Day 131 I stayed in Guatemala City
Day 132 ta: 2193 kt:37.7 gps:N 14 degrees 33.533' W 90 degrees 46.448'
Day 133 to 142 I stayed in Antigua
Day 143 ta: 2138 kt: 68.2 gps: N 14 degrees 15.520' W 90 degrees 46.448'
I have spent the last week and a half sitting around and waiting for a new tent part. The vast majority of my time was spent being a lazy little fart. I surfed the internet a lot and watched a lot of movies since the place I was staying at had free internet and free movies.
On my most active day in Antigua, I took the tour to the top of the active volcano named Pacaya. We hiked to the top where there is a large crater of mostly dry lava. Small streams of lava flow out of many cracks at the top. While standing in the crater, it began to rain. Most of the rain vaporized before hitting the hot lava bed. That was pretty cool.
I did a little routine bike maintainance. My rear brake felt like there was no recoil so I replaced the cable housing. This worked like a charm in fixing the problem. The sidewalls of my tires are starting to burst so I taped the insides up with electrical tape hoping to extend their life a little bit. I want to try to sqeeze another 1,000 kilometers into them. I find it unexpected that my brake pads are probably going to outlast my tires.
My ride out of Antigua was quite lovely. First, I had to climb about 2,000 feet over ten kilometers and, then, I rode downhill for the last 58 kilometers. I descended almost 6,000 feet in this long downhill stretch. The temperatures where I am camping are noticably warmer and I am going to have to content with the insects again.
There was another unexpected road hazard today: vomit. While dodging puddles of puke, I saw the source leaning out of a bus and projectile vomiting. I made sure to let her know when I passed. Though not deadly like other road hazards, I did not want to be covered in someone's partially digested lunch.
Day 144 ta: 1546 kt:91.7 gps: N 14 degrees 03.780' W 90 degrees 27.907'
I suffered a mild case of dehydration today. Fortunately, I was only a mile from a town when it happened. Though I have heard many times before that it is bad to drink cold water, 90+ degree water does nothing to quench your thirst on a hot day. I started feeling fatigued at the 85 kilometer mark and was peeing a solid stream of concentrated yellow. I just took extra breaks and tried to satisfy my thirst with the hot water that I had, knowing that the next town was close.
There was a point in the road where there was no bridge and a bunch of boats. The boat operator quoted a price of 50 Quetzals and then doubled it when I was already on the boat. What could I do? I was probably the guy's only fare for the day as the road I was on was infrequently travelled.
Alvaro Colom, the president of Guatemala, has earned my respect by offering to declassify all of the military records from the Guatemalan civil war. This is a step in the right direction for the government to come to terms with the role its military played in the civil war. Of course, the military and right-wing opposition party have condemned this move.
I personally am of the opinion that a democratic government can not have secrets. Usually, they are secrets of an unsavory, antidemocratic nature that would enrage the population. The Freedom of Information Act (F.O.I.A.) of the United States was written with these thoughts in mind but is very limited in its power to shine the light on government activities. The U.S. government can use national security as an excuse to keep documents permanently classified. Unfortunately, the governments darkest and most unsavory secrets are classified thusly. I tried playing devil's advocate to think of a scenario where information should be classified. At first, I thought of keeping the information about invasion forces secret but then I realized that the government has no business invading anyone. Then I thought about keeping the president's security detail secret but I realized that the president shouldn't make anyone so mad that they would go through the trouble of hiring the small army necessary to assassinate him/her.
If I were in power, one of my first moves would be to eliminate the C.I.A. and N.S.C. They are not democratic institutions. A quick look at the history of C.I.A. supported coup d'etats and counterrevolutions should sufficiently prove this. I don't think that C.I.A. agents who die in the line of duty are heroes. They die because they are meddling in affairs that they shouldn't be meddling in.
Since Ralph Nader has entered the election, I might actually vote. He comes the closest to approximating my views. I might end up frustrated with the absentee ballot process, though, and give up. I am, and will always be, unrepentant about voting for Nader in 2000. There was not a large difference between the Bush/Cheney ticket and the Gore " I decry global warming yet live in an opulent mansion that has a larger carbon footprint than a small city/ Lieberman " I'm a war hawk that is endorsing the Republican candidate in 2008" ticket.
Day 145 ta: 2206 kt: 77.1 gps: N 13 degrees 43.651' W 89 degrees 59.014'
It is very hot where I am today and I drank a lot of water because I did not want to repeat yesterday's flirtation with dehydration. I can't wait to climb back into the mountains.
Crossing into El Salvador was, to my pleasant surprise, painless and easy. The money changers didn't try to rip me off and, as it turns out, the stamp in my passport is good for Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicauragua. The downside to this is that I only have a little less than two months to enjoy the rest of Central America as I burned a whole month in Guatemala. I haven't noticed a whole lot of differences here though Chicano chic seems to be in fashion among the youth here.
Day 146 ta: 4175 kt:63.1 gps: N 13 degrees 51.664' W 89 degrees 47.474'
So far, El Salvador is not half bad. The travel guide, which I inherited from an Aussie flying to Canada, makes it sound relatively expensive. Granted, I have only camped but I was able to stuff myself at a pupuseria for $1.15 For those of you who don't know. A pupusa is a gordita by another name. The presentation is slightly different, though. A pupusa is sealed and served with a vinager cole slaw while a gordita is open and served by itself.
I underestimated the amount of time it would take to get to Apaneca, El Salvador today. I am camped pretty close to it in a coffee plantation. My campsite is well elevated so I should be pretty snug and cozy in my sleeping bag tonight. Hopefully, tomorrow I will be able to see la Laguna Verde before I go to el Cerro Verde National Park.
There was an article recently in the New York Times about how the United States imprisons 1 in 99 adults. It imprisons 1 in 35 hispanic men and 1 in 15 African-American men. I just wanted to make a couple of points about these statistics. First of All, our government should not imprison nonviolent offenders. The powers that be can come up with better, more creative solutions for drug offenders , thieves, and the likes. Second of all, I do not believe that blacks and hispanics commit crimes at a higher rate than white people. I believe that their higher rate of imprisonment rather reflects systemic racial profiling by police and their lack of quality legal representation due to their higher rates of poverty. In fact, I am willing to bet that if you did this same study using family income as an indicator, you would probably discover that poor people are imprisoned at a rate similar to blacks and hispanics. Ask any homeless person in the U.S. and I am sure that he will tell you that being poor in the United States is, indeed, a crime. Any why imprison so many people anyway? So we can have higher crime rates than Europe and most of Asia. I am tired of seeing the government resort to the same old, facile, "tough on crime" solutions to the problems associated with crime. Maybe we should attack poverty through expanded educational opportunities instead.
Day 147 ta:2446 kt:48.8 gps: N 13 degrees 42.924' W 89 degrees 43.277'
Day 148 ta: 3242 Kt:68.1 gps: N 13 degrees 42.595' W 89 degrees 12.708'
Day 149 and 150 I stayed in San Salvador
Day 151 ta: 1371 kt: 58.1 gps: N 14 degrees 07.654' W 89 degrees 08.923'
As usual, things don't always go as planned, or rather, plans change. I wanted to go to Cerro Verde National Park but I got sidetracked. I did manage to see la Laguna Verde but I wasn't overly impressed.
On the way to Cerro Verde, I stopped in a town called Juayùa where I found out that there is a weeked gastronomic fair. I, of course, had to stay because I figured that I might discover some new foods. There was one food that was new to me. It was called a rigua and consists of fresh corn pressed of all of its liquids, cooked inside a banana leaf, and then grilled. It was good but didn't change my life.
I didn't make it out of Juayùa until the early afternoon but it was still enough time to make it to the National Park. The only problem was that the entrance was not well marked. I missed it when I was zooming down a long hill.
When I rode into San Salvador, I thought it would be nice to stay for a couple of days. I didn't do too much other than watch T.V., surf the net, and talk with fellow travellers. I figure that I earn the right to some serious downtime since I exert myself so much on the road.
San Salvador didn't seem much worse than any other large city in Latin America. Contrary to its reputation, there are not large groups of Maras lurking around every corner. In fact, the city has many large American-style shopping malls filled with U.S. based chains. San Salvador is more prosperous than one might expect. The area around the central market seemed a little sketchy but I had a good time getting myself lost in the labryntine hallways.
It seems like the relationship between Colombia and Ecuador and Venezuela is deterioration after Colombia crossed into Ecuadoran territory to kill a senior F.A.R.C. commander. Both Ecuador and Colombia have mobilized troops on the border but I don't think that it is any more than chest-beating and posturing. This may not be front page news in the U.S. but it dominates headlines in Latin America. I don't think that this will affect my travel plans but I will, nonetheless, be monitoring the situation closely.
Day 152 ta: 4198 kt: 48.1 gps: N 14 degrees 26.224' W 89 degrees 10.997'
Day 153 ta: 4076 kt: 42.1 gps: N 14 degrees 31.276' W 88 degrees 56.936'
Crossing into Honduras yesterday was quite easy. I have developed a system for dealing with money changers: I make them quote how much money they will give me and I don't show them the money until I agree to their terms. I am always ready to walk away. I think that I will start gathering a group of them and let them compete for money. The only surprise for me was that I had to pay the Honduran entry tax in a Salvadoran government building.
I stayed the night at a hotel since the lodging is cheap. They had a television with cable and the other patrons and I ended up watching a bunch of American movies dubbed in Spanish. Good fun was had by all.
I got a late start because I was working on trying to solve the problem of my rapidly deteriorating tires. My solution has been to contact as many bike shops and hotels as possible that are south of my present location until I can find someone who can receive my tires for me. Hopefully, I will solve this problem by the time I make it to Colombia.
The area I rode through today is a legitimate cloud forest. After ascending to 5,000 feet, I could barely see more than a 100 feet ahead as I was right in the middle of the clouds. Of course, jackass drivers still pass in the opposing lane even though they have no visibility whatsoever. When I finally got to the top of Honduras's highest paved road, I was rewarded with the strongest headwind I have ever experienced. Judging by the movement of the clouds, I was in the midst of a wind that was moving by at least 20 miles per hour. I couldn't rest my bike on its kickstand it was so strong. Fortunately, the wind was only at the very top. I rather enjoyed my descent. I rode past lots of wildflowers. Many villagers had planted extensive orchid gardens as this is the ideal climate for them. They were quite lovely. I am looking forward to going through more cloudforests in Honduras.
Day 154 ta:4138 kt:51.3 gps: N 14° 47.562' W 88° 46.781'
I have been slacking. In all fairness to myself, I have done of 4,000 feet of ascent the last three days in a row. Maybe I subconsciously want to enjoy the mountains for what they are worth. I take frequent breaks just to stare reverently at the stunning scenery.
I should probably make it more of a point to eat prepared meals whenever possible in more rural areas. I ended up ascending a mountain for another 20 kilometers today after I had the opportunity to eat earlier on. By the time I reached the top, I was running on fumes.
Day 155 ta:2812 kt:82 gps: N 15° 17.347' W 88° 29.884'
I had several flats today caused by faulty rim tape. It kept sliding over and exposing the innertube to the spokes. The first time I just replaced a section of the rim tape. This only made the problem worse and caused a second flat. The second time I replaced all of the rim tape with a double layer of electrical tape. It is holding now and, hopefully, I will be able to make it to San Pedro Sula, Honduras by tomorrow. It is a large city so I should be able to remedy the problem there. I also discovered that two of the innertunes that I was carrying were nonfunctional trash. They were labeled "German type" valves and looked like prestivalve tubes from the drawing on the box but I should have examined them further. I should have examined them when I purchased them. Oh well, they were cheap. I am now down to one innertube and a hundred patches.
It seems like the standoff between Colombia and Venezuela and Ecuador has cooled off somewhat. Moreover Colombia killed another senior F.A.R.C. commander or, rather, a defector brought in the severed hand of said leader to prove his death. I am somewhat worried that we might soon see a F.A.R.C. counteroffensive of shelling of major cities or, worse for me, and increase in kidnappings.I continue to monitor the situation. I hope that the Colombian government doesn't think that it can successfully defeat the F.A.R.C. by killing off all of its senior commanders. Instead, this will only accelerate its transition from Marxist insurgency to drug cartel. This transition has already been occuring since before the fall of the Medellin Cartel. The F.A.R.C. would also probably lose its Colombian identity and become a destabilizing force in all of the Andean nations. They will go whereever the enforcement is laxest or most easily bribed. The F.A.R.C. will only disappear when the insatiable demand for cocaine from the United STates decreases. That will never happen because that would require an intelligent drug policy that attacks demand instead of supply. Our current strategy is the complete opposite of that and puts food on the table of many a drug baron.
Day 156 ta:2729 kt:78 gps: N 15° 29.921' W 88° 00.624'
Day 157 ta: 1568 kt: 63.4 gps: N 15° 34.604' W 87° 36.903'
Getting to San Pedro Sula was simple enough. The road to the city was mostly flat and it wasn't ridiculously hot and humid like the guidebook promised. The highlight of my day was when a young boy, who belonged to the owners of a restuarant where I ate, exclaimed, "Hombre feo." or ugly man and hit me in the back of the head. I shot him a very dirty look and he didn't bother me again.
In all fairness to the little boy, I am starting to look a little grungy. My beard now measures over 3 inches and my moustache is sun-bleached. I am starting to enjoy my vagabond experience. It still isn't enough to keep the beggars and conmen away, though. They only see my pale skin. My goal is to be so grungy looking that beggars give me money.
When I arrived in San Pedro Sula, I immediately made some new friends. When I was on the side of the road, looking at a map of the city, I met Nora and Luis Fernando, an elementary school teacher and her grandson respectively. Nora helped me find a bike shop and offered a place to stay for the night. I got lost looking for her place. All of the streets are numbered but it turns out there was more than one intersection of 7th Street and 14 Avenue in the quadrant of the city that I was in. I eventually was able to find her house by asking directions along the way. I almost ended up in one of those tragicomic situations like Clark Griswold in American Vacation where he takes a wrong turn and asks directions in a bad neighborhood only to have all of his hubcaps stolen. To limit the possibility of this happening, I only asked from people who were on the job: a security guard, a taxi driver, and a group of policemen. The latter group bought me some sugar cane juice and told me I was in a dangerous neighborhood which was pretty obvious from all of the thuggish looking kids walking around. I ended up with a machine gun escort to Nora's house so I felt pretty safe.
I found out after the fact that San Pedro Sula is where the most infamous Mara Salvatrucha massacre took place where a group of men machine-gunned 27 bus riders to there death for no apparent reason other than to gain notoriety. What I did not know is that this massacre occured two days before Christmas. Most of the victims were returning from Christmas shopping for their families. That is fucked up. This massacre was recently in the news again because a court just convicted the two men charged with orquestrating the massacre.
I left San Pedro Sula pretty late today after surfing the internet and eating brunch. The scenery was flat and uninteresting until I crossed through a crossroads at the town of El Progreso. Afterwards, the flat terrain was replaced by jungle mountains with crystal clear streams of water flowing down the slopes every kilometer or so. I am camped next to one of these lovely streams right now, staying out of the rain. The rain is not super heavy but it hasn't relented for the last hour or so. Hopefully, it will stop raining by the morning.
Day 158 ta: 2111 kt: 138 gps: N 15° 47.179' W 86° 47.581'
Day 159 ta: 53 kt:6.8 gps: N 16° 05.547' W 86° 53.502'
Day 160-167 I stayed in Utila
Day 168: ta:1243 kt:54 gps: N 15° 41.545' W 86°30.265'
Day 169 ta:1274 kt: 59.2 gps: N 15° 26.668' W 86° 22.571'
I wanted to get to Utila as fast as possible so I could find a dorm before the rush of Semana Santa vacationers arrived. I knew that all of the beach towns were going to fill up and that all of the banks were going to close. Being that this was a potentially disastrous situation, I decided it was better to hunker down in one place for a while.
I was interested in scuba diving but the cheapskate in me was saying that maybe I would just snorkel since it was cheaper. As soon as I put my face in the pristine water though, I knew that I was about to spend a lot of money on my scuba certification. I even took the advanced course so I can dive deeper and at night.
The coral reef here is an extension of the Belizian reef which is the second largest in the world after the Great Barrier Reef of Australia. When you first peer into the clear blue Carribean waters, an explosion of shapes and colors overwhelms the senses. Fishes of every color swim through coral formations of every shape and size. I saw parrot fishes, angel fishes, damsel fishes, stingrays, starfishes, barracudas, sea cucumbers, porcupine fishes, groupers, and many, many more fishes representing the entire spectrum of the rainbow. After spending a lot of time underwater. I am officially hooked. I now want to dive in the Phillipines, Indonesia, and many other places.
