, of course, is to honk. It doesn' t make anyone go anywhere any faster, but they just love their horns here. A city bus stops to let someone out at a designated stop? HONK! A cab stops with his four ways on to let someone out? HONK! Cars are stopped for a red light, but you can't see far enough ahead to know it's red? HONK! There's probably no reasonable explanation why someone would actually stop on a road! Someone has a flat tire or engine troubles? Sure!! HONK AWAY! Why, of all places, would they pick YOUR path to go and ruin their car? A TRANSIT COP is in your way? HONK! He's fair game too! I think the Policia Federales (The Feds) are the only ones immune from the honking. The fact that they also carry semi-automatic weapons probably has a pretty big factor in that. We had a good laugh the other day when we saw a truck with an armed gaurd aboard. It wasn't a Brinks truck or anything you'd typically picture would require a guard. Standing right there, on top of the shipment of Coke was a guard carrying not a shotgun, but an assualt rifle!! I suppose major creidt cards aren't accepted at gordita shacks, so the Coke deliveries would by and large be paid for in pesos only. For the value of the stock they had on that truck, I'm sure it would have been a sizeable hit for some banditos, and I'm quite sure that it had already been tried before someone thought a guard was necessary. For that reason we've tried to stay on the cuota (toll) highways. There's more patrolling, and the paymet of the fare already prevents most peopple from driving those roads with bad intentions. As well, the roads are in way better condition and are often more of a direct route from city to city, so it can take much less time to get to where you're going. Sometimes with the toll roads you miss out on travelling through funky little towns and peculiar little villages, but it makes for less stressful driving. Also, the toll roads tend to go straight through the mountains so you can sometimes see some pretty spectacular landscapes., Today was a beautiful drive from Puebla to Oaxaca (pronounced wah-haw-kah). We went high up into the mountains and went through some desert area where the soil and rocks were bright orang, and there were tall spiky cactii everywhere. We drove through one area which was nothing but orange dirt and scrub brushes, which oddly enough, had the name of "Monte Verde" (Green Mountain) according to the signs. I, of course, said "pfff..that's a bit of a misnomer.....doesn't look too green to me....there's not even a tree in sight!!!"...where almost on queue the mountain rock turned from bright orange to a jade green colour. It never occured to me the actual mountain itself would be green! Shortly thereafter we arrived in Oaxaca which is a beautiful and quite large city. We had dinner at a little restaurant overlooking the square, where some people on vacation told us that they recognized us as "those people on the bikes". Out of curiousity we asked them where they had seen us. They told us that they had come to Oaxaca on a tour bus, stopped at a rest station, and remembered us from there. Then added "where you were trying to feed the dogs your cookie" to me. I had to smile a little over that one. I figured that my big sister (and her two doggies) would have been proud of me. There were two dogs rummaging through the garbage can at the rest station, and I coudln't resist their droopy eyes and waggling tails. Animals aren't treated very well here, so I got some pretty unusual looks from everyone when I walked over to the strays and shared my shortbread cookies with them. Okay, not the best things for dogs, but they were eating some foreign green sludge out of the garbage can, so I figured it couldn't be much worse. But, on the other haand, who knows... wsome of the stuff you get on your plate here resembles the sludgy green stuff too, so perhaps it was fine dining afterall! At tonight's restaurant they actually had chapulines (GRASSHOPPERS) on the menu!! You could get them fried up with onions and her, or in a salad with watercress and lettuce. I've been trying as many new things as possible here, but I draw the line there! I'm sure they have an irresistable crunch, but then again, so do potato chips. I think think I'll stick to those instead. The center of the city here is nice, and from our window in the restaurant you coudl see hundreds of tables edging the square, with people having dinner or sipping on cappucinos, or a glass of wine. Infront of the cathedral, which is a magnificant building, there were all these strange tubes floating through the air. They're these giant inflatable tubes, a few metres long, which the children throw up into the air and toss around to one another. It was actually quite pretty seeing them all bouncing around the square with the people bustling around underneath. I was upset that I didnt' bring along my camera, but I suppose it will just give me an excuse to have to return one day!

