You Better Belize It

I was born in the fires of an unnamed furnace.  My first memory is waking up to the sounds of clanging machinery.  My millions of brothers and sisters, all identical to me, lay motionless.  We were roughly packed into crates and sent to distant lands.  We never said goodbye.  I was bought in a dusty, rural town in Belize, thrown into the back of a Ute, the shock bouncing me out of my box.  I was hurled from side to side as the Ute drove at speed, hitting pot hole after pot hole.  Suddenly, I was unceremoniously flung from the back and onto the road, bouncing, skidding to a stop I lay motionless and silent, waiting…

Little did we know, our fate and the fate of this nail were intertwined in a way that would come back to haunt us time and time again for months…

It was an ambitious goal to start with – a long drive from Guatemala to the border of Belize, crossing the border and then finishing on the East coast of Belize, all in one day.  We have a rule of thumb that if Google maps says a journey should be 8 hours, expect 20.  But for the most part, we were travelling on sealed roads and didn’t expect too many problems.  Famous last words.

We set off from Flores, in northern Guatemala, for the distant Belize border early in the morning.  Despite some patches of pot holed dirt roads, we made good time.  Guatemala and Belize famously do not get along and the road is somewhat symbolic of their relationship.  Periods of good road, punctuated by murderous potholes and long, rutted dirt stretches.  If you are unfamiliar with the history, Belize used to be part of Guatemala and under a dodgy agreement with the British, was seceded in the promise that Britain would build a highway between the two. The road was never built, agreements became muddled by time and mutual animosity, and the tension between the two (now separate) countries remains potent.

 As some kind of presumed substantiation on the part of Guatemala; the road between them remains symbolically in bad repair. However the road wasn’t as dire as the lonely planet reported and we left Guatemala without too many dramas. Getting ourselves and the bike into Belize was another matter altogether. Two very grumpy customs officials, who were thoroughly disgruntled that we had disrupted their afternoon bludging by wishing to enter their country, begrudgingly served us.  Despite giving us the allotted 30 day tourist visa, they only gave the bike a two week permit without asking us what date we intended to exit. They then told us there would be a $1000 fine if the bike overstayed this and once it was done, they would not alter it.  Unfortunately this turned out to be a representative experience of Belizean customer service all over the country. 

Unperturbed, we headed into Belize, unknowingly driving right past the little shack that sells third party motorbike insurance, which the Customs officials had neglected to tell us was compulsory and if we were caught driving without it would receive a huge fine and possible imprisonment… Only much later did we realise this from other travellers; and much tension (otherwise know as puckering up) ensued whenever we passed a police car or road block for the rest of our stay.

For a few hours we drove through winding highways, rejoicing in the scenery and simply glad to see vast expanses of trees.  The environmental degradation of Guatemala can be depressing with piles of rubbish and large scale clearing of forest for agriculture.  Belize was a welcome change, with wisps of cloud throughout jungle covered mountains.  Similarly, the superior quality of the highway allowed us to open the throttle and feel the wind speeding by. The asphalt was course gravel which provided terrific grip and we flew around potholes and the occasional belching bus. The roads have a deserted feel to them which is not really surprising when you consider the entire population of Belize is only 400 thousand people.

As late afternoon approached, and an estimated 1.5 hour drive time remaining to make it to our destination, we were getting anxious. We would make it before sundown, but it was going to be tight.  As we rounded a corner, about 100km from the nearest town there was a particularly vicious series of potholes to avoid and as we drove around the last the bike started acting strange. After a few hundred meters the bike started wobbling badly and as we reduced our speed we knew with dread that something was badly wrong. Killing the engine we rolled to a stop in silence and looked forlornly as our rear wheel deflated before our eyes. That tiny little nail sent the course of our next three weeks in an entirely different direction. Of all the places on the wide highway, our rear tyre, only 15cm wide, drove straight over the top of that son-of-a-bitch. 

Annette: ‘What do we do now?’

Jack: ‘Well we’re pretty much fucked’.

Despite making such a defeated statement, we were both in pretty good humour.  These things have a way of working themselves out, but we knew this was going to cause some problems. On a car you can just replace a tire, on a bike you need a series of tools to get the tire off, a new inner tube or a decent patch to fix it, and a way to pump the tire back up. We had a total of none of those things.

We took off our packs and were preparing for a potential night under the stars when within five minutes a man approached us asking if we needed help, we had parked in his large front yard. He informed us that his brother, who lived across the road, had an air pressuriser we could use.  Before long, we had a team of five local men joking about and helping us to inflate the tyre, but to no avail.  Upon discovering the offending nail, the men informed us that about 600m down the road was a backyard tyre repair shop, round about where we hit the nail. Suspicious much…

 

By now the sun was going down and we had almost no other options, so we hobbled the bike down the road and promptly waited for an hour until Mr. Tyre Repair, Kyle, got home. It was dark when he finally drove up and he just casually informed us that he did not fix motorbike tires, sorry… Shit.  However, despite our unconfirmed and potentially unjustified suspicions about the coincidence of hitting a nail outside the only tire repair shop for 100km, Kyle was a pretty nice guy. He obviously felt some sympathy for us and despite it being dark and having never fixed a motorbike before offered to help. He was unsure of the mechanics, but he set about calling some of his friends.  We asked if we could camp in his garden, which he assented to and then, after disappearing to consult with his wife, offered us a room in his house.  Kyle, his friend and Jack spent the next three hours removing the tyre, repairing the huge hole and putting everything back together again.  By now it was well into the night, however the two men only asked for $5 in payment as it was a learning experience for both of them.  We gave them $25 and a further $25 for staying in his house, simply grateful to have found a solution to our rather dire situation.  Of course we could not know at this stage that our problems stemming from that tiny little nail had only just begun.

Kyle (standing) and his friend

Spending the night at Kyle’s house gave us an opportunity to learn more about Belizean culture.  We discussed the ongoing issues with Guatemala, political strife regarding oil drilling and environmental protection and the prohibitively high price of food in Belize because almost everything is imported. It was one of those cool experiences where everything goes wrong and it turns out perfectly alright. We talked into the night over some smuggled orange juice from the factory his son worked at and thanked him profusely for his help.

