Bikepacking Meso-America

Typical B+J fashion: hike-a-bike up a steep rocky hill, then jump over fences. Well, at least we avoided cars. No, wait: we didn’t. After I joked with Janet: “Why did they bother with fences? No car could get through here”… a pickup came through!? Unfortunately we had already gone over the gate – right before he came and unlocked it!

We went to the Mummy Museum, for which Guanajuato is pretty famous. It definitely was a bit creepy for us, but according to Wikipedia: Author Ray Bradbury said of visiting the museum: “The experience so wounded and terrified me, I could hardly wait to flee Mexico. I had nightmares about dying and having to remain in the halls of the dead with those propped and wired bodies.” This from the guy who wrote horror such as “AT MIDNIGHT, IN THE MONTH OF JUNE”.

Janet and i like to look up the names of places in California that are in Spanish. For example, when you drive through Los Ángeles, you may have seen a road called “Verdugo” going through the Verdugo Hills. Maybe sounds like “Green Hills” (like verde)… but actually it is the “Executioner Hills”. I bring this up because this alley had these Carrizo lamps, which reminded me of the local (to us) Carrizo plain. Carrizo means “reed” and these lamps are woven from reeds.

Rocks! Today’s route was pretty rocky – SO glad we have full suspension! We met a guy named “Mariano” around where this photo was taken (Janet has more on him in her photos) and he said that a couple came through here on bikes 15 days ago. We had just gone through a gate in front of his house, but he said, “Everyone is welcome here! If the gate is locked, one can camp right in front of my house.” When we first met him, he kept asking for a pirriou? I can’t remember, but eventually we found out he was asking for: A cigarette. I joked: did you ask the last cyclists for a cigarette? “Yeah, they gave me one. They smoked too”.

BUSTED! Janet and I knew this area would be tough to pass. No hotels, and steep cliffs meant camping would be tricky. At the end of the day we found a thicket and penetrated into an arroyo that had a sliver of flat land – under the overgrowth. It’s kind of like finding a fixer-upper house and having a vision of how it could look. We got out the saw and started cutting down brush. Janet cleared rocks while I chopped. After 45 minutes of work, we had a nest in the bushes. Tent was up and I was about to take a water bottle shower – when two guys on horseback push through the thicket into the arroyo. Why? How? They couldn’t have seen us from the road. Anyway, they saw us and turned back. I took my shower and we got ready to eat. I injected my insulin outside the tent, and that is when the guy from above yelled at us. I looked up – seven people, mostly teenagers with machetes had ambushed us from the cliffs above – just like in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. They wielded their machetes so I could see them and the leader told us to leave. I asked if we could spend one night, and he yelled growing more frustrated: “No. this is private property. We will call the guards; you need to leave now”. His words were strong as he flashed the machete in varying angles so I could see the blade. After back and forth, with me pleading for permission, we finally began to pack up. It took a while and everyone watched our every move. I think they had been watching us from that perch for a while, and they probably thought we were druggies when they saw the injection. They kept staring and I saw the ringleader had disappeared, so I said, “This is pretty fun watching us, no?” It turned out that the other 6 or so people were not as uptight as the leader (who seemed that he needed to display his authority in front of the others). The other kids said that it was dangerous because “some asshole could come and knock a rock on [you]”. Or maybe I interpreted “cabrón” wrong because it can be either an asshole or a goat. They also said that water comes through here sometimes, and there are coyotes out here. They proposed that we camp in the middle of the road because that would be safer. I objected, “a car could run us over!” They said, “no, cars hardly ever come through here; the road is safer than the arroyo.”

If you find Río Blanco on the map, I had plotted a 5 mile route (just Southwest of the town) that connects to a known dirt road (the one we took)… but from the satellite, I wasn’t 100% sure we could make it. The route climbed 3000’ in 4.5 miles – climbing 1000’ per mile in some places. We asked in town: “puro cerro” (pure mountain) is what they said. We went the long way around (and to the highway) – but when we got to where my original route rejoined, it existed; you just couldn’t see it all on satellite under the trees. Wishing we had been a little more daring… Oh well!

The kids on the cliff turned out to be a blessing in disguise. Just one mile from the place where we were discovered, we found this fantastic spot. Here we had our best sleep of the trip so far. No dogs barking, no fiestas, no fireworks. Ok, there were still fireworks, but they were far away.
I slept better in our humble tent than i did in the fancy hotel with a King size bed two nights ago… we have the Garmin Sleep score to prove it!

Glorious sun rise; glad we started early! Later today, we would come upon a comedor, which in these parts is like a simple square building with a metal roof where a person cooks food over a wood fire; it is smoky inside because there is no chimney. Janet likes to “eat out” on trips, so I suggested we stop for food and she agreed. The woman seemed a bit dour as we placed our order, but the food came quickly and she said there would be more tortillas (it is common to make the tortillas as the customer eats them so they are super fresh). Janet had experience making tortillas from our corn this summer and we learned it isn’t easy. We mentioned this to the woman, and suddenly she brightened up! She told us that it was hard for her to learn too, but now she has been doing it for 10 years – and she brought out her mill to show-and-tell and later brought out her bucket of corn soaking in “cal” (calcium hydroxide… aka lime). Janet took over this Spanish conversation because she is the expert in tortilla making. We are looking forward to trying again next year.

On the map, I had seen a line that looked like it could be a rideable route. On the satellite, there was clearly some sort of roadbed. As we rode towards this newly plotted route, Janet and I discussed that it might be a train track – because we saw it took an exaggerated switchback around the mountain. We stopped and looked at the map again: turning off the “transit” layer made the proposed route change color; yup, it was a railway. “Well, maybe it is a rail trail” we naïvely surmised. Upon arrival, it was clear that these were well maintained, live train tracks. Our options: Turn back to retrace our steps up a big hill… or ride the track 12 miles to “Puente de Dios.” I tried to quell my brain’s attempts at deciphering the significance of “seeing the light at the end of the tunnel” on the way to “God’s Bridge”. Meanwhile, we asked a guy about the tracks near the village. He said a train comes at 5pm. It’s too late to go down the tracks anyway… and there are cliffs where there isn’t space for you and the train. At junctures like these, I always defer to Janet because I figure she is smarter than me about these types of things. (Such as in The Great Spanish Rental Car Experience). She didn’t say “no”. So as the guy walked the other way, we ignored his advice and departed down on the tracks. What followed was 12 mile ride that would have certainly cracked the racks on our former un-suspended tandem. We constantly tried to evade brush, sharp rocks, nails sticking out of the lumber, and inappropriately spaced (for bikes) railroad ties. We navigated several tunnels, discussing how much notice we might receive if a train did come. But none did. We made it to the bottom safely; the only injury being my high blood sugar from the worry. (Photo credit: Janet)

Here is Janet at our 2nd water attraction of the day: Cascadas de Tamosopo. There were a lot of nooks and crannies to explore here; many different water features.

A “chaleco” is a life preserver. They were required for swimming in the pools at Pozo Azul (a part of the “puente de Dios” complex). Janet and i were exploring, when I found one! So, then I swam into a cave where it was dark, but illuminated from below (sunlight from a crack in the rock). You could see all the fish below you. It was a highlight! I recommend puente de Dios! The ironic part is this: when we arrived, the guy who sells you the ticket was pontificating about how wonderful this “bridge of god” is… I told him I had never seen a photo of this place, so he said I should walk back to see a photo at the entrance so I could remember what it looked like when we descended to the river. I told him I’d look forward to the surprise of seeing it on real life first. When we got there, there was caution tape everywhere. We walked a little further and saw a huge pile of lumber. The bridge had collapsed and they were in the process of rebuilding it! Kind of tricky, huh? At least it was a super beautiful place.

You know the joke about how size doesn’t matter… I think it is actually true with waterfalls. For example, a small waterfall in a gorgeous setting can be more aesthetically pleasing than a enormous waterfall jetting white water. We humans tend to embrace the superlative, but it is also fun to appreciate the small. Nothing against big waterfalls; this planet has some amazing big ones too. 💦

Today’s plan: visit the “Puente de Dios”. (The bridge of God). When we got to the booth at the opening time, it was vacant. After waiting around a few minutes for someone to collect our entrance fee, I looked at Janet. “Maybe we should just go,” she said. Opting to keep the heavenly visit in-theme, we decided to enter without permission. I mean, if you don’t sin, that means Jesus died for nothing. The walk through the canyon was fantastic, and of course the bridge of God was divine.

It’s nice to alternate between camping and hoteling. We like the freedom and fresh air of camping – and the convenience of water and air conditioning at hotels. So, with that access to water, we decided to wash our clothing. We were not allowed to hang our duds to dry on the roof because it was “dangerous.” Many Latin American roofs are incomplete with rebar sticking out in case they ever want to add on. A woman took our wet clothes and hung them on the line. Later, when I wanted to get them back, I couldn’t find the woman, but a nice young man offered to help. He went up to the roof, but didn’t know which clothes were ours. Being a smart and modern lad, he returned with a video of the clothing on the roof, complete with Janet’s undies in frame, so I could identify the missing subjects.
Later on we decided to sit by the pool and enjoy the evening air and patio lights. 3 EMTs arrived and took their temperatures (there is a temperature machine everywhere you go, usually outside of buildings). One guy was too high. Oh well. Janet and I listened in on the conversation. We are good with “normal” Spanish – but “Mexican bro-Spanish” is still hard for us. We picked up words like “paciente” (patient) and “camilla” (stretcher) and more common words like “Órale, pues!”and “cabrón”. We put it all together: The EMTs we’re here to take a patient away on a stretcher! Someone here must have COVID. We watched as they texted and took pictures on the patio until the crux moment finally happened: they went into the garage and pulled out an old bed frame, loaded it into the vehicle and drove away with it. Hmmm. Guess our Spanish still needs some work.

We found out about this canyon which we are about to explore from a motorcycling YouTuber named “Charly Sinewan”. He made up that name because there was a motorcycle movie “The long way down” with Charly Boorman and Ewan McGregor where they rode the Americas on motorcycle. The “Sinewan” comes from “sin” (without in Spanish) Ewan – so Charly without Ewan McGregor = SinEwan. In his video, the canyon was amazing – and he hid a copy of his book and showed the GPS coordinates. The book was no longer where he left it (I looked, and all I got were tiny thorns all over my arms). Later, we put up our tent as shown, and a young man named Alberto showed up on a BMX bike and chatted with us for half an hour. He told us many things, but near the end, he asked, “do you know Charly Sinewan?” We exclaimed, “yes! That is what brought us here!” It was pretty exciting that he knew of Charly. We don’t have a lot in common with people who live in tiny villages in a foreign country, whose task for tomorrow is to go climb a mountain to check on their cows – so it is nice to have a conversation get fired up with some common ground we are all interested in.
If you want a preview of where we rode on 12/16, check out his video:
https://youtu.be/dbOgmwhDb6c

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What would you guess Janet said when she woke up this morning?
1) “Good morning, sweetie”
2) “Ooh, i can’t wait to ride up some more steep hills!”
3) “I wonder if I can eat this chicken while sitting in bed…”
If you guessed #3, you’re a winner winner, chicken dinner!

It’s getting late – and we need to find a place to camp… somewhere flat amongst these mountains.

We went to visit the mission Bucareli. Those missionaries really picked the coolest places for the missions. Also, missions always seem so welcoming – maybe because they are cool inside. This one was $2.50 per person to visit and was turned into a basic museum.

Cañón de la gotera. That roughly means Canyon of the leak. We both thought “gotera” might mean “drops” because a “gota de aqua” is a drop of water. Janet took this a bit further and posited a double meaning for “drops” given that this canyon dropped a thousand feet in a mile. Don’t think it works that way, but like the way she was thinking!

Party time! School must be out because it is fiesta time here in Mexico. Pump pump pump pump

Mountain scenery is the best.

Janet and i are descending at a good clip on pavement KABOOM 💥 An explosion scares the crap out of us – we must have blown the rear tire. As I slow down, though, the bike feels ok. Plus, that was too loud to be a tire. Sure enough, the tire is ok. We’re dumbfounded by the side of the road; did someone shoot a firework at us? Coming the other way is this cyclist Jacobo and he comes over to greet us. After we chat for a while, he says he wants to invite us to a drink nearby. We turn around and go back up the hill with him to someone’s back yard where there was a “si hay pulque” sign. He asks the guys for some of their moonshine: fermented maguey. Two glasses. I really try not to drink alcohol mid ride because it often causes a dramatic drop in blood sugar (exercise and alcohol together can be dangerous for T1d)… Also, i have no idea about the carb content of this beverage…but i already was running high, so chanced this beverage for the sake of being social. We liked Jacobo a lot: he was super friendly and very inviting; he invited us to his home to meet his family and stay the night… “my sister and my cousin and my nephews live there – you can meet them!… oh, but you will have privacy 😊”. He was super nice, and we probably should have taken him up on his generous offer. It’s always a mixed feeling: on one hand we like to relax and not be entertainers at night.. on the other hand, it is really fun to meet peoples’ families and share stories and learn about others. He said that he works in agriculture. He explained, “My work is very hard 8am to 10pm… and once people get older, in their 50s, they start to have health problems from the rhythm of the work.” He continued: “Some people start to get some money.. and then they want more and more money, now i work 2 to 5 hours a day. I pay myself less and my workers more, but I have my time to do bike rides like this.” I commended him for his choice as he accompanied us on our complex route around town. I never got buzzed from the pulque, but Janet said she did. It kind of tasted gross to me – like the time I tried to ferment the water from the inside of coconuts. The maker said it was 2 weeks old; so not exactly aged like a fine wine. They then showed us the bowls they were drinking it out of: “this bowl is one liter. We usually drink 4 liters in a day”. The guys at the house were of course quite friendly and probably fairly well buzzed. When we finally left, one called out, “be careful, now, you had some Pulque!”

