The Minnesota Boy Heads South (and I'm not talking Alabama)

I am all caught up and subscribed, carry on!

Dang Cody! Glad you are ok dude! Sorry that you're not feeling the riding there, but hopefully once you spend a few days there you will figure out where/when to go to feel more confident.

Eddie is from Guatemala, so if you have any questions I'm sure he'd be a good resource to talk to! Let me know if you want me to get you in touch with him!

Thanks Tiff. Sure, if you want to shoot me his contact info, I may reach out to him for some advice before venturing into Guatemala City.

Enjoying the trip so far!! Good luck on the Spanish. One thing I thought I would add is that Guatemala city and pretty much every capital city from now on are nothing like Mexico City. They're godforsaken hell holes and I wouldn't recommend hanging out unless really need to shop for something


Go check them out anyways, experience everything while you're there

Cody,
Have you visited with CATours yet?

if you need any help or tips with anything let me know.

No, but I will and thanks for offering the help!

A video with some of my favorite photos from Mexico.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gkTQTaHpjzY

Glad you are ok after that incident. Your probably way more safe on your bike than most people with your experience. But be careful anyway.

any updates? what's the name of the school where you are?

I stopped by CATours and had a couple beers with the guys. Thanks for the recommendation. It was a great time and they are really nice people. They told me about some good spots around the area to check out and I went to one of them on the bike today. I'm studying at Antiguena Spanish Academy and they also facilitate the homestay. One of the guys in the homestay is leaving next week, so I'm sure tomorrow will be filled with drinks and good times. Other than that, just trying to digest as much Spanish as possible.

Hey, how is it going? You still riding?

Things are going well but my Spanish is coming along very slowly. I'm not riding at the moment. I've been staying in Antigua studying Spanish. Gaby (mentioned earlier in RR) came to see me for a few days so we rode the bike together to Lake Atitlan. Outside of that, I have been doing minimal riding. I'll probably stay in Antigua another 2-3 weeks and then continue on into El Salvador.

We'll your not missing anything here except -30 - -40 degree windchills. I am really enjoying your report and am headed that way in 33 days.

greeting from another Minnesotan. following your trip and it sounds like a blast. i hope you are careful. some of the places you are describing sound a little sketchy. but have fun and keep the ride reports coming!

Really enjoyed reading your posts, checked out all your pics as well. I'm planning my trip soon in feb from Rochester Minnesota to the southwest. Been anxiously waiting for -0 weather to clear a little.
First real long adventure outta state, nervous and excited.

I'm telling all the S.A. riding reports I can about our container in Ushuaia.

2 bikes in it right now and waiting to fill it with 2 or 3 or 4 more.

Ships to Long Beach California when it's full..feb/march/april?

$4500 for container total to be split evenly.

We have an agent in Ushuaia who handles everything for $280 per bike.

Just drop your bike off, no prep, no crate, even takes your luggage.

Well, it has been awhile since I posted an update. A lot has happened in the past four weeks. I stayed with a Guatemalan family through a homestay program offered by the Spanish school I was attending. The mother, Katya, at the homestay is a wonderful person. She has three children, of which two still live with her in the house. One is Carlos, who is 20 years old and is into motorcycles. The other is Sebastian, who is 6 years old and always wants me to look at stuff with him…Cody miras, Cody miras, as he points around and proceeds to tell me exactly what it is we are looking at together. This was helpful with my Spanish actually. There were other students staying in the homestay as well. At times there were 4 students plus Katya, Carlos, and Sebastian in the same house. I got along well with all the other students in the homestay, and two of them, Jack & Claudia, ended up staying for a full three weeks. Jack is from England and owns a mustache that just won’t quit & Claudia is from Germany who is one of the most direct people I have ever met…and I like it. I think it is pretty rare that you find a homestay with such a fantastic family coupled with a couple students studying several weeks at the same time that you really mesh well with. For four weeks, I studied Spanish for anywhere between 4-5 hours per day and we spoke only Spanish in the home. Of course, we would inevitably revert to English when we left the homestay to have a few beers or something, but nonetheless, we were all making effort to learn Spanish. I was happy overall with the school I attended and with my maestro. My maestro spoke no English, so I was forced to speak Spanish the full 4-5 hours per day. This is excruciatingly difficult and I was getting headaches towards the end of each day when I first started. I now understand many of the rules, tenses, and structure of the Spanish language. I just need to continue practicing and focusing on vocabulary expansion…two things much easier typed than done.