Utila is an interesting place that attracts an interesting assortment of people. The islanders mostly speak English with a Carribean accent but many speak Spanish as well. Scuba diving attracts people of all sorts. I roomed with party animals and Mormons. A couple of doors down, there was a small contingent of U.S. Army soldiers who were stationed in Honduras. Throw in a bunch of Europeans, some Canadiens, and Latin Americans and we were all one big happy family. One of the soldiers told me I was the craziest man that he ever met which surprised me because I figured that he would probably know some marine who base jumps into war zones or something like that. He gave me the number for the U.S. Army base in Honduras in case I need to be evacuated in an emergency. Hopefully, that won't be necessary.
I am now back on the road. It seems like the rainy season is fast approaching as it started sprinkling and then pouring in the afternoon. I decided to wait the rain out instead of use my rain gear. If it starts to rain every day, which I think it might, I will probably start carrying my rain gear at the ready and ride in the rain. I am warm and dry right now and grateful for being so.
When I was setting up camp today a woman came and told me I was in a dangerous place to camp. To emphasize her point, she told me that the authorities had found a dead body in the same general area. I wasn't too scared since I figured that the body was dumped there rather than murdered on site. To allay her fears , though, I moved my still empty tent behind some bushes where it was better hidden. She even checked in on me later. I have a guardian angel.
Day 170 ta:2684 kt: 38.6 gps: N 15° 17.357' W 86° 30.320'
Some days are smooth sailing with lots of flat ground and beautiful weather. Today was not one of those days. It rained most of the day and when it wasn't raining it was infernally hot and steamy causing me to peel off all of my raingear. To call the road that I rode on a dirt road would be too generous of a description. It was more of a mud road. When I asked a policeman which road to take to La Union he pointed at this road and my heart just sank. I saw buses riding down it though and I figured I could make it if they could make it. I am sure glad that my new tires were knobbies and not slicks. My traction was pretty good on most of the road but there were parts where I was sloshing around in mud pits. My favorite part of the day was when I came to a fork in the road that had no clearly labeled signs pointing the right direction to La Union. I took a guess, chose one direction, and asked the first people that I saw if I was following the right direction. They told me I was so I didn't have to turn around. I am now sitting in my tent and wearing dry clothes and hoping that it doesn't rain anymore tonight.
Day 171 ta: 2168 kt: 30.3 gps: N 15° 06.263' W 86° 34.087'
I woke up this morning to yet more rain. After several long ascents, I had sweated so much that my rain gear was practically useless. When I finally found a place to eat, I stayed for and extended period of time so I could dry off and ate four portions of food since I had been subsisting off of cookies and almonds since the morning before. After I finally made myself leave, I managed to reach the leeward side of the mountain where it obviously hadn't rained in the last couple of days because the cars still kicked up dust. I am hoping that there is no more rain on the 100 kilometers or so of dirt road that remains. I was pretty miserable when I was cold, wet, and hungry. I am a firm believer that what doesn't kill you only makes you stronger.
Day 172 ta:2441 kt: 48.2 gps: N 14° 52.240' W 86° 39.531'
Day 173 and 174 I stayed in Tegucigalpa
It rained a little bit at night but, other than that, it was dry all day. Thank the lord, Hallelujah. I rejoiced in not having to wear my rain gear. Once you sweat inside your clothes in the cold mountains, your raingear is useless. The towns are getting bigger which means there are more places to eat but there is still no pavement. In most of the villages here they never see white people. When I roll up on my bicycle, it is like I am a rock star and circus all rolled up into one. I am usually swarmed by locals asking about my trip. My belly was happily full or I might have bristled at all of the attention.
I am camped right now on the top of a hill on the side of the road underneath a moss covered pine tree. Tomorrow, I am determined to reach pavement again. I hope to celebrate my birthday in civilization.
Day 173 ta:3404 kt: 69.8 gps: N 14°32.543' W 86° 43.109'
I reached pavement today. Yay!! I think I now know how a sailor who has been lost at sea feels like the first time he sees land. All told, the road was about 143 kilometers of bone-rattling, tick-infested, desolate, and muddy hellishness. If my useless travel guide or GPS had given me better warning, I might have avoided the road altogether but I am stronger for having survived it. I will say, though, that it sure did feel good to go down a hill with no brakes again after I finally left the dirt.
Some of the internet cafes in the countryside might as well be filled with typewriters. They are that useless. It would often take 10 minutes for a page to load if it loaded at all. When I get to Tegucigalpa, I am going to find a true high-speed internet connection so I can watch Youtube videos to my heart's content.
It seems to me that people everywhere are so irrationally afraid. Their eyes bug out in shock when I tell them that I am camping in the countryside. They always tell me that they have found dead bodies in these parts. Usually not even a car passes by in the night. The people who are murdered are usually murdered for a reason. I am just passing through without stepping on anyone's toes. Nevertheless, the locals always seem to believe that the countryside is populated by roving bands of narcosatanists who roam the countryside looking for foreigners to torture, kill, and skullfuck. I haven't been skullfucked yet. Knock on wood. I blame the media for putting the fear in these people's hearts.
Day 174 ta: 5209 kt:111 gps: 14° 06.410' W 87 ° 12.166'
I passed through two different ecosystems today on the way to Tegucigalpa. The first was pine forests and the second, just to the north of the city, looked like it could be somewhere in Texas. It was very much a desert area. I passed through a large shantytown area outside of the city and was eager to get out. I saw what looked like a couple of glue addicts having an argument only for one of them to pick up a huge rock and threaten the other one with it. Fortunately nothing happened. I saw this all from the other side of the street as I had the foresight to cross the road when I saw these two.
When I arrived in the city, the sun was setting and I, of course, arrived in the part of the city that my tourist book referred to as the dangerous part of the city. I soon found out that the whole city is sketchy. This is definitely the sketchiest seeming city in Latin America that I have visited thus far.
I was starving so I stopped at a place that sells baleadas (Honduran bean tacos) and gorged on them. A old homeless man came up to the lady and wanted to buy a baleada but he didn't have the 35 cents necessary to buy one. He was too proud to beg and began to walk away. The lady sold him one for 25 cents instead. I bought him a baleada too as I was feeling kind of guilty after eating 9 and watching him go hungry. The sad thing is that he probably goes hungry every day. I know there is poverty in the United States but we have so much food that we throw away perfectly good food. You have to make an effort to starve in the U.S.
I found out that the itching on my head is indeed lice. I probably picked them up on that dirt road along with a few ticks and dozens of ant and mosquito bites. I bought some shampoo but if I have to, I will go to the nuclear option and shave my head. I will keep the beard and moustache, though, so I can go from a vagabond look to a satanic look. It is nice to stay in a place and not get eaten alive by bugs so I am enjoying a stay of a couple of days here in the capital.
Sunday, March 30, 2008
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Riding in Circles
Day 112 ta:3381 kt:49.1 gps: N 14 degrees 39.678' W 90 degrees 49.743'
The wind was raging outside of my tent all night long and this morning when I woke up. I have no way of ascertaining this but it seemed like the wind was gusting at about thirty miles per hour. Needless to say, I did not want to leave the warm confines of my sleeping bag this morning. I eventually managed to force myself to get up.
I was fortunately shielded from this wind by the mountains for most of the day. There were moments, however, when fierce headwinds almost redirected me. The first part of my day was filled with challenging ascents and terrifying descents. The roads here are extremely steep and are not in the greatest condition. I was braking for dear life around a lot of the turns as I felt like I was just a little bit more speed away from losing control of my bike which weighs more than half my body weight with gear. This being said, I am glad that I didn't have to challenge the wind as this would have been even more exhausting.
When I arrived in Chimaltenango, there was still plenty of time left in the day and I could have ridden further but I was so close to Guatemala City that I didn't feel like rushing. My friend won't be back in the city until Monday night and we probably won't be able to meet up until Tuesday so there is no reason to rush. I asked some firemen if they knew where Mayapedal was and they said it was probably closed since it was a Sunday. I then asked them if they knew a cheap place where I could stay and they told me that I could stay at the fire station for free. I had my own room with a television and everything. How cool is that!
The television in the fire station only picked up one station: it picks up the Evangelical station broadcast from Guatemala City. I watched a little bit of a cheaply made movie about a teenage girl who gets pregnant when she has sex with her boyfriend. She originally wants to get an abortion but changes her mind when she finds out what it entails. The movie ends with the girl having the baby with support from her middle class parents so she can still attend school and even the university. Her boyfriend starts a personal relationship with Jesus and asks her to marry him at the end of the movie. Bullshit propaganda! I want to make a movie about a Mayan girl when she has sex with her boyfriend only to be dumped when he finds out that she is pregnant. She then ends up begging on the streets with her baby as her Evangelical family shuns her for having the baby out of wedlock. As is usual, her pleas for help will be ignored by the vast majority of those who walk by. The movie will end with her freezing to death while clutching her malnourished baby.
This all makes me want to research the availability of condoms in this country. Mexico is a majority Catholic country but they have television for condoms where the pharmacist always sells a pack of condoms, "Con gusto." I have also seen posters, paid for by the government, advising victims of rape of their right to an abortion. They also sell pornography on street corners in Mexico. I have even seen little girls selling porn. My point is that Catholics seem a lot less hung up about sex than Evangelicals.
Day 113 ta: 3298 kt: 70 gps: N 14 degrees 37.783' W 90 degrees 31.143'
Day 114 and 115 I stayed in Guatemala City.
When I left Chimaltenango, I was kind of in a hurry so I could meet my friend in Guatemala City and go pick up my new wheel. My old rear wheel has definitely seen better days. I took a slight detour through Antigua. I can't say that I was particularly impressed. It seemed like another tourist trap to me. The rocky roads only reminded me of how fucked up my wheel was and the prices seemed high throughout the city. I basically just stayed for lunch and a little internet surfing and then I was on my way to the big city. I had to climb up one side of a little mountain, ride on the top for a while and then zoom down the other side. I didn't realize it at the time but I topped out at 77 kilometers per hour. This was probably when I was passing cars in the left lane of the highway. With a fully loaded bike, that is not just staring-death-in-the-face fast. That is french-kissing-death-while-copping-a-feel fast. I live for that shit.
I spent most of my time in Guatemala City doing a bunch of nothing but I did end up being productive by trying out new things. My bicycle is very happy now that it has a new wheel. I washed my dirty, stinky clothes and managed to find some new flavors to try. I tried atole de platano and atole blanco which is an unsweet atole soup. The Museum of History is not where my map said it was and pretty much seems nonexistent or I would have gone there.
Guatemala City has a reputation as an ugly city. I think that this is an unfair reputation. If you were to hang out in the Central Plaza, you might think that you were in a European city if it wasn't for the man selling fresh goat's milk squeezed from the goat's nipples right in front of you. The city is, however, a dangerous city. I read a news article about how there was an average of thirteen murders a day during the first thirteen days of the presidency here. That is 4,745 murders a year if it continues at that rate. There are reports in the news every day about members of the Mara Salvatrucha killing bus drivers or pregnant ladies. At night, most of the city shuts down. Since I am not much of a drinker, I stayed at the hotel hanging out with the others who were travelling through.
The Mara Salvatrucha is a gang that was originally started in Los Angeles by Salvadoran immigrants. As the gang grew, they eventually started to allow immigrants from other Central American countries to join. They participate in drug dealing, human trafficking, and various other criminal enterprises. During the mid-1990s the U.S. government officials decided to deal with the problem of the Maras by deporting them back to the countries of their origins where they only multiplied since these countries had no law enforcement resources to deal with gangs. El Salvador is still the epicenter of Mara activity but they have become quite prevalent in Guatemala and Honduras, too. They are notoriously violent and I have read that they represent 60% of all Salvadoran prisoners. Their most infamous attack occured when they boarded a bus in Honduras and killed every single person on board with machine guns. They are a problem which I am going to have to look out for.
I am happy to report after a cursory investigation that contraceptives and condoms are indeed available here. The Evangelicals haven't fucked everything up, yet. It doesn't seem to me that many people use them but, at least, they are available.
Day 116 kt:64 ta: 2420 gps: N 14 degrees 49.378' W 90 degrees 08.947'
Today, there was a long descent leaving the city followed by rolling hills. I have descended enough that I don't think that it is going to be quite so cold tonight. Hopefully, I won't have to deal with the mosquitos or gnats just yet. I have already grown used to not dealing with them in the cold mornings. I look forward to riding through a flatter part of Guatemala soon.
Day 117 kt:72.4 ta:5145 gps: N 15 degrees 02.634' W 90 degrees 12.301'
I fooled myself into thinking I was mostly going to travel on flat land today. I could not have been more wrong. The terrain was challenging but the scenery was beautiful as is typical in the mountains. There were less semis and more space. There were less semis and more space and this made me very happy. Hopefully, tomorrow I won't have to do as much climbing.
I saw a weird occurence in nature today. It was a mother hen followed around by a flock of adopted ducklings. I took a picture. It was cute. I am convinced that if a hen will adopt a bunch of ducklings that we can eventually live in a world without borders.
Day 118 kt:80.2 ta: 3510 gps: N 15 degrees 29.054' W 90 degrees 22.846'
The countryside here is beautiful. I feel like I have said that so many times but there are so many beautiful places in the world. It is a transitional ecosystem that has pine trees mixed with jungle plants. The banana trees looked out of place next to the pine trees but there they were. The crisp, cool air made riding my bike to be quite pleasant. There were dozens of varieties of wildflowers and I took many pictures.
I could have ridden much farther than I did but my internet addiction was calling me. I just had to read the news. Hopefully, I will ride through a large stretch of land where there is no internet. Today, I read an article on the ESPN web site about a black man who is doing the same thing as me albeit in a different continent. He claims to be the first African-American to do something like this. He is definitely the first that I know of. When I think about it, I don't know that many black bike commuters. Lifestyle activism still seems like a very white middle-class thing to do.
The campsite where I am at is at the base of a hill covered in sunflowers. Pictures just don't do this place justice. I was discovered by the family that lives at the top of the hill. As most people are naturally curious, they came down to check me out. We talked for a while and they brought me some delicious tamales. They even offered to let me stay at there house but I was already set up so I graciously declined.
I know that I have been talking a lot of shit about Evangelicals here in Guatemala so I figured that I would balance that out with some nice things to say. With the obvious exception of Rios Montt, most Evangelicals live truly Christian lifestyles. They are honest, hardworking, and more than happy to offer hospitality to strangers. These people are not hypocrites. Hypocrisy is probably the one thing that offends me the most about Christins in the United States. They support the death penalty but worship a martyr put to death by the Roman government. They decry homosexuality but have have secret affairs with gay prostitutes. They only seem to remember the teachings of Jesus when it suits their interests. I think that poverty has a way of purifying religious beliefs and practices. In the United States, people really worship the almighty dollar and power, not Jesus.
Day 119 kt:85.8 ta: 5103 gps: N 15 degrees 53.566' W 90 degrees 13.504'
When I woke up this morning, my tent was completely wet with dew. It was cold, too. This problem was solved by descending 3,000 feet into the jungle. The first part of my day consisted of me zooming down mountains. I was just about the fastest thing around. Some of the hills here are so steep and have such sharp turns that I had some very scary moments. There is no room for error when you are rounding a curve at 60+ kilometers per hour with a fully loaded bike.
The second part of my day consisted of me going up and down hills in the heat. The hills gradually got smaller and mostly flattened out near the end of the day. This was exhausting and I worked up quite and appetite. I took and internet/lunch break in the town of Chisec during the hottest part of the day. I didn't get a whole lot more riding in during the rest of the day because I was still hungry and stopped to eat again.
The jungle here is very beautiful. It looks like something that you might see in the movies. All the plants are overgrown and the soil seems very fertile. I look forward to the next week even though it is going to be hot and steamy.
Day 120 kt:104 ta:3395 gps: N 16 degrees 31.902' W 90 degrees 11.431'
There is a crack in my tent poles that is in the very worst possible place. It is in the one place that I can't cover with the repair tube. I have covered it with electrical tape and am hoping that it will hold. I have decided that electrical tape is the second greatest invention of mankind right after the bicycle and ahead of birth control. Electical tape is useful for patching the sidewalls of my tires when they wear out and for lashing my GPS device onto my handlebars now that the mount doesn't function properly. I am sure that I will find other uses for it as well. If I sold a universal fix-it kit, it would have electrical tape, superglue, and epoxy putty.