This sign basically says that if you’re not part of the community, you can’t come down this road after 9 pm. Janet and i don’t know the reasons why locals block public roads, but we can venture guesses. Maybe something bad happened here involving outsiders…. This sign is something of a “soft closure,” but we have heard of locals blocking roads so that people cannot pass. I think it may actually be for their own safety. In some instances, however, locals will set up ropes pulled taught across a road and ask for money. That is a little more nefarious. Janet and i went down the road with a little worry that we might get kicked out of here – but all went well. Only 3 pickups passed us during the 3 hour climb, and each one waved.

This is the entrance to the “Gruta” or “cave” in the Tolontongo side. It is one of the main attractions – and pretty amazing. In the middle of the roof, there is a throat of hot water the diameter of an old oak tree trunk pounding into the cave. It’s hard to imagine such a perfect hole in the ceiling was a natural part of this cave. The air is streamy and warm – it’s a once in a lifetime experience to be engulfed in these warm waters in a (mostly) natural setting.

Our bike has taken us to many cool places. This may be one of the most incredible of them all : hot water streaming out of the mountains. It is captured in dozens of natural and man made pools. There are grottos and little caves you can swim into. We didn’t swim into any of the caves (they were occupied, so with COVID we didn’t want to share steamy air)… but we soaked in several pools and in the River. It was deluxe!

While planning the trip, I found a YouTube video by a Mexican kid about a place called “Manantiales Kinjua”. It was a short out-and-back for us to go see these springs. We chatted for a while with the guides at the entrance ($50 pesos pp) because we noticed that they were developing the area: swimming pools, cabañas, and re-channeling the water. They have been working on it for two years. It is fun to go to these lesser known attractions. To our surprise, they guys said that 7 people from Honduras had come here.
Today we talked to some guys who had come to the United States 3 times “de mojado.” You may have heard the English version of this term:“wetback.” In all our time in Latin America, we haven’t talked to people much about this topic, but Janet and I have been opening up a bit and asking more questions. Janet is doing great with her Spanish! Anyway, they told us a tourist visa to the US costs about $1,000US. I felt embarrassed to say our Mexican Tourist visa was only $32US. In fact, I had bitched about that fee in 2014, which embarrasses me further. They told us it costs $10,000 to get a “coyote” (guide across the desert) and they walked across the desert for 10 days (only at night). They said, “you can earn $700US per week up there”. Keep in mind, this is probably 60 hours per week so less than $12 per hour. They had worked San José / Santa Clara – so we knew similar places. I have trouble wrapping my head around this math. If you earn $700 per week, you will need 15 weeks working just to pay for the coyote… not to mention cost of living in the US. Most importantly, there is a lot of danger on the trip to the US. If you are interested in learning more about this topic, give “American Dirt” a read… it is fiction, and a real page turner – but all the events are based on real events. These guys told us how they ran out of food and had nothing to eat for the last 3 days pf the journey. All of the migrant workers say they would rather live here in Mexico; they just go to the US to bring back money. On the US side, we can’t be making it hard to get a work visa because the Mexicans will be “stealing jobs”. Do you know any 16 year old kids in the US who would be willing to work for $12 per hour? These guys are overjoyed to make that much. I think the main policy concern is that migrant workers will want to stay. It’s difficult to comment on that because obviously we have some confirmation bias (everyone we meet still lives in Mexico because they didn’t want to stay in the US). “Más tranquilo” (more peaceful) is always the reason given for that choice.

Janet and I re-routed the re-route. This secondary reroute saved us a meager 100’ of climbing… and less if you consider the fact that we climbed 30’ up the previous route before I changed my mind. FOMO!! But it turns out we made the right decision, and our spirits were on overdrive with all the uplifting scenery.

My favorite photo so far. Janet is so happy to be drinking a coffee after a 2 week hiatus. The dog is in his happy place too – day dreaming about being reincarnated in the next life as a Mexican dog… in Mineral del Chico. Yeah, even the dogs here live well.

I sat on top of the molar. Move… slowly… and … carefully.

Happy Day!!

“Mexico is the shit”. I thought that was a cool jacket and in English. Janet thought it was a great ride title. That’s about the only way you can get Janet to say a bad word. I think it is always easier to swear in another language; it just doesn’t seem as serious. Group rides in Latin America are different than in the US. First off, the main riding day is Sunday. Second, group rides often have at least one “chase car” that trundles along at 6mph behind the last rider with a flashing light on top. This group had 3 support cars – Mercedes and BMWs – for about 12 riders. I asked one of the riders to confirm what I already knew: “yes, it is for safety.”
Believe it or not, drivers in Mexico are more respectful than in California. I don’t think we have ever been yelled at or told to “get off the road” in Mexico. Conversely, in just a few days of touring California, we were intentionally run off the road a few times. The problem in Mexico isn’t intentional action (that is rare), but more careless action where people are trying to avoid road hazards without slowing down. For example, drivers will go in the other lane to avoid a pothole. Occasionally, people will try to pass us when another car is coming, but the majority of people wait. A cyclist we met early in the trip told us that cyclists are starting to be a little more respected in Mexico. Cyclists aren’t the gods that they are in Colombia, but so far, it has been pretty good.

As I’ve mentioned, this part of Mexico is less developed than the other 4 states. We are seeing people on horseback – commuting on the roads. We see a lot more people walking – and a lot fewer Ford F350s (well none actually). It is nice for us because we are “on par” with the people we pass. A cyclist, a horseman, or a walker – we all have much more in common than the motorist. We all feel the air in our faces, the change in temperature as you cross the mountain range, the humid skin from the recent rain. We all have some form of exertion – even the horseback rider.
These folks had gone high into the mountains and are returning with wood – presumably to cook their food and heat their homes. Janet and I experience the same temperature swings – in our unheated hotel rooms and tent. It’s a bit of solidarity, which I think they recognize. Even though we look and sound foreign, this solidarity helps us comunicante freely with those we meet. This couple helped us out at the end of the day. I had drawn a last-minute route that avoided more highway. I used open street map (which has incorrect info) in conjunction with the satellite. Janet and I had a few bushwhacking wrong turns, but this couple helped direct us back to the route.

Janet and I both agreed that the riding today was fun! This made up for the array of online challenges I had this AM:
1) credit card declined because I’m in Mexico
2) can’t log into accounts because Mexican phone number and need to receive a text code
3) difficulty ordering a replacement tire 8 days in advance to Amazon Locker.
4) can’t place order for diabetes supplies from phone/Mexico (called Sister and she did it from a US based computer (thanks!))
5) need to resolve a duplicate charge from the “fancy” hotel..
Lots of other stuff…
Didn’t feel like vacation trying to work this out – even though the day and ride were great!

Today we went to the Rosario Monarch Butterfly overwintering site. They take it very seriously here: there were Mariposas (butterflies) stamped into the concrete, all the signs for miles around have Monarch Butterflies. We came here based on inspiration from Mark Glenesk- he dropped us off for our rental car, and then went straight to the local Monarch preserve near Pismo Beach where he donate his Dad’s laminated monarch migration pictures. There are other overwintering sites, but this one claims to be the biggest.

Valle de Bravo Trail

Lots of variety in today’s scenery: desert, forest, and wetlands.

Loved last night’s camp! No fireworks, dogs, or church bells. This seems to be a really affluent area too – saw water skiers in the early evening.

I ran on a trail to see a waterfall.. it was worth it! Felt good to be running too – even in sandals

Last minute camp site on a concrete pad. 3 minutes to prepare versus the typical 40 minute deforestation project. Great day!

Inside the crater of the Nevado Toluca Volcano. There are two lakes (you can only see one here).

Janet and i decided to use our altitude to make a second pass to the other side of the crater this morning. The skies were super clear, and views were even better than yesterday.

Way back there is Popocatépetl Vocano – which if you watch, it will spew clouds of smoke every minute or so. It is the 2nd highest peak in Mexico.

Big kudos to Janet for capturing this scene perfectly.
We haven’t seen too many heavily armed guards on this trip. Usually when I see guys like this, I try to be extra friendly – and keep my distance. Even though they are there to protect us (or maybe prevent people from pilfering Stone Jaguar heads)… I still realize that this person has the capacity to obliterate me and Janet if anything goes wrong.
So, that is why is was so cool to see these two young boys walk straight up to this armed guard – completely unafraid – and start asking questions.

Can you see Janet on the right – on the stairs about 1/3 of the way from the bottom? Janet can’t see herself – but maybe she isn’t familiar with her backside. This gives you an idea of the size of the cavern. Our walk was 4km, but 2 more kilometers have been explored. You can’t go to that part because of lack of oxygen – and a fungus that grows in bat guano that is toxic. Every morning before tourists enter, they need to clean the cave of guano just to be safe. Janet and i noticed that the deeper into the cave we went, tje harder it was to get enough air (especially with masks on). It is assumed that this cave connects to some others 17km away.

How many things can go wrong today #1:
Actually, this was yesterday. In all sincerity, this was an excellent hotel (staff wise). Like so many people who have gone out of their way for us, the woman behind the desk let us use a “secret entrance” to get the bike into our room. Usually, people don’t think of these solutions right away, but if you linger or ask a few questions, everyone seems to go out of their way to help. Anyway, the shower was cold, and like so many hotels, we have to go and ask for them to turn on the hot water. This one was slightly different- “let the water run for 10 minutes and it will get warm”. Sure enough, i stood there naked for 10 minutes and it started to feel warmer – clever lady. Just stand in cold water for 10 minutes and eventually you get used to it.
Well, it finally did get warm enough for Janet to take a shower too! A bit of irony: a sticker on the mirror says that we need to save water, a precious resource.
How many things can go wrong today #2:
The plug we put in the front tire 7 days ago burst out on a 15% downhill, making for a sloppy turn. Luckily we had learned a trick from another rider in 2017 and shoved a piece of cloth in there. In my experience, fabric works better than the expensive plugs. We will report back if this holds true. And if it holds air.
How many things can go wrong today #3:
Remember that tire we were supposed to get yesterday? Well shortly after we left Taxco, poof! The rear tire let go the air it had been holding. The rough terrain has been ripping off the lugs. Either that, or we are cursed with yet another batch of defective Continental tires…
Luckily, we have spares, but it is scary to cut into them because 26” tires are nearly impossible to find. We did try cheap-o wire bead tires – but because we have hookless rims, nothing will seat or stay on unless it is designed for tubeless. Poor touring choice, I know.
So, as I was installing the replacement tire…
How many things can go wrong today #4:
… as I’m installing the replacement tire, PING! A drive side spoke breaks! Gaaah! As if God really had it in for us, he had the spoke break inside the nipple, which never happens. Oh, and these rims don’t have internal nipple holes – so you need to feed the nipple through the valve hole. Yup. Bad touring choice. Oh, and to get the cassette off, you need to take off the rotor so you can take off the rotor adapter so you can take off the axle fixing nut. Bad design, Chris King… but if you’ve been following us for long, you know we have been here before.

Let’s take an intermission from bad stuff! Today we visited Pozos Azules. Another beautiful water destination. No hot river like some of the other places, but super refreshing and relaxing!

How many things can go wrong today #… where were we… #5?
So as you know, I eat a low carb diet, and all I found the other day was cheese. If you have ever tried to wad a ball of cheese into your bathroom sink drain, you can imagine it will cause some plumbing problems. I’ll spare you the details of the 1 pound cheese meal, but let’s have some fun here. Janet and i found ourselves looking for a laxative today. People looked at us quizzical when was asked for “laxante.” I cleared it up: “las pastillas para cuando no se puede hacer poo poo.” (The pills for when you can’t 💩)This produced some giggles amongst the staff at the various stores we visited. It also produced some helpful people who tried to find such a medication –
“normally people come in with the opposite problem” – was oft the wry reply.
Sorry we can’t help. The last lady we asked said, “is it serious?” We replied “not really…but..” she said, “well I gifted some of those pills to a guy the other day. Let’s go and see if he used them yet, and if not I can get them back and give them to you.” So we step past the mangy dogs knto the street and quickly find the muchacho who apparently had already used them. We later found out that laxante isn’t what we needed (as you will see in the next photo)… but now you can see how shit gets done in Mexico.