Arriving in Dangriga

Departing Kyle, we spent the next day in a town called Dangriga, which managed to fulfil all of our Carribean stereotypes, with people yelling out ‘jus be happy mon’, and ‘everyting is gonna be alright’ as we road past.  It was in Dangriga that we pulled into a supermarket car park and found ourselves face to face with an identical KLR250 with Australian Army Cam side-bags.  Excitedly, we ran inside and accosted the poor bloke wearing riding gear.  Once he realised we came in peace, he opened up and gave us a bit of his life story.  Michael, an Australian, was riding from Canada to South America on the same bike and with generally the same outlook. It is refreshing to be able to discuss topics that other travellers have no interest in, such as road conditions and which hostels have big enough areas to store a bike.  In the six weeks since we met him he’s made it a shockingly long way in such a short time to Colombia, and we have linked his blog on this site which has some hilarious tales about the perils of touring Central America on a motorbike.

We still were not sure what we were going to do for the next week in Dangriga until we planned to meet up with a friend from Australia, and not a whole lot seemed to be happening in Belize. Anywhere.  We went to an internet café and with some intense Googling and searching, Jack discovered Glovers Atoll, a tiny coral atoll 62km off the coast literally in the middle of the ocean that offers a ‘no-frills’ island experience.  There were some appalling discrepancies between peoples’ reviews on trip adviser of this island, people either love it or absolutely hate it. 

For starters it’s remote; the small boat runs out to the island once a week so you are effectively trapped there for the week. There is no electricity, no running water, the accommodation is run down and you have to cook all your own meals or pay a ridiculous amount for each meal. But you are living on a fricken island! Sold.

We did a week’s worth of shopping in Dangriga and set out trying to find the backpackers where the boat would leave about an hours ride south. Sittee river (from now on known as Shitty river) was a real challenge to find, and we rode around asking people most who didn’t know the place or gave us vague directions off into the jungle. We eventually found the backpackers miles from anywhere, swarming with mosquitos and with a bad smell coming from the mud flat on the river. For better or worse we were roped in now and the boat left at 9am sharp the next day.

At around ten thirty sharp the next day we set off down the 6 miles of river to the ocean.  The boat was a small motored Catamaran, groaning under the weight of about a tonne of coconut fronds used for the thatching of huts.  As an island in the middle of no-where, literally everything has to be brought out on the boat – building materials, food, gas and even fresh water.  As we passed the river mouth we entered Open Ocean and only passed a few sporadic islands on our 3.5 hour journey.  After the arduous journey, we spotted it for the first time and were in awe – paradise.  Picture a small tropical island surrounded by shallow, brilliant turquoise water, covered in Palm and coconut trees and with a smattering of thatched huts on the exterior and hammocks strung between the trees.   

The island has a population of approximately six people, plus any guests that happen to be staying.  When we arrived there were two other guests and a small American summer camp group of 15-17 year olds.  Despite paying for a dorm room, we were upgraded to a beach cabin – a cute, three story hut with an outdoor kitchen on the bottom and two levels with beds and a deck area.  We unpacked our food and set about chilling the fuck out. 

Our Beach Cabana

Our days were occupied by sunbaking, snorkelling, swimming, cracking coconuts, playing with hermit crabs and meeting the islands 6 inhabitants.  Every day we went for a snorkel on the most picturesque reef you can imagine.  Brilliant coral reef brimming with colourful fish, impeccable visibility and lobsters for the taking.  

On our second evening, as we sat around the camp fire drinking Belizean rum, we met Jim, a middle-aged American guy who told us he was here for his sixth year in a row.  What happened next was some of the most passionate, exhaustive and frustrating political debates ever seen on this island.  Jim, a staunch Republican conservative, libertarian ‘tea party guy’ and self confessed 1%er and us, slightly left leaning democratic socialists came to loggerheads over everything from minimum wage, the credibility of Fox TV, Capitalist theory and President Obama.  Both parties groaning, head in hands and filled with incredulous disbelief at the opinions of the other lead to some hilarious scenes.  Perhaps the only thing that saved our relationship was a general agreement on the flailing state of the US economy.  Despite this volatile beginning, we became fast friends.  Each day Jim and Jack would go out spear fishing, returning with a haul of lobster and delicious fish. 

It was Jim who woke us excitedly on Friday morning yelling ‘Come to the dock guys, you’ve gotta see this!’  We ran down to the dock and saw a tiny boat, barely afloat and crammed with people on every surface.  It turned out they were 24 Cuban refugees, who had set out 14 days earlier from Cuba on a leaky homemade boat across the Open Ocean.  Disaster had struck in the middle of the night before when their bathtub of a boat had hit the reef, breaking the recycled VW engine they were using and snapping their propeller.  They washed up 8km along the reef, with no land in sight.  If they hadn’t been picked up by some sympathetic fisherman and dropped at Glovers, who knows what would have happened.  The only two women aboard were pregnant.  What was left of their boat was half full of water. 

 What happened that morning was one of the most touching displays of humanity we have been fortunate enough to bear witness.  These poor, starving people who had been jammed in like sardines for the last two weeks, undoubtedly fearing for their lives and liberty, showed the enduring generosity of the human spirit by offering to share their meagre supply of food with us (some almonds nuts).  Before long, we were handing out cigarettes and, in our broken Spanish, learning their stories.  Two guys were a father and his grown son, seeking a better life.  One guy, yabbering in Spanish pulled out a small brown paper package, wrapped in unbelievable amounts of plastic (to which we were thinking ‘oh shit…it’s cocaine...’) and pulled out his identity card and a few small pictures of his children.  Others were ecstatic just to see dry land. The boats that get this far are only the ‘seaworthy ones’. Every year people wash up long the coast after spending 4-5 weeks at sea on rafts made of rubber tire inner tubes with most of the people on aboard dead.

Belize has a seriously harsh illegal immigration policy, whereby if you enter and are caught, you are thrown in Belize jail for 2-3 years then deported to your original country. Cuba, just for laughs, then puts you in jail for 6 years when you return for having the audacity for trying to leave. For the Cubans, this meant if the Belize authorities caught them they would be spending the better part of a decade behind bars. After traversing hundreds and hundreds of kilometres of Open Ocean, in a homemade boat not much bigger than a large car, with tarps for sails and standing room only – they were going to go to jail only 60km from the Honduras boarder and safety. It was heart breaking.