Day 27 to Day 28

2005-11-04T16:48:00.000-05:00

November 3rd, 2005: Taxco, Mexico to Teotihuacan, Mexico
November 4th, 2005: Teotihuacan, Mexico to Puebla, Mexico

Our drive to Teotihuacan took us through downtown Mexico City. Battling the traffic there is unbelievable. It makes rush hour in Toronto seem like a walk in the park. There are so many cars on the road, that you are only granted permits to drive on certain days of the week, and even then it is total gridlock. I can assure you, that the only thing worse than being stuck in rush hour traffic in Mexico City, is being stuck in rush hour traffic in Mexico City behind a truck full of animal parts rotting in 30 degree sun. And, I suppose, as well, the only thing worse than seeing a truck full of stinking animal parts, is worrying that it's going to end up in your next burrito. After battling that traffic for a good while, we finally got on a less travelled route to Teotihuacan and ended up stumbling upon a Club Med. We went to Teotihuacan to see the Pyramide Del Sol and the Pyramide De Lun (Pyramid of the Sun and Pyramid of the Moon, respectively). We woke up to a VERY chilly morning. There was even frost on the bikes! We were pretty shocked that it was that chilly, but it appears the Mexicans found it even worse. When we left the gate of the hotel the men were wearing jackets, and at the entrance to the Pyramids the man was bundled up in a thick jacket and had winter gloves on! The Pyramide Del Sol is apparently even taller than the pyramids in Egypt, and you are able to climb right to the top of it. We had to take a few breathers on the way, but we made it to the top, and of course had to do the "victorious flexing of the muscles" pose. Two seconds after taking the picture a busload of school kids came bounding up the steps in one shot. Thank goodness we got our victory shots in before they came along, or we might have gotten a few laughs. From the top of the pyramids you could see the entire archeological site, and all of the valley between the mountains. Unfortunately, it also gives you a great view of the yellow blanket of smog over Mexico City. It wasn't so chilly after hiking up a pyramid, but due to the cold weather we both forgot sunscreen and now we look permanently embarassed. After heading back from the pyramids we made the drive from Teotihuacan to Puebla. It was pretty chilly again for some parts of the drive. Overall the temperature is nice and warm during the day, but in some areas it gets colder due to the altitude. In fact, on our drive to Puebla there are snow capped mountains!!! Who'd have thought that'd we'd see snow here before there was snow in Canada! Puebla is a very nice city, and oddly enough, looks almost more European than Mexican. We visited the Institute of Culture (from what I gather, it's like an arts college). It looks just like a castle from the outside, and when we got inside, Jan realized that it used to be a jail. The architecture here is beautiful and there are many old buildings, fountains, and statues around the city.

Day 24 to Day 26

2005-11-02T16:49:00.000-05:00

October 31st: Zihuatanejo, Mexico to Altamirano, Mexico
November 1st: Altamirano, Mexico to Taxco, Mexico
November 2nd: Taxco, Mexico

***Hey Everyone! Sorry for the delays in posting...... we have been in some areas lately where Internet was hard to come by! At any rate, I've added a few more postings (more below), and I've also tried to update some pictures from the postings that didn't have any. Also, if you want to see the pictures a bit bigger just click on them...then use your back button to get back to the blog. Enjoy and hope to hear from you all soon!***