Mil cascadas means “thousand waterfalls”. There weren’t quite 1,000…. But plenty of beauties to show you a few.

This boy was having fun shooting at Janet, and Janet played along.

Today we had quite a journey looking for a hotel! We started asking in town, and the first woman we asked said, “sure! There are lots!” She described each and sent us on the hunt. We found the first two pretty quickly… but they were both “out of service.” Eventually, we learned from various people that we should find “Roberta” because she rents rooms.
On our search for Roberta, we did find these two cute dogs.
Everyone we met in the street was very friendly as they helped us slowly hone in on Roberta’s house. Pretty soon we started knocking on doors: “Surely this must be Roberta’s house! It has a wood door like that guy said!”
At one house, a very elderly woman with a walker managed to answer. I could tell Janet felt awful for making her hobble to the door, but she did point us around the corner and volunteered he whole run-down on Roberta’s life: Where her mom used to live, where we could find her cousins and other family members. It was very sweet, but we never did end up findIng Roberta. So in a town with 3 hotels and 1 Guest House… we Zeroed.

On the left is Marta… and her friend… and maybe you have seen them before! Janet and I walked into the store and grabbed what we were looking for and then pushed the bell to see if anyone could come to take our payment. Marta came out and we engaged in the usual “where are you from.” As you know I always say “California” instead of USA so as to be associated with Movie Stars instead of Donald Trump. She asks, “What part?” I tell her “Atascadeo,” which is fun to talk about because in Spanish it means “the place where you get stuck.” She says, “oh, right next to Santa Maria!” 🤔!! Here in the middle of nowhere in some village of 100 people, we meet two women who are headed to Santa Maria to pick strawberries from February to August. They go every year and they get paid $13 per hour. It is hard work: 7 days a week. Her main complaint is back pain. She says that while she is paid by the hour, the fast people can be paid by the box. She’s too old to pick fast, so they pay her a minimum hourly wage instead. She knew Pismo beach and we found that her son lives in SM and she gets to see her 2 grandkids during this time. The rest of the year she lives here with her husband. He keeps the store here running while she is gone. The grandkids get a “second Christmas” when she arrives in February. I’ve long wondered about details of the migrant workers and we finally got a chance to get someone to really open up about what it is like thanks to the coincidence of her being familiar with our hometown.

I read a fair number of travel stories and it is common to see people write, “I was humbled by the kindness of the people I met.” That kind of sentiment comes from people who travel across the US, Mexico, Russia… wherever people go.
This morning, Janet and I walked down the stairs of our most-excellent hotel, and the young woman asked, “how would you like your coffee?” She prepared the best coffee of the trip: with steamed milk on top and some sprinkled cinnamon. In a country where people almost exclusively drink instant coffee, this was an unexpected surprise. She gave Janet some cookies too. When I tried to pay, she said, “don’t worry about it.”
I protested, “but this is the best coffee of the entire trip, we must pay y….”
“Well then you will remember us by it,” she said with a smile.
I’ve always had trouble with accepting such kindness from people because I always feel like it is the “nice people” who are the ones most deserving of reciprocity. They should be rewarded for their kindness.
Meanwhile, I struggle to express this sentiment; I hesitate to use the word “humbled” because that word means “low”… this act of kindness didn’t make me feel low, but high instead (in particular, high on caffeine!). She brought our spirits up, not down.
Maybe you have done this in your own life: done something special for a stranger. Maybe you have even done something special without knowing it – accidentally paying a compliment to someone or even just saying hello to someone in the street. It seems so simple, but there are millions of little ways we can give kindness throughout the day, thereby making our own days better. I thought all day of how I could “pay it forward.”
Ok, better wrap this caption up before the coffee wears off 😉
(Photo by Janet just after the coffee drinks. We didn’t think to take a photo of the beautifully prepared coffees until it was too late).

Guess how you say, “Car Wash” in Spanish? Yup, “Car Wash.” Actually there are several words like “top” and “full” and “man” that are used in Latin America that are simply English words… But I’d like to tell you about something more important.
Janet and I pulled over for a rest in front of this car wash when Eric came running over to introduce himself and get to know us. We chatted for a while, and found out that he had been to the United States several times – and was headed there soon to work again.
Ever since college, I have been curious about how seasonal workers arrange their jobs in another country (A country that on the surface seems inhospitable to migrant employees). My 2nd major in college was anthropology and the emphasis was on MesoAmerica – but you can’t learn details like that in school.
Eric told us that he always works agriculture – harvesting blackberries, sweet potatoes, apples, strawberries, etc. He said that there is a company which finds him the job, so he doesn’t know if he will be in Washington, North Carolina, California, or wherever; all he needs to do is pay $190US to get a work visa so he can work for 6 months.
I interrupted, “WAIT, $190? Other people told us work visas were $500 or thousands.. why are you only paying $190?”
He replied, “oh yeah, some of the companies think we are tontos (stupid)….”
“Huh?” I continued inquisitively…
“Because of the pandemic, the US government has given all of these US companies money to hire workers and pay for their visas. But some of the companies think we are stupid and they keep the government money,” he said making a pocketing motion with his hand.
“Whaaaaa….”
He continued, “Yeah, but everyone knows – but the thing is, they keep quiet” (he makes a zipping motion across his lips)…
“The workers need the job, so they don’t say anything and they pay the visa and the company pockets the US government money. Because what can they do? They need the job?”
We talked about a number of other things, but this really struck me. I’ve heard about fraudulent use of the government funds, but not this.
Anyway, make of it what you will It’s just one guys’ opinion and with the entire conversation in fast Spanish, I may have missed some nuance… I definitely find it interesting because many other people told us that work visas were too expensive…. Meanwhile, every time I open the finance page on my phone, there is another article about labor shortages in the US. 🤔

This morning, we were out of food and stopped at the first store we came to – looking for snacks and maybe a Diet Coke. Here we met Paulina and asked her for my list of usual hard-to-find items: “almonds, pecans, Diet Coke?” Nope, none of these. Coffee? Not that either; just instant if you want to prepare it yourself. I bought a can of tuna and some chicharrón, the only low carb stuff in the store (besides corn oil).
We were outside packing our bags when she came out, “if you want, I can make some coffee for you..” OK! Was the excited reply from us.
A few minutes later, two mugs of coffee. She opened a brand new jar of coffee – and a brand new milk. We stood in her store, sipping the cups of joy – a perfect opportunity to talk to her a bit. This was special because now that we are further South, we are in indigenous communities.
Indigenous people have a completely different perspective on Mexico. They were the first ones here, and people in certain communities do not welcome outsiders (presumably because of a history of oppression, maltreatment, or worse). Paulina was kind enough to open up to us; obviously a very friendly person.
Her heritage is Mixteca (cloud people). She did not learn Spanish until she “left home” at the age of 15 (to work in Mexico City for 20 years as a house cleaner). People in these indigenous communities often speak 2 languages- their native tongue (of which there are hundreds) and Spanish. For Janet and I, this is a big boon because Spanish is their second language too, so I understand about 99% of what is said.
I asked her some more personal questions than I’d usually ask; she spoke of earlier times in this community when there was nothing- no TV, phones or anything of tech. Keep in mind that life-like-this wasn’t long ago in this region. I asked which she preferred: the modern ways or the old times. She said she was concerned about the loss of their language. You ask a question of a child in her native tongue, and they reply in Spanish. This applies to her own son as well.
Many of the women in the villages we passed today were wearing the traditional attire – sometimes on top of Western clothing. They are keeping tradition alive. Meanwhile, people almost all smiled and greeted us in Spanish – so it’s not like people here are shy or worried about outsiders like we saw in certain indigenous communities in Ecuador or Peru.
I asked Paulina – how much do I owe for the coffee. Nothing. Nevertheless, I put an appropriate 50 pesos on the counter, but she put it right back to me. “It’s nothing, really,” she said.
We couldn’t thank her enough and showed her Janet’s hand written journal – asking for a picture which we will paste inside to remember her by.

Janet saw this kitty walk by with a mouse. I went to take a picture. Animal lovers rejoice: the mouse ran away because I distracted the cat. But maybe animal lovers don’t rejoice? Guess it depends if you’re on team cat or team mouse.

In planning a re-route, I tried to optimize for quiet paved roads. I got the quiet right – didn’t really see any cars most of the day. Didn’t see much pavement either!

…and eventually we find a canyon with vertical walls – 20-30’ deep from a huge washout. I couldn’t find a way through- it looked like we might have to turn around, but Janet suggested some exploring in other directions…

We found a walking path etched above the big washout…

“Brian! Wake up! Someone is outside the tent!” I roused from a deep sleep to see flashlights dancing on the thin nylon walls. It was 11PM. In Spanish: “Good Afternoon,” I announced. “He/She/or It was sleeping,” I continued as I exited the tent to see 6 men – about my age – in the foreground. Moments later I’d notice the shadows of additional figures circling us in the bushes. We were completely surrounded. “Good evening,” the leader replied. “We were told you were here. We need to verify everyone who enters the community. Why are you here?” I explained we were on a bike tour and that we normally go to hotels, but obviously since there aren’t any hotels near here we decided to camp. We aren’t here to harm anyone, and we will leave to go to Oaxaca in the morning. My Spanish improved from the half-asleep improper conjugations from a few minutes ago.
The man repeated that they need to verify everything as the others wandered around near us; the shadows on the bank above us shuffled, flashlights shone in my eyes. “What are your names?” I replied “Janet and Brian”. From the bushes, “Janet and Brian” echoed in pretty decent pronunciation. “We need to see your identifications.” I was alert enough now to realize that these guys were probably well trained and professional – ask the name first then check the ID to make sure we aren’t lying. I climbed back into the tent, careful not to make any sudden movements and retrieved our driver’s licenses instead of passports – just in case we weren’t going to get them back.
One of the guys started to copy down every letter and number from our licenses, as the leader carried on about verification. In the dim light, I thought he was wearing a Chicago Bulls hoodie. Rather than striking up a conversation about Michael Jordan, I said, “Are you the police?” “Yes,” he replied. But later he said, “We will take all this information to the police.”
After what seemed like a prolonged period of him repeating how they just needed to verify everything multiple times, we were asked to sign the sheet of white paper where they had manually photocopied our licenses. It had begun as a completely blank white sheet, and now it was nearly full of writing. The main group retreated a couple hundred feet into a dark area. We could hear them talking, and eventually they left – back to the “community” which was up a 400’ climb. That’s why we ended up in the riverbed – we didn’t want to climb that big hill up to the community.
Maybe you remember our post from yesterday about roadblocks and keeping strangers out. So here we experience it first hand. We were quite a ways from the little village; probably 30 minutes or more by foot.

We got an AirBnB – Normally we study the listing well, but this time we were standing on a dirt road in the heat when we finally got some cell reception. It was only one day beforehand, and we were in a hurry to get out of the sun. There were hundreds of choices, but Janet said, “….hmm Casa Eva..”. It was the one I was looking at (the only one). I took it as a sign that we had both landed on the same property independently – and booked it. Turns out it had an extra bedroom and bathroom. We didn’t need that until we realized that Scott would be here – so it turns out that it all happened for a reason; he could stay with us. I like these spontaneous cool things that happen.

Oaxaca. Easy living for us – for two days of rest. It feels very strange to have all these conveniences all of a sudden. It is very easy to adapt back to the easy life. With rebuilt strength, we plan to ride the next leg – actually following Mark and Hana’s route with little deviation this time. The last leg, we plotted some reroutes that helped us avoid some of the climbing they did.

Goodbye to Scott. Scott took off today to do a couple days of unloaded MTB riding… and then he will do a hodgepodge route by mixing up some of Cass Gilbert’s local routes around Oaxaca and out to the coast. We are really glad we got to see Scott; this may be the most time we’ve spent with him all at once. He’s a bit of a pioneer in the bikepacking world – taking difficult dirt routes across continents in the “earlier days” of bikepacking (which was just 7 years ago!) Thanks to modern tools like GPS \u0026 satellite imagery, high quality bike bags (as opposed to bulky / bouncy panniers), lighter camping gear, and Full suspension mountain bikes, these kinds of new routes are possible. In fact, the route we were following by Mark and Hana (two more bikepacking pioneers) may have even used slices of Scott’s route – for example volcán Toluca we climbed a couple weeks ago. We’re all swapping fragments of routes, just like the flu virus can swap any of its 8 RNA segments to make the ultimate …. Hey..wait a minute.. Anyway, Scott is super awesome and we can talk about almost any topic for hours. We will be following his adventures in Oaxaca, and if you want to follow Scott too:
https://www.strava.com/athletes/scottpauker

We were not expecting anything to be open early in the AM (places usually start serving food around 10am, but sometimes 9am). We found this comedor and sat down at the same table as two other women.
The woman in charge prepared us our special gringo coffee (i.e. no sugar). Given the big mugs, you can bet our own mugs were shaped in the form of an upward crescent 🌙 for hours to come…

Today we met Jörg, the first riding cycle tourist we have met on the trip. He’s actually headed to California, so we may see him again! Plus he uses Strava as “Jorgito Go!” Looking forward to following his adventures. For a few hours, I took his appearance in our lives as a sign that we should follow his route (along the Caribbean coast). He raved about the beauty and no tourists…. We got excited about this prospect of c[caption id="attachment_5702" align="aligncenter" width="677"]
Janet and i couldn’t stop taking photos this morning. It was a big day climbing wise, but turned out just right – even at a more relaxed pace talking to people.