As we sat around talking to the Cubans, Jim then made a decision. If they were going to go to jail for a decade, for doing what I would have done in their situation, then we’ve got to help in whatever way we can. Jim then paid for every single Cuban to call home via satellite phone to tell their families they were alive and shipwrecked in Belize; as well as a few small clandestine calls to try and find a contact to take them to Honduras. No small feat when it took hours of Jim relaying instructions over the phone and hundreds of dollars. As a second thought Jim and Jack decided that if all they’ve eaten for the last two weeks is nuts and face imprisonment then the least we can do is catch them dinner. Jack and Jim spent the next four hours catching half a dozen lobsters and fish to feed them all.

 

It was a wild situation, in a wild place with some wild people. But everyone pitched in a helped, from cooking of meals to teaching each other to play various card games. We are pretty happy to say that thanks to some big hearted people taking some big risks; that the Cuban’s made it to Honduras. For their sake we hope they find what there looking for and a freedom they never had.

From our island we got back to the mainland and started heading for Belize City about four hours away. With a terrifying reputation to the extent that the locals on the way were telling us to turn around and forget about it, it felt like we were going into a war zone. American gang culture has permeated Belize City and has evolved into a distinct blend of Garifuna violence.

Two hours into our ride, with only jungle on either side of the road the bike started wobbling badly again and we couldn’t believe our luck. As we rolled to a stop we had another flat rear tire! But this time no friendly local tire repair guy was anywhere near us. We were seriously pissed off, thinking some joker was throwing nails out of their car. To make matters worse there was no room to pull over and trucks we smashing past us dangerously close. We pulled off the packs and set about waving down a Ute. Within 10 minutes one pulled over and two Guatemalan guys helped us put the bike on the back. 15 minutes after the flat tire and we were back on the road, albeit in the tray of a Ute. We chatted to the two guys and thanked our limited Spanish for the hundredth time.

We got dropped of a service station in Belmopan at the self professed “greatest tire mon in Belize”. Who was hilarious in his shameless self promotion in every sentence. It turned out that the original patch had leaked…it was the same puncture coming back to haunt us again! 

Nail: 2, Us: 0.

However we were reassured by our tire man’s confidence and deftness with the bike.  He gave us a new patch and 10 minutes and only $5 later, we were on the road again.   

 

We continued along the highway, still heeding warnings from everybody not to go to Belize City as we were likely to be shot.  Therefore when we arrived we were not surprised to find high fences with razor wire and bars on every window; however it was no worse than any other big city in the region.  We bunkered down for the night and found a hostel that was prepared to watch the bike for a week while we explored our next island destination, Caye Caulker.

The next morning we took a water taxi to Caye Caulker, which is about 40m off the coast and very touristy, a sharp change of pace after our near isolation the week before.  We met up with Bec and Felicity, friends from Australia, and Murray and Hayley, fellow travellers.  We had many lively evenings sampling the local cuisine and liquor, and many relaxed days soaking up the sun.  Our hostel room was a small loft, one of the highest buildings on the island, and we squished the six of us for a couple of loft parties.

 Our time on Caye Caulker was relaxed and happy; we thought our troubles with the tire were over and we would be able to get on the road again.  We were wrong.  As soon as we arrived back in Belize City we were greeted by a limp, sagging back tyre…FOR THE THIRD TIME!!! By now it was beyond a joke, we had a distinct sense of deja vu as we wheeled the bike into a shop, the patch had again failed.

Nail: 3

Us: 0 

To cut a long story short, we’re sick of flat tyres.  

Asphalt: The most underrated invention of all time.

You’re in the middle of nowhere on a mountain road that has gotten so bad over the last few hours that it is pushing impassibility. You haven’t seen another vehicle pass you in over an hour, to the point where you’re wondering if you made a wrong turn on the maze of trails or if everyone knows something about this road that you don’t… Huge landslides have taken out chunks of the road and the makeshift trails that cut through the destruction and rubble are dangerous and unstable from the rainy season. The drop off to your right falls away into a gorge that is hundreds of meters deep. The mountain to your left is an almost vertical slope that towers above your head.  Long ago the road lost its last battles with rain and rock, and now it slopes at crazy angles and boulders the size of cars sit on the road where they fell from the mountain above. Fuel is getting desperately low, and the bike is overheating from the arduous climb and tropical heat. Exhaustion is setting in from hours of difficult riding and fever and infection are spreading up your leg from the accident you had two days before on a similar road. It has taken 3 hours to go no more than an estimated 45km with at least that far to go ahead before hitting another unknown road. If you attempt to turn around the last fuel stop was hours and hours ago and well out of range. The loose jagged limestone is like riding on billiard balls, horribly unstable and the edges are slowly shredding your tires. It’s already late afternoon and the prospect of spending a night on the side of the abandoned road is only slightly less appealing that pushing on. Even that option became untenable when the last time you stopped to let the bike cool down you heard explosions in the distance. As you pick your way around some more boulders and struggle for traction you turn another slippery corner. Everything is on empty or in the red. And then you see it. A whole group of men armed with automatic weapons walking along the road towards you. You can’t turn around on the narrow road; you can’t even stop without sliding on the loose rolling rocks, there is nothing you can do. There are excited gestures and pointing coming from some of the men and grim looks on the others. As you slow down you madly contemplate your next move. You rack your brain for options, everything from motocross to MacGyver. You’ve got nothing. Absolutely nothing but to keep riding towards them with a smile and a wave and see what happens. As you slowly approach them you raise your hand in a wave, and put on your best idiotic grin. You grin like an absolute idiot. One of them waves back, others look pissed off. You look quite the sight riding towards a group of armed men with your excitable waving and massive, moronic, shit-eating grin. As you pass the first guy no one yells or makes any motions for you to stop, and as you pass amongst them you see they are wearing green army fatigues. Turns out it’s just the Guatemalan army doing a patrol along the road. Heart attack averted… The military, presumably still worried about guerrilla activity in the area and the large amount of explosives being used to blow a way through the mountains, has provided armed escort of the road workers cutting their way through the mountains and repairing the road from the opposite direction. Happy days. Welcome to Guatemala.

