Our Roller Coaster Ride Through Honduras

Travelling by motorbike can be a bit like riding a roller coaster.  Sometimes you have to put in some hard work.  When you have to fix mechanical problems, or when you’re stuck riding through a torrent of rain, it can be an uphill battle.  But when everything is in place and running smoothly, you get the exhilarating rush of adrenaline that comes with unhindered freedom.  As you fly along winding mountain passes fresh smells assault your senses at every turn.  Trucks honk their horns and excited drivers lean out their window just to say hello.  If you see a road that looks interesting, you take it and invariably find a new, exciting adventure.  When you’re hungry, you stop in a town that never sees tourists and buy a mango for 20 cents.  You are not left at the mercy of overcrowded and unreliable buses.  The world is your oyster. 

Here is the story of our roller coaster ride over the last few weeks:

We were flying. The bike roaring at full throttle to keep pace with the fast moving trucks surroundings us with a death wish. Weaving around pot holes and the cars that just inexplicitly stop in the middle of the road. Then at 120km an hour things started going bad. First the indicators didn’t come on as we passed another struggling car. Then the RPM gauge started to dip into a territory it shouldn’t have been in. Then the temperature gauge died. Then every single thing requiring electrics. 

But the KLR Kawasaki is a tough as nails bike. On most bikes losing all power would have been terminal, given that computers and spark plugs all rely on batteries. Not the KLR, which kept roaring along like nothing had happened. They are built so that the electrics are an optional system to the overall running of the bike. But they’re not an optional system when that includes your front headlight, and most importantly, brake lights; so that 60 ton truck barrelling along directly behind you can see you brake. A dozen times a day we have to slam on the brakes to avoid a horse/dog/car/truck/tree/person/hole in the road and whatever else decides to try and ruin our day and we knew this was going to cause problems.

 We were on a hwy between Rio Dulce Guatemala, and the Honduran border and still had a 5 hour ride ahead of us. The road was good, but the problem with good roads over here is that the only restraint slowing drivers down is the unpredictability of the stuff under your tires. Still, we were making good time and the Honduran border was slowly getting closer. Then all that drama back in Belize came back to haunt us. It turns out that on our last flat tire in Belize City, the mechanics in their haste to get rid of us had stripped the thread on the rear bolt that holds on our rear wheel assembly. The result being that the back tire started sliding to the left and right and working itself looser and looser and looser.

By this time we were only about 50km from the boarder and pretty remote, so we decided to push on. There wasn’t much we could do given that the bolt was stripped and therefore couldn’t be tightened, but we were well aware that the bike was in major struggle town in most areas.

As we approached the border we were prepared for it to be difficult, we had heard about some people having trouble with permits for motorbikes and officials looking for bribes. We found the deserted immigration area, paid a dubious 3 dollars each to the guy sitting behind the desk and then braced ourselves for customs. Given our experience with Belize customs we were waiting for the shit-fight to begin. The guy behind this desk looked like he wanted to run away when he saw us (we were later to find out he had processed two Dutch bikes the day before taking 3 hours) and he looked in pain as he stood up. As he came outside to check our bike we explained it was a Guatemalan bike and the guy looked like he wanted to hug us. He gushed that we could take the bike wherever we liked into Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua without problems. He shook our hands and waved to us excitedly as we drove away. We couldn’t Belize how easy it was, it took less than 10 minutes and we were back on the road.

As we limped the bike into the town of Copan Ruinas it wasn’t a moment to soon. The rear wheel finally lost its battle and the chain flew off. We pulled over and put it back on only to have it come off again as we pulled outside our hostel. We’re pretty sure that if our bike was an animal at this point it would have laid down and died.

We checked in and meet the Dutch couple that had had so much trouble at the border the day before on their massive BMW 1200s. It had cost them over 70 dollars and 3 hours to get through the same border.  We chatted about their route and some of their experiences and set about getting a mechanic to revive ours.

The next day we rolled into a mechanic and left the bike with them with instructions to return in the afternoon. This gave us the chance to explore more of the beautiful colonial town of Copan.  Set close to the Mayan ruins by the same name and with many hiking opportunities, attractions and a backpacker vibe, the town has a lot to offer.  We visited the ruins and were awestruck by the level of detail and craftsmanship shown in the rock carvings displayed there.  While Tikal, in Guatemala, is famous for the height of its temples, Copan is famous for these incredible carvings.  Copan also boasts the longest Mayan hieroglyphic carving in Central America with over 1500 stone runes making up a large staircase.  

When we returned for our bike later that day we were pleasantly surprised.  The mechanic had given her a thorough service including replacing our patchy rear inner tube, replacing the rear bearing, changing the oil and all the light bulbs and fixing up the rear wheel assembly.  The electrics all worked and we rode away feeling confident…until the following morning.  When we were setting about leaving Copan all of our electrics died again. 