I had seen this hanging bridge on the satellite and decided to check it out. Janet and I were goofing around with photo angles, but I started getting bitten by those invisible bugs. We took out the DEET and as I was squirting my legs, this man comes along. He jokes about mosquitos, but I tell him it is the tiny bugs. “Do they bite you too,” I asked. “Oh yes,” he said emphatically. He asked, “how much does that spray cost?” I told him it cost about 20 pesos – the equivalent of 1 US dollar. I have no idea, so sometimes I just make prices up. I ask him if he wasn’t some, and he asks how much – he wanted to buy tje bottle from me. Janet panicked when she thought I was going to give him our DEET!! But then i explain we can spray some on him and he gets all excited. Sure! Ha, i thought I would never let some stranger spray crap on me like that…. Oh, wait: I do it all the time when they spray us down with sanitizer at store entrances. Anyway, he’s beaming as he walks away – stoked to get some DEET sprayed on his arms.

Janet and i couldn’t stop taking photos this morning. It was a big day climbing wise, but turned out just right – even at a more relaxed pace talking to people.

I stopped the bike at the last store before leaving town. For two reasons. One was on the outside chance they would have something that wasn’t junk food (nope)… and two was so Janet could snap this picture of the cow in the road. It was a little unnerving – probably for that little girl too. I was trying to figure out how there was so little blood – and what is that white stuff? At first I thought it was a plastic bag. I majored in biology in college, but carefully selected my classes to avoid anatomy (so I wouldn’t have to touch cadavers). This white layer is all news to me.

We had been dreading tonight’s hotel. It got bad reviews on Google (no hot water, shared bathroom, not taken care of). But when we arrived, the woman was friendly and accommodating. The native language here is not Spanish, but she spoke Español well. We saw the room – basic – but no worse than places we stayed in Peru. Price: $4.50US. Anyway, in Latin America, there are many levels of shower quality. One of the lowest is the bucket shower – a bucket of water and a small bowl you scoop and dump water over your head. But this one had a twist. I asked her about hot water and she showed me one of those electric water heaters (in action in my photo). It turned out this was actually a great shower. Indeed, we will be giving this place a nice review on Google!

Today while riding this dirt road, we were very relaxed. Over the course of several hours, we saw one car and one motorcycle. I guess you could say we let our guard down a little. We always ride carefully, but when a road is this quiet, you don’t expect any vehicles.
So, as we were descending on a turn, suddenly a dump truck appeared going WAY WAY beyond the safe speed for this one-and-a-half lane-width road. I instantly knew it would be a head-on. Janet and i both let out guttural screams. I went into auto pilot; due to the loose terrain, i didn’t even try to steer out of the way – I slowed the bike and held our line (as to simply avoid going down). I braced for impact as the dump truck NOT SLOWING DOWN tightened the radius of his turn – just enough to avoid us.
We didn’t collide, and it took several seconds before I felt the repercussion of the adrenaline surging through my body.
I am very upset with the driver for being so irresponsible. This also serves as a lesson to take even more precautions when picking lines on dirt roads. On paved road curves, I always visualize a “bail out” maneuver – including balancing in such a way that we have leeway in case of a slightly errant driver. On dirt, though, with limited traction, this basically means descending slower and riding the edge of the road. You can’t rapidly change the direction of a tándem on these surfaces.

We woke to cool humidity again this morning. It is such a dramatic change as just a couple days ago we were in the high desert. We shouldn’t complain, though. This is low elevation tropics – and the temperatures are perfect. My handlebar GPS registered 70F most of the day. I wish it could also display the 100% humidity. Wonder why that isn’t a feature..

This morning, we came to a bleak looking town pretty early in the ride. No surprise at this point: we asked if they could prepare us some coffee. She asked “normal or Nescafé?” I didn’t know what “normal” was, so I asked for Nescafé. In her bare feet, Justina hurried across the dirt road to her house. Janet warned that Nescafé may already have sugar added. She came back with a pitcher of hot water, and went back behind the bars to hand us a packet of Nescafé. Janet and i split the powder between the two of us, as Justina got all excited, “that will be too strong and bitter!” And here I had been thinking it wasn’t going to be enough coffee to get a buzz. I read the package: “makes 7 cups”. Huh. This turned out to be the opener for our conversation as we stood there sipping the warm beverages: “what is normal coffee,” Janet asked.
Justina became very interested and ran back across the street. “I’ll show you..”. She returned with a tin of ground coffee and a red cup of prepared coffee. “Try it,” she suggested. The other cup actually tasted like much better quality coffee – but weak and definitely not bitter – especially when compared to the instant powder. She explained, “here, we all like Nescafé, but outsiders always like this coffee. It is the coffee that we make here; we dry it and then we grind it.”
Janet asked more questions – and she was happy to answer everything. She said that this town has no work – in spite of the coffee. There is one “señor” who controls all of the coffee buying for the region. He doesn’t want to pay a higher price for the coffee. Other buyers have come to this little village, but the señor “threatens” them. I’m not sure that these threats are… mild threats, or something more serious? I wish we knew, but we’re afraid to ask.
Conversation turned to school. The kids haven been in school since Covid. There are no teachers, and they can’t comply with fumigation of the classroom. “The kids are becoming very lazy,” she repeated with a smile. The kids laughed, as did we… but it’s not too funny. Janet suggested, “you could teach them from books.” She said, “I know how to speak Spanish. Very few people in this village speak Spanish – but I do not know how to read. No one here can read, and so the kids become very lazy.”
Kudos to Janet for capturing this moment perfectly.

Around 10:30am today, Janet and I were stopped for drinks. A truck pulled up as we were chugging Diet Pepsi. A lady leaned out the window and in English asked, “Do you speak the Spanish?” We replied “yes” (in Spanish), and two ladies (Leticia and Lourdes) jumped out of the truck and hurried towards us. “Listen, I’m going to be feeding ancianos (old people) this afternoon at 1:30pm up in the next town over. Will you come and I will feed you free food as well?” What a kind offer! The town was only 3 miles away, but Leticia had mentioned that it was on a “Camino muy feo” (an ugly road – meaning rocky and steep). I said, “hey! We’re not ancianos!” They laughed, but then Janet said, “Well, I am!” It was funny, but then Lourdes got serious: “you need to come.” We politely declined – not eager to ride an out and back on a steep road and delay progress and wait until 1:30. She almost was stern: “you should come!” Leticia was kind of laughing at her stern-ness. I felt bad declining this offer. We SHOULD have accepted it; that is what this bike touring gig is all about: meeting people and having new experiences.
It has really been crazy the last few days how welcoming people have been toward us. I’m not sure what it is here in this region, but we are happy, if not a bit overwhelmed.
Not related to this picture; this is just a place we camped by a field where we asked permission if we could spend the night. The young guy cutting plants with a knife said, “The owner won’t care.” We asked if we could get permission from the owner anyway.. but then he said the owner wouldn’t be back for several days. OK, we camp here!

This friendly guy was riding down the same trail as us. It was really muddy and his wheels would sink over a foot into the mud (one wheel would sink, the other would still be on hard surface). I thought for sure his cart was going to flip. Nope, he kept plodding along. I asked him for a picture, but in retrospect I should have taken a photo while he was nearly tipped over!

It wouldn’t be an adventure if we didn’t trespass! In the morning, we were mired in mud. Honestly, I came very close to trying to hitch out. I’m past that point in life where I need to ride every inch of some route just to “say I did it.” The big thing stopping us from asking for a ride, though, is that we were covered in mud – and didn’t want to soil any of the muddy vehicles- they looked cleaner than us. Anyway, as often happens in life, you go through a rough patch, and come out on the other side – and find out that life goes on; a lot of the doubt was in your head.
Anyway, we had some connections to make – the one you see here avoids 22 miles in exchange for 5. We called out “buenos días” at the house near the first gate. No one responded, and it didn’t look like the cows were going to bust us. By the 4th gate (pictured) we were finally out of there.

Daily life in Mexico. This young man eats his lunch next to the pile of dead fish he is hoping to sell. If you walk the streets enough, you can develop a pretty good idea of what the inside of various creatures looks like. Don’t worry, I won’t show you too many pictures of that.

The average time of schooling in Chiapas is 6.7 years. As you know from our post a few days ago, many kids we have met have lost another two years due to the pandemic. The most likely people to be illiterate are indigenous women – who are sometimes prevented from attending school. Sometimes we get sad about kids not being able to attend school; I think of the lost opportunities. At the same time, there is probably a higher percentage of literacy here now than there was 50 years ago – even with the COVID giving kids no other choice but to play in the street all day.
But school isn’t everything, as you will see in my last caption.

There are many professions I admire – but my favorites are people who repair things… mechanics and seamstresses… people who keep old stuff working – and out of the landfill.
Remember how in my previous caption I was lamenting that kids can’t go to school? Well, it’s not all bad – maybe you can just develop a skill that helps people, and turn that into an occupation.
By the time I got my bike shorts to this woman today, there was a 5 inch rip through which my right buttock bulged out like a fat person’s stomach might protrude from a belly shirt. After we saw a completely naked woman walking down the street the other day, I worried a little less about exposing this relatively small piece of white skin and straggly hair to the world – but it still needed to be fixed.
Marbe fixed the shorts with a smile – and she asked for 70 pesos ($3.50US) for the service. This was such a big-deal-fix for me; definitely worth more than that. I gave her 200 pesos and mentioned that she has one of the most honorable occupations. She beamed.
And by the way, thanks for covering my ass!

I smelled something stinky, and no, it wasn’t Janet after being in the moldy hotel two days ago. It was the sulfur river. But who needs to dip in hot stinky water when clean hot rain is coming down instead? Yeah, 77F rain isn’t too much of a problem to cycle in – if you’re on pavement (which we were).

After a brief interlude with the Mexican state of Chiapas yesterday, we returned to Tabasco – one of Mexico’s 32 states. Now you may be thinking,
“oh, yeah – Tabasco – like the sauce!”
It is possible you associate Tabasco sauce with Mexican food, but it was actually invented in the US state of Louisiana…
Supposedly, the peppers that are used to make the sauce don’t even grow in this region. I can attest that we haven’t seen any peppers growing down here. After seeing lots of corn and later agave growing in the highlands, the latest interesting crop was pineapple.

Do you think of Mexico as a “third world” nation because some areas are less developed – or maybe because labor is less mechanized?
Don’t worry if you didn’t know the definitions of first, second, and third world;I sure didn’t until recently. I’ll paste the definition at the bottom of this caption.
Before the Wikipedia, though, let’s do a little back-story on this guy. Down a couple flights of stairs, in the main square, I noticed a pickup truck loaded with raw lumber. On the ground was a handsaw. In the middle of the street were 2 guys working – one gluing, and one sawing by hand… and they were making this furniture that you see here – that this 3rd guy carried up to some unknown destination. I’m constantly amazed at what people can produce with simple hand tools down here!
From Wikipedia:
“The term ‘Third World’ arose during the Cold War to define countries that remained non-aligned with either NATO or the Warsaw Pact. The United States, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Western European nations and their allies represented the ‘First World,’ while the Soviet Union, China, Cuba, Vietnam and their allies represented the ‘Second World.’ This terminology provided a way of broadly categorizing the nations of the Earth into three groups based on political and economic divisions.

Let’s do plan… C…. When we woke to dumping rain, we decided today would be a rest day – a good Plan A. Janet went out and got us coffee in a styrofoam cup and we resolved to relax. But in a few minutes we were bored. In a couple hours, the skies cleared. Should we go for it? We made a plan B…. Let’s take a new route to go back to yesterday’s original route that might have more pavement. We made a new course and loaded it into the GPS. But as we rode, we asked people about road conditions. For some reason, we decided that the muddy/rocky route described by one man sounded better; he didn’t tell us not to… Since yesterday’s plan would have been plan C, that makes the next one Plan D… which we took. As we battled mud and sections that were as slippery as ice, we questioned our choice – but the reward was meeting some interesting folks along the way.
One of those people was Victor – an old toothless farmer. He grows all his own food. He doesn’t deal with selling it for money; it’s all just to eat. He has no horse, no cows, no bike or car. When we approached, he asked where we were going. We told him “la sabanilla”. He asked, “but how will you get there?” We said, “by bike!” He was dumbfounded at this; isn’t it obvious considering that we rode up to him on a bike?
I wish I got a picture of his happy, yet toothless smile.