But your problems are all still there, you are running on empty in every respect. Only now you have to look out for men laying explosives and avoid the huge LX excavators tearing apart the mountain, and presumably whoever the army is there to stop. The road is another kind of worse now with loose limestone everywhere and churned up mud making your wheels spin and slide towards the edge of the raven. And then you see the most amazing sight, the most underrated invention of all time. Bitumen, Asphalt, you can call it whatever you want. I’ll call it bliss. It is peace of mind freshly layered in all its beauty. Your cares melt away and you fly along the deserted road weaving and hugging the road. The wind flies through your hair, you taste the mountains, the trees, the air. And as you fly down the road on the smell of an oily rag, with the throttle to the limit and leaning into the turns with the road so close you could touch it, it’s all the sweeter for all the trouble.

Three weeks before we woke up at 4am and got what might turn out to be our last chicken bus in Central America. With the bike being worked on by a mechanic we found in Antigua and our intensive language course winding up in Xela, we were anxious to get on the road and off it. After going over the bike with a fine tooth comb with Taz, finding any last minute problems and using a healthily dose of superglue and ingenuity to fix most of them, it was time to find helmets. Little did we know that Guatemalans have the largest heads known to mankind. The “small” helmets we tried were all ridiculously loose, and after visiting every store in town we found one that just fit Jack and a child helmet for Nett. Who knew?

As we pulled out of town the Pan American Highway awaited. The road was terrific and we would have appreciated it a lot more if we knew what lay ahead, but even on this road which joins all of Central America there were landslides and parts of the road literally missing as they fell into gorges. Nothing could have phased us less, and we flew past cars picking there way through the worst parts without a care.

We arrived back in San Pedro, which is fast becoming one of our favourite places and picked off where we left off. Lying in hammocks and drinking beer. While doing the later we were lucky enough to run into an old friend who we first met in Mexico, then in Xela for the language course, Dimitri. An Irish bloke who introduced us to a few new crazy people and told us about an interesting experience he had with something called the ‘Chocolate Sharman’. Intrigued we rode over to the other side of the lake on our bike to a town called San Marcos and eventually found the Sharman himself. Keith- an ex American and the biggest hippy in the universe.

When we arrived Keith started the ceremony by informing us that San Marcos was exactly 14 months ahead of the rest of the world’s energy? When we inquired how he knew this he said he ‘talked to people’, oh... Apparently it had previously been 2 years ahead but somehow the world caught up in energy. The chocolate ceremony involves drinking 43 grams of pure unprocessed cacao which has been clinically proven to increase blood flow to the brain by 40% and produces some weird effects. You can also add a green juice with some unknown herbs which we were told would help us connect with the spirit world. We were game and added dashes of everything before drinking the bitter liquid. What happened next is difficult to explain. People around the circle started channelling spirits and energy into one another. Some laughed hysterically and others sobbed uncontrollably with rapid variation between the two. It was a weird feeling, kind of like being stoned but with a sugar rush you might get if you ate 4 blocks of chocolate all the while accompanied by a feeling of being hugely emotionally unstable (Probably because we were surrounded by crazy people) but there was no denying that it was doing something to us.

Then the circle got really really intense, with Keith probing people to bring up repressed memories or feelings. One lady called Brenda was in hysterics, angrily pounding the floor and yelling that she was angry at god. Others people in the room started channelling spirits into her and others could see her bad energy and were trying to suck it out of her. It would have looked insane to anyone who hadn’t taken it, and it was. We certainly couldn’t see any spirits but the raw emotion in the room and the effects whatever was in that cup were palpable.

We were pretty transfixed on the scene around us and despite our best efforts hadn’t ‘opened up’ to the level of crazy shown by others, but Keith was having none of that. He looked straight at us and with a wild scarily intense look said ‘You two are in trouble…’. The place might have been in a cult, and by the expressions on the faces on his devoted followers as they suddenly turned to look at us with the same scarily intense look, it was.

Keith then told Jack to ‘open his heart’ and was soon teaching Annette how to channel spirits to his body by placing a hand over his chest. We were profoundly uncomfortable, what with the group now so focused on us and trying to accomplish the insane. But it got worse as Keith started berating our relationship and telling Jack to ‘open his heart’, and open an imaginary door to it. While we were trying to figure out what the hell he was talking about, Keith told Jack to tell everyone what he saw once he opened the door. Jack, dutifully visualising someone opening a door in his head saw exactly what someone opening an imaginary door in their head sees, absolutely nothing. But things were about to take another turn for the crazy. Keith kept telling Jack with increasing vigour to ‘Open the Door’, and ‘Open His Heart’, but when Jack responded that his heart (and presumably the door to it) was open, Keith screamed “SHAM” and his followers around the circle repeated it. It was getting way to cult like in that room and the atmosphere was charged and intense. The effect made Annette to burst into tears and made both of us want to get the fuck out of there. Which we promptly did, but not before realising we had been sitting there for 4 and a half hours. Weird.  

It was one intense experience, but in our opinion it was full of shit. In our minds Keith was probing people while they were in this altered state to bring up repressed emotions to the point of breakdown, as a kind of justification of his chocolate god’s power. And his ‘therapy’ and advice once someone was brought to breakdown was often contradictory and frankly nuts. When a person in the circle was in hysterics his solutions could vary from “you have to put your box back together’??  To “you must hold onto your pain so you can tell god ‘I told you so’ when you see him”. Maybe therapy should be left up to someone who doesn’t claim to have personally met the chocolate god… Oh, and it turns out that Brenda, the ‘women’ angry at god, was in fact previously Brendan. I don’t think a cup of chocolate is going to help anyone get over emotional scars like that.

Despite the chocolate Sharman experience we left San Pedro feeling refreshed and relaxed for our last week of studying in Xela and our last week living with our host family. Our little Guatemalan family was incredibly kind and we grew quite close over the 5 weeks we were there. We were sad to say goodbye but we can’t say the same about Xela. At 2500m, the days were cold and the nights freezing, and when everyday is punctuated by thunderstorms and endless rain we were pretty over it by the end.