Our Hallowe'en drive proved to be the worst drive ever! We left from Zihuatanejo, and hopped on the 134 heading towards Altamirano. It was only about 150km's give or take a bit so we figured we'd make in a few hours, including riding breaks. What a nightmare that turned out to be! The road was bad. Not a little bad, not a lot bad.... it was absolutely and completely horrendous. At the beginning of the drive there were a few potholes and bumps, but they were doing some work on a bridge so we figured it was just due to that. We drove another few minutes and the potholes got worse. We're not talking your average North American potholes either. It wouldn't have been so bad if it was just one or two here and there, but the entire surface of the road was missing in some spots, with only flakes of pavement here and there to remind you that at one point there had been a proper road there. Add to that the rocks on the road....no...not like a little bit of gravel here and there, we're talking boulders. In some spots the rock slides were enormous. No work was being done on the road, so the boulders were all over the place. Sometimes there was enough rubble to block off an entire lane. This was also the case with the overgrown shubbery alongside the road. It was so bad in some places that you'd be down to less than one lane just from all the weeds. The worst hazard, though, was the areas where landslides or erosion had taken out complete chunks of the highway. The worst part of it being that there was no warning. If someone that lived locally on a farm nearby was so inclined to do so, they might just put a boulder infront of the abyss to warn you, but for the most part you just hoped you'd notice your entire side of the road missing before plummeting 500ft down a cliffside. Taking a peek down one of the eroded areas was enough to make you queasy. After battling that for a good 5 hours we hit a military checkpoint. So far we've just gotten waved through all of them, but I suppose we were the only ones stupid enough to have tackled that road in the last few days, so they took the opportunity to stop us. Then the (extremely official) question period began. They started off, of course, with "how fast do your bikes go?".....satisfied with our response of 150km/h they then asked us about our Chatterboxes. We told them it was for communication and they said "oh... are their others coming behind?". We told them "there just might be" incase they wanted to get too frisky with us. Then they asked about my coat and we told them how it "had armor in it...for protection". The captain of the team looked at us wide-eyed and said "for bullets??". Surrounded by a flock of heavily armed men, the smart response, perhaps, would have been "of course", but we didn't want them to think we had any reason to need them! The whole while this was going on a few of the men were trying (and failing miserably) to figure out what the heck was going on with our luggage. In the end a few squeezes of the luggage and a peek where they could find a zipper seemed to satisfy them that we weren't smuggling drugs throughout the country. After a quick photo with our new found friends, we were on our way again. Only 70km's left...how bad can it be? Very bad, apparently. This is when things went to just plain worse. We now got into a 'loose rock' zone. This isn't the same as a gravel road....this is the equivalent of someone putting a 6 inch layer of golf balls on a windy curvy hill-filled mountain road, with no guard rails or barriers saving you from a 1000ft cliff. It was like maneuvering through one of those gymnastics ball pits with your bike. A 17km stretch of highway took us TWO HOURS to drive!!!!! When we finally hit smooth pavement again I think I cried tears of joy..which was a nice change from the screams of terror and bawling for fear of my life just moments earlier. Oh, and after all of that, I forget to even mention the livestock and donkey crossings every few hundred feet. Some of them weren't so lucky, judging by the pile of bones we found on one corner. Overall, our 150km drive took us 8 and a half hours.
Our November 1st drive was a lot nicer. We drove a relatively smooth route from Altamirano to Taxco. Taxco is where all the silver mines are, so you can buy silver in just about any shop here. Taxco's built into the side of a mountain so there's some incredibly steep hills. It's unbeliveable how narrow and steep some of them are. On the 31st it still seems to be Hallowe'en here for a few kids, but it seems that November 1st is the night when they celebrate here. November 2nd, is the Day of the Dead. They were selling "bread of the dead" in some of the bakeries and there were elaborate shrines put together here in the town square. The kids were all out trick or treating, and they would sing songs to the store owners, etc to get some candy. They also had some fireworks in the square, and here at the hotel they had a pinata to break after they came back in their costumes. It looked like great fun for them! We decided to dress up as gringo bikers for Hallowe'en and I think our costumes were pretty convincing.

Day 21 to Day 23

2005-10-30T16:50:00.000-05:00

October 28th: Tecoman, Mexico to Lazaras Cardenas, Mexico
October 29th: Lazaras Cardenas, Mexico to Zihuatanejo, Mexico
October 30th: Zihuatanejo, Mexico