We aren’t the only ones getting stuck in the mud. It was extremely slippery out here and the tandem was sliding all over the place – left and right. It was hard to keep upright. Around a turn, we saw a crowd of people outside this truck.
I think some of the women who had previously been inside the truck gave up waiting for us to get it unstuck. They started walking – but not before they snapped some photos, giving Janet the confidence to take her own camera out. We got it to higher ground, but it was still unable to ascend the steep turn. Someone went to go get some “cal” which you may heard of as “lime.” That is calcium hydroxide – one of two ingredients they put into corn tortillas (the other is corn). In fact, you can see some on the ground already! I’m not familiar with that method of de-atascadero-ing vehicles, but I trust they know what they are doing. Janet and I eventually rode on.

When you see kids carrying sticks… you know you’re in “the sticks.” Today we saw some very young children carrying heavy loads. Janet said, “Can you imagine Milo (my nephew) carrying that?” At first sight, we didn’t think to take photos of these 3 foot tall children carrying loads that were probably as heavy as our bike. We just said “good afternoon,” and they gaped at us – not replying. Maybe no reply because they didn’t speak Spanish – or maybe no reply because they were exhausted from their loads.
After we passed, I saw all four of the kids in my rear view mirror stopped and staring at us on our bike. I resolved to bring you a photo of some other people carrying these loads – though they are maybe not as cute as the children.
Then again, it may break your heart to see such little kids working so hard? Don’t worry, I’ll bet they still get their play time. We see lots of kids playing in the street. Usually they are laughing and when something silly happens, they just laugh it off.
An example: A motorcycle with two riders crashed on the slippery mud/rocks right beside us. Janet gasped, but they jumped up laughing, “it is very slippery,” the guy laughed as he and his girlfriend tried to get back on – but had trouble because they were laughing so hard.

As you know, we needed to rush to get our COVID tests. We got to the lab at 6:59 for our 7am appointment – and no one was there. I ran to the “plan B” lab – but even though they also open at 7… empty. So Janet waited in one place and I the other – we’d call the other depending on which opened first. Finally at 7:30 someone arrived at Janet’s place and I ran back again. You know those tests are supposed to be ready in 15 minutes? Well we are an hour out and no result. I had told my sister that these places open on “Latin American Time” – and she joked that the tests are on LA time as well. Finally we got the results:
Janet is positive.
The guys got really serious – and sat down with us. They were very concerned for Janet – they spoke to her as if this was the end. “You need to rest,” they said worriedly. Meanwhile, Janet is like, “ok, sure”. They must have thought it was weird that we were pretty nonchalant about getting the news. They probably worried about her age too.
Hopefully I’m not jumping ahead here, but whenever Janet gets a cold, she clears it in 2-3 days. Also, during the course of the illness, she’s always “I feel fine.” She keeps saying that about COVID too, except she was very mildly symptomatic for 4 days instead of 2-3. Today, though, her voice is back to normal and she only cleared her throat a few times. Oh, and she climbed 7 thousand feet on rough roads. So, you know: no biggie. I hope it stays that way!
Anyway, I’m no toughie like her, so i need to be extra careful. Historically, my careful has been on a paranoia level, so there isn’t much room to up the ante. I did get separate beds for us the last 3 nights, and (this was hard) refused to drink Janet’s extra coffee each day she offered.
Of course, now we have no certificate to get into Guatemala. Janet wants me to enter legally and go “wetback” herself. I like her moxie. We will see if we can get her another test in a few days – try to go legally first.
Pretty much everyone for the last two weeks has been coughing or sneezing or clearing their throat. Trying to dodge people and holding my breath for eons seems to be working – especially since most interactions are outdoors (store fronts typically have big openings and frequently the store isn’t very deep).
Anyway, Today we visited Toniná – a ruin i hadn’t heard of – but easily on of the top 3 most impressive I have seen in Mexico! A fun place to visit. Actually, a few weeks ago they even discovered another pyramid here. Janet rode over 70 miles with 7,000′ of climbing today… COVID is no big deal for her!!

There are so many well preserved stone carvings here. One thing I liked was this guys profile – his brow, nose, and lips look very much like many of the people who still live here in Southern Mexico.

In the late 1990s, my friend Tom came to this part of Mexico to “fight the Mexican Army.” At this time, the Zapatistas (a guerrilla army in the Southernmost Mexican state of Chiapas) was seeking to improve the rights and land ownership opportunities for people in this region – especially the indigenous populations.
As he headed off to Mexico, Tom said to me, “my only weapon is my camera.”
Months later, he and I were supposed to meet on an island in Southern Mexico to catch a flight to Cuba together – but he didn’t show up on time.
Back then, there was no Facebook or cell phones; who knows what had happened to him. I just waited on the island and made friends there. One day, I see this tall, very skinny white-boy walking towards me on the cobblestone streets. It was a bedraggled Tom. Sick and thin – but alive! He had been deported to Guatemala for standing on the “front lines” with his camera – with the intent of revealing violence perpetrated by the army. Luckily he managed to sneak back into Mexico under a tarp and a heap of living chickens. Don’t you miss the good old adventure days when passports and vaccines didn’t have microchips?
Just kidding about the vaccines.
Since 2006, the Zapatistas are no longer a military organization, but rather a “movement”, and their presence is still obvious in signs and murals. In the 90s, it was a little unnerving to travel this part of Mexico – you’d see heavily armed people on most street corners, and if you were traveling by bus, they would board it at road stops and investigate each individual’s face.
As in many conflicts, it is hard to tell the good guys from the bad guys. It isn’t black and white, but rather shades of gray. From Wikipedia, you can get a bit of an idea about the Zapatista ideology:
“You are in Zapatista rebel territory. Here the people command and the government obeys. Trafficking in weapons, planting of drugs, drug use, alcoholic beverages, and illegal selling of wood are strictly prohibited. No to the destruction of nature.”

Another waterfall at the “cascada de golondrinas”.

After visiting the waterfalls, we rode a while and went to the lagunas of the crocodiles. We saw a few crocodiles – but only the ones in captivity.
We later found out that the crocodile place is a private park. Actually, we found out quite a bit of information from the 15 year old girl who sold us our SIM cards for Guatemala (and she activated our phones). She spoke clearly and seemed very knowledgeable for her age. She told us about the different groups here (The Ch’ol, the Lacandonans, and the Zapatistas). She claimed they all didn’t get along and that was her explanation for the various separate fees we paid in each place.
She seemed surprised that we didn’t have any trouble with the Zapatistas. We said that we thought they weren’t violent anymore, and she conceded that there hadn’t been anything bad (people killed) for the last 4 years or so.

Janet and I both stamped out of Mexico legally. Goodbye Mexico. We will miss you. Actually, we already do!! This is a very minor border crossing. There is no road, you just take a boat across. Unlike border crossings that you may be more familiar with, there is no gate or guards. It is your responsibility to go find the migration office. In other words you could theoretically ride right out of Mexico and solicit a boat like we did – and not stamp out. This affected our “plan” as you will see.
Because this border is pretty lose and “wild,” we also noticed several people walking the road in groups. Immediately it was obvious to me: these people weren’t from around here. They had more angular features in their faces, their bodies were taller and thin. They had curly hair. I knew right away they looked like people from El Salvador. Maybe Honduras. People in Southern Mexico are more rotund. Their faces have the profile like that statue I posted yesterday.
Just to confirm, I asked our driver, and he quickly verified my suspicions. I asked him, “why are they walking the road?” (Keep in mind this is road in the hot hot jungle with really no where to go for miles). He said, “if they get caught in a vehicle, they will be sent back, but on foot, it is OK.” I wanted to know more, he said, “the government has changed,” suggesting this is a new rule.
You may have heard of “the caravan,” but as we found, there are TONS of people illegally boating and then walking from this border headed North. They roll the dice on their journey to the USA.
Hmmm. Does this give you any ideas? If so, Keep reading …

For the first 13 kilometers inside of Guatemala, we bumped along a rocky road. It was difficult with lots of micro climbs, 100% humidity, and 90F heat. There is no immigration office at the Mexican boat dock, but you need to check in at a town in Guatemala called “Bethel.” Janet did not get a second Covid test to see if she was now negative because we exhausted all of our ideas. If we delayed even one day, I’d have to get another test too – because the test must be within 3 days of crossing the border – and it takes us 3 days by bike to get from the last town in Mexico to the border crossing. We searched and tried, but Covid tests are the last things on these guys’ minds in the tiny jungle towns. The majority of people here are just fighting to survive. We have discovered that out here, Covid isn’t on anyone’s radar.
We studied the satellite imagery to figure out how to do our first human trafficking. I’ll tell you right now, if they made a movie about our attempt, it would be called “dumb and dumber…”. Here is what we did:
Once we were on the Guatemala side, I dropped Janet off at a rodeo party really close to the migration office. I scoped the office out, talked to the guys and got my passport stamped. I showed them my proof of vaccine and negative Covid test. They were sitting out in the bushes looking towards the dirt road. Not good. I went back to retrieve Janet and told her the bad news. Here are the options we considered:
Plan A: wait until night. Then ride by in the dark.
Plan B: get a hotel and then ride past at 5am.
Plan C: Wait until that rodeo ends and try and ride alongside a big vehicle and hope the dust cloud from the dirt road obscures the view so the immigration officers done notice us. Try and ride on the opposite side of the vehicle so we won’t be seen.
Being lazy or dumb or impatient (you decide) we go with plan C. It is kind of like surfing – trying to catch a wave. A big bus is coming. I accelerate to try and keep pace with the bus. It is approaching. I slow a bit as it slows. Janet says it is going to pass us. Not enough of a dust cloud either. I pedal hard. Suddenly, the bus cuts us off. It pulls ALL the way to the right. We are in the weeds, and this all happened right in front of the 3 migration guys under their palapa! We squeeze to hide on the opposite side of the bus, but then we realize it is stopping to unload people to stamp in! We run for it – full acceleration. The migration guys see us and yell! “Hey hey!!!!!!” I pedal with all my might and look forward. They were overweight and I figured it would take them a while to round up motorcycles to catch us. We had 3 miles to a town we could “disappear” in – even at full blast, they could catch us. Shoot.
Full blast. I see the people in my mirror unloading from the bus, probably swarming the migration guys. Will they chase?
We hammer. It’s getting pretty dark. I keep checking the mirror. No one. Eventually we get to the town and I dive down the first street.
A guy comes toward us with a machete – “what do you want!?” He flicks his hand in an unfriendly way. We mention a hotel. He says there is one here. No way there is a hotel in this dilapidated shack. He comes at us with the knife. Too fast or too drunk. We say bye and zip out to the main road. Now what? Will they find us? Everyone is calling out to us (sometimes in English by the way, “nice bike,” “hello!”). People seem to all be coming towards us. Some people want to help. We go to a place that says “hotel.” It is pretty disgusting. Actually, very. It is worse than a tenement – sweaty bodies in dirty 60 square foot rooms. One shared and disgusting bathroom. People come to us in the street – many wanting to help. It is quickly clear that we won’t find what we want. I suggest to Janet we ride another 20-30 miles in the dark to a town that feels safer.
Amongst the people who approach us, a young woman in a nice dress on a motorcycle. She seems clean, nice, safe. She says “there is a posada it has beautiful rooms.” We take to her – partly because she doesn’t seem scary, and partly because she got our hopes up with beautiful rooms.
Guess what! She takes us to the place with the knife guy! It really was a “hotel.” Unfortunately, a cockroach room with a Dirty cold shower made from a PVC pipe sticking out of the wall, and toilets that you flush with a bucket.
We accepted the room – we got two, actually, so we could have a bit of space. The bugs are all around, but maybe this was smarter than riding a rough (safety wise) part of Guatemala at night for 2 or 3 hours in the dark.
I think the young woman saw our pain at the dilapidated room and later kindly came to offer us some bananas and oranges.” (Which of course we said thanks, but no we won’t take any).”

This morning we passed about 4 police trucks parked with checkpoints. Each time I saw the orange cones in the road, I shuddered. If any one of them asks for our passports, we are going to get deported. Did the border guys tell them about the sneaky people on the bike built for two? The third truck we passed, the guys were inside the cab. As we went by they honked their horn several short beeps. A friendly “hello” – not a “Stop!” Whew.