I made good time today but I would have made even better time if it wasn't for the three flats that I had on the road. The Mexican state of Guerrero is the last place where I had a flat so I had a pretty good run of luck until today. I used patches until the third time when my tire exploded while I was looking for a hole so I could patch it. There was an old man at the store who told me he could use my old innertube. I was happy to be able to recycle it rather than just throw it away. Today was hot and frustrating to the point where I almost shooed away the children who had gathered to watch me fix my flat. I restrained myself because I realized that they were only curious.
I made it to the town of Sayaxche and found a $2.50 hotel room. I left to go find food and water only to discover my fourth flat when I returned. I have checked my tire for stubborn thorns and did everything that someone who is fixing flat should do. Fuck you God!
Someone tried to charge me gringo prices today. He tried to sell me a cold hamburger for 8 Quetzals. I wasn't interested in the hamburger, anyway, but I overheard him selling the same hamburgers to passengers passing by in the buses for 5Quetzals. I may be a dumb gringo but I'm a dumb gringo who speaks Spanish. Moreover, I am willing to bet that at least 95% of those who read my blog can count to ten in Spanish. I was tempted to say something to him but I decided to let sleeping dogs lie.
There are definitely some Mexicans and Guatemalans in the words they use and how they use them. Mexicans use the word tope for speedbump while Guatemalans use the word tumulo. Mexicans use estacionamiento for parking lot while Guatemalans use parqueo. Gringo is used as a derogitory word in Mexico while it is purely descriptive here in Guatemala. In Mexico, they use güero to describe a light-skinned person. I still don't like being called gringo, though. I ignore the dozens of children who cry out, "Gringo." as I ride by. I completely understand how my Korean-American friend feels when people call him chino. The last thing that I have noticed is that Guatemalans always seem to say adios to those who pass by. In Mexico it is always buenos dias, buenos tardes, or buenos noches depending on the time of the day. Sometimes people say goodbye to me instead of adios. That and mister seem to be a few of the English words that everyone learns in school. I almost want to stop and explain that we never say goodbye without first saying hello and that we only say mister followed by a surname.
Day 121 kt: 81.8 ta: 2059 gps: N 16 degrees 53.981' W 89 degrees 48.980'
It still hasn't thawed out in North America, Europe, and Asia but it is hotter and steamier than the devil's scrotum in the northern part of Guatemala calle the Petèn. I got a late start and that was too bad because it was already hot by 9:00 a.m. It was mostly flat today though there was a headwind. I am going to wake up early tomorrow and, hopefully, I will make it to Tikal by midday.
Today is Fat Tuesday or Super Tuesday depending on whether you are religious or political respectively. I don't truse Barack Obama one iota but I would enjoy seeing him best out Hillary Clinton. Even though she is female, she represents just about everything that is wrong with the Democratic party to me. She is the kind of person who wouldn't make a decision without first conducting a poll, running it by focus groups, and discussing it with her campaign donors. We need presidents that would make decisions based on the courage of their convictions without worrying whether it is the popular choice. Hillary's Iraq vote is the perfect example of her cowardice. She is a smart woman and I know she knew better.
I am not a huge fan of football but I follow it enough to know that the New England Patriots were undefeated heading into the Super Bowl. I appreciate the irony that a team called the Giants got to be the giant slayer. Though I am not a fan of either team, I will never root for a team called the Patriots. To me, patriot is just a synonym for retarded, jingoistic frat boy. I like how I didn't know the outcome of the game until two days afterwards. That would be impossible in the U.S.
I read in the New York Times that more people tuned into the game to watch the commercials than the game itself. When did we all become such corporate whores. Commercials are supposed to be annoying. I close all ads on the internet before they even load. Until advertising agencies embark on a quest to improve the world by teaching us how to prevent disease epidemics, fighting global warming, etc... I will always despise advertising. We don't need to buy more disposable shit. I don't care if the entire world economy depends on us consuming more and more. We need to find a better, more sustainable way of living if we don't want to become extinct in a hundred years.
Day 122 kt:55 ta:2065 gps: N 17 degrees 13.486' W 89 degrees 36.625'
I made it to Tikal by midday as I had hoped but by then things had taken a frustrating turn. My tent pole officially broke though I was able to make things function with some electrical tape and a the repair tube. I might try another epoxy solution when I find another ferreterìa. To make things worse, my jungle heat rash has returned. I am sure that this is going to make my bike ride pretty hellish tomorrow. I decided it was best to just leave all of those problems behind and enjoy the jungle trek through the ruins.
I ended up making most of the trek with Vicki and Aleph, a single mother and her son from Great Britain. They are living in Central America and Mexico for a year. I am sure that it is going to be a wonderful educational experience for Aleph and I hope he comes away with an appreciation of the diversity of the earth's cultures from this experience. I enjoyed discussing the trials and tribulations as well as the joys of travelling through Central America with Vicki. She gave me a heads up on places to visit and has me rethinking my decision to bypass El Salvador. She is planning to write a book during her sojourn here and I wish her the greatest of luck.
My feelings about Tikal are ambivalent. On the one hand it is definitely a tourist trap. It cost about $20 just to enter the park if you are a foreigner plus all of the food is expensive. I even ended up paying $5 an hour for a slow internet connection with no headphones so I couldn't rock out to cumbias on youtube. On the other hand there are pretty impressive ruins here and the flora and fauna are spectacular. I saw monkeys, parrots, and various birds which I don't know the name of. There are even some spiders that come out at night that have crazy irridescent eyes that reflected the light of my flashlight.
Day 123 kt:69.2 ta:2033 gps: N 16 degrees 46.711' W 89 degrees 48.519'
The low-pitched, throaty growl of the howler monkeys is what woke me up this morning. I would take that any day over roosters, loud trucks, or copulating horses. I spent some time looking at birds and then I was off. It was time to leave the tourist trap that is Tikal.
It was overcast until the the early afternoon which was totally welcome because it made for the best riding weather. I took off my shirt, hat, and sunglasses and enjoyed it. It even seemed liked the animals stayed out a little bit longer. I even saw a toucan as it was flying away. If it had rained, I would not even have put on my rain gear. I have seen a lot less rain than I prepared for at the beginning of my trip but it is better safe than sorry.
The area that I have been riding through strives to be a jungle but it seems like most of it has been cleared to make way for cattle ranching and monoculture. The jungle is always encroaching. It makes me wonder if humans could ever truly destroy the planet before the planet destroyed them. A hundred thousand years from now, will the planet be a vast, barren wasteland ruled ruled by super-intelligent cockroaches with opposable thumbs who wonder and speculate about humanity the same way we do about the dinosaurs who ruled the planet before us, or will humanity survive albeit in smaller numbers and humbled by the fierce backlash that nature will have against its destructive practices? Time will only tell. It is hard to tell if humanity is struggling against the encroachment of nature or if it's the other way around.
Everyone seems to be carrying a gun in this part of the country. It is legal for Guatemalan citizens without criminal records to own and possess weapons unlike in Mexico. Today, I even saw a man drinking a bottle of rum with his gun tucked into his pants ready to blow his dick off. I restrained myself from commenting to him about this because it is a good rule not to antagonize those who are drinking and packing heat. Maybe this means my life-long dream of owning a one-stop gun and liquor store could be a reality some day.
I spent a larger chunk of my day than I would like trying to use epoxy putty to make a more permanent repair to my tent pole. This was all done in vain and, as nightfell, I had to do the unenviable task of filing off the epoxy putty while being swarmed by insects so I could fit the repair tube over the pole. Tomorrow, I think I might try to use the repair tube and epoxy putty in conjunction for a more permanent solution. The one thing that I learned from this is that if I ever see cracks in my tent pole that I should immediately epoxy the cracks shut before they become a bigger problem. I saw the cracks about three or four days ago and I decided to take the wait-and-see approach. Boy was that a mistake. Anyhow, I managed to construct my tent tonight so things aren't that bad. I am going to check the details of the lifetime warranty for my tent though I have camped more on this trip than many people camp in their whole lifetimes. I seriously doubt they will send me a new pole outside of the U.S.
Day 124 kt:82.6 ta: 2324 gps: N 16 degrees 18.246' W 89 degrees 25.326'
Day 125 kt:103 ta: 3385 gps: N 15 degrees 39.375' W 88 degrees 59.876'
Day 126 I stayed in Rio Dulce
Day 127 kt:56.4 ta:1598 gps: N 15 degrees 23.160' W 89 degrees 01.053'
I am back in the southern part of Guatemala. It is still hot and steamy but it seems to rain a lot more. I stayed in Rio Dulce for an extra day because the rains would not let up. I left the place the place where I was staying because there was a break in the rain. It didn't matter though because I got completly soaked in the afternoon.
On the road, I met yet another bicyclist. He is Christian from Switzerland. He is also going to southern Argentina. When we met it had just finished raining and he told me about a place not to far down the road from where we were called Finca Ixobel. Since I was wet, I rode with him there and stayed the night in a dorm rather than my tent. Finca Ixobel seems to be a tourist destination in itself rather than just a place to stay. You can go on jungle tours and horseback rides all withing the property. There seems to be a fair number of people that stay there for extended periods of time. You can volunteer there for six-week periods of time for free room and board. Since I was in social mood, I hung out at the bar. The next morning, I was on my way south, again. Christian and I parted ways though not before exchanging emails.
When I made it to Rio Dulce, I met a man named George who is kayaking all of Guatemala's river systems. He has made several first descents down some class 5 rapids and says that Guatemala is mostly undiscovered as a kayaking destination. He is making me think that I want to take up kayaking. When he is working, he is a National Park Ranger. As much fun as I am having, I couldn't help but be a little envious of him.
I read in the news that producing ethanol from corn actually releases more carbon dioxide than burning gasoline. This is because the increased corn production displaces other crops to parts of the world where they still use slash-and-burn agriculture which dumps massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Those of us in the developed world have to know that we can't have our cake and eat it, too. Sooner or later, the technoligical solutions to our energy crisis will run out and we will have to use conservation as our primary strategy to combat global warming. Very few people here in Guatemala have air conditioners and they seem to do just fine. They also don't light every single street at night. There are so many small changes we could make in our lifestyle that would have a very real effect on our overall energy consumption.
I am trying to escape from the wet part of the country. Hopefully, I will have done so by tomorrow. I will, however, be in the cold part of the country, again.
Day 128 kt:65.2 ta: 2443 gps: N 15 degrees 05.622' W 89 degrees 26.245'
Having a flat tire and finding an internet cafe pretty much ruined my chances of riding a 100 kilometers today. When I saw a lovely, babbling brook on the side of the road about an hour and a half before sunset, I decided to call it quits for the day since I found such a perfect campsite. I even took a bath meaning that I jumped into the creek naked.
They sure do like their guns in rural Guatemala. I saw man today who was carrying a 9mm with four extra ammunition clips. You would never need this much ammunition unless you got in a shootout with other people. I wondered if the guy thinks he is a badass or if he is that scared of being in a shootout.
Day 129 ta:1930 kt: 57.9 gps: N 14 degrees 55.125' W 89 degrees 54.572'
I have got to break free from my slacker ways. I could travel a lot faster if I wasn't such an internet addict. At least I am well informed. I know, for example, that Barack Obama has recently been sweeping the primaries and caucuses and has been taking in more campaign contributions than Hillary Clinton. As I have said before, I don't particularly like Obama but I strongly dislike Hillary Clinton on account of being a Clinton. Bill Clinton singlehandedly drove me from the Democratic party. I unapolagetically voted for Nader in 2000 and didn't vote for president in 2004. I have lost faith in the American democratic system and now focus my efforts on paying as little taxes as possible. Eventually, I will probably move out of the U.S. altogether so I am not financing the government.
My rear brakes are acting kind of weird. I think that I am going to have to replace the cable housing when I get to Guatemala City. Right now, it is just a minor nuissance.
I am camping right now in what is probably the driest part of Guatemala. A row of cacti separates me from the highway. I was just interrupted from writing my diary by the police who say my headlamp. At first I turned off my headlamp to hide but,when I saw that they had their guns drawn, I decided that it was best to announce my presence. Once they realized that I was just some crazy foreigner they were more at ease and reholstered their guns. They told me it was dangerous where I was and I told them that I felt safe. They, of course, didn't say anything about me camping on public or private land. I am behind a fence but they didn't seem to care. There are too many laws in the United States. I know for a fact that what I am doing right now would be considered illegal for a variety of reasons in the U.S. I probably would be arrested or, at least, ticketed in Texas.
Day 130 kt:100 ta: 6948 gps: N 14 degrees 37.783' W 90 degrees 31.103'
Since I have been slacking off so much, I decided it was time for a punishing day. I had to ascend from a valley to about 5,000 feet to get into Guatemala City. The stretch of highway that I rode on is the worst in Guatemala as far as I know. There are long sections of highway with no shoulder and it is a major east-west trucking corridor. Needless to say, I don't find tightroping the edge of the road and zooming down hills,while being passed by ten semis at a time with inches to spare, to be a whole lot of fun. I am an adrenaline junkie but I still prefer to be in a little bit more control over my life.
Happy corporate-guilt-trip-you-into-buying-something-for-the-one-you-love-or-think-you-love day. I hope yall don't have to declare bankruptcy after today.
The wind was raging outside of my tent all night long and this morning when I woke up. I have no way of ascertaining this but it seemed like the wind was gusting at about thirty miles per hour. Needless to say, I did not want to leave the warm confines of my sleeping bag this morning. I eventually managed to force myself to get up.
I was fortunately shielded from this wind by the mountains for most of the day. There were moments, however, when fierce headwinds almost redirected me. The first part of my day was filled with challenging ascents and terrifying descents. The roads here are extremely steep and are not in the greatest condition. I was braking for dear life around a lot of the turns as I felt like I was just a little bit more speed away from losing control of my bike which weighs more than half my body weight with gear. This being said, I am glad that I didn't have to challenge the wind as this would have been even more exhausting.
When I arrived in Chimaltenango, there was still plenty of time left in the day and I could have ridden further but I was so close to Guatemala City that I didn't feel like rushing. My friend won't be back in the city until Monday night and we probably won't be able to meet up until Tuesday so there is no reason to rush. I asked some firemen if they knew where Mayapedal was and they said it was probably closed since it was a Sunday. I then asked them if they knew a cheap place where I could stay and they told me that I could stay at the fire station for free. I had my own room with a television and everything. How cool is that!
The television in the fire station only picked up one station: it picks up the Evangelical station broadcast from Guatemala City. I watched a little bit of a cheaply made movie about a teenage girl who gets pregnant when she has sex with her boyfriend. She originally wants to get an abortion but changes her mind when she finds out what it entails. The movie ends with the girl having the baby with support from her middle class parents so she can still attend school and even the university. Her boyfriend starts a personal relationship with Jesus and asks her to marry him at the end of the movie. Bullshit propaganda! I want to make a movie about a Mayan girl when she has sex with her boyfriend only to be dumped when he finds out that she is pregnant. She then ends up begging on the streets with her baby as her Evangelical family shuns her for having the baby out of wedlock. As is usual, her pleas for help will be ignored by the vast majority of those who walk by. The movie will end with her freezing to death while clutching her malnourished baby.
This all makes me want to research the availability of condoms in this country. Mexico is a majority Catholic country but they have television for condoms where the pharmacist always sells a pack of condoms, "Con gusto." I have also seen posters, paid for by the government, advising victims of rape of their right to an abortion. They also sell pornography on street corners in Mexico. I have even seen little girls selling porn. My point is that Catholics seem a lot less hung up about sex than Evangelicals.
Day 113 ta: 3298 kt: 70 gps: N 14 degrees 37.783' W 90 degrees 31.143'
Day 114 and 115 I stayed in Guatemala City.
When I left Chimaltenango, I was kind of in a hurry so I could meet my friend in Guatemala City and go pick up my new wheel. My old rear wheel has definitely seen better days. I took a slight detour through Antigua. I can't say that I was particularly impressed. It seemed like another tourist trap to me. The rocky roads only reminded me of how fucked up my wheel was and the prices seemed high throughout the city. I basically just stayed for lunch and a little internet surfing and then I was on my way to the big city. I had to climb up one side of a little mountain, ride on the top for a while and then zoom down the other side. I didn't realize it at the time but I topped out at 77 kilometers per hour. This was probably when I was passing cars in the left lane of the highway. With a fully loaded bike, that is not just staring-death-in-the-face fast. That is french-kissing-death-while-copping-a-feel fast. I live for that shit.
I spent most of my time in Guatemala City doing a bunch of nothing but I did end up being productive by trying out new things. My bicycle is very happy now that it has a new wheel. I washed my dirty, stinky clothes and managed to find some new flavors to try. I tried atole de platano and atole blanco which is an unsweet atole soup. The Museum of History is not where my map said it was and pretty much seems nonexistent or I would have gone there.