It was time to hit the road and the real adventure was ahead. We cut down our luggage to bear bones and everything that was expendable was left behind. We set off from Xela and went willingly straight towards a road that our Spanish teachers had said was almost impassable. It was time to test that theory and we rode for about 5 hours into the mountains before we found the road. The road used to be the main artery connecting Hue Hue Tenango and Coban, about a 5 hour drive but in 2008 disaster struck. The road was hit by some of the worst flooding and landslides in Guatemala’s history from four massive cyclones during the season and the road was irreparably damaged and completely destroyed in parts. It now requires an 8 hour detour to get around it and only the well prepared or crazy attempt it now.

As we got closer to the region where we knew the road was damaged the traffic died away and the road started to get bad. It was so strange though as the first 50km of road was in almost perfect condition except for where four years of neglect could be seen.  Small landslides were strewn across one lane but there were trees and shrubs growing out of them. The effect was like a post apocalyptic world where nature is taking over. There was almost no traffic and weeds grew through cracks in the road, but the ride was beautiful and the day sunny as we descended into a deep valley and even had a midday swim in a stream.

As we left the stream and started a windy road up the mountain, the bitumen road petered out and then even that got hard to see. We rode for hours and it got no better and the landslides increasingly worse. What was left of the road was unstable and unpredictable at best. Whole hills had collapsed and at one point a whole mountain. Four years after the storms have passed and it was still chaos as locals, left to themselves, tried to resurrect a road through the rocks and mud. We paid 5 quetzales (50 cents) as a road toll going to the locals digging through the 2km of utter rubble. The road was awful but the people were the opposite. Everyone we passed beamed smiles and waves and every vehicle or truck honked as people climbed out windows to wave. The local industry was devastated when the road closed and every traveller is met with the most sincere welcome. We passed stunning mountains and tiny villages nestled amongst them where everyone wears traditional dress and big mangos are 30 cents. The detour around the road is about 8 hours and we spent the same time on a much more difficult and dangerous road, but it’s often the roads less travelled where the best experiences are found, and this was no exception.  When we finally got to Coban after 8 hours of gruelling riding is was all we could do to pass out.

In Coban we went to a stunning orchid farm with the rare ‘White Nun orchid’ (Guatemala’s national flower), but it was only a stop over. We were eager to see what has been described as ‘the most beautiful place in Guatemala’, Semuc Champey.

The karst limestone of the region might be a bitch to ride over, but it makes for some stunning scenery.  Towers of rock jut out into the sky, covered in jungle and with turquoise little lakes at there base. Semuc Champey lies deep in a cliff lined river valley and consists of a series of turquoise green and blue pools.  We have no idea how it geologically formed, but the river has created a 300m long rock bridge with the pools on top and the river running underground below. The pools all link up and cascade into one another in a series of waterfalls. We can understand why so many travellers make the long trek to see it.  We whiled away the afternoon swimming in the pools and being cleaned by dozens of tiny fish that nibbled on our skin.  We also visited a cave system nearby, with a Mayan shrine deep inside and a fast flowing river emerging from its mouth.  But disaster wasn’t far around the corner. 

The road to Semuc Champey was one of the worst we’ve seen – despite it being a national icon, the road in was a 22km round trip of limestone rubble and deep muddy pools across the road.  As we rode through one of the deeper ones, we found out first hand how treacherous a rear tyre with low tread and a greasy muddy pool can be.  As we went through the water, the rear tyre was coated in thick mud and essentially became a slick.  When we came out the other side of the pool, the road sloped steeply to the right.  The rear tyre slid viciously on the limestone, jerking the bike sideways.  It would have been possible to recover but the front wheel dove into another pot hole, causing the bike to twist sideways 90 degrees in the air and slam us onto the road.  Jack put his left leg out to arrest the fall but it was twisted awkwardly underneath the bike, tearing a ligament in his left knee.  His right leg landed on the hottest part of the exhaust, searing the flesh.  As he jerked away, the lip of the exhaust tore away the burnt skin and flesh leaving a nasty wound the size of a hand.  Remarkably, Annette was unharmed save a bruise or two and some scratches.    

The bike fared ok, only smashing the left bark buster to pieces and twisting a few of the left side peddles.  The accident has taught us that with our present set of low tread intermediate tyres, our kryptonite is mud.  We plan to replace it soon but until then are acutely aware of our weakness.    

The following day, Jack sore from his injuries, we rested in the nearby town of Lanquin.  But, upon discovering that there was no ATM for a ridiculously large distance and with our money running low, we were forced to make a move.  The nearest town with an ATM was Frey and on the map it didn’t look that far or difficult.  In fact, it was a thick yellow line on the map, often used to signify an important road between major towns.  With Jack’s wound slowly festering in the heat and humidity, we set off eager to return to bitumen and find a hospital.  We couldn’t have been more wrong.  When we reached the top of the exit road and rejoiced, we thoroughly enjoyed 50m of bitumen before seeing the road ahead of us quickly decline into no more than a rocky, slippery, narrow, steep goat track.  With few options open to us and no money, it was all or nothing.  What followed was the narrative at the beginning, and it was as bad as or worse than that described.  At one point Jack, racked by fever and exhaustion, begged to sleep on the side of the “road”, but when we heard the explosions in the distance, we were compelled to continue.  With everything on empty or in the red we were getting seriously worried about fuel and the distance remaining when we saw 10 guys with automatic weapons walking along the road. The region was a hub of rebel activity during the civil war and the military was obviously nervous about the amount of explosives being used by the road workers, asphalting the road from the opposite direction. The explosions we heard where we stopped were from them blowing apart the mountain.

When we finally arrived at the small truck stop town of Frey, we found an ATM but Jack was in a bad way and in no state to ride anywhere.  His left knee had swollen and stiffened, while his right leg was now a festering wound filled with pus and infection.  A Guatemalan policeman, concerned by the sight of Jack’s leg, disappeared and returned with a small maroon bottled with unknown contents.  We were horror stricken when he poured it on Jack’s wound, causing it to bubble, foam and hiss as it dissolved the pus and infected flesh.  It hurt like crazy, like rubbing salt in a wound, but despite appearances helped.  We think that it was a highly oxygenated antibiotic solution, whatever it was it was disconcerting watching part of your leg dissolve...  We went to the nearest hospital, which cleaned the wound and prescribed antibiotics, free of charge.  For all its worries, from what we can tell Guatemala’s health care system isn’t one of them. The doctors and nurses were great and laughed and asked us questions which we answered as best we could with our broken Spanish. From the looks of the other patients arriving, they weren’t fairing the roads too well either. The next Guatemalan guy brought in had lost part of his lip and most of his body was cut to ribbons.