Today started as a typical, drizzly day… until we were warned, “No hay paso” by a friendly motorist (who by the way had been to 20 states in the USA). Of course, Janet and I didn’t (totally) believe him. Sometimes people say things are impossible when they really aren’t. We asked, “can bikes get through?” He said “no. The water is really high.” Slightly doubting him, we continued on – another 3 miles – to find this scene. The bridge had collapsed 5 days ago.
I started to cross with a stick (and without the bike) to probe the depths. Yeah, just 2 feet from the shore it was already belly button deep. With all the unseasonal rain, no one was going to walk across this river today.
Not being able to cross this river was going to be a big deal. We pulled out the map. Uh-oh: We would lose a day in a go-around. Also, we would have to ride busy and dangerous roads.
No to be deterred (I love this about her), Janet said, “let’s look around.” She went up and down the bank and found a secret passage… could this little passage hold the solution??

I saw her idea and agreed: With a little work, we might be able to make a solution. First step was to clean the area. I used Janet’s saw and removed branches – some 1-1/2” thick, and many like this little one.

With Janet’s help, we hoisted the bike on to the cable and pipes. I was not strong enough to do this for long, so i attached the front (and rear) Revelate bags to the cable. This would suspend the bike as I slowly shimmied it along the thin wire.

At each cable junction, I was forced to unclip the bag, and then re-clip it on the other side. It was tedious work and was at the limits of my upper body strength trying to lift the bike (that was probably 70 pounds at this point) while maintaining balance.
Maybe there were some close calls, maybe there weren’t. 🤔

Strava reader: “oh, they only have to do 25 miles a day. They will make it!”
Janet and I: “25 miles a day! I hope we can make it.”

It’s a land of contrasts and sharp lines. Remember I told you that there are sharp lines of how people behave? The same is true for weather. Yesterday, everything was wet – soaked mud. Then, right at the end of the day, all of the sudden, we were on dry dirt. Not the kind of dirt that had gotten wet and dried, but dusty-hasn’t-been-rained-on-in-weeks dry. Yup, just a few minutes ago, banana leaves were dripping on my head; next thing I know, spiny plants and Brahmán Bulls (who can tolerate dry heat) are in my sights – all that by simply crossing a mountain range.

3 hours for 100Q. That’s 33Q per hour. But we plan to be here for 16 hours… (at 12.5Q per hour). Of course the first thing we did was make use of the cool ceiling mirror.

I’m glad Janet got this photo because I wanted to tell you about this guy. He calls out to us at an intersection and wants to know where we are going. He starts to tell me “when you people come here, usually you want to go to the church, which is over that way,” he points.
When people say, “you people,” they mean foreigners. Given the remoteness and lack of “attractions” for some of the places we go, it always shocks me that ANYONE from outside ever came the way we did. But this man confirmed my suspicions: Missionaries had been this way to spread religion. This got me asking him, “What religion do you follow?” He replied, “I used to be Catholic.” I asked, “How about now?” His reply: “Christian.” He didn’t specify the denomination, so I just asked, “Why did you make the change?” He motioned towards his belt with his hand like he was pulling out a gun. “Because the Catholics wouldn’t let me bring my gun to church.”

Today Janet and i went to a bird rescue park to celebrate Valentine’s Day.

This bird is related to the chicken. It weighs 10 pounds, and walks around on the forest floor looking for food rather than flying.

The adventures of “wetback” Janet continue! If you read yesterday’s post, you will remember that we sought to legalize our heroine in paperwork distress. Our plan was to sneak Janet out of Guatemala the old fashioned way (just walk across) and then get her stamped into Honduras like nothing ever happened. To our dismay, however, we learned that Guatemala and Honduras are “CA4” countries. If you know about Europe and the “Schengen” countries, it’s just like that. The CA4 countries are 4 Central American countries that have partnered, and when you enter ONE of the four, the clock starts ticking on your 90 day allowance. In other words, if I stay in Guatemala 80 days, that means I only get 10 days in Honduras. What it also means is that there is one single office for both countries. If we decide to sneak Janet out of Guatemala, we’d have to carry the torch and sneak her into Honduras too. We had already agreed to legalize her, so she entered the office fearlessly. We don’t like to lie, and luckily they didn’t force us to. Rather than ask, “why don’t you have a stamp?” They asked, “where did you enter.” That was easy so we told them. They told us we need to pay a 773Q ($100US) fee for this problem. “Sure!” Janet blurted. I was expecting $25, but whatever- it was going to be nice to have this problem behind us. Then they told us, “we need to call Honduras.” This “call” was actually just him walking to the next booth. After a long time he returned: “Here is the issue; we can only give you 5 days.” “What? C’mon – we are paying the fee, let’s be done with this!” Turns out that because of the CA4, they don’t officially know when the clock started ticking. (Well, they can assume based on my stamp)…. But they were just doing their job. Anyway, they quoted a few prices for the next fine we will pay when leaving Honduras… the smallest number i think I heard was an additional $239US. But at one point a woman mentioned something in the $400 range. This went on quite a long time, and involved 4 different people who were all professional and friendly and doing their jobs. In fact, one of them laughed with me a little about the absurdity of it all. Good people.
So! Before you think we’re upset, we aren’t really. We knew we did something wrong, and we were prepared to pay 💰 instead of having our time-sensitive itinerary delayed. On top of that, I always look at these situations as opportunities to learn and practice my Spanish. I like my Spanish teacher a lot better than the Honduran government, but I pay her $15 per hour to talk to me… so i tried to milk my money’s worth out of these guys by prolonging the conversation and getting every detail and repeating things and such. Janet doesn’t like this, but I enjoy (attempting, in this case) negotiations. I think this kind of stuff is fun, and if I can get a lower price, even more fun. In the “old days,” that used to work, but it seems that borders these days are a lot less corrupt. And honestly, that is a good thing, even if you don’t succeed.
So, the story isn’t over! Janet has 5 days and a choice.
Option 1: Leave the CA4 region (Belize is close and not part of this agreement) and then re-enter. If she does this in 5 days, she is all good and just has to pay the $3 entry tax again to get back in… or…
Option 2: Exceed the 5 day limit and pay the piper at the airport on departure. It’s nice to have options! Kudos to both Guatemala and Honduras border folks, I must express they were very kind to us lawbreakers.

I really liked this bird park in Copan, Honduras. It was very well signed and you could tell that it was NOT a zoo; the primary objective was to rescue birds that had been abandoned by their owners. Remember from the above caption, the birds can live 80-100 years in captivity. What happened is that wealthy foreigners came to the island of Roatan and enjoyed having these birds as pets. Over time, these people would “eventually grow tired of living in ‘paradise’” (I’m quoting the sign here)…. Anyway, these birds needed to be rehabilitated because they were now pets – and unfamiliar with living in the wild.
Now they hatch and release birds to populate the nearby ruins in Copan, as well as rescue birds who used to be pets.
It’s very pleasing to see the care, work, and careful study that people have put in to perfecting the habitat for these rescues. Seeing this type of stewardship always uplifts my spirit; My enjoyment of Honduras is off to a good start!

Copan is famous for its 3 dimensional art. Once you get there, you can see what they mean when they say 3D… I can’t imagine how they carved behind rock.
What the researchers decided was that the society had 16 kings over the course of 400 years (that is about 23 years each). King number 13, whose name was “Eighteen🐇” was they guy who started the new trend in art work. Specifically, statues of himself, of which there were many. King number 12 and previous had just boring block statues, but Eighteen Rabbit was when the style of statues evolved. Unfortunately, that is also around the time that the society began to collapse. For a long time there was a lot of speculation about what happened to the Maya, but our guide seemed pretty certain their society fell apart due to climate change caused by deforestation.
I believe him about the deforestation because we have absolutely witnessed the stark contrast between jungle and grazing lands on our bike. The jungle creates its own “always wet” weather. The minute you cross into a deforested area with grazing cows, it’s much more like a desert – just a short distance away. You may think this is a chicken-and-the-egg discussion: “well maybe the weather is why there is a jungle there and a desert in the other place!” I’d accept that, except out in the Peten jungle, it’s perfectly flat, and the sharp line in hyper-local climate change is drawn by protected area boundaries, not any mountains or geographical features.
He explained some of the hieroglyphs carved on the back of the statue, and we quickly began to notice these patterns on the other statues, as well as their way of counting numbers. When we got back to our hotel room, suddenly we noticed: our room number was also inscribed in the Mayan way! Cool!

I’ve always thought of the bicycle as one of humankind’s best inventions. Why didn’t God think of that?
💡
My guess is that after God made all those mistakes with mosquitos, fleas, snakes, and Osama Bin Laden… as cool as it sounds, God sure as heck wasn’t going to make humans that roll around on wheels.
God obviously knew after spitting into the dust to make a mud ball from which to form Adam, that 🦶 and hooves would work much better in this gluey substance, Especially after seeing what a mess all that pre-Adam mud made.
Thus, Janet and I felt a little ill-equipped as we were passed by horseback riders who knew how to properly get around in this kind of terrain.

Kids are always fascinated with the bike, but these guys clustered around the GPS like satellites. They quickly understood how it worked, and where they were on the map – as well as where we were going.
Two were brothers; one was a cousin. The older had his own bike – which he referred to as “a racing bike, not like this one.” Later we saw his “racing bike” – which was a BMX with pegs. Indeed, much like our bike as it probably almost always carries two people; the second one standing on the pegs.

As we were pushing the bike along up a typical 1,000’ per mile stretch, Norman caught up to us. Janet was carrying the LBJ at this point because it was so steep. He said to Janet, “let me carry your bag.” Being from the “I am woman, hear me roar” generation, Janet said “no, thank you.” A bit later, Norman looked at me, “Can I carry the bag for her?” Well, what the heck, Janet even agreed that it was easier, so we let him carry the bag. Norman and I strode upwards and I tried to talk to him – but I couldn’t understand 100% of what he said due to the local dialect. What I DID understand is that he said, “around here, we help the people who come up this way from below.” He was obviously quite the gentleman, somewhere in his 20s. Eventually we arrived at a tiny house on the side of the mountain, and the slope briefly relented. It was probably 120 square feet. I said “I’d like to wait for my wife.” No problem, because this was his house; he unlocked the door. People who live out here often don’t have bikes, cars, motorcycles, or even horses (I ask). All they have is rubber boots and a machete. I gathered 40 Lempira to thank him, and said, “I want to thank you for being such a gentleman.” He accepted that. We didn’t need the help, really, but I respected his kindness – offering to help and expecting nothing in return. After I handed him the bills, he offered to carry the bag further (his tone suggested that he thought we were paying for more help). Such a sincere guy; we thanked him and said we can take it from here. Thanks!

Life is probably hard for the people who live out here. This truck was delivering bread-like products to this house. Shortly after I snapped this photo of Janet, the road became impassible to wheeled vehicles. This means that the people on the upper stretch of this way are cut off from vehicular resupply. They must either produce their own food – or walk down to a place where they can get something (which wouldn’t be close). People do walk long distances here, though. When you meet people in the road and ask them how far a place is, they invariably quote you walking time – not miles or kilometers, as that measure has no meaning to them. A four hour walk (eight hours round trip) is considered to be “a long way,” but definitely not something impossible. Also, the mud we encountered today can’t be especially unusual. There was some severe flooding in the plain below these mountains the last few days… but if this is what it is like during the dry season, imagine what these people endure during the rainy season!

Shortly after we encountered the woman who gave us some instruction on which way not to go, we got to a more difficult stretch. This portion lasted quite a while. This leg was impassible by anything except horses and people with rubber boots… and i guess.. us.
During this kind of stuff, I start to think to myself, “why are we doing this? This isn’t fun. Maybe we should go home.” Eventually, after what seems like an eternity, we come to small patches of rideable mud. Then we come to mud that you can ride with two people for short stretches. We get farther, and the deep patches of mud are less frequent. The surface changes, we start to smile again. Maybe this isn’t so bad. Heck, this is fun. We just forget it and do it again the next day.
This is some really tough stuff we are doing here. It is probably hard for you guys to even imagine what this is like. It is kind of like Bear Mountain at Coe – almost every day.. but if you can believe it.. steeper. Really. On top of that, for the last few weeks it has been muddy, getting worse the last couple days.

This morning we were waiting for some bulls to walk past when Franklin approached us. Remember yesterday we could hardly understand anyone? Now that we were out of the super remote section, people became easier to understand again (I really think those other communities are so isolated that we were witnessing the early evolution of another language).
We learned A LOT from Franklin. He had already gone to the US once to work for 3 years during the economic boom. Work was good, but then the collapse happened and he returned – without problems around 2009. He plans to return to the US in April.
We talked about “La Bestia” (The Beast…the train that people run and jump on in Mexico to hitch a ride North; it is very dangerous). He told us about the Zeta (the gangs i mentioned in a previous post that extract money from Janet’s teacher’s husband when he imports cars to Guatemala). He told us that if you’re abducted by the Zeta, they will send photos of your fingers being cut off to your family, and if your people don’t pay the ransom (usually $10k to $15k) then they kill you. I said, “por favor, con cuidado este Abril” – please be careful this April; worried about this risk.
He said, “My wife is here and we have a daughter. I think we will go together this time. That way, we have a better chance of receiving amnesty.”
The US grants amnesty to people who are in danger – and Honduras with its highest-murder-rate-in-the-world-status means that many people are elegible. Hearing this, I worried a bit – the thought of him taking his little daughter through such a dangerous journey. I could feel that sensation of my eyes getting wet, and simultaneously, I could see the blood vessels in his eyes turning red. We both stood there trying to pretend like we weren’t both tearing up at the thought of this dangerous journey ahead.
A bit later, we “manned up” and posed for this picture that Janet took.