Guatemala City has a reputation as an ugly city. I think that this is an unfair reputation. If you were to hang out in the Central Plaza, you might think that you were in a European city if it wasn't for the man selling fresh goat's milk squeezed from the goat's nipples right in front of you. The city is, however, a dangerous city. I read a news article about how there was an average of thirteen murders a day during the first thirteen days of the presidency here. That is 4,745 murders a year if it continues at that rate. There are reports in the news every day about members of the Mara Salvatrucha killing bus drivers or pregnant ladies. At night, most of the city shuts down. Since I am not much of a drinker, I stayed at the hotel hanging out with the others who were travelling through.
The Mara Salvatrucha is a gang that was originally started in Los Angeles by Salvadoran immigrants. As the gang grew, they eventually started to allow immigrants from other Central American countries to join. They participate in drug dealing, human trafficking, and various other criminal enterprises. During the mid-1990s the U.S. government officials decided to deal with the problem of the Maras by deporting them back to the countries of their origins where they only multiplied since these countries had no law enforcement resources to deal with gangs. El Salvador is still the epicenter of Mara activity but they have become quite prevalent in Guatemala and Honduras, too. They are notoriously violent and I have read that they represent 60% of all Salvadoran prisoners. Their most infamous attack occured when they boarded a bus in Honduras and killed every single person on board with machine guns. They are a problem which I am going to have to look out for.
I am happy to report after a cursory investigation that contraceptives and condoms are indeed available here. The Evangelicals haven't fucked everything up, yet. It doesn't seem to me that many people use them but, at least, they are available.
Day 116 kt:64 ta: 2420 gps: N 14 degrees 49.378' W 90 degrees 08.947'
Today, there was a long descent leaving the city followed by rolling hills. I have descended enough that I don't think that it is going to be quite so cold tonight. Hopefully, I won't have to deal with the mosquitos or gnats just yet. I have already grown used to not dealing with them in the cold mornings. I look forward to riding through a flatter part of Guatemala soon.
Day 117 kt:72.4 ta:5145 gps: N 15 degrees 02.634' W 90 degrees 12.301'
I fooled myself into thinking I was mostly going to travel on flat land today. I could not have been more wrong. The terrain was challenging but the scenery was beautiful as is typical in the mountains. There were less semis and more space. There were less semis and more space and this made me very happy. Hopefully, tomorrow I won't have to do as much climbing.
I saw a weird occurence in nature today. It was a mother hen followed around by a flock of adopted ducklings. I took a picture. It was cute. I am convinced that if a hen will adopt a bunch of ducklings that we can eventually live in a world without borders.
Day 118 kt:80.2 ta: 3510 gps: N 15 degrees 29.054' W 90 degrees 22.846'
The countryside here is beautiful. I feel like I have said that so many times but there are so many beautiful places in the world. It is a transitional ecosystem that has pine trees mixed with jungle plants. The banana trees looked out of place next to the pine trees but there they were. The crisp, cool air made riding my bike to be quite pleasant. There were dozens of varieties of wildflowers and I took many pictures.
I could have ridden much farther than I did but my internet addiction was calling me. I just had to read the news. Hopefully, I will ride through a large stretch of land where there is no internet. Today, I read an article on the ESPN web site about a black man who is doing the same thing as me albeit in a different continent. He claims to be the first African-American to do something like this. He is definitely the first that I know of. When I think about it, I don't know that many black bike commuters. Lifestyle activism still seems like a very white middle-class thing to do.
The campsite where I am at is at the base of a hill covered in sunflowers. Pictures just don't do this place justice. I was discovered by the family that lives at the top of the hill. As most people are naturally curious, they came down to check me out. We talked for a while and they brought me some delicious tamales. They even offered to let me stay at there house but I was already set up so I graciously declined.
I know that I have been talking a lot of shit about Evangelicals here in Guatemala so I figured that I would balance that out with some nice things to say. With the obvious exception of Rios Montt, most Evangelicals live truly Christian lifestyles. They are honest, hardworking, and more than happy to offer hospitality to strangers. These people are not hypocrites. Hypocrisy is probably the one thing that offends me the most about Christins in the United States. They support the death penalty but worship a martyr put to death by the Roman government. They decry homosexuality but have have secret affairs with gay prostitutes. They only seem to remember the teachings of Jesus when it suits their interests. I think that poverty has a way of purifying religious beliefs and practices. In the United States, people really worship the almighty dollar and power, not Jesus.
Day 119 kt:85.8 ta: 5103 gps: N 15 degrees 53.566' W 90 degrees 13.504'
When I woke up this morning, my tent was completely wet with dew. It was cold, too. This problem was solved by descending 3,000 feet into the jungle. The first part of my day consisted of me zooming down mountains. I was just about the fastest thing around. Some of the hills here are so steep and have such sharp turns that I had some very scary moments. There is no room for error when you are rounding a curve at 60+ kilometers per hour with a fully loaded bike.
The second part of my day consisted of me going up and down hills in the heat. The hills gradually got smaller and mostly flattened out near the end of the day. This was exhausting and I worked up quite and appetite. I took and internet/lunch break in the town of Chisec during the hottest part of the day. I didn't get a whole lot more riding in during the rest of the day because I was still hungry and stopped to eat again.
The jungle here is very beautiful. It looks like something that you might see in the movies. All the plants are overgrown and the soil seems very fertile. I look forward to the next week even though it is going to be hot and steamy.
Day 120 kt:104 ta:3395 gps: N 16 degrees 31.902' W 90 degrees 11.431'
There is a crack in my tent poles that is in the very worst possible place. It is in the one place that I can't cover with the repair tube. I have covered it with electrical tape and am hoping that it will hold. I have decided that electrical tape is the second greatest invention of mankind right after the bicycle and ahead of birth control. Electical tape is useful for patching the sidewalls of my tires when they wear out and for lashing my GPS device onto my handlebars now that the mount doesn't function properly. I am sure that I will find other uses for it as well. If I sold a universal fix-it kit, it would have electrical tape, superglue, and epoxy putty.
I made good time today but I would have made even better time if it wasn't for the three flats that I had on the road. The Mexican state of Guerrero is the last place where I had a flat so I had a pretty good run of luck until today. I used patches until the third time when my tire exploded while I was looking for a hole so I could patch it. There was an old man at the store who told me he could use my old innertube. I was happy to be able to recycle it rather than just throw it away. Today was hot and frustrating to the point where I almost shooed away the children who had gathered to watch me fix my flat. I restrained myself because I realized that they were only curious.
I made it to the town of Sayaxche and found a $2.50 hotel room. I left to go find food and water only to discover my fourth flat when I returned. I have checked my tire for stubborn thorns and did everything that someone who is fixing flat should do. Fuck you God!
Someone tried to charge me gringo prices today. He tried to sell me a cold hamburger for 8 Quetzals. I wasn't interested in the hamburger, anyway, but I overheard him selling the same hamburgers to passengers passing by in the buses for 5Quetzals. I may be a dumb gringo but I'm a dumb gringo who speaks Spanish. Moreover, I am willing to bet that at least 95% of those who read my blog can count to ten in Spanish. I was tempted to say something to him but I decided to let sleeping dogs lie.
There are definitely some Mexicans and Guatemalans in the words they use and how they use them. Mexicans use the word tope for speedbump while Guatemalans use the word tumulo. Mexicans use estacionamiento for parking lot while Guatemalans use parqueo. Gringo is used as a derogitory word in Mexico while it is purely descriptive here in Guatemala. In Mexico, they use güero to describe a light-skinned person. I still don't like being called gringo, though. I ignore the dozens of children who cry out, "Gringo." as I ride by. I completely understand how my Korean-American friend feels when people call him chino. The last thing that I have noticed is that Guatemalans always seem to say adios to those who pass by. In Mexico it is always buenos dias, buenos tardes, or buenos noches depending on the time of the day. Sometimes people say goodbye to me instead of adios. That and mister seem to be a few of the English words that everyone learns in school. I almost want to stop and explain that we never say goodbye without first saying hello and that we only say mister followed by a surname.
Day 121 kt: 81.8 ta: 2059 gps: N 16 degrees 53.981' W 89 degrees 48.980'
It still hasn't thawed out in North America, Europe, and Asia but it is hotter and steamier than the devil's scrotum in the northern part of Guatemala calle the Petèn. I got a late start and that was too bad because it was already hot by 9:00 a.m. It was mostly flat today though there was a headwind. I am going to wake up early tomorrow and, hopefully, I will make it to Tikal by midday.
Today is Fat Tuesday or Super Tuesday depending on whether you are religious or political respectively. I don't truse Barack Obama one iota but I would enjoy seeing him best out Hillary Clinton. Even though she is female, she represents just about everything that is wrong with the Democratic party to me. She is the kind of person who wouldn't make a decision without first conducting a poll, running it by focus groups, and discussing it with her campaign donors. We need presidents that would make decisions based on the courage of their convictions without worrying whether it is the popular choice. Hillary's Iraq vote is the perfect example of her cowardice. She is a smart woman and I know she knew better.
I am not a huge fan of football but I follow it enough to know that the New England Patriots were undefeated heading into the Super Bowl. I appreciate the irony that a team called the Giants got to be the giant slayer. Though I am not a fan of either team, I will never root for a team called the Patriots. To me, patriot is just a synonym for retarded, jingoistic frat boy. I like how I didn't know the outcome of the game until two days afterwards. That would be impossible in the U.S.
I read in the New York Times that more people tuned into the game to watch the commercials than the game itself. When did we all become such corporate whores. Commercials are supposed to be annoying. I close all ads on the internet before they even load. Until advertising agencies embark on a quest to improve the world by teaching us how to prevent disease epidemics, fighting global warming, etc... I will always despise advertising. We don't need to buy more disposable shit. I don't care if the entire world economy depends on us consuming more and more. We need to find a better, more sustainable way of living if we don't want to become extinct in a hundred years.
Day 122 kt:55 ta:2065 gps: N 17 degrees 13.486' W 89 degrees 36.625'
I made it to Tikal by midday as I had hoped but by then things had taken a frustrating turn. My tent pole officially broke though I was able to make things function with some electrical tape and a the repair tube. I might try another epoxy solution when I find another ferreterìa. To make things worse, my jungle heat rash has returned. I am sure that this is going to make my bike ride pretty hellish tomorrow. I decided it was best to just leave all of those problems behind and enjoy the jungle trek through the ruins.
I ended up making most of the trek with Vicki and Aleph, a single mother and her son from Great Britain. They are living in Central America and Mexico for a year. I am sure that it is going to be a wonderful educational experience for Aleph and I hope he comes away with an appreciation of the diversity of the earth's cultures from this experience. I enjoyed discussing the trials and tribulations as well as the joys of travelling through Central America with Vicki. She gave me a heads up on places to visit and has me rethinking my decision to bypass El Salvador. She is planning to write a book during her sojourn here and I wish her the greatest of luck.
My feelings about Tikal are ambivalent. On the one hand it is definitely a tourist trap. It cost about $20 just to enter the park if you are a foreigner plus all of the food is expensive. I even ended up paying $5 an hour for a slow internet connection with no headphones so I couldn't rock out to cumbias on youtube. On the other hand there are pretty impressive ruins here and the flora and fauna are spectacular. I saw monkeys, parrots, and various birds which I don't know the name of. There are even some spiders that come out at night that have crazy irridescent eyes that reflected the light of my flashlight.
Day 123 kt:69.2 ta:2033 gps: N 16 degrees 46.711' W 89 degrees 48.519'
The low-pitched, throaty growl of the howler monkeys is what woke me up this morning. I would take that any day over roosters, loud trucks, or copulating horses. I spent some time looking at birds and then I was off. It was time to leave the tourist trap that is Tikal.
It was overcast until the the early afternoon which was totally welcome because it made for the best riding weather. I took off my shirt, hat, and sunglasses and enjoyed it. It even seemed liked the animals stayed out a little bit longer. I even saw a toucan as it was flying away. If it had rained, I would not even have put on my rain gear. I have seen a lot less rain than I prepared for at the beginning of my trip but it is better safe than sorry.
The area that I have been riding through strives to be a jungle but it seems like most of it has been cleared to make way for cattle ranching and monoculture. The jungle is always encroaching. It makes me wonder if humans could ever truly destroy the planet before the planet destroyed them. A hundred thousand years from now, will the planet be a vast, barren wasteland ruled ruled by super-intelligent cockroaches with opposable thumbs who wonder and speculate about humanity the same way we do about the dinosaurs who ruled the planet before us, or will humanity survive albeit in smaller numbers and humbled by the fierce backlash that nature will have against its destructive practices? Time will only tell. It is hard to tell if humanity is struggling against the encroachment of nature or if it's the other way around.
Everyone seems to be carrying a gun in this part of the country. It is legal for Guatemalan citizens without criminal records to own and possess weapons unlike in Mexico. Today, I even saw a man drinking a bottle of rum with his gun tucked into his pants ready to blow his dick off. I restrained myself from commenting to him about this because it is a good rule not to antagonize those who are drinking and packing heat. Maybe this means my life-long dream of owning a one-stop gun and liquor store could be a reality some day.
I spent a larger chunk of my day than I would like trying to use epoxy putty to make a more permanent repair to my tent pole. This was all done in vain and, as nightfell, I had to do the unenviable task of filing off the epoxy putty while being swarmed by insects so I could fit the repair tube over the pole. Tomorrow, I think I might try to use the repair tube and epoxy putty in conjunction for a more permanent solution. The one thing that I learned from this is that if I ever see cracks in my tent pole that I should immediately epoxy the cracks shut before they become a bigger problem. I saw the cracks about three or four days ago and I decided to take the wait-and-see approach. Boy was that a mistake. Anyhow, I managed to construct my tent tonight so things aren't that bad. I am going to check the details of the lifetime warranty for my tent though I have camped more on this trip than many people camp in their whole lifetimes. I seriously doubt they will send me a new pole outside of the U.S.
Day 124 kt:82.6 ta: 2324 gps: N 16 degrees 18.246' W 89 degrees 25.326'
Day 125 kt:103 ta: 3385 gps: N 15 degrees 39.375' W 88 degrees 59.876'
Day 126 I stayed in Rio Dulce
Day 127 kt:56.4 ta:1598 gps: N 15 degrees 23.160' W 89 degrees 01.053'
I am back in the southern part of Guatemala. It is still hot and steamy but it seems to rain a lot more. I stayed in Rio Dulce for an extra day because the rains would not let up. I left the place the place where I was staying because there was a break in the rain. It didn't matter though because I got completly soaked in the afternoon.
On the road, I met yet another bicyclist. He is Christian from Switzerland. He is also going to southern Argentina. When we met it had just finished raining and he told me about a place not to far down the road from where we were called Finca Ixobel. Since I was wet, I rode with him there and stayed the night in a dorm rather than my tent. Finca Ixobel seems to be a tourist destination in itself rather than just a place to stay. You can go on jungle tours and horseback rides all withing the property. There seems to be a fair number of people that stay there for extended periods of time. You can volunteer there for six-week periods of time for free room and board. Since I was in social mood, I hung out at the bar. The next morning, I was on my way south, again. Christian and I parted ways though not before exchanging emails.
When I made it to Rio Dulce, I met a man named George who is kayaking all of Guatemala's river systems. He has made several first descents down some class 5 rapids and says that Guatemala is mostly undiscovered as a kayaking destination. He is making me think that I want to take up kayaking. When he is working, he is a National Park Ranger. As much fun as I am having, I couldn't help but be a little envious of him.
I read in the news that producing ethanol from corn actually releases more carbon dioxide than burning gasoline. This is because the increased corn production displaces other crops to parts of the world where they still use slash-and-burn agriculture which dumps massive amounts of CO2 into the atmosphere. Those of us in the developed world have to know that we can't have our cake and eat it, too. Sooner or later, the technoligical solutions to our energy crisis will run out and we will have to use conservation as our primary strategy to combat global warming. Very few people here in Guatemala have air conditioners and they seem to do just fine. They also don't light every single street at night. There are so many small changes we could make in our lifestyle that would have a very real effect on our overall energy consumption.
I am trying to escape from the wet part of the country. Hopefully, I will have done so by tomorrow. I will, however, be in the cold part of the country, again.
Day 128 kt:65.2 ta: 2443 gps: N 15 degrees 05.622' W 89 degrees 26.245'
Having a flat tire and finding an internet cafe pretty much ruined my chances of riding a 100 kilometers today. When I saw a lovely, babbling brook on the side of the road about an hour and a half before sunset, I decided to call it quits for the day since I found such a perfect campsite. I even took a bath meaning that I jumped into the creek naked.