Gaby, who I met in Mexico City, came to visit me in Antigua after my second week and we spent several days together. During our first day together, we decided that we wanted to find Gaby a helmet so we could ride to Lake Atitlan for the weekend. I heard about this place Repuestos de Recoleccion that might have helmets, so in the afternoon we went on a scavenger hunt to find her a helmet. Walking into the motorcycle shop brought back memories of the old motorcycle shop I used to work in during my high school days. The music was 70’s hair band, the walls were old fake wood paneling, there were miscellaneous cycle parts hung haphazardly on the walls around the entire place, and it smelt like exhaust…my kind of place and it flooded me with memories of time passed more than a decade ago. Fortunately, they had one small helmet that fit Gaby fairly well. We figured it would be around $60 USD…nope, $15 USD. Nice, what buys you one drink in Miami buys you a helmet in Guatemala. So, after our little scavenger hunt, we went to the central market for some food. We were practicing Spanish together and I had a little mishap that was quite funny. During lunch, I attempted to ask Gaby if she wanted something to drink but instead I asked her if she wanted a baby…whoops. Hey, beber and bebe are very close so don’t be too hard on me. The look on Gaby’s face was priceless….she was like, you mean before lunch? Language can be pretty entertaining, especially when I’m the one doing the talking.

The following day, Gaby and I went up to the cross that overlooks Antigua on the bike. This was our first little ride together and she really enjoyed it. We also toured a coffee plantation. The property was well-manicured and just gorgeous. We arrived late for the tour, but a guide agreed to take us on a 1 hour private tour for half the price of the regular tour! Deal, sold. We got to see the equipment in action and learned more about the characteristics of good coffee plus had a free cup of exceptional Guatemalan coffee at the end of the tour. Later on in the evening, we met up with the guys & gals from the homestay for a drink. We called it an early night around 11:30 or so to get a good nights rest for a big day to the lake in the morning.

We were up early and packed up the bike as we prepared to venture to Lake Atitlan. I heard about a cut through road off the beaten path that might be kind of fun to check out on the way to the lake, so Gaby and I decided to go that route. What I didn’t realize is that we would end up having to cross a river on the bike. :huh When we got to the river, I went through solo first and made it without issue…I was even cheered on by a couple of cyclists who happened to be in the same spot at the same time. Gaby was down for the crossing, so she hopped back on the bike and off we went through the river. We made it through without issue and stayed dry for the most part. We enjoyed the ride to Panahachel along the lake and parked the bike for the night there before jumping aboard the ferry to San Pedro. The ferry was full, but the guide said it was fine if we just sat in the front. What the guide didn’t tell us is that the water was rough and we would end up getting soaked in the front. So yeah, long story short -- we crossed a river on a motorcycle and stayed dry but couldn’t keep dry during a 30 minute boat ride. After arriving in San Pedro, we had a hell of a time finding the hostel. We walked all over the place and asked a few people where it was. To no avail, we decided to grab a tuk tuk who took us directly to the hostel for 10 Q (just over $1 USD). The hostel was named Hostel Miguel and had a nice rooftop complete with a hammock along with the best breakfast both Gaby and I ever had in a hotel or hostel. The couple who own the place are from Africa and they had a traditional African noodle dish for breakfast along with crepes…so good. We mistakenly thought it would take around 2 hours to ride around the lake, but it actually takes more than 4. Plus, we got lost going through some of the towns, so our ride back to Antigua kept us on the bike for about 8 hours straight. I desperately wanted to make it back to Antigua before dark for obvious reasons, so I cut out stops for photos, stops for breaks, a stop for lunch, and a fuel stop. Even after cutting all this, we just barely made it back to Antigua before dusk. Even after being on the bike that long, Gaby was still in good spirits and enjoyed the ride. She is one cool chica.

Our last day together was spent in Antigua. We took the bike up to the Tenedor restaurant property, which includes a bird sanctuary, a vista overlooking the city, a museum dedicated to Efrain Recinos, and the place the pope stayed during his visit back in 2002. We then made our way to a Thai restaurant and on to Sky Café where there is a nice little rooftop patio that overlooks the city. We reminisced about the great memories just created over the few special days we had together as we said our teary-eyed goodbyes. Gaby is a truly remarkable person, and no matter what our relationship ends up being, I feel so privileged to have the opportunity to know her. I’m already looking forward to the next time we meet.

Antigua is a touristy town where you are just as likely to cross paths with a tourist as you are a Guatemalan while walking around the city. Antigua is unique in that you have all these ruins scattered throughout the city that are great fun to just tour at random as you pass by. The city is filled with restaurants, cafes, and bars that cater to tourists. The streets are cobblestone and the town is an easily navigatable grid. Honestly, without studying Spanish, I think 3 days would be enough in Antigua to see the city and get a good feel for it.

Towards the end of my stay, I joined the students from the school for a night out to support children in Guatemala. The party was great fun, and one of the students who I get along with pretty well, Claude (his real name is Rob but we’ll keep calling him Claude), brought his Guatemalan “sister” from the homestay along with some of her friends. It was great fun…we drank, we danced, we drank, we talked, we drank until the place was closed and then proceeded to the afterbar. The afterbar was a little place with a backroom where there was music being played off a laptop and grown men dancing on the bar. It wasn’t really my thing but it was fun anyway. One of the students in our group was dared to pull down the trousers of one of the guys on the bar, and unexpectedly she proceeded to do it within 5 seconds of the dare. So, there he was…the full monte on top of the bar with at least 15 onlookers. :eek1 By this time, it was around 3 or so and I was tired. It was my last day of Spanish school in the morning and I knew it was going to come early (by the way, I did take the school seriously. This was my only “school night” out in 4 weeks).

