Back in Panajachel (AKA Gringotenango) I go straight to the delivery depot to pick up my box. I enquire, as a matter of idle curiousity, why it wasn’t delivered to address that is clearly printed on the carton and the women shrugs, indifferently. “They couldn’t find it,” she offers by way of [...]
Also tagged bikeI am excited to be going to San Pedro, on the other side of the lake from Panajachel, to meet Tank and his buddy, Mike, who have just ridden a couple of ‘74 Honda Singles down from the States and are taking a bit of time out to study Spanish before heading onwards to South [...]
Also tagged friends, off cycleI arrive in Panajachel hoping to find bike parts and a few other goodies ready and waiting for me but I am sadly disappointed. This bounty, which promises to revitalise my flagging stead, has been en route all the way from Australia, courtesy of an extremely generous benefactor, for a considerable period [...]
Also tagged bike, things breakWe finally hit paved road in San Martin Jilotepeque, a sizable town with a great market.
Also tagged mountainsThe reality of travelling on dirt roads, generally, is that if they are not muddy then they are dusty. Most of the roads that we traverse in the Guatemalan mountains show evidence of the exceptionally heavy rains of the previous wet season – whole sections of road have been swept away by landslides – but [...]
Also tagged campingAfter a year and a half on the road, a lot of my equipment is getting a little tatty. My Big Agnes Emerald Mountain tent has some very positive features but robustness is not really one of them.
Also tagged camping, gear, things breakMy map, it turns out, has a few inaccuracies and, somewhere south of Granados, these vagaries get us embroiled us in a extremely convoluted discussion with a motley crew at dusk in a desolate riverside settlement: the cast of characters range from a couple of sleazy policemen and a number of cowboys to a mute [...]
Also tagged campingA chicken bus is a thing of captivating beauty.
Also taggedDirt roads over the mountains don’t get a lot of gringo traffic and so we seem to attract quite a lot of attention wherever we go.
As dusk approaches the daily task of searching out a place to sleep presents itself. Although, in general, I prefer to find a secret place to set up my tent [...]
My vision of hell is a giant supermarket without an exit and I do what I can to avoid entering them. However, in Salama, an unremarkable mountain town in Guatemala, I found a supermarket that charmed me considerably and that I didn’t want to leave.
Next stop is the bakery.
Outside chicken buses bring colour and sparkle [...]