They sure do like their guns in rural Guatemala. I saw man today who was carrying a 9mm with four extra ammunition clips. You would never need this much ammunition unless you got in a shootout with other people. I wondered if the guy thinks he is a badass or if he is that scared of being in a shootout.
Day 129 ta:1930 kt: 57.9 gps: N 14 degrees 55.125' W 89 degrees 54.572'
I have got to break free from my slacker ways. I could travel a lot faster if I wasn't such an internet addict. At least I am well informed. I know, for example, that Barack Obama has recently been sweeping the primaries and caucuses and has been taking in more campaign contributions than Hillary Clinton. As I have said before, I don't particularly like Obama but I strongly dislike Hillary Clinton on account of being a Clinton. Bill Clinton singlehandedly drove me from the Democratic party. I unapolagetically voted for Nader in 2000 and didn't vote for president in 2004. I have lost faith in the American democratic system and now focus my efforts on paying as little taxes as possible. Eventually, I will probably move out of the U.S. altogether so I am not financing the government.
My rear brakes are acting kind of weird. I think that I am going to have to replace the cable housing when I get to Guatemala City. Right now, it is just a minor nuissance.
I am camping right now in what is probably the driest part of Guatemala. A row of cacti separates me from the highway. I was just interrupted from writing my diary by the police who say my headlamp. At first I turned off my headlamp to hide but,when I saw that they had their guns drawn, I decided that it was best to announce my presence. Once they realized that I was just some crazy foreigner they were more at ease and reholstered their guns. They told me it was dangerous where I was and I told them that I felt safe. They, of course, didn't say anything about me camping on public or private land. I am behind a fence but they didn't seem to care. There are too many laws in the United States. I know for a fact that what I am doing right now would be considered illegal for a variety of reasons in the U.S. I probably would be arrested or, at least, ticketed in Texas.
Day 130 kt:100 ta: 6948 gps: N 14 degrees 37.783' W 90 degrees 31.103'
Since I have been slacking off so much, I decided it was time for a punishing day. I had to ascend from a valley to about 5,000 feet to get into Guatemala City. The stretch of highway that I rode on is the worst in Guatemala as far as I know. There are long sections of highway with no shoulder and it is a major east-west trucking corridor. Needless to say, I don't find tightroping the edge of the road and zooming down hills,while being passed by ten semis at a time with inches to spare, to be a whole lot of fun. I am an adrenaline junkie but I still prefer to be in a little bit more control over my life.
Happy corporate-guilt-trip-you-into-buying-something-for-the-one-you-love-or-think-you-love day. I hope yall don't have to declare bankruptcy after today.
Friday, February 15, 2008
Evangelism and the Guatemalan Civil War
Day 110 I stayed in Sololá
Day 111 kt:19.7 ta:1925 gps:N14°43.150' W 91°07.262'
I spent an extra day in Sololá doing a bunch of nothing. It was great. I wondered around the marketplace, which was a short distance from where I stayed, watching people interact and finding out the names of fruits and herbs that I did not recognize. The town in very small and walkable so I didn't even touch my bicycle. I walked around for a little bit longer and then spent most of my day in an internet cafe. I had neglected transcribing my blog and ended up typing until my fingers hurt. There was still a lot of work to do when the man who ran the internet cafe kicked me out so he could close up shop. I got a late start in the morning because I wanted to finish transcribing my blog.
Guatemalans do, indeed, drink atole in the mountains. This pleases me to no end even though my only two options are arroz con leche and arroz con leche con chocolate. I do love atole.
El Lago de Atitlan is a place of celestial beauty. It was created when a volcano blew its top. It is a natural lake that is high in the mountains and flanked by several dormant volcanoes. The clouds here seem so close to the ground that you can almost reach up and touch them. They fly by at very high speeds as this is a very windy place. I have no doubt that the ancient Mayans considered this a very sacred place. I took many pictures in many different lights. I am even camping in the mountains close to an overlook so I can savor the beauty of this place for one last time in the morning.
I have done a little research into the prevalence of Evangelism in this country. The Christian Childrens' Fund(CCF) is, indeed, one of the players in the history of the growth of Evangelism but it is not the only one. To understand the growth of Evangelism in this country one has to learn a little about the civil war that began in the 1960s and didn't officially end until peace accords of 1996 were signed. I have seen estimates that some 200,000 people were killed during the fighting. An independent inquiry declared that 93% of the atrocities were committed by government troops. Some might argue that the civil war is not quite over as many of those who played an active role in the slaughter of mostly Mayan campesinos are still in positions of power and have not been brought to justice.
There were Evangelical and Protestant missionaries in Guatemala as early as the nineteenth century thought they didn't rise to prominence until a century later during the civil war. The watershed event that led to an explosion in Evangelism here is the earthquake of 1976 that killed some 20,000 people. Christian aid organizations began flooding into the country and aggressively proselytizing while helping with the rebuilding effort. They ended up staying in the country and helping rebuild the country during and after the civil war.
During the civil war, the Guatemalan troops, with the help of paramilitaries, razed about 400 villages. They killed the livestock and burned the crops. This was total war. Those who weren't killed were relocated to concentration camps where they were often forcibly conscripted into the army or paramilitary troops. I remember how I was surprised that I did not see any centuries-old Catholic churches or colonial architecture when I entered the country as almost every town in Mexico abounds with these old churches. They are absent because they were burned to the ground along with the rest of these villages. They have all been replaced by recently built Evangelical churches.
In the early 1980s an Evangelical minister by the name of Efrain Rios Montt rose to power after a coup d'etat which was supported by Ronald Reagan and the Moral Majority. Pat Robertson, delighted that Latin America had its first "Christian" leader, even flew in to interview Rios Montt five days after the coup. Robertson's television network C.B.N. even had a telethon for the same Guatemalan military that was responsible for most of the atrocities during the civil war. Rios Montt, like almost all outwardly religious leaders, turned out to be a bloody hypocrite. He presided over one of the bloodiest periods of the civil war.
It should be mentioned that this was the time in which liberation theology was in vogue with many of the Catholic parish priests of Latin America. Liberation theology is the idea that priests should not just help the poor get into heaven but actually help them improve their lives. This is the same time period in which priests were being executed by the Salvadoran military just to the south in El Salvador.
Anyone who has ever been to an Evangelical church knows that Catholics are viewed with suspicion and are sometimes even regarded as a cult among Evangelicals. Combine this with the fact that so many Catholic priests were practicing liberation theology in the time of the Cold War, it can be seen how an Evangelical such as Rios Montt would view these priests as communist sympathizers while the government was at war with a communist insurgency. Being a "good" Evangelical, Rios Montt allowed many Evangelical aid organizations to come in and feed, clothe, shelter, and "educate" those who were displaced by the war. Many Mayan campesinos, who were previously Catholic, converted to Evangelism at the time because they did not want to be viewed as communist sympathizers when the Evangelical dominated government was waging a brutal war against the communist. It was an act of self-preservation much like when Jews converted to Catholicism during the Spanish Inquisition.
Here we are today. The conversion of Guatemala continues. Many aid organizations only aid those who are Christian (read Evangelical and not Catholic). Rios Montt not only has not been brought to justice but is a Guatemalan congressman and heads a political party known as La Frente Republicana de Guatemala or FRG. A huge American-style church has been built in Guatemala City. Remember that wide-eyed little girl who the bald guy from the CCF commercials of the 1980s would always trot out when asking for your money. I am willing to bet that she probably has about five children by now and is probably as poor as ever. She probably takes all of her children to an Evangelical church, too. It sometimes seems like every woman between the ages of 18 and 35 is carrying a baby in the rural parts of Guatemala. We all know that Evangelicals have their heads up their asses when it comes to the effect that overpopulation has on the impoverishment of the developing world. I can't excuse Catholics for their intransigence on this issue, either.
Day 111 kt:19.7 ta:1925 gps:N14°43.150' W 91°07.262'
I spent an extra day in Sololá doing a bunch of nothing. It was great. I wondered around the marketplace, which was a short distance from where I stayed, watching people interact and finding out the names of fruits and herbs that I did not recognize. The town in very small and walkable so I didn't even touch my bicycle. I walked around for a little bit longer and then spent most of my day in an internet cafe. I had neglected transcribing my blog and ended up typing until my fingers hurt. There was still a lot of work to do when the man who ran the internet cafe kicked me out so he could close up shop. I got a late start in the morning because I wanted to finish transcribing my blog.
Guatemalans do, indeed, drink atole in the mountains. This pleases me to no end even though my only two options are arroz con leche and arroz con leche con chocolate. I do love atole.
El Lago de Atitlan is a place of celestial beauty. It was created when a volcano blew its top. It is a natural lake that is high in the mountains and flanked by several dormant volcanoes. The clouds here seem so close to the ground that you can almost reach up and touch them. They fly by at very high speeds as this is a very windy place. I have no doubt that the ancient Mayans considered this a very sacred place. I took many pictures in many different lights. I am even camping in the mountains close to an overlook so I can savor the beauty of this place for one last time in the morning.
I have done a little research into the prevalence of Evangelism in this country. The Christian Childrens' Fund(CCF) is, indeed, one of the players in the history of the growth of Evangelism but it is not the only one. To understand the growth of Evangelism in this country one has to learn a little about the civil war that began in the 1960s and didn't officially end until peace accords of 1996 were signed. I have seen estimates that some 200,000 people were killed during the fighting. An independent inquiry declared that 93% of the atrocities were committed by government troops. Some might argue that the civil war is not quite over as many of those who played an active role in the slaughter of mostly Mayan campesinos are still in positions of power and have not been brought to justice.
There were Evangelical and Protestant missionaries in Guatemala as early as the nineteenth century thought they didn't rise to prominence until a century later during the civil war. The watershed event that led to an explosion in Evangelism here is the earthquake of 1976 that killed some 20,000 people. Christian aid organizations began flooding into the country and aggressively proselytizing while helping with the rebuilding effort. They ended up staying in the country and helping rebuild the country during and after the civil war.
During the civil war, the Guatemalan troops, with the help of paramilitaries, razed about 400 villages. They killed the livestock and burned the crops. This was total war. Those who weren't killed were relocated to concentration camps where they were often forcibly conscripted into the army or paramilitary troops. I remember how I was surprised that I did not see any centuries-old Catholic churches or colonial architecture when I entered the country as almost every town in Mexico abounds with these old churches. They are absent because they were burned to the ground along with the rest of these villages. They have all been replaced by recently built Evangelical churches.
In the early 1980s an Evangelical minister by the name of Efrain Rios Montt rose to power after a coup d'etat which was supported by Ronald Reagan and the Moral Majority. Pat Robertson, delighted that Latin America had its first "Christian" leader, even flew in to interview Rios Montt five days after the coup. Robertson's television network C.B.N. even had a telethon for the same Guatemalan military that was responsible for most of the atrocities during the civil war. Rios Montt, like almost all outwardly religious leaders, turned out to be a bloody hypocrite. He presided over one of the bloodiest periods of the civil war.
It should be mentioned that this was the time in which liberation theology was in vogue with many of the Catholic parish priests of Latin America. Liberation theology is the idea that priests should not just help the poor get into heaven but actually help them improve their lives. This is the same time period in which priests were being executed by the Salvadoran military just to the south in El Salvador.
Anyone who has ever been to an Evangelical church knows that Catholics are viewed with suspicion and are sometimes even regarded as a cult among Evangelicals. Combine this with the fact that so many Catholic priests were practicing liberation theology in the time of the Cold War, it can be seen how an Evangelical such as Rios Montt would view these priests as communist sympathizers while the government was at war with a communist insurgency. Being a "good" Evangelical, Rios Montt allowed many Evangelical aid organizations to come in and feed, clothe, shelter, and "educate" those who were displaced by the war. Many Mayan campesinos, who were previously Catholic, converted to Evangelism at the time because they did not want to be viewed as communist sympathizers when the Evangelical dominated government was waging a brutal war against the communist. It was an act of self-preservation much like when Jews converted to Catholicism during the Spanish Inquisition.
Here we are today. The conversion of Guatemala continues. Many aid organizations only aid those who are Christian (read Evangelical and not Catholic). Rios Montt not only has not been brought to justice but is a Guatemalan congressman and heads a political party known as La Frente Republicana de Guatemala or FRG. A huge American-style church has been built in Guatemala City. Remember that wide-eyed little girl who the bald guy from the CCF commercials of the 1980s would always trot out when asking for your money. I am willing to bet that she probably has about five children by now and is probably as poor as ever. She probably takes all of her children to an Evangelical church, too. It sometimes seems like every woman between the ages of 18 and 35 is carrying a baby in the rural parts of Guatemala. We all know that Evangelicals have their heads up their asses when it comes to the effect that overpopulation has on the impoverishment of the developing world. I can't excuse Catholics for their intransigence on this issue, either.
Friday, January 25, 2008
Nuevos Amigos y Nuevos Paices
Day 87 kt:52 ta:2147 gps: N 17 degrees 39.335' W 101 degrees 33.393'
Day 88 I stayed in Zihuatenejo
When I finally made it to the beach, I was famished because I was sick of my palenquetas and cans of tuna. I didn't care that Zihuatenejo is a tourist trap. I ate at the first restuarant that I could find. I even ended up renting a room for $20 which is way too much for what I got. As I always do when I rent a room, I took a shower, or rather attempted to take a shower. There was no water pressure from the shower head so what I took was actually somewhere between a whore-bath and a shower. I actually lathered up with soap but I had to use the sink to wash off all of the soap. At least there were toilet seats at the hotel. Hell, there was full cable at the hotel so I ended up watching a lot of CNN to get my news fix. Those who know me well no that I am a total news junkie.
The next day when I was sitting at an internet cafe right before I planned to leave, I saw not one, not two or three, but four cyclists touring the coast of Mexico. They are Collin from Vancouver Island, Canada; Scott and Casey from Portland, Oregon; and Mu Son from Denver, Colorado. I decided it would be fun to hang out with these guys for a while. We ended up staying in Zihuatenejo. I helped with translation at the bike shops as Casey is the only one with strong Spanish skills. We all ended up playing a game of three-on-three basketball with one of the locals. A rather sizeable crowd gathered to watch us. We then went out to eat and split one of those monster platters that the restuarants make for large groups of people. When we went to camp on the beach, we were shooed away by naval officers because we were in a military zone. We then grudgingly rode to the other side of the bay where we slept under the stars.
Day 89 kt:89.4 ta: 2609 gps: N 17 degrees 18.418' W 101 degrees 03.343'
The first full day of riding with the group was a fun one. We are all in good riding shape and we were able to come to a pretty comfortable consensus about most things: we all agreed it would be nice to lunch by the water and we all agreed it would be nice to camp on the beach. I definitely feel safe camping on the beach with four others. I made a huge campfire since there was an abundance of driftwood just lying around. Mother Earth is usually good enough company but it is always nice to have conversations with others besides yourself around the campfire.
We had an experience this morning with some horrible service at a restuarant in Zihuatenejo. The waiter literally fucked every order except mine. He didn't even seem to be trying. I think it should be mentioned that the Mexican concept of food service is very different from American standards of what constitutes acceptable food service. Here, if you complain about your food, you will still have to pay for it and you will probably be laughed at. The best system of food service is probably somewhere between the American and Mexican standards. I think that the American customer is completely spoiled with restuarants that will happily recook their food and take it off the bill when people don't like it. They best way to get what you want here is to keep your order very simple.
Day 90 kt: 129 ta:1978 gps: N 17 degrees 00.568' W 100 degrees 05.923'
We made good time today because we all resolved to hammer it all day long. We all seem to follow the same rhythem: we were all up at dawn and all wanted to eat and rest at the same time. We should all make it to Acapulco tomorrow around 11:00 a.m. so we can all run errands and hopefully be out of the city by 2:00 p.m. None of us really want to stay there.
When we were riding along the highway today, we came across a huge traffic jam. We pushed our way past all of the traffic only to find police blocking traffic from both directions. As cyclists are all natural anarchists, we didn't pay any heed to the roadblocks and rode right through. The source of the traffic jam was a gasoline tanker that had one of its tires explode, forcing it to skid out of control and pierce its tank, causing quite a conflagration. By the time we rode by, the tanker was completely burnt out and I am sure that it tied up traffic for many hours. I am sure glad to be on my bike.
