61. Across the Cuchumatanes

Westbound on Highway 7

After crossing the River Motagua and leaving behind the busy east-west highway that links the western Guatemalan metropolis' with the east of the country and the Caribbean, we began climbing into the Verapaces. The department of Alta Verapaz has been making the news recently when the Guatemalan government gave extensive powers to the police and military there a couple of months ago to combat the influx of the Mexican Los Zetas drugs cartel, who have been infiltrating the department to establish new smuggling routes from central America into Mexico. We didn't see much signs of this extra activity, nor did we see the resplendent quetzal, the region's famed bird that lends its name to the national currency.

Crossing the River Chixoy

The further we entered the highlands, in fact, the less shotgun toting security guards we came across and instead found quiet mountain towns where indigenous languages still predominate, and traditional costumes still worn daily as a symbol of the highlander's independence and determination to preserve their culture. Many of the highland areas in El Quiche and Huehuetenango departments suffered terribly at the hands of State forces and paramilitaries during the civil war in the 1980s and early 90s, with over 450 villages being destroyed and 200,000 people killed. These days there's little sign of the past conflicts as farmers harvest their potatos and maize crops.

Market day in Todos Santos

Pedaling through the highlands involved some of the hardest cycling conditions encountered since Bolivia and the high Andean passes with relentless, inhuman grades and rough tracks that are regularly obliterated by landslides. Most days involved a gain in altitude of about 1200 metres as the roads weaved their way up to over 3300 metres and back down to several hundred metres when crossing rivers. While the going was slow,  we enjoyed the friendly villages and towns where we passed through and as well as countless cups of arroz con leche (hot milk and rice) and enough beans to make a sizeable contribution to the region's greenhouse gas emissions quota.

Market day in Todos Santos

Following a couple of day's off in the chilly highland town of Todos Santos, we bumped our way slowly down out of the Cuchumatanes onto the relatively flatter limestone plateau that stretches northwards from the base of the mountains and marks the border with Mexico. The recent establishment of additional official border posts along many parts of the Guatemala/Mexico border has ensured that small towns such as Gracias a Dios, from where we crossed into Chiapas province in southern Mexico, are booming from the resulting trade. Our two-year old map was already out-of-date and the horrendous dirt roads that I was expecting materialised into newly paved roads.

Heading for Mexico

We changed the last of our quetzales and some dollars into Mexican pesos in Gracias a Dios, under the watchful eye of the scar-faced chubby moneychanger who eventually agreed to give us eleven pesos to the dollar. His friend leant against the hood of a pimped pickup and sported a ivory-handled revolver out of the front of his jeans. Crossing the border we were greeted by friendly Mexican officials who carefully examined our passports before giving us a very generous 180-day tourist visa as well as directions to the national park at Montebello lakes. We spent our first night at the lakes, camped inside the kitchen of the park guards and listening to the rain all night. The following morning we donned the wet gear and piled on the plastic bags and visited the disappointingly cold and misty lakes before heading up to Comitan de Dominguez. The following day we rode the 95 kilometres and 1200 metre climb up to San Cristobal de las Casas, where we've just taken a week off the bikes, visiting the city and surrounding area and catching up with my Scottish friend Kirsty with whom I'd cycled across northern Spain in 2008. 

Last Tuesday we were all sitting up at one of the viewpoints looking down on the city and wondering why two Humvee loads of soldiers had chosen the same spot to take some air. Later we found out that the high profile security was for President Felipe Calderon, who had been visiting the city to pay his respects to the late Bishop Samuel Ruiz, who had died the previous week and who had played an important part in the peace process between Zapatista paramilitaries and the Government in the mid-1990s.