In a shady spot, we saw a very thin man crouched by his burlap sack. Janet was walking at this point, and she started chatting with him. Once I caught up to them, Juan was telling Janet how it was very good that we were walking. “No one wants to walk anymore,” he said as a bus drove by. He was sincere in his tone. “Exercise is good for you!”
He had been sitting and resting before his next attempt at the steep grade, but the excitement of visitors made him stand up. His eyes were white clouds – like a cappuccino – probably from cataracts. I wondered how well he could see us. Pretty well, I guess, because he takes his finger as if he were about to swipe frosting off a cake and runs it down my dripping thigh. “You are sweating! That is good!”
He’s so excited at this point that he starts dancing a dance that is a cross between some Irish dance and whipping a horse. Janet and i roll in laughter. He laughs too, revealing his one or two remaining teeth. This guy was a riot!
For him, everything was good – especially the difficult stuff. We asked him what was in his burlap sack. He tells us that it is so cold now, so he needs to carry his chumpa (jacket) as he pulls it from the bag to show us. “They brought me this from the United States,” he explained. This dancing Hondureño really brightened our morning! Mr. Bojangles, dance! 🕺

These guys made us our 2nd coffee of the day, and came out to chat. We mostly talked to the woman in the middle with the black shirt. Late in the conversation, I asked, “What is your name?” She said, “América”. I said, “no, really…”. Yep, that was her real name. It’s a real trend here; people often receive foreign names; Franklin, Norman, recently. In South America, we heard of “Rayovacs” and yesterday’s Gerber was probably named after the knives. Anyway, América was super friendly and during our conversation she kept telling us how pleased she was that we had come to see her country. We get this a lot, and hearing these words makes me so happy that we are doing this trip. Maybe people here feel like Honduras is a “forgotten” country? No one has directly said that, but from the undertones of our conversations, I think that people want us (and YOU, the reader) to know some stuff about Honduras.
1 – Life is hard here. There isn’t much economy, and it got worse after Covid.
2 – We like to work. We want jobs. We are hard workers.
Anyway, Janet and I talked to her about all sorts of things. I’d love to tell you everything; so many people have won our hearts with personal and emotional stories of their lives… But we need to sleep and not just write Strava captions!
Lots of interesting political stuff has been happening here in Honduras. First, the very first female president (Xiomara Castro) was elected into office this January (by a landslide, América told us). Second, as of a few days ago, the USA is seeking to extradite the former president (Juan Orland Hernández) US. Keep in mind that he is a former 🇺🇸 ally.
News says of this, “Last night in the Honduran capital, drivers honked horns, revelers waved Honduran flags, and some held up pictures of the chained Hernández with the words “Thanks U.S.A.” and “This is what we dreamed of.””
Janet and I aren’t too political, but this with the president is a hot topic recently! I’m happy that Honduras is progressive enough to elect a female president. Personally, I believe that having more gender-balance in political offices is going to be a good thing and I mentioned that to América.
As we were discussing today’s events in the hotel room, Janet quipped, “Hey, why can’t the US extradite me out of Honduras?” Janet’s visa expired yesterday, so once again, she’s an illegal!

A guy on a motorcycle was pacing alongside us at our crawl of a pace. Over the din of the motor, mentioned he liked the bike. When we stopped for a break, he did too, and we happened to ask what he does. “I make these shoes,” Greber said, pointing to his Fila shoes. The shoes didn’t look like he could have made them; they were too nice. Honestly I thought I had misunderstood what he was saying, so he said, “Really. I’ll show you. You can come to my workshop.” He made it sound like the place was close – but it was still another 1,400’ of climbing. He patiently dawdled along put-put-ing as we climbed at our best pace. Then it was down the other side – we flew downhill fast in spite of all the landslides and road damage.
Boom!
Janet screamed. The rear end started oscillating as we fishtailed on the carbon rim at 35 mph. At first I thought we would go down, but we got the oscillations under control and started to decelerate using the front brake only. One of our 7 or 8 cloth plugs had suddenly failed. Greber watched quizzically as we shoved in a new plug.
Later we went down a narrow dirt path to his house. You could tell he was quite proud to be bringing in these Gringos and some of the neighbors followed to have a look…..
(Continued below; photo by Janet)

Janet and I saw this eatery and knew we would come here, so we immediately started looking for a hotel… and lo-and-behold there was one next door. Cool! We went to the hotel which looked nice. Before telling me the price, the woman asked me, “will you be spending the entire night?” I giggled; it just seems weird when an 80 year old woman is covertly asking you if you’re just here for sex. We straightened that question out and then went back to the smoky restaurant. Janet even wore the new shirt she recently brought to celebrate the occasion (her other shirt hadn’t been washed in a month).
It’s a little shameful, since we don’t deserve it, but I think we might be getting “special treatment” wherever we go. Nelson came to talk to us (purple shirt; in back). Anyway, he told us several stories, but one thing he did was ask how much we paid for our nearby hotel. I told him, and he confirmed it was a nice hotel. In fact, he brought up the hotel quite a bit – repeating “it is very clean; better than the other ones.” On the 3rd repeat, I pieced together his wry smile with his apparently deep knowledge of these hotels: He doesn’t stay the whole night.
And while we’re on that topic, is red shirt checking out Janet’s butt?

Still some old world forms of travel in the towns here in Honduras. The irony is that I think those tanks are of gasoline.

I went into Jeanette Kawas National Park. It was named after the woman who was murdered because she was attempting to protect wildlife in the region. Kind of a sad start to a National park. I’ll tell you more about National Parks here in the weeks to come.
I wanted to ride out to the spit of land you can probably see in my map. Unfortunately, it was just mud bog after mud bog. As I slowly navigated the mud on my way to the tip of land, A guy came riding towards me on a bicycle wearing the rubber boots typically seen in the region. His jeans were mud soaked up to the middle of his thighs. That was the final straw; I turned around and dealt with the mud again coming back. I tried to explore the other road, but that led to a golf club and a ruffian like me got quickly turned around by security.
I decided to explore the area near Tela. I had been wanting to go down the spit of land in Jeanette Kawas National park. I thought that the most interesting part of this ride would be the scenery with ocean on either side. Turns out that the most interesting part was the neighborhood and the people.
I went solo while Janet rested in the AirBnB. The bike felt like a Ford F-350 with nothing in the bed because I left all the gear and Janet back in the room. It was quite a bouncy ride.

Notice the goal posts: two cinder blocks. These guys just play barefoot.

Let the vacation from pedaling every day begin! Janet and I spend a week on Roatan Island (in Honduras). It’s a tropical paradise, and we enjoyed this time with our friends Mark and Todd. Mark brought some temporary tattoos so he and I could be “bad asses.”

Roatan was a tropical paradise. Insert typical beach paradise pictures here for 10-ish days!

After the Roatan Vacation, we returned to the mainland to tour the rest of Honduras.
A little different from what we have been doing.. we were pretty sure there were no hotels or food down this way, but we decided to chance it. The route got pretty quiet – not many houses – and definitely no stores or cities. We finally came to a house and decided to ask where we could go to buy some food – and if there was a hotel nearby.
There were a few families sitting in front of the house and they said, “just stay with her, she lives alone.” Next thing we know, Lina is preparing a nice meal of cheese, avocado, egg, and a small dollop of beans. This was a little unusual – a low carb meal in Latin America… without us specifically asking? Wow, thanks! We ate with Lina, her grandson Felix (8 yrs) and Felix’s buddy from next door, William (7 yrs). Of course, the kids talked our ears off about pulling their teeth out with string… and listing all the dangerous animals outside like snakes and crocodiles. Aren’t we afraid to camp? Lina’s husband has been in the US for 21 years, so she hasn’t seen him… but remains faithful.
When I offered to pay her for the food, she said that “this is a house of God,” and that God sent us, and she said, “I have children and if they go somewhere, God will take care of them too.” She was very understanding about our comfort and told us to sleep wherever we wanted. Like most homes here, it was 95F inside the house and the power was scheduled to go out at 10pm. We opted to sleep outside where it was cooler.
When I injected my insulin, She said she had diabetes too – but her blood sugar was 104 the other day, and once it got up to 130. I told her that she was doing great, and meant it. Those numbers are in the normal range for after a meal, so I assume these were fasting measurements for her.
Later we hung out on the patio and fielded lots of questions about our trip from the various family members. We have been getting a lot of mileage out of Janet’s illegal immigration story – and it gets people to open up about their own migration stories.
There is a lot more to tell you about this evening, but I’m exhausted. Maybe Janet will post more today, and I’ll write some more stories about everyone tomorrow.

Beautiful light this evening. Janet and i keep commenting that these inland parts of Honduras are surprising us with their beauty.
Photo credit: Janet

I wasn’t expecting this bridge to be out today because….

because…..
I had seen this street photo from Google from almost two years ago and assumed that the bridge would have been fixed by now! It wasn’t!
Honduras doesn’t really have street view; it must be blocked by the government. This made route planning challenging. There are some “photo spheres” which are 360 degree views that individuals can upload – so we use those if they are available (rare)

Do you see anything wrong with this picture? Murphy’s law would have it – I just finished worrying about the brake rotors, brake pads and tires after Mark brought us a resupply, when I heard a BOING yesterday. We stopped to check the wheel and everything looked OK. But today I took another look and we have a big problem. I hope Chris Kind will honor their lifetime warranty on these tandem hubs. I followed all their rules and built the wheels three cross. Luckily, the wheel seems to be working, so our plan is to keep riding it!! Note that two spokes have ripped out.

We almost always ask people if we can help them when we see them stuck. Sometimes it is obvious that we can’t help, but we like to ask anyway because you never know. In this case, the moto had jammed the chain – similar to how you might get your chain stuck between the small cog and frame on a bike. I pulled out my tiny “Learherman Squirt” tool and sheepishly asked, “Do you think this is big enough for the axle nuts?” Hope disappeared from the man’s face. We both knew the answer: “no.” But then I looked closer and saw that the plate for tensioning the chain was blocking the chain’s exit path. I asked if we could try to loosen that bolt and we both got our spirits up. The tiny pliers were able to loosen the bolt to move the plate. He knew what to do next: engage the chain and roll the moto backwards. The chain popped free! He was pretty happy, and I was a bit surprised that this little tool was able to help. He then gave us a number of blessings from God and such, which we were happy to accept.
Many many many strangers have come along to help us throughout this trip; so we were finally able to pay back a tiny bit of that.

Janet and I stopped for lunch, but couldn’t finish our meal because my stomach was queasy from dehydration – and maybe some strange cheese the other day. We decided to feed the dogs. Janet separated the chicken meat from the bones to keep the dogs safe. The dogs must have known what she was doing because they started gathering. We decided to distribute the meat evenly rather than put it in front of then and step back from the ensuing dog pile. I was elected as the giver-of-food – and did a nice handoff to the first, polite dog. The second dog did not want to wait his turn, however, and chomped my finger causing a small puncture wound that was quite painful.
It occurred to me that we are in Honduras and this is a stray dog for sure. Before I started research rabies online, I got out my antibiotics and did some good washing of the wound. I’d say I was cleaning it less than 2 minutes later.
In Spanish, “rabia” means “anger,” and it also means rabies. I guess that the name rabies has Spanish origin because people with rabies can become very angry. The other possibly is that they fear water. If I have rabies, it’s the first kind, because I’m kind of angry for trying to feed the dog, and still very thirsty. Either way, 100% of people with rabies die without treatment.
Unfortunately, treatment needs to be started within 24 hours for best results. Treatment can be obtained in some big cities, and a course is about $2,500 US. Symptoms develop in 1-8 weeks, and once they do, death comes in less than a week. Not looking too good.
Janet suggested we ask at the pharmacy- which we did. They told us that they were not aware of any rabies cases in the pueblo. Also, they said that social services had a program for rabies vaccines in dogs. Janet hounded them, “even for street dogs?” The two women looked at each other – probably wanting these gringos to go away. “Yeah, they vaccinate street dogs too.” Right.

We are in a fairly rural and remote part of Honduras now. We don’t have amenities such as running water or air conditioning here. We learned that no one in this town has running water. I’m guessing that some water comes on every now and then… and they fill the buckets to capture it for later. This is our shower. It wasn’t too bad, but then Janet pointed out all the swimming creatures in our toilet flush bucket, and she announces that she’s not brushing her teeth tonight.