Day 91 kt:37.9 ta: 647 gps: N 16 degrees 50.828' W 99 degrees 54.505'
In the past, I have compared Acapulco to rectal cancer. I think that I was probably a little harsh. It is more like bad indigestion. This was once a beautiful place but, has since, been ruined by the explosion of tourists. There are now high-rise hotels all over the place, but never fear intrepid explorer, there are actually affordable placese to stay and to eat. The place that most of us stayed at only cost about $9 per day. There are no toilet seats but there is ample water pressure. Considering that I have grown used to having no toilets or running water, this seems quite luxurious to me.
We arrived in the city early and originally planned to pass through but Casey had a serious run of bad luck with his rear wheel. His luck is worse than mine. By the time we reached the city, he had popped nine spokes and had to push his bike, while lifting the back wheel, to the nearest bike shop. Being that it is Domingo and a holiday nonetheless, we were unable to find any bike shops or laundromats that were open. Hopefully, we can all take care of our chores tomorrow morning and leave in the early afternoon.
I guess that I should mention the name of the holiday today: it is el Dia de los Tres Reyes Magos. Who are the tres reyes magos? They are the three wise men who brought gifts to baby Jesus. On this day, Mexicans eat Pan de la Rosca and give each other gifts in honor of the three wise men. If you find a little doll that has been baked into the bread you are obliged to make or buy tamales and atole for all of your friends and family on February 2nd or el Dia del Calendario. I saw something hilarious today: after a presentation of Blancanieve y los Siete Enanos, there was a dance competition between little boys and girls for toys as prizes. Latin rhythems are already kind of sexualized but a little girl stole the show when she started pole dancing with the microphone stand. I couldn't stop laughing.
After I returned to the hotel, I just hung out watching American movies dubbed in Spanish while waiting for my friends. When I returned to my room, I discovered, to my horror, that ants had found my food and had invaded my room. They completely covered my bed sheets and most of the food in my bag. At least they weren't fire ants. I didn't have much food left, anyway. When I told the doorman, he gave me some new bed sheets and sprayed the room with industrial insecticide. Now that is what I call service.
Day 92 I stayed in Acapulco
Day 93 kt:109 ta: 3157 gps:N 16 degrees 46.531' W 99 degrees 11.975'
We ended up staying in Acapulco one more day to take care of all of our errands. It was fun. There is pretty good food for cheap all around town and I was able to get my internet fix. Four of us went to see El Amor en el Tiempo de Colera. I appreciated the irony of seeing a movie in English with Spanish subtitles that was translated from Spanish to begin with. We, being four burly, unshaven men did not seem like the typical demographic who would want to see what was marketed as a chick-flick.
Leaving Acapulco was not easy because there was a large hill with lots of traffic right outside of the city. However, after we left Acapulco, the land was flatter and there was less traffic. We all make pretty good time together. It sounds like we are probably going to part ways in Puerto Escondido. Maybe, I will stay an extra day and try to surf.
Day 94 kt:87.6 ta:2358 gps: N 16 degrees 38.578' W 98 degrees 31.803'
Sometimes there is so much livestock roaming free through the towns that us city boys have some amusing encounters with the creatures. We were all awoken last night by some copulating horsed outside of our tents. They definitely make some funny noises. In the morning we were awoken by a symphony, or cacophony if you prefer, of roosters. Anyone who has ever been around roosters should know that they crow well before dawn. It is like the roosters get together and say, " Okay everyone, it is 4:30 a.m. It is time for yall to wake the fuck up."
I finally got to try iguana for the first time today. I am not joking when I say that it tastes like chicken. The texture of the meat and skin is definitely different but if I closed my eyes I could swear I was eating at KFC. I loved the red sauce that they served it with.
We were on a pretty good pace today until we made it to the town of Juchitan, Guerrero. It was there that we stopped at a store to rest and buy some supplies. There was a man in front of the store shoeing a horse while listening to an excellent band practice in the open lot next to the store. We ended up hanging out at the store and listening to the band for a while. I even got the band to play a couple of cumbias so my friends could hear one of my favorite genres of music. Before we knew it, there was only an hour left before sunset and we had to leave and find a campsite. I am glad that we stopped and listened to Los Juchitecos as they called themselves.
Day 95 kt: 87.7 ta:2540 gps: N 16 degrees 19.963' W 98 degrees 00.901'
Today, we passed through the part of the Guerrero coast that has a heavy African influence. There is even a museum dedicated to the African influence in Mexico in the city of Cuajinicuilapa, Guerrero. I can't say that I learned anything that I didn't already know but I did have fun playing with all of the African instruments they had in the museum. I even found Chilate in the city. It is tasty but I can't say that it tastes much different from chocolate soy milk.
We finally left Guerrero for the state of Oaxaca today. I swear it almost seemed like it got another 5 or 10 degrees hotter once we crossed the border. We climbed some long ascents in the heat today. It is the kind of climbing that would make you have a heat stroke if you aren't careful. We are all hoping that we don't have to do as much climbing tomorrow but we are ready if we have to.
The spot we camped at was next to a lovely waterfall. It is too bad that the city of Pinotepa, Oaxaca dumps all of their sewage into the creek that the waterfall flows from, or so we were told. The campsite doesn't smell bad or anything, but we were told not to swim near the base of the waterfall. I still thought the sewer cascade was quite beautiful as many different kinds of birds flocked to it to bathe.
Day 96 kt:137 ta: 3574 gps: N 15 degrees 51.687' W 97 degrees 07.911'
Day 97 I stayed in Puerto Escondido
Day 98 kt:116 ta: 4565 gps: N 15 degrees 45.640' W 96 degrees 07.352'
On the morning that we left for Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, we were all pretty determined to make it to the city before sunset. We took very few breaks and had actually already ridden 80 kilometers by noon so we actually rode into town several hours before sunset.
Puerto Escondido is quite a touristy place by now but there are ample amounts of economically priced hotels. The place that four of us stayed at was called the Hotel Mayflower but it was actually more like a hostel. For about $11 a night we got a room with television, free internet, and free billiards. The place was filled with Europeans though there were definitely quite a few Americans and Canadians. Everybody seemed to be in a festive mood so a good time was had by all. The only complaint that I have is that there was a club close to the hotel which played obnoxiously loud techno until about 5 a.m. The church that was almost contiguous to the hotel would then ring their bells at about 6 a.m.
I went surfing, or rather, made and attempt to go surfing with one of the Oregonians. We both stood up so we got to feel pretty triumphant. Apparently, the big waves don't come to Puerto Escondido for another month and a half so we didn't get completely thrashed by the waves.
Today, we rode a shorter distance than when we rode into Puerto Escondido but it was significantly more grueling. We had to deal with rolling hills all day long and were all pretty exhausted after riding a hundred kilometers. Our campsite is in the city of Santa Cruz Huatulco, Oaxaca. It is one of those cities that the government built just for tourists but we can still camp on the beach. This may be the last night that we get to camp on the beach in Mexico as the coastal road is going to start curving inland soon.
Day 99 kt: 114 ta: 4884 gps: N 16 degrees 04.411' W 95 degrees 24.109'
We all got a staggered start this morning. The Oregonians started riding about 40 minutes before the rest of us. I was really not in the mood to play catch-up so I decided it was time to become an autonomous decision making unit, again. Despite all of this, I still ended up putting in a pretty grueling day today. The rolling hills along the coast of Oaxaca really add up. Combine this with the heat and I feel quite exhuasted and famished at the end of the day.
Another piece of my gear broke today: my sleeping pad which I have had for at least seven years finally bit the bullet. It still seems to hold a little bit of air but there is a serious leak through the valve and some of the the internal air chambers have busted and there is now a large bubble in it whenever I inflate it. I am still going to keep my sleeping pad because, even though it no longer provides a good cushion, it still provides a layer of insulation for those cold days that lie ahead. I expect to see more frigidly cold days in both the Andes and in Patagonia. Someone told me that there is an REI in Buenos Aires. Maybe I will try to replace it there.
Day 100 kt:67.1 ta:1716 gps: N 16 degrees 24.603' W 95 degrees 05.020'
I was determined to make this day a lazy day. I suceeded in grand fashion. I slept in until the sun rose rather than wake up before and I took a two-and-a-half hour internet break in Salina Cruz, Oaxaca to go with the two lunches which sandwiched my internet break. It looks like it is going to be flat tomorrow so I think that I will try to get another good day in.
If anybody ever asks, there are definitely virgin beaches in Oaxaca. They are unspoiled because they are still relatively inaccessible. I am sure that there are developers out there that want to build high-rise hotels along the entire coastline of Mexico.
I keep telling myself that I am not going to shave or cut my hair until I reach Buenos Aires so I can have some extra warmth in the cold places I plan to travel through. That being said, I am start to look thouroughly homeless. My beard and mustache are as long as they have ever been and really bother me anytime I eat anything like a sandwich or a taco. I don't know if I have the willpower not to shave it before Argentina.
Day 101 kt:101 ta: 1573 gps: N 16 degrees 28.314' W 94 degrees 19.324'
Despite many breaks and even a nap, I was able to make some good distance today. If I can keep up the good pace, I should be in Guatemala in less than a week.
I saw a wind farm today. It is the first place in Mexico where I have seen one but, in all fairness, there don't seem to be many parts of Mexico with a wind strong and consistent enough to power a wind turbine. I have seen a few isolated rural houses that have solar cells though there could be many more here as Mexico has an abundance of sunlight. It seems that solar power is a viable energy source in about 80% of Mexico. When I think about it, there is a large stretch of Africa where solar power would be a viable energy source. I would completely support an initiative to install solar cells in rural villages all around the developing world. The thought of these countries developing and using more fossil fuels to power their development frightens me very much. If we keep consuming energy energy in the same rate and fashion, the human race should be extinct in about 100 years. Nuclear energy is not a viable option to clean up the mess we have created. If it was, it would be no big deal that Iran wants to build nuclear reactors. As far as I know, there is still not a viable manner to deal with nuclear waste. Whenever the government tries to bury its nuclear waste anywhere, people rightfully freak out.
Day 102 kt:106 ta: 1330 gps: N 16 degrees 00.204' W 93 degrees 39.756'
I had some trouble sleeping in the mango orchard where I stayed last night. The road where I was seems to be a major trucking corridor as semis roared by all night long. I also couldn't seem to get used to the new bulge in my sleeping pad.
There were mountains to my left threatening all day long but the road I was travelling on stayed in the coastal plain. I guess I am getting a break until Guatemala where I will have to charge right into those mountains. I am told that I am going to rise from see level to over 8,000 feet. I had some good long, hilly days along the Oaxacan coast so I think that I am up for the challenge. It should be remembered that all of these mountains are mere speed bumps compared to the Andes.
The countryside is beautiful hre. Many of the mountain peaks look they are composed of different minerals than their neighboring peaks so they have a cool, multi-colored look. Some of the mountains along the Oaxaca-Chiapas border are speckled with trees that bloom with yellow and magenta flowers. I am healthily in Chiapas territory now and I think that the scenery should be more of the same tomorrow.
The plants are a little different here but the one thing that really lets me know that I am not in Texas any more are the birds. Today, I saw a kingfisher, a flamingo, and two birds which I can not name but which I can describe: the first appeared to be some kind of hawk with a red beak and blue mask and the second, which seems to be quite common here, seems like a large jay bird with extra long tail feathers and a funny looking crest on its head. Birds are extremely elusive when you want to take their pictures so I still have not gotten any good pictures of them. I am tempted to spend a whole day stalking birds with my camera. If I do this, I think it will be further south as the earth's biodiversity increases as you approach the equator.
I travel to a lot of places that are neglected by the Lonely Planet readers. There are generally less tourist attractions in these cities but they sure are cheap. In the town of Arriaga, Chiapas I found tacos for 3 pesos each. I ordered eight of them. I finished that off with two scoops of ice creams and a small coconut horchata. My double-desert still cost less than two scoops would in a more touristy place.
I had a minor wipeout on my bike today. It was at low speed so I am fine. My front saddlebad had to be bent back in place, though. I am glad that I have a steel frame bicycle or the part I had to bend back in place would probably snap right off. This is the second time that I have had to bend it back in place so I am worried that it will snap off if I have to bend it back, again.
Day 103 kt: 80.3 ta: 1668 gps: N 15 degrees 03.917' W 92 degrees 24.606'
I got a fare amount of slacking off into my day today. I keep reading the news online wherever I find an internet cafe. Nothing new seems to be happening. I keep secretly hoping that one (or all) of the U.S. presidential candidates is assassinated so I will have something interesting to read about.
Day 104 kt: 98.4 ta:1668 gps: N 15 degrees 03.917' W 92 degrees 24.606'
Even after two hours of internet surfing, two long food stops, many 420 breaks, and a bath in one of the many clean tributaries that Chiapas has to offer, I still got a good amount of riding in today. Provided that my dealings with both the Mexican and Guatemalan bureaucracies go smoothly, I should be in Guatemala by midday tomorrow. I guess that I am going to have to bid my beloved Mexico adieu. Until we meet again my love.
I have been giving all of my gear the ultimate road test. My tires are almost bald though I plan to ride on them until I have chronic problems with flats. Both pairs of my pants/shorts have holes where I sit on my bike seat and neither one of them has effective back pockets anymore. My sleeping pad is kaput though I have figured out how to make it more comfortable by underinflating it. My GPS works great for logging my trip distance and total ascent but the map is wildly inaccurate outside of the United States. I am usually several kilometers off of the highway according to my GPS even though I am right on the highway. I have seen important cities omitted from my GPS map and more recently they seem to be switched around as they are sometimes 30 kilometers off mark. The topographical data, though not entirely accurate due to the inaccuracy of my map, is still useful. All in all, I am glad I purchased my GPS device. I just wish I hadn't wasted that extra hundred on the World Map software.
I rode until right before sunset today and did something I don't usually do: I asked a family if I could camp on their property. They said yes and even brought me a whole bunch of water. The moral of this story is that the next time that a Mexican shows up at your doorstep asking for assistence you should show them some good old-fashioned American hospitality. I am not being sarcastic. Anyway, I am grateful to Bartolo and his family for being such gracious hosts.
Day 105 kt:75.8 ta: 1832 gps: N 14 degrees 46.407' W 92 degrees 06.181'
I was awoken by a flock of chickens roaming free this morning. It was fun watching them interact. There were several roosters among them. They didn't fight to the death but they definitely did fight. They usually only fight when there is a woman involved. Pretty much all of the roosters would do their mating dance where they walk tall in circles around the hens only to be rebuffed or chased away by the bigger roosters. I started thinking about cockfighting, animal cruelty, and the relativity of different cultures. Cockfighting doesn't seem to be all that cruel when one begans to ponder the lives that most American chickens live. A chicken in the U.S. will live its entire life confined to a cage. I don't know how much training goes into a champion rooster but I kind of get the feeling that they just naturally fight anyways. What is more cruel: allowing a rooster to live mostly free life than putting it up against a stronger rooster in a cockfight or keeping a rooster caged up its entire life only to meet an efficient, mechanized death? I am not condoning cockfighting, I am condemning factory farming. Cultural relativity is crazy like that. It is kind of like how we say Muslim women are so oppressed because they have to wear a burka but our own standards of beauty are so oppressive that the average American woman hates her body because it doesn't hold up to our rigid standard of beauty. I wonder how many Muslim anorexic women there are? If there are any, they are probably in Dubai, U.A.E. which seems to perfectly meld the Muslim aesthetic with western profligacy.
I crossed the border today with some annoyances but here I am in Guatemala. Talisman, Chiapas is like any other border town: it is filled with beggars and hucksters. The hucksters swarm you like flies. I think that I even got hucked by a huckster today when changing my money. Oh well, I should have enough to reach Guatemala City. The next time I am in a border city, I think that I will shoo them away just like flies. No necesito ayuda ni tengo dinero. Larganse. I will have the exchange rates written down and I will only use the moneychangers on the streets if there are no banks. I won't respond to any comment made in English and I will pretend I don't even speak it. If the people speak English to you at the borders, they probably want your money. If anybody offers help, I will shoo them away. If they offer help, they probably want your money. I had one guy following me around saying he would show me the immigration building. I did not need his help since I can read. He, of course, wanted money for his "help". I told him I didn't have any. He was disappointed but he left me alone after that. The next time I pass through a border town, I won't smile; remove my sunglasses (I learned that trick from the cops); or speak to anyone who doesn't work in immigration, customs, or sell food. I don't like to put up walls like that but it is a defense mechanism.
I smuggled the remaining weed I had in my bicycle handlebars. My pipe was in my seatpost. I didn't even need to go through that trouble since no one stopped me to search me when I entered Guatemala. Both Mexico and Guatemala are self-sufficient in marijuana production so I don't think either country is too concerned about it crossing the border. It should be mentioned that Mexico has immigration checkpoints starting in Oaxaca and increasing in frequency in Chiapas. I do find it hypocritical of Mexico to so strongly enforce its own border to the south when it cries fould at U.S. immigration policy. I say this as someone who supports the removal of all barriers to immigration everywhere. In a perfect world, I could cross the border of any country while smoking a joint and without asking my own government or any other government for permission to do so.