San Cristobal de Las Casas, Mexico

Pedalled: 40,650 km

60. Men of maize

 Enchilada time

As we climb up to Perquin in the rugged, pine-covered mountains of eastern El Salvador, it is easy to see how the town became a natural fortress during the civil war in the 1980s. For over a decade, the town was a stronghold of the Frente Farabundo Marti para la Liberacion (FMLN) guerrillas, who like their Sandinista comrades in Nicaragua, were waging war against a US-funded dictatorship. In the three-roomed museum at the top of the town, the former studio for the guerrillas' Radio Venceremos, an assemblage of photographs, weapons and copies of foreign press coverage of the civil war, detail the struggle from the FMLNs perspective. Our guide, a former guerilla himself, mentions the importance of the foreign coverage and support. Amongst the posters depicting effigies of Reagan and calling for support for the people of El Salvador, I spot a faded yellow card and a typed message in Irish from the Irish El Salvador Support Committee, with a contact name and address in Swords, Co.Dublin. Written in the aftermath of the massacre in the neighbouring village of El Mozote, where over one thousand villages of all ages and both genders were killed in December 1981 by the US-trained Atlacatl battalion and government forces. Over 75,000 people are estimated to have been killed during the 12-year long conflict.

Mural in Perquin

Investment in tourism infrastructure has been part of the rebuilding programme to improve the economy of the Morazon region in the years after the signing of the peace accords in 1992. Perquin is promoted as a highlight on the so-called Road of Peace, a crossborder iniative with neighbouring Honduras. Ironically it is the same US government, albeit a very different administration, that is now financing the rebuilding process through such channels as the Millenium Challenge Corporation, that financed the arnaments and training of government forces during the war. Outside the museum, a crater marks the destruction of the first aerial bombing of the town by government forces and beside the hole is a replica of the 500lb bomb that caused it along with a sign reading "Made in USA".

Early morning enroute to Honduras from El Salvador

From Perquin we climb further up through the dusty dirt track that leads to the Honduran province of La Paz. A closed immigration office apparently being no barrier to entry as a bored police officer waves us through without requesting even a peek at our documents. We arrive in Marcala later in the afternoon, as New Year´s Eve celebrations are getting underway, some people clearly having started earlier than others as they sway erratically through the crowded streets. Explosions of fireworks that have continued unabated since Christmas erupted around us. Outside the half-built police station we meet Dubai-born Shabeer and his Honduran wife and despite our shabby appearance we´re invited to their dinner party to welcome in the New Year. We turn up at the appointed hour to find a table set as we look through the window but an otherwise empty house. Finally our hunger gets the better of us and we go scavenging through the poorly lit town, only managing to find a plastic burger and a couple of bottles of beer before the power goes down in the town. We find our way back through the quiet streets to our bed. It´s only ten o´clock. A midnight artillery barrage of fire crackers brings us briefly to our senses - happy New Year!

Bumpy descent into La Esperanza

From Marcala we work our way northwestwards, through the towns of La Esperanza, San Juan, Gracias and Santa Rosa de Copan. Lenca people make up the indigenous majority in this highland region. Markets are well-stocked with fruit and vegetables and dairy farming ensures plentiful supplies of cheese, milk and sour cream. From San Juan, pine forests give way to coffee plantations. The price is good we´re told at the moment, business is booming. Yet for most Hondurans, work isn´t easy to come by at home. Everyday someone yells "Hey buddy!" as we pass by, having picked up English in New Jersey, North Carolina, Miami or Los Angeles. Everyday we meet young men who´ve worked in Los Estados, four years seems to be the average. Over one in seven Honduran´s are now living abroad, the majority working as illegal migrants in the US. Busy Western Union offices in even the smallest towns are testament to the importance of remittances.

La Esperanza

More unrelenting hills bring us from Santa Rosa de Copan to the Mayan ruins at Copan. Away now from the more remote and peaceful mountain towns, we move into cattle country and cowboy culture, where big hats, big boots and big guns become more prominent. As Ellie and I eat our lunch of beef, beans and tortillas at a comedor near La Entrada, a friendly and helpful builder on his lunch break gives us details about the route ahead. His companion notices how our gaze keeps coming back to the young builder's hips and explains, almost apologetically it seems, about the crime and la delincuencia. The seven-year old daughter of the proprietor asks him what he would do if a robber came and he instantly snaps the safety catch on his plastic hip holster and pulls out his gun, mimicking a firefight where he is the victor. Then he holsters the gun, turns and smiles and walks outside.