We rode the bike back to the mechanic who was surprised to see us again, and showed him the problem.  He discovered that the battery was no longer charging and had run flat again.  Mechanics are good at mechanical things, but electrics can be another matter.  He took us to his mate down the road, an auto-electrician, in the loosest sense of the word, who worked on trucks in his back yard.  He was sure he could fix the problem with a new part and told us to return the following day.  We left him with a working bike with a minor electrical problem.  The next day we returned to find our beautiful bike in dozens of pieces, surrounded by three men shaking their heads because they couldn’t work out how to make it start again. 

We looked on in sheer despair as they tried everything they could think of, to no avail.  As we watched our dream slowly slipping away we both decided that we were resolutely resolved not to give up on it yet.  We are not ready to get back on buses and be hum drum backpackers after the freedom we have experienced by having our own bike.  Not yet.  But the bike was looking like a disaster, you know it’s bad when everyone stops doing anything and just stands around looking at each other and shaking their heads.  The other thing that happens when people get frustrated is that they stop caring and lose their normal patience. They kept trying to kick start it over and over with no result except some explosive backfiring and a lot of yelling and cursing. The end result of this was that we had a bike in pieces with unresolved electrical issues and now they couldn’t even get it to start.  It really did look like that bike was never going to leave that backyard. 

Eventually, three hours later after we had gone home and left them to it, we were called back again.  They had requested assistance from someone who actually knew what he was doing who had gotten the bike working again.  Jack went back to pick it up but was careful to check everything over.  To Jack’s horror, he found dozens of bolts missing, oil spilling out in two different places from cracked gaskets, a loose carburettor, the tank barely connected and the seat not.  By now these guys had been working on the bike for the better part of a day and they were thoroughly fed up with it.  They just wanted to see it gone, in whatever condition.  It took immense restraint from all parties to be civil and get all the problems fixed.  To their credit they did fix all of the problems but only when Jack pointed them out one by one, it was a lesson that when people get frustrated, invariably things fall by the wayside.  The good news was that the new guy had managed to fix the electrics as well and we were ready to hit the road again.

That night, keen to celebrate we went to Copan de Sol, a German brewery that had been highly recommended to us all over Central America.  This quaint little business is what a business should be.  With only two large tables, people are forced to socialise with one another and the bartender serves you drinks and then sits down next to you and chats with everyone.  It was awesome; we had great German beer and food and talked to a large group of people that we would otherwise never have met. When the power went out candles were brought out and one of the guys payed guitar while we drank well into the night. Thomas, the owner, was a great bloke and if you ever make it to Honduras it is well worth a stop. 

The next day we set our sights on Gracias, about a four hour ride away.  The bike was running well and the road was spectacular.  We sped along winding mountain passes with unbelievable views at every turn.  We did quickly learn that driving on the right side of the road in Honduras is completely optional, with both sides of traffic erratically switching sides to avoid pot-holes big enough to gobble up half our bike.  Apart from the odd oncoming truck in our lane, the ride was relatively carefree.  After having the bike, and all the freedom that goes with it, nearly snatched away from us we were doubly appreciative.

Gracias, a small and somewhat dirty town, was our destination because of its proximity to a cloud forest national park.  The building and road standards were vastly different to those in Copan, indicating an economic disparity in different parts of the country.  The following day we rode up a treacherous dirt track that not even four wheel drives attempted to get to the visitor’s centre of the national park.  Everyone else had to get out a couple of kilometre’s early and hike up a steep road so we were smug when we rode past them.  The five hour hike was beautiful, teaming with wildlife and towering pines.  We hiked up to a beautiful waterfall and just generally soaked up the natural ambiance.  We resolved to do more hiking due to its unique ability to show you more remote and natural parts of a country.  

  

On the way back from the cloud forest we found, to our shock, that our number plate was missing.  We weren’t sure where we had lost it but it had to be sometime that day.  Given that the Guatemalan plate is our ticket to crossing borders it was essential that we found it.  Jack took off on the bike and soon found it lying snapped in half in the mud on the way back down from the cloud forest.  We’d have to get it welded back together before we left the country the next day. 

We left Gracias and headed for the little used Honduras-El Salvador border in southwest of Honduras.  We enjoyed another amazing ride through the mountains (the highest in El Salvador and Honduras), thoroughly enjoying the beautiful Honduran countryside.  We even found a novel way to get up a mountain if you’re on a push bike, simply hold on to the back of a truck with one hand and steer with the other!  

We got the numberplate welded and went to cross the border crossing which was pretty easy. We were starting to think that this whole difficult border crossing thing was a myth (don’t get too cocky …it didn’t last long).  The only issue we had on this occasion was the immigration officer rigorously going through the stamps in our passports and asking us about each one.  We realised that entering and exiting Belize/ Guatemala so many times in a short period might look like we were drug running but they let us through in the end. 