The average Guatemalan is definitely poorer than the average Mexican. You can see the increased poverty in everything. The police here don't drive brand new Dodge Chargers but beat-up old Nissans. The colectivos, as the trucks or vans that transport people are called, are weighed down with more people and there are usually even people hanging off the edges. This happens infrequently in Mexico but seems to be a regular occurence here. Some of the people here can't even afford to build houses out of refuse scrap metal and, instead, use plastic tarps to make makeshift tents. I even seem to see more women and children doing heavy labor. They do the labor that I usually see donkeys doing in Mexico. I still haven't seen a donkey, strangely enough. I saw several old ladies carrying large loads of firewood on their backs and, I swear, I saw a five-year-old carrying a 50 pound sack of something on his back. Well, maybe he was older than five but he was pretty fucking small. None of these things are things that I would never see in Mexico but they seem to be a common occurence here.
Tomorrow, my joyride on flat land shoud be replaced with grueling mountain climbing. I am barely above 100 feet right now and I should have to pass over 8,000 feet on the way to Guatemala City. Woo hoo!
Day 106 kt: 44.8 ta: 2421 gps: 14 degrees 42.036' W 91 degrees 47.336'
I was still in a somewhat foul mood from yesterday's border experience when I woke up this morning. A little riding took care of that. I soon found out that there are, indeed, cash machines between the border and Guatemala City. I have now reupped on cash and no longer have to worry about running out of cash before I reach the big city. Before, my plans were to haul ass to the big city where I could restock on supplies but now I plan to take a more leisurely, or rather more grueling route to the capital. I am going to go through the mountains through, what is called, Tierra Fria to get to Guatemala City. I will pass through el Lago de Atitlan, Antigua, and Chimaltenango where there is a cool organization called Mayapedal that I want to check out.
After my cash situation was resolved, I spent a lot of time farting around in Coatepeque, Guatemala. I spent some time on the internet reading the news and and looking up exchange rates for all of the currencies of the countries I plan to pass through. I had previously made the mistake of not writing down these rates but will not make this same mistake, again. I try to learn from bad experiences. I wondered around the city looking for typical Guatemalan food rather than the Mexican standards which are still ubiquitous. I found an old lady selling a deep fried vegetable called pacaya along with another vegetable she called hierba mora. They were both delicious and cheap.
After eating my lunch, Guatemalans started giving me gifts of soda and vitamins. These are two things that I did not particularly want but I think it was the gods way of telling me that I could let down my guard and trust people again. I went ahead and took this as divine commentary and immediately let down my walls.
I am camped out on top of a hill that is under construction to probably be another monotonous suburb. I have an excellent view as I have climbed to almost 3,000 feet, again. My campsite is in an old abandoned house that still has a roof. This is good because it looks like it could rain tonight. The jungle has quite suddenly engulfed me. When I was traveling along the coast of Chiapas, it seemed like most of the area was either ranchland or under some kind of cultivation. Here, it seems like the jungle pervades everything.
Before I set up my tent, I saw a huge flock of hundreds of parrots. I tried to get closer for a good picture but to no avail. I find myself wishing I had a camera with a 30X optical zoom. With that I could have a lot more good pictures of birds. I am still looking for monkeys and I am sure that I will encounter them at some point in my journey.
A lot of people have written me telling me how cold and miserable Austin is right now. I say to them that the grass is always greener on the other side. It is very hot here and I have a heat rash chafing my inner thighs. I can't wait to reach la Tierra Fria. When it is summertime in Austin and everyone is writing me about how hot it is in Austin I will probably be freezing my ass off in Patagonia. I knew that I was going to experience extreme weather condition when I started this trip. I am well equipped for all weather conditions and I look forward to the challenge.
Day 107 kt:38.9 ta: 5893 gps: N 14 degrees 52.190' W 91 degrees 37.289'
I don't think that I am going to see flat terrain again for a while. I ascended high enough today that low-lying clouds fogged up the road. The road was very steep to make my day very challenging. Normally, I can climb hills without getting off of my seat most of the time but I was out of the saddle for most of the day today. When I got to the city of San Juan, Guatemala, which is right outside of Quetzaltenango, I was at such a high elevation I had to dig out some of my cold weather gear. I expect more of the same all the way to Guatemala City.
Guatemala definitely has a more indigenous feel to it than Mexico does. Though I definitely heard people speaking indigenous dialects in Southern Mexico, it seems like half the people I run into here speak some Mayan dialect. I even say a teenage boy speaking Mayan on his cell phone. Many, if not most, of the women still wear traditional dresses and carry babies on their backs and loads on their heads.
Most of the people that I have met that have been to both Mexico and Guatemala scared me into thinking that the food of Guatemala is horrible. Thankfully, this is not so. I have enjoyed Guatemalan tamales, which are called chuchos, and I had a really good masa empanada called a doblada that was filled with a mixture of cooked carrots and chicken. I look forward to discovering more flavors.
Day 108 kt: 35.2 ta: 1980 gps: N 14 degrees 53.497' W 91 degrees 25.429'
I woke up this morning to the sound of loud trucks passing by the hotel where I stayed at. This is not the first time that I have been awoken by loud noise. If it is not loud trucks, it is roosters. If it is not roosters, it will be monkeys. At least I am not awoken by the screeching of an alarm clock. That is the most loathesome sound. I tried to stock up on peanut butter, granola bars, and water in San Juan but to no avail. I couldn't find the former two anywhere and the latter could only be found in half liters and five gallon jugs with nothing in between. Fortunately, Quetzaltenango was only 10 kilometers away and I was able to find all of those things there. I have a feeling that I will be having supply issues all throughout Guatemala.
It is going to be cold again for awhile and this definitely makes me slack off a little more. I spent a whole lot of time just sitting in marketplaces soaking in the sights and sounds. I have a feeling that I will be doing a whole lot of this as there are many interesting sights and sounds here in Guatemala. Maybe I will even take some pictures.
Day 109 kt: 64.2 ta:3659 gps: N 14 degrees 46.297' W 91 degrees 10.996'
When I woke up this morning, I was lazy as expected and did not want to leave my warm sleeping bag. Who would have thought it would be cold above 8,000 feet. Most of Guatemala is quite mountainous so it is surprisingly cold in many parts of the country.
The portion of the Pan-American highway which I travelled on today is mostly under construction. The government is expanding the two lanes to four lanes and they stop traffic in both directions for large periods of time. They, of course, let me pass and I had the road to myself quite often. There are also disadvantages to the road being under construction: I had to go over some rocky stretches of road; I discovered a new road hazard in the form of falling rocks loosened by construction equipment; and, when they inevitably let the drivers through, they are pretty pissed off. All that being said, I did make it to el Lago de Atitlan.
I am in the town of Solola, Guatemala which is on the northern border of the lake. The place where I am staying at only cost 20 Quetzales per night. This somewhere between $2 and $3. I could literally stay here for years without working with the money I have saved up. Granted my room is pretty spartan but I like that. If I keep finding rooms this cheap, I might not camp in the rest of Guatemala.
One of the things that sets Guatemala apart from the rest of Spanish speaking Latin America is that there are more evangelicals than Catholics. I see very few old Catholic churches and lots of new Evangelical ones in the countryside. I am going to have to look into the history of Evangelicism in Guatemala. I have a feeling that Evangelical dominance probably has something to do Catholic neglect and all of those Christian Childrens' Fund commercials I saw when I was a kid in the 1980s. I kind of miss the Catholics as the Evangelicals more aggressively proselytize as they see it as their duty to save all of us sinners. I want to scream, "I don't buy the religions that others sell." but I always end up being more polite as I am an ambassador of good will.
Day 88 I stayed in Zihuatenejo
When I finally made it to the beach, I was famished because I was sick of my palenquetas and cans of tuna. I didn't care that Zihuatenejo is a tourist trap. I ate at the first restuarant that I could find. I even ended up renting a room for $20 which is way too much for what I got. As I always do when I rent a room, I took a shower, or rather attempted to take a shower. There was no water pressure from the shower head so what I took was actually somewhere between a whore-bath and a shower. I actually lathered up with soap but I had to use the sink to wash off all of the soap. At least there were toilet seats at the hotel. Hell, there was full cable at the hotel so I ended up watching a lot of CNN to get my news fix. Those who know me well no that I am a total news junkie.
The next day when I was sitting at an internet cafe right before I planned to leave, I saw not one, not two or three, but four cyclists touring the coast of Mexico. They are Collin from Vancouver Island, Canada; Scott and Casey from Portland, Oregon; and Mu Son from Denver, Colorado. I decided it would be fun to hang out with these guys for a while. We ended up staying in Zihuatenejo. I helped with translation at the bike shops as Casey is the only one with strong Spanish skills. We all ended up playing a game of three-on-three basketball with one of the locals. A rather sizeable crowd gathered to watch us. We then went out to eat and split one of those monster platters that the restuarants make for large groups of people. When we went to camp on the beach, we were shooed away by naval officers because we were in a military zone. We then grudgingly rode to the other side of the bay where we slept under the stars.
Day 89 kt:89.4 ta: 2609 gps: N 17 degrees 18.418' W 101 degrees 03.343'
The first full day of riding with the group was a fun one. We are all in good riding shape and we were able to come to a pretty comfortable consensus about most things: we all agreed it would be nice to lunch by the water and we all agreed it would be nice to camp on the beach. I definitely feel safe camping on the beach with four others. I made a huge campfire since there was an abundance of driftwood just lying around. Mother Earth is usually good enough company but it is always nice to have conversations with others besides yourself around the campfire.
We had an experience this morning with some horrible service at a restuarant in Zihuatenejo. The waiter literally fucked every order except mine. He didn't even seem to be trying. I think it should be mentioned that the Mexican concept of food service is very different from American standards of what constitutes acceptable food service. Here, if you complain about your food, you will still have to pay for it and you will probably be laughed at. The best system of food service is probably somewhere between the American and Mexican standards. I think that the American customer is completely spoiled with restuarants that will happily recook their food and take it off the bill when people don't like it. They best way to get what you want here is to keep your order very simple.
Day 90 kt: 129 ta:1978 gps: N 17 degrees 00.568' W 100 degrees 05.923'
We made good time today because we all resolved to hammer it all day long. We all seem to follow the same rhythem: we were all up at dawn and all wanted to eat and rest at the same time. We should all make it to Acapulco tomorrow around 11:00 a.m. so we can all run errands and hopefully be out of the city by 2:00 p.m. None of us really want to stay there.
When we were riding along the highway today, we came across a huge traffic jam. We pushed our way past all of the traffic only to find police blocking traffic from both directions. As cyclists are all natural anarchists, we didn't pay any heed to the roadblocks and rode right through. The source of the traffic jam was a gasoline tanker that had one of its tires explode, forcing it to skid out of control and pierce its tank, causing quite a conflagration. By the time we rode by, the tanker was completely burnt out and I am sure that it tied up traffic for many hours. I am sure glad to be on my bike.
Day 91 kt:37.9 ta: 647 gps: N 16 degrees 50.828' W 99 degrees 54.505'
In the past, I have compared Acapulco to rectal cancer. I think that I was probably a little harsh. It is more like bad indigestion. This was once a beautiful place but, has since, been ruined by the explosion of tourists. There are now high-rise hotels all over the place, but never fear intrepid explorer, there are actually affordable placese to stay and to eat. The place that most of us stayed at only cost about $9 per day. There are no toilet seats but there is ample water pressure. Considering that I have grown used to having no toilets or running water, this seems quite luxurious to me.
We arrived in the city early and originally planned to pass through but Casey had a serious run of bad luck with his rear wheel. His luck is worse than mine. By the time we reached the city, he had popped nine spokes and had to push his bike, while lifting the back wheel, to the nearest bike shop. Being that it is Domingo and a holiday nonetheless, we were unable to find any bike shops or laundromats that were open. Hopefully, we can all take care of our chores tomorrow morning and leave in the early afternoon.
I guess that I should mention the name of the holiday today: it is el Dia de los Tres Reyes Magos. Who are the tres reyes magos? They are the three wise men who brought gifts to baby Jesus. On this day, Mexicans eat Pan de la Rosca and give each other gifts in honor of the three wise men. If you find a little doll that has been baked into the bread you are obliged to make or buy tamales and atole for all of your friends and family on February 2nd or el Dia del Calendario. I saw something hilarious today: after a presentation of Blancanieve y los Siete Enanos, there was a dance competition between little boys and girls for toys as prizes. Latin rhythems are already kind of sexualized but a little girl stole the show when she started pole dancing with the microphone stand. I couldn't stop laughing.
After I returned to the hotel, I just hung out watching American movies dubbed in Spanish while waiting for my friends. When I returned to my room, I discovered, to my horror, that ants had found my food and had invaded my room. They completely covered my bed sheets and most of the food in my bag. At least they weren't fire ants. I didn't have much food left, anyway. When I told the doorman, he gave me some new bed sheets and sprayed the room with industrial insecticide. Now that is what I call service.
Day 92 I stayed in Acapulco
Day 93 kt:109 ta: 3157 gps:N 16 degrees 46.531' W 99 degrees 11.975'
We ended up staying in Acapulco one more day to take care of all of our errands. It was fun. There is pretty good food for cheap all around town and I was able to get my internet fix. Four of us went to see El Amor en el Tiempo de Colera. I appreciated the irony of seeing a movie in English with Spanish subtitles that was translated from Spanish to begin with. We, being four burly, unshaven men did not seem like the typical demographic who would want to see what was marketed as a chick-flick.
Leaving Acapulco was not easy because there was a large hill with lots of traffic right outside of the city. However, after we left Acapulco, the land was flatter and there was less traffic. We all make pretty good time together. It sounds like we are probably going to part ways in Puerto Escondido. Maybe, I will stay an extra day and try to surf.
Day 94 kt:87.6 ta:2358 gps: N 16 degrees 38.578' W 98 degrees 31.803'
Sometimes there is so much livestock roaming free through the towns that us city boys have some amusing encounters with the creatures. We were all awoken last night by some copulating horsed outside of our tents. They definitely make some funny noises. In the morning we were awoken by a symphony, or cacophony if you prefer, of roosters. Anyone who has ever been around roosters should know that they crow well before dawn. It is like the roosters get together and say, " Okay everyone, it is 4:30 a.m. It is time for yall to wake the fuck up."
I finally got to try iguana for the first time today. I am not joking when I say that it tastes like chicken. The texture of the meat and skin is definitely different but if I closed my eyes I could swear I was eating at KFC. I loved the red sauce that they served it with.
We were on a pretty good pace today until we made it to the town of Juchitan, Guerrero. It was there that we stopped at a store to rest and buy some supplies. There was a man in front of the store shoeing a horse while listening to an excellent band practice in the open lot next to the store. We ended up hanging out at the store and listening to the band for a while. I even got the band to play a couple of cumbias so my friends could hear one of my favorite genres of music. Before we knew it, there was only an hour left before sunset and we had to leave and find a campsite. I am glad that we stopped and listened to Los Juchitecos as they called themselves.
Day 95 kt: 87.7 ta:2540 gps: N 16 degrees 19.963' W 98 degrees 00.901'
Today, we passed through the part of the Guerrero coast that has a heavy African influence. There is even a museum dedicated to the African influence in Mexico in the city of Cuajinicuilapa, Guerrero. I can't say that I learned anything that I didn't already know but I did have fun playing with all of the African instruments they had in the museum. I even found Chilate in the city. It is tasty but I can't say that it tastes much different from chocolate soy milk.
We finally left Guerrero for the state of Oaxaca today. I swear it almost seemed like it got another 5 or 10 degrees hotter once we crossed the border. We climbed some long ascents in the heat today. It is the kind of climbing that would make you have a heat stroke if you aren't careful. We are all hoping that we don't have to do as much climbing tomorrow but we are ready if we have to.
The spot we camped at was next to a lovely waterfall. It is too bad that the city of Pinotepa, Oaxaca dumps all of their sewage into the creek that the waterfall flows from, or so we were told. The campsite doesn't smell bad or anything, but we were told not to swim near the base of the waterfall. I still thought the sewer cascade was quite beautiful as many different kinds of birds flocked to it to bathe.