The Copan ruins mark our entry into the southernmost point of the ancient Mayan empire that flourished between today´s western Honduras and southern Mexico between 2000 BC and 850 AD. Copan was one of the four royal cities in the empire and today, after reconstruction in the early twentieth century when the ruins were reclaimed from the jungle, it is now possible to walk through the former royal quarters, acropolis and the plazas that formed the core of the city. After a couple of days spent at the ruins and at the nearby town of Copan Ruinas, we fixed some punctures and pedaled the final 12 kilometres, up one big last Honduran hill and down to the border at El Florido. Our lack of entry stamps into Honduras not fazing the friendly immigration official, we were stamped out of Honduras and into Guatemala.

Chiquimula, Guatemala
Trip distance: 39,932 km

59. Happy New Year from El Salvador

Happy New Year from El Salvador! Border crossings are becoming an almost daily occurence lately, having pedalled through southern Honduras after Nicaragua and following a quick foray across eastern El Salvador we'll cross into the western highlands of Honduras. Christmas was spent in the southern Honduran city of Choluteca, where Ellie nursed a throat infection for a couple of days and we got in our full quota of TV for the coming year in one weekend. Christmas lunch was a mountain of chow mein and fried noddles from the only person in town not celebrating Christmas and open for business. At midnight on Christmas eve, Choluteca rocked with explosions as hundreds of homemade fireworks were set alright in the streets. In fact they've been blasting away all week and I've been waiting to see someone drop a cigarette into the stacks of fireworks they're selling at the side of the road.

Crossing the border yesterday between Honduras and El Salvador at hot and dusty El Amatillo, we headed for the bustling market town of Santa Rosa de Lima before turning north into the Morazon department and the mountains. Tomorrow morning we'll finish the 20km climb to Perquin, a town that was one of  the strongholds of the FMLN guerillas during the civil war in the 1980s. We've found people very friendly as usual and today the police drove past as we were climbing up to Osicala and then reversed back with the lights flashing to ask us about the trip. Better than my last encounter with a Honduran policeman yesterday who was adamant I should be giving him a late Christmas present.

Wishing everyone tailwinds and downhills for 2011!

Osicala, El Salvador
Trip distance: 39,493 km

58. Trying to fletcherise in Nicaragua

We´ve spent the past ten days meandering up through western Nicaragua. Off the main roads, the pace of traffic has slowed down, with less cars, more bicycles, horses and ox-carts trundling along beside us. The rainy days of Costa Rica and Panama are behind us and we´re back camping under the filling moon. I´ve lots to write but I´m also hungry and tomorrow we leave for the Honduras border, so instead I´ll cheat and cut and paste a poem by the national bard, Rubén Darío, founder of Spanish-American literary movement known as modernismo in the late 19th century. The poem was a reaction to the involvement of the United States in the separation of Panama and Colombia that subsequently allowed the US to construct the Panama canal and retain jurisdiction over the Canal Zone until the last decade.

To Roosevelt by Rubén Darío (translated by L. Kemp)

The voice that would reach you, Hunter, must speak
in Biblical tones, or in the poetry of Walt Whitman.
You are primitive and modern, simple and complex;
you are one part George Washington and one part Nimrod.
You are the United States,
future invader of our naive America
with its Indian blood, an America
that still prays to Christ and still speaks Spanish.

You are strong, proud model of your race;
you are cultured and able; you oppose Tolstoy.
You are an Alexander-Nebuchadnezzar,
breaking horses and murdering tigers.
(You are a Professor of Energy,
as current lunatics say).

You think that life is a fire,
that progress is an irruption,
that the future is wherever
your bullet strikes.
No.

The United States is grand and powerful.
Whenever it trembles, a profound shudder
runs down the enormous backbone of the Andes.
If it shouts, the sound is like the roar of a lion.
And Hugo said to Grant: "The stars are yours."
(The dawning sun of the Argentine barely shines;
the star of Chile is rising..) A wealthy country,
joining the cult of Mammon to the cult of Hercules;
while Liberty, lighting the path
to easy conquest, raises her torch in New York.