On the 28th, we headed from Tecoman to Lazaras Cardenas. It was mostly a drive along the coast. Which was pretty stunning. On the 29th we drove from Tecoman to Zihuatanejo. It was a bit of a short drive, but proved to be all that I could handle for the day anyways. The hotel of our liking was situated on a VERY steep hill made of cobblestones.....it would put a double black diamond on a ski hill to shame, and unfortunately with such a steep grade my poor little tippy toes just couldn't stretch out enough to get a grip on the ground. I began to roll a little back down the hill and gunned it trying to get up enough steam to pull forward, but to no avail. So, I put out both legs and hoped for the best...the bike tipped, but I suppose it's better the bike a bit scratched than me!! We spent a little bit of time that day looking up lowering kits, which might prove to be a handy investment if we're ever faced with such a steep incline again. The remainder of the day was spent floating around the hotel pool which was just fine for us. The pools here are pretty neat.... there's one in the middle of the deck that's a bit shallower for kids, and then there's a deeper pool, where the edge of the pool is the edge of the balcony. You can swim out to the deep end, and then hang off the edge overlooking the whole beach. I wasn't about to sit on the edge though...it's a narrow lip, and a pretty long (and steep) way down, and obviously gravity just wasn't working in my favour today! For dinner we FINALLY had something other than tacos!! It was great in the beginning but tacos for breakfast, lunch, and dinner each and every day is starting to get old.... and there's just no escaping it! Anything you buy here comes with nacho chips and salsa for a starter and that damn slimy bean sauce (frijoles). I like my beans as much as the next person, but for BREAKFAST? As a side with your WAFFLES? And nachos are usually a nice little snack, but if you order a plate of nachos for lunch, WHY, OH WHY, do you get a plate of nachos for a starter?! We did, of course, get beans with our dinner tonight (obligatory), but we started off with fresh salads which were certified purified. I never thought I'd crave fresh fruit and veggies so much, but you definitely don't want to eat anything uncooked or already peeled here. In Compostela (and a few other smaller towns we've been to) they sell roasted corn on the street. The ladies stand behind the corn waving dishtowels back and forth to keep the flies from having enough time to land. Effective perhaps, but your arm's gotta tire out sometime! In one small town (population one hut) a lady had an entire table of raw shrimp drying up in the sun and the flies were like a thick blanket on them. It made me queasy just looking at it. For the rest of our dinner here, Jan had an amazing tuna steak and I had a chicken cordon bleu with a garlic cheese sauce on top....and, what meal would be complete without a side of cactus!! Cactus doesn't taste anything like you'd think it would. It's really juicy and a bit like the texture of cantaloupe...only it's kind of bland like cucumber or watermelon would be. I have yet to figure out if we ate one of those big, tall cactuses like you see in roadrunner cartoons or if it was the bubbly round ones that grow on the side of the road here!

Day 19 to Day 20

2005-10-27T17:03:00.000-04:00

October 26th: Bucerias, Mexico (Puerto Vallarta by bus)
October 27th: Bucerias, Mexico to Tecoman, Mexico

On the 26th we took the local bus from Bucerias to Puerto Vallarta. It was an interesting trip to say the least. I don´t gather that the bus had a tune up in the last decade or two, and our destination of Puerto Vallarta was written in fading paint on a window of the bus. ...the local custom here for all bus signs. A lucky rabbit foot was hung on the rear view mirror by the bus driver, and we were really hoping that he wasn´t relying soley on luck for a safe drive. We ran into a Canadian who was working at a souvenier shop/covert timeshare condo operation who told us it was a bad day to buy anything in the city....as a gringo you´re charged double what it´s worth, and since four cruise ships were set to come in that day, it is double the double price. We don´t even have enough space for souveniers anyways. We can barely squeeze everything in our luggage now that all of our sweaters and riding gear is packed up. We spent the greater part of the day searching for a design store that could make us some Canada flag stickers for our bikes...most of which was spent trying to figure out what the heck a sticker was in Spanish and what the type of store was called that would sell that word. FINALLY in the late afternoon we got them made! Then when we picked them up we had yet another set back! Instead of red and white, they made our flags red and clear.....which, on a red bike, probably wouldn´t show up all that well...ugh! Finally the confusion was sorted out, and our trip to Puerto Vallarta was at an end. We took another rickety bus back, so we could be up bright and early to head to Manzanilla. Unfortunately, we actually wanted to head to Manzanillo, which is another 50kms up the road, which again, caused some confusion. Then we got a little off track in Manzanillo, and ended up having to abandon that mission and head to another destination, hence ending up in Tecoman. The drive was neat today. I saw a monster tarantula crossing the road, 2 snakes, and a whole ton of lizards crossing the road. I´ve seen quite a few lizards in the hotels, but the hotel ones look like geckos, and the road ones look different. They look more like iguanas. Also on today´s trip we met two people who were doing a similar trip/route as us on bikes....only instead of motorcycles, they had bicycles. Here I thought we were roughing it.... I can´t imagine how they do it, that´s for sure! I´d pass out trying to drive over half the stupid topes they have here, let alone a 300m high mountain range! Topes, by the way, are a staple on every Mexican road. It´s pretty much another word for "death trap" if you´re not paying attention. They´re just large lumps/bumps/humps on the road that are either made of pavement, cement, or metal. They can be one mega speedbump, a series of rumble-strips in succession, an up-ramp-then-platform-then-down-ramp combo, or a bunch of metal domes tacked onto the road (the most dreaded of them all as the bike tires tend to pull to one side of the bubble or the other, and just never seem to go right over smoothly). I won´t even mention how much I LOVE driving over cobblestone/rock/mixed media roads that they tend to pair up with the topes!!!