For the weekend during my third week at the homestay, I decided to head to the beach in Monterrico with Jack, Claudia, Claude, and a few others. It was a relaxing weekend and the Gallo beers on draught were going down easily. I had a bit too much to drink, but hey, I was at the beach so maybe that makes it OK. Anyway, we had a lot of fun playing billiards, shooting the breeze, and taking in the black sandy beach along with the crashing waves in the background. Unfortunately, during our stay Jack had some sort of reaction and ended up breaking out into a rash and he said breathing was becoming more difficult. :eek1 There was no hospital nearby, so we found someone who put him on the back of a motorcycle to a pharmacy nearby where there was medication. The medication worked but it took all the wind out of Jack’s sail. Jack slept for more than 12 hours and we were all glad to see him return to his normal self by the end of our stay in Monterrico. I decided to take a walk on the beach by myself and as I was meandering along I came across a group of motorcycle riders who were part of a local Yamaha TT motorcycle gang. They were taking photos of the bikes along the beach and had a bit of trouble trying to get the bikes off the beach as more throttle equals deeper hole. I snapped a few photos then jumped in to help them push the bikes off the beach. Cool guys. Before leaving, I was walking around the town and happened to see our tourism van back into a store selling T-shirts and other souveniers. I watched as the t-shirts fell off the racks and the owner quickly came outside to see what all this was all about. Apparently, this happens somewhat frequently as the owner didn’t hesitate and simply placed all the t-shirts neatly back in place as the driver slowly put the van back in drive and continued on. The way of life here is just so so different…I’m still trying to understand and assimilate.

So, I don’t particularly like to generalize people or segregate people into categories. However, I have noticed there are two different types of travelers. There are travelers that avoid big cities like the plague and travelers who find big cities utterly fascinating. I’m of course the latter, so I absolutely had to see Guate for myself.

Guate is broken apart into different zones. It is nowhere near the size of Mexico City, but the difference is that I don’t have a detailed map for Guate in my GPS like I had for Mexico City. All I had was a detailed paper map. I started out on a Friday afternoon by heading to Zone 2 to tour the Gallo brewery. It wasn’t really a tour of the brewery but more a tour of a museum that is onsite. The museum was interesting and included dated equipment that was once in service many years ago. The tour was private and was given entirely in Spanish by a semi-retired man who thought I was bat-shit crazy for taking my motorcycle across the continent. He spoke very slowly for me and we had good conversation for about an hour and a half. I understood about 80 percent of what he said, which made me feel pretty good, and I was able to communicate some things, so this is certainly progress. After touring the brewery, I had to get to my hostel in zone 10, aka Zona Viva, for it’s nightlife. I thought I had the route all planned out but the road I had chosen simply took me near zone 10 before looping me back in the wrong direction. I quickly pulled over and thought I had figured an alternate route. So, I was on my way battling chicken buses, vehicles spewing blue and black smoke, small motorcycles incessantly honking, and pedestrians scurrying across where there is room. I found myself in zone 13 (hmmm not zone 10) and realized I had taken a wrong turn somewhere. I finally figured out where I had to go, and it took me about 2 hours to get to zone 10 (should take 15 minutes). So, before you say Cody can’t you follow directions, just remember that there are very few if any road signs at most intersections, two-ways that turn into one-ways, confusing interchanges, bus-only lanes, plus there are constant dangers to avoid, so your attention is diverted quickly from your route to whatever is directly in front of you. Navigating large cities via moto in Latin America is hard…period. To make things a bit worse, there was a very small sign for the hostel, so I had to loop around 3 times before a guy working at the hostel noticed me and waved me over. Whew, tough work. I was ready for a beer.

On Saturday morning, I met up with Julio, who lives in Antigua and was introduced to me by Heather, who was staying with me at the same homestay. Heather also joined us as we made our way to the city center to see 40,000 motorcycles take off during the annual Caravana del Zorro. This ride is sort of a religious ceremony where Guatemalans leave from the city center and ride to the border of Honduras. There were all sorts of bikes there and it was really something to see. Families were packed on motorcycles (father, wife, 2 kids, 1 200 cc motorcycle). :huh There were little 50 cc bikes up to the large Harley Davidson bikes you find commonly in the states. The President of Guatemala leads the ride and was present while I was in the city center. A young Guatemalan guy came over and started talking with me as my gringo self must have appeared interesting amongst a group of 40,000 Guatemalans. We talked for awhile but he was completely smashed and wreaked of alcohol. By the way, this was about 8 in the morning. I’m guessing he was out all night and just didn’t sleep but who knows. After seeing all the bikes leave, which took about 2 hours, I walked through the central market where everything from food to textiles was being sold. I then walked down sixth avenue, which is blocked off to pedestrians and is lined with restaurants and stores (primarily clothing). I grabbed food at a Chinese restaurant, which made me sick later on in the day but nothing a little pepto bismal and a few trips to the toilet didn’t take care of.