But our own America, which has had poets
since the ancient times of Nezahualcóyolt;
which preserved the footprint of great Bacchus,
and learned the Panic alphabet once,
and consulted the stars; which also knew Atlantic
(whose name comes ringing down to us in Plato)
and has lived, since the earliest moments of its life,
in light, in fire, in fragrance, and in love--
the America of Moctezuma and Atahualpa,
the aromatic America of Columbus,
Catholic America, Spanish America,
the America where noble Cuauthémoc said:
"I am not in a bed of roses"--our America,
trembling with hurricanes, trembling with Love:
O men with Saxon eyes and barbarous souls,
our America lives. And dreams. And loves.
And it is the daughter of the Sun. Be careful.
Long live Spanish America!
A thousand cubs of the Spanish lion are roaming free.
Roosevelt, you must become, by God's own will,
the deadly Rifleman and the dreadful Hunter
before you can clutch us in your iron claws.

And though you have everything, you are lacking one thing:
God! 

 On Ometepe island

 

Preparations are underway for next year´s presidential election. This poster is for incumbent Daniel Ortega of the FSLN (Sandinista), most of them are.

At the market in Granada

 

Mural painter in Granada

Morning time in the central highlands

Watering cans

Ellie crossing a stream near Ciudad Dario

A christmas tree in front of Leon´s cathedral

Portrait of General Sandino at the monument to the Nicaraguan revolution in Leon

Leon, Nicaragua
Pedaled: 39,146 km

57. Cruising through Costa Rica

Palmar Norte

Eight days of cycling brought us north from the Paso Canoas borderpost, along the steamy Pacific coast of Costa Rica. The busy, shoulderless Pan-Americana gave way to smaller coastal roads through the Ballena national park and up to the resort of Jaco.  Much of the property on the coast has been bought up by North Americans and large billboards advertise new gated communities with a choice of either ocean or forest views.  Those engaged in the tourist trade are gearing up for the holidays when wealthy Josefinos and foreigners descend on Costa Rica's coast. Others, who live in the wooden shacks on the floodplains on the periphery of these resorts were still cleaning up the damage that had been caused a month ago when the tailend of Hurricane Tomas resulted in severe flooding and a declared state of national emergency. Hospitality at tico firestations has been as exemplary as their Panamanian counterparts and we were always able to pitch our tent, often amid the relief supplies that had been sent in for the floods.

Racing the tortoise

Before continuing up to Guanacaste province and the border with Nicaragua, we take a detour on some steep gravel roads up to the cooler heights of Monteverde on the westward side of the Cordillera de Tilaran, home to a Quaker settlement since the 1950s when they moved from Alabama to avoid being conscripted to fight in the Korean War. The area is also home the Monteverde Cloudforest Preserve, a ten and a half thousand hectare reserve of tropical rainforest of immense biological diversity.

Near Ballena national park 

Climbing up to Santa Elena at 1400 metres 

Hummingbird at Monteverde Cloudforest Preserve

Santa Elena, Costa Rica

Trip distance: 38,535 km

56. Pirates of the Caribbean - la segunda parte...

Our last night in Colombia and we lay on the deck of the sailing boat that was going to bring us across this corner of the Caribbean to Panama. Earlier we had covered the bikes in a plastic sheet and lashed them to the railings with lots of rope and large, unsailorlike knots. Cranes were busy loading containers onto a ship in the port, while the gentle swell lapped against the side of our moored home for the next seven days. The city lights cast a yellow glow that faded as the rain moved down from the hills and into the harbour while the sound of the urban bustle barely reached our fibreglass island - an 8-berth catamaran that the captain believed could comfortably accommodate 18 passengers.

Calm waters - sunrise on Day 2

Morning time and several more passengers had arrived during the night and were already mid-way through the coffeepot and cereal. Studying the eating habits of our fellow inmates, it quickly became apparent that in order to assure yourself of some breakfast you would have to be poised mug and bowl in hand. Missing, however, were the two Africans whom the captain had taken a deposit from. An irate immigration official informed our captain that there were two forged passports in the bundle that he had dropped off at the immigration office to clear us out of Colombia. Our French captain feigned surprise to the official but told us about his doubts beforehand - neither of the two young men could speak French, despite traveling on French passports. The immigration official, indicated that for a price, he was willing to stamp the two forged passports with exit stamps as he was happy to burden some other country's immigration with the hassle of processing the forged passports and their holders. The captain went and paid some money, got the passports back, but then as his ship was listed in the passports he decided to throw them overboard and merely informed the two young men, whom appeared to be from Sierra Leone,  that they'd better run because the authorities were looking for them. So with eleven passengers and three crew on board and a day later than expected we set sail for Panama.