While not an ideal situation, Jack’s recovery in Frey allowed us to acquaint ourselves with some wonderful people in the small town.  People went out of their way to talk to us and the policeman, who was the husband of our hotel owner, kept a protective eye on Jack.  We don’t think western travellers go to Frey, but if they do they sure as hell don’t stay three nights, and we were quite a novelty limping around town, attracting all sorts of stares, comments and kids excitedly running after us.

Partially recovered, we sought out a remote eco lodge that had been recommended to us, called Las Conchas.  It was well off the beaten track, so far that only the most dedicated traveller (and even then) had trouble finding it.  We travelled for hours through farmland and jungle, only to find the gate firmly closed when we finally arrived.  As we sat dejectedly on the track in the middle of nowhere, contemplating our next move, a caretaker arrived.  She had heard our bike coming through the village and could think of no other reason for outsiders to visit.  She showed us to a beautiful wooden cabin, set close to a burbling river full of waterfalls.  With no electricity, we cooked for ourselves and lay reading in hammocks by the fire.  Without electricity, we were awed by the sight of thousands and thousands of fireflies twinkling in the clearing and amongst the jungle.  It was like something out of Avatar, thousands of twinkling lights on every surface and moving about the clearing. Sometimes, there blinking would sync up and the whole jungle would flash in intricate and incredibly beautiful patterns. We stayed three days in the peaceful jungle, seeing few people with only the fireflies to keep us company.

It’s been an extraordinary couple of weeks, perilous roads, crazy charlatans, accidents and adventure. Sometimes it’s good and sometimes it’s bad, and sometimes the bad is good and the good is bad. But it’s been everything we could have hopped for. From Las Conchas we travelled to an extremely remote tropical island paradise off the coast of Belize, but that’s for next time.

Guatemala - Gunshots and Good Times

Well, it’s been 6 weeks since our last post and to be honest, so much has happened that it is hard to recap it all.  We could probably write a short novel but in the interests of brevity, we’ll try to stick to only the most interesting stories.  Firstly, we want to get this out of the way: we love Guatemala – we love the people, the scenery, the culture, in general we even feel safe here… but God damn it’s dangerous.  We’ve lost count of stories from other travellers of muggings, shootings, hold ups and robberies.  Just for an example, our host brother got robbed at gunpoint yesterday for his mobile phone outside our house.  It’s hard to explain why we continue to feel safe given constant stories we hear like this, but people are so genuinely friendly and we have never felt threatened.  It’s not naivety; we are aware of the risks and take care to avoid the obvious dangers, but it’s hard to mesh them with our other reality; the one which consists of smiles, families on the street and benign normality.  Maybe it’s the moustache that scared them off.      

 Guatemala is so interesting precisely because it is so wildly unpredictable: there always seems to be something crazy happening.  Volcanoes erupt when you’re sitting on the balcony of your hostel, streets flood knee deep when you’re walking down them, huge fireworks explode around you constantly sounding like gunfire and bombings, the ocean tries to kill you and everyone you talk to has a wild story about a mugging or a shooting that just happened.  Many of the long-term travellers and ex-pats we’ve meet seem to have incorporated some the unpredictability of Guatemala into them, (otherwise known as becoming dead set crazy).  From the guy that talks to rocks (seriously), to the guy tripping on mushrooms hiding in a tree, to the fanatical preachers screaming scripture at you on the bus. There’s always something going on.   

The crazies always make a good story and it was in Antigua having a beer at a motorbike café that we got talking to our first, Dan. In any other life Dan would have been raiding coastal villages with battle axe and propensity for extreme violence. Having been born a few centuries too late for this past time, he did motorbike tours around Guatemala. He was an absolutely top bloke, but is what you might call a little bit odd… After sitting next to him at the bar, we got to talking about motorbikes and a motorbike jacket he had for sale, all of sudden with a intense expression on his face he told Jack to get on the back of his bike; a little hesitantly I jumped on the back and he took off through the winding cobblestone streets of Antigua to God knows where, holding on for dear life as we hit speed bump after speed bump at speed without helmets.  It wasn’t until some near misses and unnecessary swerving that I realised how absolutely hammered he was.  A pretty good clue was probably when he took about 30 seconds to put his key in bike. Surreal would be an understatement of what happened next.  As we flew along, Dan suddenly slammed on the brakes and swerved into the side of a building.  We hit a low speed but he only turned around with a scarily intense look, and ran across the road to a Guatemalan woman with three young children. 

The youngest couldn’t have been more than 3 and looked a mix of bewildered and terrified as a man that might as well have been a Viking ran at him.  Dan scooped him up with both hands and held him dangling above his head, ran back into the middle of the road, and started doing overhead push-ups with him. I watched with morbid bewilderment as he got to about 15 before he started practicing WWF moves like pretending to break him on his knee or drop him on his head. He then ran to the other kid of about five and grabbed a half eaten biscuit out of his mouth and chewed it in front of him with his mouth open laughing manically. I didn’t know whether to laugh or call the police. Undeterred, he proceeded to do some more overhead push ups with the other kid, before shadow boxing the woman. To her credit, the woman gave a good account of herself and gave a few back.  It was at the point that Dan was telling them to stand still while he attempted to fly kick the wall above their heads that I thought I’d better step in. ‘Come on mate, time to go’.  He just gave me a strange look and did a few more overhead push-ups with one of the kids in the middle of the road. I managed to coax him back to the bike and we resumed the journey with me utterly confused and Dan still chewing on the kids biscuit.

I later found out that they were his semi-adopted Guatemalan family, but for anyone who didn’t know the back story, like myself, it was one of the most random and strange things I’ve ever seen anyone do. Guatemala seems to have been one long string of crazy experiences and very interesting people.