We decided to stay in the small border town of Las Palmas, close to the highest mountain in El Salvador, El Peten.  We found a small hotel and settled in for the night.  But in order to get the bike off the street and out into the back we had to ride her through the lobby and amongst restaurant tables, a bit of a novelty. 

The next morning we rode up an incredibly steep and windy mountain road for about 20km to get to the start of the hike up El Peten.  There were unbelievable views of both countries on the way up, but at the actual summit there was nothing but forest, clouds and two vicious and very angry pit bulls guarding a radio tower.  The top of the peak itself demarcates the border between the two countries so we snapped a few pictures with the marker and headed back down. 

Keen to get to the beach, we set off south that afternoon.  El Salvador has one of the smallest land masses in Central America but is the most densely populated.  While Belize and El Salvador are of a similar size, Belize has a population of 350,000 and El Salvador has 6.2 million.  Therefore, as you might be able to imagine, the roads were completely insane.  Avoiding obstacles was like playing a video game – people wandering across the road, herds of cattle, children playing, trucks overtaking, miscellaneous objects scattered across the road (we nearly hit a rolling pin) and just general mayhem.  The only difference being that if we hit something we can’t simply go back to the beginning and start again.  And to top it off, we were hit by another massive thunderstorm as we were coming down from the mountains. 

We pulled off into a bustling town for a break.  Within 5 minutes of sitting down we had bought two cups of shaved ice, some doughnuts and some croissants from street vendors who happened to be wandering by – all for a total of less than $2.  We also struck up a conversation with a group of 15 year old boys who were interested in our trip and told us very earnestly to take care because people might want to rob us, but that they were very happy to have us in their country.  They gave us directions to the next town and we set off but quickly found ourselves lost again. Road signs seemed to go nowhere and streets would just pettier out. The road we intended to go down was closed with big rocks.  We found ourselves next to a police station so Annette jumped off and approached them saying ‘excuse me’ in Spanish.  All three of them looked up from what they were doing with menacing looks with a hand on their guns; we began to wonder if talking to them was such a good idea.  But once we explained that we only wanted directions their entire demeanour changed, all excitedly rushing to help us out.  One drew a map on a piece of paper and explained how to get out of town while the others admired the bike.

Unfortunately, as we finally pulled out onto the highway after getting lost again we got another flat tire (If you’re sick of reading about them think how sick we must be of getting them!). We had run over a piece of wire only 1mm thick and a few centimetres long and just watched our tire deflate. Randomly about 20 meters away was a tire shop and we had the whole thing fixed within a manic half an hour and for only $2.  We were barely even phased by the whole thing and now consider ourselves pros at handling bad news. 

The next town where we were planning to stay was a huge, undecipherable maize of roads and highways.  We normally use Annette’s iPhone 4 GPS to navigate but we hadn’t had any wifi for a long time so hadn’t been able to download any maps in advance.  It was getting dark and we just wanted to find a hotel, we pulled over and asked multiple people for directions but no-one seemed to know if there even was one in this city.  Eventually we remembered that we belong on the Amazing Race and utilized our resources.  We asked a tuk tuk driver to take us to the nearest hotel, and it turned out that there really was only one in the city.  The tuk tuk weaved through the maize of a city ahead of us while we followed in gathering dark.  When he delivered us at the motel we got out our wallet to pay him but he refused, simply saying ‘buen viaje’, have a good trip. 

All through Central America the people have been friendly and genuine. Even in Guatemala where we had friends robbed and shot at they were a ridiculous small minority of people who were doing this. The average guy is just happy to say hello, help you in whatever way he can and despite poverty not ask for anything in return. Most are fascinated but the novelty of seeing a Gringo in their place of the world. Nowhere has that feeling being stronger than El Salvador, everyone was beyond nice.

But sometimes things get lost in translation, and we found this ‘hotel’ the Tuk Tuk driver had taken us to, a little strange when we got there. For starters the rooms could be bought in time allocations of four hours…. Yep, we were in some seedy as El Salvadorian sex motel. There was a hole in the wall where you could order food or drinks presumably without the person on the other side seeing your face. Plastic mattresses and ample tissue paper by the bed. Apparently they are very common in this part of the world where tradition and conservatism still run deep. Most young people well into their twenties still live at home and these motels act as an acceptable compromise if you’re not married yet.

We set off the next day for the coast. After some busy highways we found the coast road and found it deserted. It was a beautiful road hugging the coast and rising up high on top of some towering cliffs on the headlands. We found a little hostel with a double room and bathroom for 15 dollars a night by the beach and set about chilling out. From Guatemala into Honduras and the mountains of El Salvador, electrical problems and flat tires, ruins and cloud forest, sex motels and beaches, it was a big few weeks when we came to the end of the roller coaster.