El Porvenir - immigration and customs post at Kuna Yala, Panama

Our boat was bound first for Kuna Yala (also known as the San Blas islands), an archipelago of 365 islands, off eastern Panama's Carribean coast. Billed as a tropical paradise for wealthy visitors, the low-lying islands, surrounded by stunning, life-sustaining coral reefs and inhabited by the Kuna face a direct threat from any  future rise in sea-level. Meanwhile, tourism is big business on the islands and passing sailing boats and chartered cruisers lie in the sheltered bays beside the palm leaf homesteads. After leaving Cartagena, the wind failed to pick up and we were forced to motor the entire 200 nautical miles to Kuna Yala, a  rolling 50-hour journey that had most of us retreat to different corners of the deck.

Where do old American school buses go before they die?

Our arrival in El Porvenir, a sandy atoll complete with palm trees and green coconuts, marked the official entry point into Panama. Ironically, one of the most picturesque of any recent border crossings could have become the most problematic when our captain was told by the rotund Panamanian immigration official that they had received a tip-off that he had clandestinos onboard. Everyone then paraded in front of the immigration official in various states of undress when their name was called out. A moment of confusion when the immigration official thought that it was the Irish passports that were fake, more explanations and then finally we all got stamped in.

A container ship coming down the Panama Canal through the Gauillard Cut

All of our fellow passengers disembarked at Carti in Kuna Yala, catching a four-wheel drive taxi to Panama city. We had opted, however, for one last sailing leg up to Puerto Lindo, closer to Colon and the entrance to the Panama canal. The captain assured us the voyage would be rougher than the previous days and once we were out from behind the protection of the reefs the boat lurched wildly in the turbulent seas. The captain would need his full concentration for the 12-hour night voyage and began fortifying himself with marijuana and rum. Heavy rain drove us inside, Ellie and I lying on the floor beside the amplier in a nauseous stupour. I awoke to a crescendo of rolling waves and deafening techno music in the middle of the night, our wild eyed captain snorting lines of cocaine off his main instrument panel. I sought sanctuary in our confined cabin as the music evolved into what Ellie later described as "inverted helicopter blades with alien noises being crunched through them".

Sunrise at Guadalupe firestation

At ten o'clock the following morning, we stood by a small kiosk in the village of Puerto Lindo, still feeling very wobbly and trying to settle our still-rolling stomachs with crisps and lemonade before setting off on the bikes for Portobelo and on to Panama city via the Panama canal at Pedro Miguel locks. After a day off in Panama city we headed out on the Panamerican highway, for several days riding west towards the Costa Rican border. Most nights we found ourselves camping at firestations along the way, always being told we could stay as long as we wished. Our intention was to get off the Panamerican highway just before David and head north across the mountains to the Caribbean coast and the Bocas del Toro province, before continuing on into Costa Rica.

After a day climbing up the mountains, we were making a steep descent before some more climbing. I had arrived at a police checkpoint and had my passport checked and was waiting for Ellie to appear around the bend behind me, having just been visible before in my mirror. A passing car, however, motioned to me and told the police that there was something wrong. I headed back up the hill and found Ellie sitting by the side of the road, being helped by some passing Canadians, amid scattered panniers and a twisted bike. Ellie had  lost control on the corner on the fast descent and almost escaped without injury by going over the handlebars into the soft ditch but her left leg had gotten caught and twisted in the bike. A couple of pickup trucks stopped, the convoy of the mayor of Boquete, and we were offered a lift to the hospital in David. We  lifted Ellie into the front seat and piled the bikes and gear into the back and after a  45-minute hair-raising drive back down the mountain, with Ellie winching at the pain of every pothole we bumped over, we were in the emergency room of the regional hospital in David where painkillers were injected, an xray of her leg taken and her wounds cleaned. Three hours later the friendly doctor told Ellie that the xray was ok and she'd just have to take rest for the muscle damage. Two days since the crash and Ellie is shuffling well though still with some pain. So now we're resting up at a hostel in David, doing some therapy through television, and hope to be back pedaling soon.

David, Panama
Trip distance: 38,066 km