Day 15 to Day 18

2005-10-25T17:09:00.000-04:00

October 22nd: Durango, Mexico to Mazatlan, Mexico

October 23rd: Mazatlan, Mexico

October 24th: Mazatlan, Mexico to Compostela, Mexico

October 25th: Compostela, Mexico to Bucerias, Mexico

Wow, what an adventure the last few days have been! Our trip from Durango to Mazatlan was absolutely amazing. We drove all the way up a mountain range, which was 2,000 metres high! At some points we were so high up that you could see the clouds from above. It was pretty intense driving for a newbie! So many curves, so dips.........and so many cows on the side of the road! We stopped for some lunch at a small house for some gorditas, where they had a little orange cat which they tried to convince us was named "Garfield". He wasn't quite as large as the Garfield we've all come to love. I suppose they don't make lasagna here! For dinner we stopped at another little house along the mountainside and had the daily special (ie; whatever the lady that lived there was making for dinner). It was a long drive, but we finally arrived in Mazatlan where we found a reasonably priced hotel. Again, hot water was not on the list of amenities, but it had a spectacular view of the ocean, and a nice swimming pool out front. Which, came in handy to one guest who invited 30 of his closest friends to enjoy for the afternoon. 19 kids, a birthday cake, and the whole bit! We had dinner at a very nice restaurant which overlooked the ocean. The waiter made us an excellent crepe, with burning-booze sauce and a flaming orange to top it all off. The beach in Mazatlan was very nice, but we witnessed a crime in the making.....we're not sure what this biker gang was up to, but they were hauled away in the truck, bikes and all! Compostela was a beautiful and quaint village with a large cathedral in the center square. The people were very friendly there as well, and I had a killer chocolate milkshake at one of the local restaurants. Today we stopped in Bucerias where I got to hold some parrots and hand-feed them saltine crackers and garlic bread. They were sure cute and seemed to love their snack!! Here's both of us holding the parrots!

Day 13 to Day 14

2005-10-21T17:10:00.000-04:00

October 20th: Saltillo, Mexico to San Pedro de las Colonias, Mexico
October 21st: San Pedro de las Colonias, Mexico to Durango, Mexico

On the 20th we headed from Saltillo, Mexico to San Pedro de las Colonias, Mexico on the advice of a British lady that was staying in our hotel. The drive was nice. Lots of desert again! We stayed in a quaint, yet beautiful hotel called La Hacienda. Instead of staying in the rooms across the way from the house, we were offered a room in the main house. The bathroom was huge, with a staircase leading to a pedestal sink, a massive open concept shower, and a jacuzzi tub.....unfortunately, as grandeur as the bathroom was, there wasn't any hot water and the water pressure was next to nothing, so it made for a pretty slow and chilly shower in the evening. The lady running the hotel was extremely accomodating, and also very friendly. I snagged the opportunity to take as many pictures of the garden there as I could, and she was more than willing to give us a little tour of the garden, telling us the names of all the flowers in Spanish. This morning she made us a nice pot of fresh coffee, and gave us some cookies to start off our day. Then we were off for Durango, which was, yet again, another drive through the desert. This time though, the drive was a little more chilly, due to the altitude and I actually had goosebumps a little bit when there was a breeze. I'm sure, though, that all of you back in Canada have VERY little sympathy for a chilly breeze when the temperature's dropping quickly there!