When we got to the hot springs, it seemed like a party. Yes, these were hot springs: boiling hot! There were several ramadas with huge families beneath. In the main area, there were dozens of concrete cylinders in the ground (like the one pictured). Boiling water was erupting from the ground. People could borrow those wooden utensils shown in the previous photo to cook their food in the boiling water. It looked pretty popular considering how many people were gathered here and how few people we had been seeing along the route.
While I was exploring this park, Janet got a lot of new kid-friends. I listened as they said to her in English, “hello. Goodbye. Hehe. Hello, goodbye, haha.” Janet would reply in Spanish, and the kids would run away giggling. One kid came up to Janet and said in English, “good morning, good morning!” Because it was 2:30PM, sweet Janet explained to him, “good morning is ‘buenos días.’” Then she said, “buenas tardes is ‘good afternoon’”. In English, he replied, “no English.” 🤷‍♂️

After a hot ride, Janet and I came to the town of Esquías. We wandered around looking for a place to spend the night. It was noon, but the heat is so powerful, we are unable to achieve long days like we did in Mexico. Something we noticed in Town was that there were a lot of colorful murals promoting education and reading. Coincidentally, there was more than one school – and kids in uniforms walking the streets. I don’t recall seeing that since Mexico. Seeing the colors and the uplifting words encouraging education made me breathe a bit more easily; it contrasted starkly with the razor wire compounds we had been passing the last couple days.
The one “hotel” (someone’s house) in town was full; something we’ve not really encountered on this trip, but there was another place that was even on Google called “Hospedaje Mamita Fany”. We rode by the location, which also looked like a person’s house, but a very elderly woman was sitting on the patio with her back turned to me. Before I could ask her if this was actually a hotel, another woman asked what we were looking for…

… We asked, “Is this a hotel called Fanny?”(the name we had seen on Google). The younger woman confirmed that it was – but right away explained that it was not even a one star hotel. No fan, no bathroom. She pretty much was trying to talk us out of it. The older woman sat with her back turned towards us, but there was a glimmer of familiarity about her; just from the nape of her neck.
Anyway, a long conversation with the younger woman ensued (Rosa Cristina, pictured here). She encouraged us to try a house next door, and when they didn’t answer, she seemed delighted to have us come to her house to stay. Janet and i were a bit worried about the lack of air conditioning, but crap, people who live here endure this heat their entire lives. Can’t we toughen up? (as i type this, The sun has already set and it is a balmy 94F).
Rosa took us to her beautiful home overlooking mountains and pine trees. As we followed her, I saw another mural… something looked familiar, so I took a photo…
Now I was starting to put two and two together. That “hotel” was listed as “Fany Hotel” and I was thinking that the elderly woman on the porch might be the one on this mural. Rosa saw me taking the picture and said, “That is Fanny. She is my aunt.” I said, “The one we saw on the porch?” She said “yes. She is a writer, and that is why there are the murals.” If you look back 2 photos, you will see this woman appears on the other colorful mural as well.
I quickly saw what a difference someone like this could make to a community. It’s immediately obvious that people are moving forward in this town – probably more than in some of the other dusty communities we had been passing through the last couple days. Were the people of the town inspired by this one woman who gained small amount of fame by being a writer? Quite likely, I’d guess.

After a few days in pretty isolated areas, Janet and I returned to a paved road and got some drinks. These 3 children were really excited about our bike. César (directly behind me) was the most enthusiastic pedaler – though I could barely understand him because he was missing all his front teeth (he probably just happened to lose his baby teeth all at once). Behind him, Eric was a little more shy. Janet and I offered them a ride, and they actually went and grabbed the motorcycle helmets on their own! Sophie, in the background, was too shy to get on the bike, but she delighted in seeing the two boys go for a ride around the parking lot.
Photo Credit to Janet for capturing this just right: goofy helmets and César’s smile. 😊

Here are some scenes from today’s ride in what you could consider the “middle” of Honduras. I keep being surprised by all the pine trees, and more desert-like climate. Another thing that surprises me a little is the relative lack of population. In Guatemala, wild camping was almost always out of the question because it was nearly impossible to find a small piece of land that didn’t have people roaming around. Honduras has a population density of 82 people per Km ², whereas Guatemala has 158 people per km ². (USA is 36 people per km ²)
The license plates on Honduran vehicles say “cuidemos los bosques” (we protect the forests). 24% of the land in Honduras is protected by either its 21 National Parks or a few scattered protected areas. By comparison, only 13% of land in the USA is considered to be protected. It’s not a totally fair comparison because Honduras is so much smaller than the US; but still a data point.
In an effort to see the diversity of Honduras, we spent the last week intentionally riding through the non-touristic regions of the country, which yielded a view of Hondureño life and two educational home-stays.
Although we have ridden through a couple National Parks/biospheres, they don’t feel the same as parks in the US because there isn’t much (any) infrastructure for visitors; they are simply protected areas marked on the map. Moving forward, however, we will enter some slightly more visited regions with things to see and photo!

Janet and I will visit at least 14 of the 18 departments in Honduras. The department we just departed from (Yoro) has a particularly interesting meteorological phenomenon that occurs every year. I’d like to share that with you:
“At least once a year, sometimes twice, usually around May or June, fish rain down from the heavens onto Yoro, Honduras. The locals call it Lluvia de Peces (downpour of fish) and claim it has been happening every year for about one hundred years.
No one has actually seen the fish falling from the sky. After a heavy rain, the ground will suddenly be covered with fish. The residents collect the fish for their kitchen tables, but selling it is prohibited. Despite several attempts to discover the source of the strange phenomenon, scientists remain baffled.”
The local explanation, which is fun, but not scientifically supported:
“A Spanish priest, Father José Manuel de Jesus Subirana, who arrived in Honduras in 1855 and worked there until his death in 1864. According to the legend, Father Subirana saw the suffering of the poor people in Honduras and prayed for three days and three nights that God should help the poor people and to provide them food. In answer to his prayer, a dark cloud appeared and fish rained from the sky, feeding all the people. Since then this wonder is repeated every year.
There have actually been several reports of fish raining down from heaven, but Honduras appears to be the only place blessed with this deluge of seafood on a regular basis.”
From Wikipedia:
“Witnesses of this phenomenon point out that it begins with a darkening of the sky caused by dense clouds, followed by lightning and thunder, strong winds, and rain. copious lasting 2 to 3 hours (typical behavior of tropical storms). Once the rain has stopped, the villagers find hundreds of fish scattered on the ground, still alive. The villagers collect them and transport them to their homes to cook and eat them later. The fish are freshwater, they are always found alive, they do not lack eyes, they are not huge but small and, according to the villagers, they are not the type of fish found in nearby areas. Since 1998, a festival known as the Rain of Fish Festival has been held every year.”

We went to the Cerro Azul Meambar National Park in Honduras. From a logistics standpoint, on a bicycle, the best way to visit the park was to sleep inside… so Janet and i booked a room at the Panacam lodge down below. Since it was a Saturday night, I decided to make a reservation- which is typical Latin American frustration; it took 43 What’s App messages to get it worked out. I’d ask, “I’d like to make a reservation.” And the reply would be “i can help you with that.” I’d wait… then ask, “how can I make the reservación?” They say, “What is your name?” I’d send my name. Wait. Wait. I’d say, “can I just send you my credit card?” It was super tedious, but now that we are here, it all makes sense: the wifi is so slow, which explains why it took an hour to make a simple reservation!

View At the PANACAM Lodge

Pulhapanzak waterfall, the biggest in Honduras. Must-do for a waterfall lover!

This is Gabina (today’s coffee buddy) with Janet. We pulled into her driveway because there was a sign saying that they make (as in cultivate) coffee here. She told us she would make coffee with “dust,” so I laughed to Janet that they have a plantation, and here they are using instant coffee! But later I got clarification. “Polvo” (powder) in this case means she grew the coffee here, dried it, and ground it into powder herself. OK! She told us about all of her family members and how she “lives here all by herself”. But then we later found out that both her daughters live here. Sadly, her husband passed away 17 years ago when he was 40. We didn’t ask details.
Gabina got really interested when we told her we were husband and wife, but with a big age difference. She brightened up because she had been thinking she was too old to find someone, but maybe not now. Unfortunately, I didn’t understand everything she said after that, but we all smiled big and nodded, so I think it was something good.
Next I said, “El Amor…”
“Love is blind,” she said, finishing my sentence.
I just agreed with her for simplicity sake, but hey wait a minute! Janet is a cutie. I think the adage she was looking for is “love knows no age”.
By the way, I just realized that if you add to age you get an adage. 😂

After visiting Celaque National Park, we headed off to Presidente Hot Springs in Honduras

This man stopped his welding project to come over and talk to us. He wanted photos of the bike so he could “fabricate one like it” with his welding equipment. We enjoyed talking to them; his daughter was obviously very intelligent and she contributed a lot to the conversation (which is a little unusual for women of this age in Honduras; normally teenagers are more shy). They mentioned that they had not gone to the United States because they are Christians – and it is a sin to violate laws.
I was happy to see the daughter participating so much. Many adult women speak to us comfortably, but sometimes teenagers are pretty shy. Honduras doesn’t have a good reputation for its homicide rates – and depending on how you measure, it also has the world’s highest femicide rate. It’s not a great place to be female.
Hopefully things are improving here; Honduras has its first female president ever – she has been in office since January. We are still waiting to see if the former Hondureño president will be extradited to the US to face charges for participating in drug trafficking; a Honduran judge approved this a few days ago.

We started this morning with a plan – a plan that would evolve quickly into something completely new.
The plan at the Honduras exit was for me to hand in my passport first. Janet would fiddle with her stuff in the dirt as the migration officer revised my passport for dates. I told Janet that there was a 0.5% chance this would work, but the hope was that the officer would see my dates and just stamp Janet’s without looking. I handed him my passport, and as I stood there nervously. He looked at every single detail of my passport carefully- even questioning dates. This guy was extremely detail oriented – but hey, he had time; he was working out of a painted shipping container that had been dropped on a forgotten dirt/rock road with only a small handful of people crossing per day.
Janet approached as planned and latently placed her passport on the windowsill. The guy had carefully examined every single page of my passport, he hesitated with the stamp and mentioned something about not wanting to stain my passport. He carefully applied the stamp. Then he returned it and grabbed Janets from the sill. My heart rate escalated to 111 BPM from the usual resting in the low 40s. He opened her passport, placed an exit stamp, smiled and said, “feliz viaje!”
What!?!? The 0.5% chance worked! Amazing!
But I’m not one to count my chickens before they hatch. We rode across the river and encountered the second shipping container painted blue and white. Janet and I had already discussed: “repeat plan A to enter El Salvador”
We followed the routine, but this time, the man said, “looks like we have a problem here… Your wife is illegal..” From here began a long story of him insisting we had to go back to Honduras, me pleading for other options (we knew the hotel we had been at was full tonight, and with my illness, I couldn’t fathom sleeping outside in the 90F, 100% humidity heat). He stepped away to make some phone calls and told us we needed to return to Honduras for 3 days, then come back for our flight and he’s let us in for 24 hours – no more.
This still was unacceptable – we had managed to “sneak past” Honduras this morning, but no way we were going to be able to do that 2 more times (in… and our). This foolish thing we did is the Punnishment That Keeps On Giving.
So, with one bar of cellular reception we managed to change our flight again. Unfortunately, all that was available was a flight with a layover. By the way, the ONLY reason we were doing this border crossing was so that we could get a direct flight. I’m so scared of flying, and with the bike, checking it just once is a nightmare… and now we have to check it twice.
The migration officer took off (yeah, you can’t cross if no one is there), and he summoned his “buddy” who could drive us to the airport in the necessary time (too far to ride in 24 hours; it takes 4 hours alone just to pack the bike).
Traveling makes you feel like a cork bobbing in the ocean, but traveling as an illegal makes it a tumultuous sea. Your destiny is completely in the hands of another, and each time you think you’re done with problems, another wave crashes over you.
Still have more hurdles tomorrow.

Immigration between Honduras and El Salvador. It’s a pretty minor border crossing. We were held up here for hours, and during that time only two people crossed.

During the border ordeal, we took dozens of photos with the immigration officers and soldiers. They lined us up in various locations and the migration official held up our passports and all the paperwork he had filled out to the camera. Even after he left, there were phone calls where we had to pose for more photos in different positions. I finally joked with one of the soldiers, “are you going to post this on Instagram?” He told me (and this was later verified at another location) that soldiers are not allowed to have any social media. If they have an account, boom. They are fired.
Anyway, the soldiers were pretty lighthearted. As soon as they found out we were illegals, they started telling us their own illegal immigration stories to the US.. even that they plan to try again. (But not THIS guy).
Janet snagged this photo; we thought about asking us to send us some of the group photos, but maybe that was too much.
With all the holdups and changes, you can see why I have “reservations about making reservations”