Even the plane into Guatemala City from Mexico City was intense; we weren’t sure which was more unnerving: looking out the window as we descended to see volcanoes towering above the height of our plane; or the prospect of landing in Guatemala City with a murder rate of 27 people per day. You know it’s bad when Lonely Planet describes Guatemala City as ‘big, dirty, dangerous and utterly forgettable’; needless to say we weren’t keen to stick around very long.  As we drove through the streets, we had our first experience of Guatemala City architecture – picture a cross between bombed out Bagdhad (on a bad day) and the chaotic building standards of a built up slum.  Every wall or roof is covered in razor wire and broken glass bottles set in concrete, the kind you see on the top of prison walls in Australia.  Every window, door or skylight is covered in iron bars and every shop with anything worth stealing is guarded by a guy with a pump action shot gun. After 40 years of civil war, Guatemalans aren’t taking any chances.  Last week, we even saw a man carting 6 large bottles of water being escorted by an armed guard down the street – couldn’t have been worth more than $12 and the guy would have blown you away for it.        

After getting out of Guatemala City, we spent our first week in Antigua – the ex-pat hub of Central America and one of the prettiest cities we’ve seen.  Set in between towering volcanoes, paved with cobblestone streets and littered with funky cafes and bars.  We’ve been back four times and have only just scratched the surface.  It’s the sort of place that keeps drawing people back; or the sort of place where people permanently wash up.  We’ve met many other long term travellers in Antigua and have found a gaggle of friends on the ex-pat scene and even been to a few raving house parties, giving us an interesting insight into life here. 

From one of the prettiest places, we went to one of the worst places we’ve ever travelled to: Monterrico.  Destination: shit hole.  Despite every Guatemalan person’s recommendation about a ‘beautiful coastal town’, there was nothing to like about Moterrico.  A million degrees during the day, 100% humidity, 100% mosquitoes (with 100% malaria), murderous ocean (see previous post) with molten lava black sand and rubbish strewn everywhere.  The place is literally a festering swamp of death.  Well…maybe figuratively, just don’t go there. Ever.  

 After our traumatic experience at Monterrico, we went to San Pedro la Laguna on Lake Atitlan.  Set in front of a vast, beautiful fresh water lake high in the mountains and surrounded by volcanos, we never wanted to leave San Pedro.  We spent over 2 weeks there enjoying the rich culture, swimming in the lake and generally relaxing. But wherever we go we apparently can’t get away from the crazies… It was on one of our leisurely walks through the town that a dishevelled looking white man draped in Guatemalan traditional highland dress, unshaven and looking like he hadn’t bathed in months approached us offering weed.  Diego was a washed up hippy toeing the line between travelling and abject poverty.  It’s often hard to tell just how crazy someone is on first impressions… and it’s always a shock when you find out way too far down the line. This was one of those occasions.             

As we talked to Diego, he came across as a down on his luck long-term traveller, sane enough and we got talking and eventually had a beer with him. It was on about the third beer Diego started talking some wild stories of abandoned Mayan ruins in the jungle on the other side of the lake, on the face of a towering volcano and extremely remote. It was like something out of a movie where you meet a guy in a bar and he has a treasure map to a lost city and adventure and hilarity ensues. How can you turn that down? Intrigued, and after a few more beers, us and a Canadian couple we befriended decided to take his ‘tour’ the following day.  This tour was like nothing you’ll ever find in a brochure, more like meeting a homeless guy who shows you a dead body. We walked to the dock at 7am, met up with Diego and the Canadians and took a boat 30 mins across the lake.  The boat was so overloaded with people and luggage that it took great skill not to fall overboard and hats off to the skipper for not sinking.  After half and hour we arrived to a lake side city, Diego promptly entered into an extended yelling match over the price.  First inklings of crazy.  We eventually paid the $2 and set about trying to hire a canoe to paddle further up the lake where the local boats don’t go and giant anacondas eat people. Jokes. After a lot of walking, a lot of talking and not much happening, we finally chartered a boat to take us up the lake to the base of the volcano where we would start our hike. 

We jumped off the boat as we landed, and with a few words the boat pushed back out and left us alone on the deserted shore with a promise to be back at 5pm. We got our stuff and started the hike through dense jungle up the side of the volcano. These Mayan ruins weren’t marked on any map and were unexcavated and so remote that it was only the Mayan farmers, and Diego, who knew about them.  The five of us trekked along a winding path and after a tough climb and a few wild avocados directly from the tree, we found them. Huge carved stone heads, ruined temples, hundreds of rock carvings and pieces of obsidian and broken pottery littered all over the ground. It was amazing as we explored and climbed the ruins, and even more so because nobody ever goes there but Mayan farmers. It was at one particularly large rock that Diego started talking to it…  (Yep, full crazy). Channelling the rock spirits and talking to the creator.  He could feel the energy from the rock and see its history.  We all looked around and knew what everyone else was thinking – how do we keep finding these people? To give him credit, it was a pretty cool rock... It had four carved stone heads around it and a sacrifice bowl in the middle with blood channels running down the side. 

As we wandered amongst the ruins, we surprised a Mayan farmer who had obviously never seen people come up this far.  Only speaking Mayan, he stopped his work and gave us a tour of his land. It was at the base of a large carved rock tower that he disappeared for a moment and returned with a human skull covered in dirt. The skull had a spear hole through it, undoubtedly the cause of death.  For all we know our guide killed the guy and was showing off his work…he was very enthusiastic. It’s pretty crazy holding a human skull in your hands and looking at the teeth that he used to eat for his entire life and the hole that killed him.  Our little Mayan guide eventually went back to his farming (or possibly killing someone else) and didn’t ask for anything in return.  To Diego’s credit the ruins were amazing, so I guess the moral of the story is if any slightly unbalanced person in a bar tells you about some fantastic place in the middle of the jungle, you should go with him…

As we left San Pedro on the bus, we head a rumour from some fellow travellers of a bus hijack a few days before on the same road we were travelling.  It was another reminder of the potential dangers of Guatemala and coincidentally at a house party in Antigua a few weeks later, we got the full unadulterated story when we met ‘Bad Luck Thomas’. 