Day 11 to Day 12

2005-10-19T17:11:00.000-04:00

October 18th: Eagle Pass Texas to Monclova, Mexico
October 19th: Monclova, Mexico to Saltillo, Mexico

Second try! Our room this evening comes with an hour of free Internet, but the connection drops about every two minutes, and when it is working it takes 10 minutes to download one page. As such, I lost my previous posting, so this will be a shorter posting than intended. Mexico has been great so far. Very nice weather (hot!) and everyone has been extremely friendly. Today a lady stopped today to not only give us directions, but she went so far as to tell us to follow her, and she'd drive to the street we were looking for. It was so great of her to help us out and I was very appreciative of the gesture. It's chaotic driving here!! Most of the time the roads have no lines to seperate lines, and almost everyone drives just about wherever they feel like. A pause or a slight hestitation are grounds for honking or just about pushing cars off the road!! The drive from Monclova to Saltillo today was absolutely amazing. There was little else on the road aside from a tiny village here and there, a road crew mowing what little grows in the dessert, or an old man on a horse rounding up some goats.

Day 7 to Day 10

2005-10-17T17:16:00.000-04:00

October 14th: Mornroe, Louisiana to Tyler, Texas
October 15th: Tyler, Texas to Lampasas, Texas
October 16th: Lampasas, Texas to Eagle Pass, Texas
October 17th: Eagle Pass, Texas

On the 14th we left from Monroe, Louisiana. We drove along a lot of swampland once again. I was quite upset that through all our travels we didn't see any swamp creatures! Not one single alligator!

Halfway to Texas we ran into a truck driver at a small CB shop who was pleased to show off a large fishhook that doubled as a nose ring, and responded to just about every question with a lengthy southern-drawled "shiiiiiiiiiiit". When we got across to Texas we decided to stop for a quick drink at Dairy Queen. Lucky for us it was "happy hour" and we could get any size drink for just 74 cents. Well, being so thristy from the long drive, we decided a large drink would be in order. We were mighty surprised when we got our "Texas-sized" cups! I could only muster up enough energy to finish half a cup, and even then it was a stretch! The Tyler Holiday Inn had a great heated outdoor pool complete a nice little hot tub outside as well, which was super after riding around on the weapons-of-ass-destruction for so long. Unfortunately our suite came complete with a little army of ants which decided to take residence in my helmet. Not stellar for someone that has an ear-phobia.

Next we headed South on the 281, which was a great drive. Our motel in Lampasas was a little outdated but had a nice little outdoor pool. We decided to relax and have a beer out there, which turned out to be a big mistake for me. I dropped my beer all over my lap and had to do the 'walk of shame' back to the hotel room looking like I had a bit of an "accident"...how humiliating! To add insult to injury, that night I had a slight run in with the law when the woman working at the local convenience store Skinny's (which, I can guarantee you, she was anything but) called the State Police on me because she thought I was shoplifting. I talked to the police officer for a few minutes, quite angrily answering his questions.....such as "Do you have a receipt for your purchase?" (yes, officer, I always make it a habit to get a receipt for $3 worth of snack foods....sheesh). After showing him the contents of my bag and assuring him my pockets were empty I was on my not-so-merry way again. Our next day's journey brought us to Eagle Pass, Texas. What a long haul! We drove past San Antonio assuming we would find a small town just after where we could stop for a drink. We ended up driving almost 90 miles with not a single thing in site except ranch entrace gates with roads behind that led miles away into the distance with not a single building or person apparently off of the roads. It was what we should have expected in the desert I suppose.

PICTURES:

From Left to Right:

A nice little house in Louisiana just before Texas.
Lampasas, Texas
After 90 miles of driving we came across a tiny town. This picture was taken at gas station (which doubled as a grocery store/snack bar/gift shop and local hangout)