Central
America. The diversity is incredible, the people friendly,
the bugs gigantic, the landscapes lush and dramatic, the border
crossings a pain there where the sun never shines, and the
food delicious. Let’s start with the food : Paches, pupusas,
anafres, pinches, gallo pinto, empanadas..., (sounds almost
as good as Bouneschlupp, doesn’t it), the food was as good
as it was varied. Same thing goes for the beer. The small
roadside side stands, comedors and sodas are definitely the
way to go in these parts.
As
for the border crossings, they are a nightmare: An average
of about two hours at each border, with tears being shed every
time at the number of trees that had to be cut down to supply
these legions of manic scribblers and stamp-happy controllers
the satisfaction of carrying out their holy mission. Redundancy
rules: Sometimes, they would make us wait around while they
were typing out an extremely intricate form on a typewriter
with one finger, and then make us wait some more in order
to enter this freshly harvested information into their proudly
displayed computer. Ahem, disculpe senor, but wouldn’t it
be easier to…oh never mind. Details about the individual borders
should be available soon under www.horizonsunlimited.com.
We drove into Guatemala on October 18th, heading for Chichicastenango
in order to see the market and at last do some righteous shopping.
It is difficult to imagine anything more colorful than a Guatemalan
market, the country being set apart from other Central American
countries by its large Mayan population. Most of them still
stick to their ancient costumes, technologies and traditions,
which has attracted mobs of tourists but unfortunately has
made them a target for discrimination in their own land. That’s
maybe also the reason why Guatemala was the country where
the poverty seemed most striking, although it was quite noticeable
in most of Central America.
The country in general was an experience, the people being
mostly friendly and communicative, with the unfortunately
quite frequent exception of those that had been exposed to
tourists too much. The interesting encounters usually happened
in roadside comedors, whereas the towns (mostly Panajachel
and Antigua) felt distant at best and like a tourist trap
at worst. In Antigua, we met Frank, a friend from Luxembourg
who had been around for a couple of months in order to study
Spanish, therefore being perfectly qualified to show us around
town.
After Antigua, we spend a couple of days in Guatemala City
to have the bikes serviced. It seems that we continue to be
lucky with bike services. FA Honda in Guatemala City, Tel
331 4148, ask for Carlos Cardona (service) or Julio Flores
(parts), is the place to go.
Thus being roadworthy again, we set out for El Salvador, where
we spent a couple of days, before heading east for the ancient
Maya town of Copan, Honduras. Since we mostly avoided the
Interamericana in both those countries, we happened upon quite
a few places that didn’t seem to see many tourists. The bikes
of course created mucho curiosity, making for several pleasant
encounters, as well as provoking hollering, waving, honking,
and headlight flashing from the locals.
We
arrived at the Honduras border by way of a single lane mountain
dirt road that at times was not unlike riding along a dry
river bed with the occasional semi encounter just to keep
things interesting…but the view was gorgeous. The border town
(El Poy) itself was as sleepy as it gets. The border gate
was a cattle guard and the police used the competition handlebars
on their mountainbikes to read the paper while they made their
rounds. It still took three hours for the customs formalities..
The highlights in Honduras were the town of Copan Ruinas (next
to the archeology site of the same name), a pleasant little
village set in beautiful surroundings, and, more generally
the Honduran roads, well maintained, nice and curvy, not too
much traffic, definitely an unexpected treat. We didn’t notice
too many posted speed limits either.
Unfortunately, the road conditions changed quite drastically
as soon as we got into Nicaragua, with potholes the size of
a Sunday hangover and a ridiculous numbers of smelly trucks
and buses with semi-suicidal drivers. Welcome back to the
Interamericana.
The first stop in Nicaragua was in the town of Esteli, where
the local factions of both the PLC and the Sandinistas were
celebrating the coming elections, greeting us with a lot of
noise, firecrackers and general good mood. Later on however,
the mood seemed to turn slightly belligerent due to all the
free booze, making us decide to retire early to be in good
shape for the next destination, Granada.
In Granada, we spent a couple of days boating around on the
incredibly scenic Lago de Nicaragua, the world’s tenth largest
lake if memory serves me well. The features that made it so
attractive were the hundreds of tiny islands, (many of them
inhabited, usually by one family) and the looming volcanoes
in the middle of the lake. Granada itself is a beautiful colonial
town with high-ceilinged buildings and lots of rocking chairs
with friendly people rocking away the weekend in their courtyards
or on the town’s sidewalks, contemplating life.
We had been looking forward for a while to the next destination,
Costa Rica, having heard that it’s both beautiful and one
of the friendliest places in the world. All those admittedly
pretty high expectations were met, if you haven’t been there
yet, consider going. It’s truly spectacular. All throughout
Central America, people had been very pleasant, but not as
open to communication and truly welcoming as the Ticos. We
visited Liberia, Tilaran, Monteverde Cloud Forest, Arenal
Volcano, and San Jose and were well received everywhere.
The weather was good, with the occasional evening downpours,
which affected us very little, as we tended to be safely tucked
away with a cerveza by that time. We were told in several
places throughout Central America that we had arrived right
after the end of the rains (with the exception of Panama…),
exactly as we had planned.
The
ride from Costa Rica to Panama City was uneventful, the road
decent, but unfortunately infested with speed traps. We were
flagged down shortly after entering the country, marking only
the third speed-related police encounter so far (the other
two were in Canada and Costa Rica). Once again, we managed
to talk them out of sanctioning us. One of the cops, after
gracefully pardoning an infraction worth $130, said “ Es un
regalo de Panama”, it’s a present from Panama. Muchas Gracias,
Senor Wachtelmeister. We did slow down after that.
We’re now in Panama City, having successfully completed the
necessary formalities in order to fly the bikes and ourselves
to Quito, Ecuador. The general political climate in Colombia
having been unstable for quite a while, we have reluctantly
decided to skip the country. The story of Ricardo Rocco Paz,
a biker travelling solo through Colombia who was recently
kidnapped by the guerrillas, somewhat confirmed our decision.
Luckily, they released him without harm after a day or so,
not even robbing him. For the full story, see his web site
(http://www.andesmoto-tours.com)
or check the November edition of http://www.horizonsunlimited.com
Motorcycle Travellers' e-zine, something well worth doing
anyway.
Total distance traveled in Central America amounts to 3.200
km in just under four weeks, bringing the total to 18.200
km in three months. The bikes are holding up well, a slight
electrical problem in Costa Rica was fixed in a couple of
hours with the help of a village dirt biking enthusiast. We
keep dutifully checking the different bits and pieces regularly
(as instructed by Herr Professor Charel K.), so hopefully
there won’t be any trouble, mechanical or otherwise, during
the next leg, South America.
Hasta very soon
Manou & Ellen