‘Bad Luck Thomas’ was enjoying a quite beer at his hostel in the north of Guatemala when he and his drinking companions saw a bright light.  The bright light got steadily bigger and before long smoke was everywhere, a few moments after that the entire hostel was on fire. They could only stand by and watch as the hostel went up in a raging inferno.  It was lucky it was early evening because if it had happened at night, everyone would have died.  Luckily for Bad Luck Thomas, he came out of it relatively unscathed and thought it would be a great idea to go and relax in San Pedro.  The following is his account of what happened:

In the last half hour of a 3.5 hour bus ride to San Pedro, at around midday, Bad Luck Thomas was chatting to two Australian couples sitting either side of him.  Suddenly, four masked gunmen rolled a huge boulder onto the road up ahead, forcing the bus to stop.  As the bus slowed, the lead gunman shot the bus driver in the face.  The gunman then opened the doors and pulled a few people off the bus at gun point and demanded that everybody hand over their valuables and day bags.  Everybody handed over their day bags and wallets at gunpoint.  As they were rifling through them, an unsuspecting motorbike rider came down the mountain pass behind them, only to see the hold up in progress, slam on his brakes and quickly turn around. The gunman then shot at him as he swerved all over the road and bullets whizzed past his head.  This interruption made the robbers uneasy and they grabbed whatever they could and started to run, not before the last gunman turned and fired several shots into the side windows of the bus.  One Australian guy narrowly missed being hit in the head and later found bullets in his luggage above his head.  As it turned out, the bullet had missed the driver by about a centimetre and lodged into his headrest, but as the bullet impacted the windshield it sprayed glass into his face and into his cheek.  Despite his injuries, the bus driver drove them to the police station in San Pedro and himself to a hospital.  Bad Luck Thomas found himself with no passport, no money and no credit cards and the prospect of going back along the only road out of San Pedro. It was a pretty bad story but he said he was overwhelmed by people’s generosity in the following days as people helped him with everything from meals to accommodation.

This occurred while we were at San Pedro and was only a few days before we took the return journey along the same route.  However, the road was filled with police road blocks and security check points. For all the bad rap the Guatemalan police get, they seemed to be taking it seriously. The hold up made the local news in Guatemala although it wasn’t the first or the last story that has happened while we’ve been here.           

On a much happier note we’ve spent the last three weeks in Guatemala’s second largest city, Xela doing a Spanish language course. We live, eat and sleep with a Guatemalan family, three kids aged 8 -10 -18 and the parents. During the day we do five hours a day one on one teaching everyday at a school down the road. The experience has left our brains reeling and both of us passing out at five pm most days from exhaustion. It’s intense but really beneficial. Already we can string sentences together and get across basic things like ‘ I have 26 anuses’ and ‘can I have some tits’ , all the embarrassing mistakes that come with mispronouncing or misusing a word in a new language. For the record we were trying to say we are how old we are, and asking for some sausages at a shop. But we are actually getting much better and can now get across a surprisingly large amount of information and useful phrases. When we were in Indonesia a guy once told us some of the best advice we have ever heard. He told us to learn this phrase in every language you possibly can and everything will be alright…

‘It was like this when I got here’.

We’re yet to test it out but we will be sure to use it liberally.

From Xela we went back to Antigua and did something we have been consistently called crazy for. We bought a motorbike. It’s a ridiculously special and sadly rare occurrence when you can say a dream has become a reality.  It’s an indictment to our all too hectic modern society that despite our affluence and wealth most dreams go unfulfilled. What are we if can’t have a dream and live to do it.  Well we can firmly say that on this occasion, we did it. A Kawasaki KLR 250, a magnificent machine in its ability and relative mechanical simplicity. It’s huge by Guatemalan standards and tiny by Australian but it will do the job. 

When we bought it, it was in pretty rough condition but we found a mechanic and with a bit of work now have a bike that fingers crossed will get us the thousands of kilometres to South America. It’s pretty well suited to the job, 250 is 50cc bigger than the biggest Guatemalan bikes, it’s a dirt bike so it can take rough roads and big potholes, its got a ‘bullet proof’ motor by most standards,  its got enduro tires which are good for dirt and bitumen, Its simple mechanically which will come in handy when things break, and it has got two people who are ‘crazy’ enough to ride it thousands of kilometres though more than 14 countries and some of toughest geography, climate and roads in the world. Fuck. Yeah.

And all we had to do to get it was wade through a mountain of Guatemalan bureaucracy. Without some serious help and sometimes even with it this would have been impossible, luckily we met a local ex-pat called Chris who not only helped point us in the right direction but knew a Guatemalan guy selling the KLR. The bureaucracy is staggering and even if it wasn’t in Spanish it would have been massively confusing. I don’t want to bore you with too many details but if anyone was thinking about doing something similar then I’ll leave a brief list at the end.

It was tough we won’t lie, but what we did was turn a dream into a reality, and that’s truly priceless. We’ve been on a few big rides already without packs (we’ll cross that hurdle when we come to it) and it’s insanely awesome. Flying along twisting mountain passes surrounded by jungle and wispy clouds, leaning into corners hugging the road as you smell and taste the wind on your face.  Words don’t do it justice.

Live the dream.

  

Buy motorbike – ($200 limit on all ATMs in Guatemala, go figure out how you can pay for bike)

Get title, rego card and photocopy of licence of previous owner.

Pay emissions tax

Pay road tax

Pay 2012 rego - all at a random bank (Ban rural)

Buy a Nit form and fill it out in Spanish (kind of like a tax file number)

Line up at random counter to get a NIT from Sat office (you need a fixed address in Guatemala and some charming of the official at the desk or you’re fucked) If you don’t get a NIT your dream is over

Pay at random police station for parking or traffic offences on other side of town

Photocopy every single page of your passport. Every. Single. One.

Get and pay a lawyer to sign title and authenticate every piece of information, must already have everything above, 3hrs wait.

Go to Sat Office, line up to pay for each new form, then line up at separate desk to hand in each form

Fill in Shit-loads of paperwork about change of ownership

More paperwork in Spanish of every conceivable detail for every conceivable detail. 

Then go with you 1cm thick paperwork back to SAT office to random desk, if you missed one step or did it incorrectly start again, sit there as they go through every piece of information that you filled in in Spanish and look at you menacingly. Fine the shit out of you for a SINGLE TYPO.

You end up with this (photo)

Done, Simple right. LTD