Day 96 kt:137 ta: 3574 gps: N 15 degrees 51.687' W 97 degrees 07.911'
Day 97 I stayed in Puerto Escondido
Day 98 kt:116 ta: 4565 gps: N 15 degrees 45.640' W 96 degrees 07.352'
On the morning that we left for Puerto Escondido, Oaxaca, we were all pretty determined to make it to the city before sunset. We took very few breaks and had actually already ridden 80 kilometers by noon so we actually rode into town several hours before sunset.
Puerto Escondido is quite a touristy place by now but there are ample amounts of economically priced hotels. The place that four of us stayed at was called the Hotel Mayflower but it was actually more like a hostel. For about $11 a night we got a room with television, free internet, and free billiards. The place was filled with Europeans though there were definitely quite a few Americans and Canadians. Everybody seemed to be in a festive mood so a good time was had by all. The only complaint that I have is that there was a club close to the hotel which played obnoxiously loud techno until about 5 a.m. The church that was almost contiguous to the hotel would then ring their bells at about 6 a.m.
I went surfing, or rather, made and attempt to go surfing with one of the Oregonians. We both stood up so we got to feel pretty triumphant. Apparently, the big waves don't come to Puerto Escondido for another month and a half so we didn't get completely thrashed by the waves.
Today, we rode a shorter distance than when we rode into Puerto Escondido but it was significantly more grueling. We had to deal with rolling hills all day long and were all pretty exhausted after riding a hundred kilometers. Our campsite is in the city of Santa Cruz Huatulco, Oaxaca. It is one of those cities that the government built just for tourists but we can still camp on the beach. This may be the last night that we get to camp on the beach in Mexico as the coastal road is going to start curving inland soon.
Day 99 kt: 114 ta: 4884 gps: N 16 degrees 04.411' W 95 degrees 24.109'
We all got a staggered start this morning. The Oregonians started riding about 40 minutes before the rest of us. I was really not in the mood to play catch-up so I decided it was time to become an autonomous decision making unit, again. Despite all of this, I still ended up putting in a pretty grueling day today. The rolling hills along the coast of Oaxaca really add up. Combine this with the heat and I feel quite exhuasted and famished at the end of the day.
Another piece of my gear broke today: my sleeping pad which I have had for at least seven years finally bit the bullet. It still seems to hold a little bit of air but there is a serious leak through the valve and some of the the internal air chambers have busted and there is now a large bubble in it whenever I inflate it. I am still going to keep my sleeping pad because, even though it no longer provides a good cushion, it still provides a layer of insulation for those cold days that lie ahead. I expect to see more frigidly cold days in both the Andes and in Patagonia. Someone told me that there is an REI in Buenos Aires. Maybe I will try to replace it there.
Day 100 kt:67.1 ta:1716 gps: N 16 degrees 24.603' W 95 degrees 05.020'
I was determined to make this day a lazy day. I suceeded in grand fashion. I slept in until the sun rose rather than wake up before and I took a two-and-a-half hour internet break in Salina Cruz, Oaxaca to go with the two lunches which sandwiched my internet break. It looks like it is going to be flat tomorrow so I think that I will try to get another good day in.
If anybody ever asks, there are definitely virgin beaches in Oaxaca. They are unspoiled because they are still relatively inaccessible. I am sure that there are developers out there that want to build high-rise hotels along the entire coastline of Mexico.
I keep telling myself that I am not going to shave or cut my hair until I reach Buenos Aires so I can have some extra warmth in the cold places I plan to travel through. That being said, I am start to look thouroughly homeless. My beard and mustache are as long as they have ever been and really bother me anytime I eat anything like a sandwich or a taco. I don't know if I have the willpower not to shave it before Argentina.
Day 101 kt:101 ta: 1573 gps: N 16 degrees 28.314' W 94 degrees 19.324'
Despite many breaks and even a nap, I was able to make some good distance today. If I can keep up the good pace, I should be in Guatemala in less than a week.
I saw a wind farm today. It is the first place in Mexico where I have seen one but, in all fairness, there don't seem to be many parts of Mexico with a wind strong and consistent enough to power a wind turbine. I have seen a few isolated rural houses that have solar cells though there could be many more here as Mexico has an abundance of sunlight. It seems that solar power is a viable energy source in about 80% of Mexico. When I think about it, there is a large stretch of Africa where solar power would be a viable energy source. I would completely support an initiative to install solar cells in rural villages all around the developing world. The thought of these countries developing and using more fossil fuels to power their development frightens me very much. If we keep consuming energy energy in the same rate and fashion, the human race should be extinct in about 100 years. Nuclear energy is not a viable option to clean up the mess we have created. If it was, it would be no big deal that Iran wants to build nuclear reactors. As far as I know, there is still not a viable manner to deal with nuclear waste. Whenever the government tries to bury its nuclear waste anywhere, people rightfully freak out.
Day 102 kt:106 ta: 1330 gps: N 16 degrees 00.204' W 93 degrees 39.756'
I had some trouble sleeping in the mango orchard where I stayed last night. The road where I was seems to be a major trucking corridor as semis roared by all night long. I also couldn't seem to get used to the new bulge in my sleeping pad.
There were mountains to my left threatening all day long but the road I was travelling on stayed in the coastal plain. I guess I am getting a break until Guatemala where I will have to charge right into those mountains. I am told that I am going to rise from see level to over 8,000 feet. I had some good long, hilly days along the Oaxacan coast so I think that I am up for the challenge. It should be remembered that all of these mountains are mere speed bumps compared to the Andes.
The countryside is beautiful hre. Many of the mountain peaks look they are composed of different minerals than their neighboring peaks so they have a cool, multi-colored look. Some of the mountains along the Oaxaca-Chiapas border are speckled with trees that bloom with yellow and magenta flowers. I am healthily in Chiapas territory now and I think that the scenery should be more of the same tomorrow.
The plants are a little different here but the one thing that really lets me know that I am not in Texas any more are the birds. Today, I saw a kingfisher, a flamingo, and two birds which I can not name but which I can describe: the first appeared to be some kind of hawk with a red beak and blue mask and the second, which seems to be quite common here, seems like a large jay bird with extra long tail feathers and a funny looking crest on its head. Birds are extremely elusive when you want to take their pictures so I still have not gotten any good pictures of them. I am tempted to spend a whole day stalking birds with my camera. If I do this, I think it will be further south as the earth's biodiversity increases as you approach the equator.
I travel to a lot of places that are neglected by the Lonely Planet readers. There are generally less tourist attractions in these cities but they sure are cheap. In the town of Arriaga, Chiapas I found tacos for 3 pesos each. I ordered eight of them. I finished that off with two scoops of ice creams and a small coconut horchata. My double-desert still cost less than two scoops would in a more touristy place.
I had a minor wipeout on my bike today. It was at low speed so I am fine. My front saddlebad had to be bent back in place, though. I am glad that I have a steel frame bicycle or the part I had to bend back in place would probably snap right off. This is the second time that I have had to bend it back in place so I am worried that it will snap off if I have to bend it back, again.
Day 103 kt: 80.3 ta: 1668 gps: N 15 degrees 03.917' W 92 degrees 24.606'
I got a fare amount of slacking off into my day today. I keep reading the news online wherever I find an internet cafe. Nothing new seems to be happening. I keep secretly hoping that one (or all) of the U.S. presidential candidates is assassinated so I will have something interesting to read about.
Day 104 kt: 98.4 ta:1668 gps: N 15 degrees 03.917' W 92 degrees 24.606'
Even after two hours of internet surfing, two long food stops, many 420 breaks, and a bath in one of the many clean tributaries that Chiapas has to offer, I still got a good amount of riding in today. Provided that my dealings with both the Mexican and Guatemalan bureaucracies go smoothly, I should be in Guatemala by midday tomorrow. I guess that I am going to have to bid my beloved Mexico adieu. Until we meet again my love.
I have been giving all of my gear the ultimate road test. My tires are almost bald though I plan to ride on them until I have chronic problems with flats. Both pairs of my pants/shorts have holes where I sit on my bike seat and neither one of them has effective back pockets anymore. My sleeping pad is kaput though I have figured out how to make it more comfortable by underinflating it. My GPS works great for logging my trip distance and total ascent but the map is wildly inaccurate outside of the United States. I am usually several kilometers off of the highway according to my GPS even though I am right on the highway. I have seen important cities omitted from my GPS map and more recently they seem to be switched around as they are sometimes 30 kilometers off mark. The topographical data, though not entirely accurate due to the inaccuracy of my map, is still useful. All in all, I am glad I purchased my GPS device. I just wish I hadn't wasted that extra hundred on the World Map software.
I rode until right before sunset today and did something I don't usually do: I asked a family if I could camp on their property. They said yes and even brought me a whole bunch of water. The moral of this story is that the next time that a Mexican shows up at your doorstep asking for assistence you should show them some good old-fashioned American hospitality. I am not being sarcastic. Anyway, I am grateful to Bartolo and his family for being such gracious hosts.
Day 105 kt:75.8 ta: 1832 gps: N 14 degrees 46.407' W 92 degrees 06.181'
I was awoken by a flock of chickens roaming free this morning. It was fun watching them interact. There were several roosters among them. They didn't fight to the death but they definitely did fight. They usually only fight when there is a woman involved. Pretty much all of the roosters would do their mating dance where they walk tall in circles around the hens only to be rebuffed or chased away by the bigger roosters. I started thinking about cockfighting, animal cruelty, and the relativity of different cultures. Cockfighting doesn't seem to be all that cruel when one begans to ponder the lives that most American chickens live. A chicken in the U.S. will live its entire life confined to a cage. I don't know how much training goes into a champion rooster but I kind of get the feeling that they just naturally fight anyways. What is more cruel: allowing a rooster to live mostly free life than putting it up against a stronger rooster in a cockfight or keeping a rooster caged up its entire life only to meet an efficient, mechanized death? I am not condoning cockfighting, I am condemning factory farming. Cultural relativity is crazy like that. It is kind of like how we say Muslim women are so oppressed because they have to wear a burka but our own standards of beauty are so oppressive that the average American woman hates her body because it doesn't hold up to our rigid standard of beauty. I wonder how many Muslim anorexic women there are? If there are any, they are probably in Dubai, U.A.E. which seems to perfectly meld the Muslim aesthetic with western profligacy.
I crossed the border today with some annoyances but here I am in Guatemala. Talisman, Chiapas is like any other border town: it is filled with beggars and hucksters. The hucksters swarm you like flies. I think that I even got hucked by a huckster today when changing my money. Oh well, I should have enough to reach Guatemala City. The next time I am in a border city, I think that I will shoo them away just like flies. No necesito ayuda ni tengo dinero. Larganse. I will have the exchange rates written down and I will only use the moneychangers on the streets if there are no banks. I won't respond to any comment made in English and I will pretend I don't even speak it. If the people speak English to you at the borders, they probably want your money. If anybody offers help, I will shoo them away. If they offer help, they probably want your money. I had one guy following me around saying he would show me the immigration building. I did not need his help since I can read. He, of course, wanted money for his "help". I told him I didn't have any. He was disappointed but he left me alone after that. The next time I pass through a border town, I won't smile; remove my sunglasses (I learned that trick from the cops); or speak to anyone who doesn't work in immigration, customs, or sell food. I don't like to put up walls like that but it is a defense mechanism.
I smuggled the remaining weed I had in my bicycle handlebars. My pipe was in my seatpost. I didn't even need to go through that trouble since no one stopped me to search me when I entered Guatemala. Both Mexico and Guatemala are self-sufficient in marijuana production so I don't think either country is too concerned about it crossing the border. It should be mentioned that Mexico has immigration checkpoints starting in Oaxaca and increasing in frequency in Chiapas. I do find it hypocritical of Mexico to so strongly enforce its own border to the south when it cries fould at U.S. immigration policy. I say this as someone who supports the removal of all barriers to immigration everywhere. In a perfect world, I could cross the border of any country while smoking a joint and without asking my own government or any other government for permission to do so.
The average Guatemalan is definitely poorer than the average Mexican. You can see the increased poverty in everything. The police here don't drive brand new Dodge Chargers but beat-up old Nissans. The colectivos, as the trucks or vans that transport people are called, are weighed down with more people and there are usually even people hanging off the edges. This happens infrequently in Mexico but seems to be a regular occurence here. Some of the people here can't even afford to build houses out of refuse scrap metal and, instead, use plastic tarps to make makeshift tents. I even seem to see more women and children doing heavy labor. They do the labor that I usually see donkeys doing in Mexico. I still haven't seen a donkey, strangely enough. I saw several old ladies carrying large loads of firewood on their backs and, I swear, I saw a five-year-old carrying a 50 pound sack of something on his back. Well, maybe he was older than five but he was pretty fucking small. None of these things are things that I would never see in Mexico but they seem to be a common occurence here.
Tomorrow, my joyride on flat land shoud be replaced with grueling mountain climbing. I am barely above 100 feet right now and I should have to pass over 8,000 feet on the way to Guatemala City. Woo hoo!
Day 106 kt: 44.8 ta: 2421 gps: 14 degrees 42.036' W 91 degrees 47.336'
I was still in a somewhat foul mood from yesterday's border experience when I woke up this morning. A little riding took care of that. I soon found out that there are, indeed, cash machines between the border and Guatemala City. I have now reupped on cash and no longer have to worry about running out of cash before I reach the big city. Before, my plans were to haul ass to the big city where I could restock on supplies but now I plan to take a more leisurely, or rather more grueling route to the capital. I am going to go through the mountains through, what is called, Tierra Fria to get to Guatemala City. I will pass through el Lago de Atitlan, Antigua, and Chimaltenango where there is a cool organization called Mayapedal that I want to check out.
After my cash situation was resolved, I spent a lot of time farting around in Coatepeque, Guatemala. I spent some time on the internet reading the news and and looking up exchange rates for all of the currencies of the countries I plan to pass through. I had previously made the mistake of not writing down these rates but will not make this same mistake, again. I try to learn from bad experiences. I wondered around the city looking for typical Guatemalan food rather than the Mexican standards which are still ubiquitous. I found an old lady selling a deep fried vegetable called pacaya along with another vegetable she called hierba mora. They were both delicious and cheap.
After eating my lunch, Guatemalans started giving me gifts of soda and vitamins. These are two things that I did not particularly want but I think it was the gods way of telling me that I could let down my guard and trust people again. I went ahead and took this as divine commentary and immediately let down my walls.
I am camped out on top of a hill that is under construction to probably be another monotonous suburb. I have an excellent view as I have climbed to almost 3,000 feet, again. My campsite is in an old abandoned house that still has a roof. This is good because it looks like it could rain tonight. The jungle has quite suddenly engulfed me. When I was traveling along the coast of Chiapas, it seemed like most of the area was either ranchland or under some kind of cultivation. Here, it seems like the jungle pervades everything.
Before I set up my tent, I saw a huge flock of hundreds of parrots. I tried to get closer for a good picture but to no avail. I find myself wishing I had a camera with a 30X optical zoom. With that I could have a lot more good pictures of birds. I am still looking for monkeys and I am sure that I will encounter them at some point in my journey.
A lot of people have written me telling me how cold and miserable Austin is right now. I say to them that the grass is always greener on the other side. It is very hot here and I have a heat rash chafing my inner thighs. I can't wait to reach la Tierra Fria. When it is summertime in Austin and everyone is writing me about how hot it is in Austin I will probably be freezing my ass off in Patagonia. I knew that I was going to experience extreme weather condition when I started this trip. I am well equipped for all weather conditions and I look forward to the challenge.
Day 107 kt:38.9 ta: 5893 gps: N 14 degrees 52.190' W 91 degrees 37.289'
I don't think that I am going to see flat terrain again for a while. I ascended high enough today that low-lying clouds fogged up the road. The road was very steep to make my day very challenging. Normally, I can climb hills without getting off of my seat most of the time but I was out of the saddle for most of the day today. When I got to the city of San Juan, Guatemala, which is right outside of Quetzaltenango, I was at such a high elevation I had to dig out some of my cold weather gear. I expect more of the same all the way to Guatemala City.
Guatemala definitely has a more indigenous feel to it than Mexico does. Though I definitely heard people speaking indigenous dialects in Southern Mexico, it seems like half the people I run into here speak some Mayan dialect. I even say a teenage boy speaking Mayan on his cell phone. Many, if not most, of the women still wear traditional dresses and carry babies on their backs and loads on their heads.
Most of the people that I have met that have been to both Mexico and Guatemala scared me into thinking that the food of Guatemala is horrible. Thankfully, this is not so. I have enjoyed Guatemalan tamales, which are called chuchos, and I had a really good masa empanada called a doblada that was filled with a mixture of cooked carrots and chicken. I look forward to discovering more flavors.
Day 108 kt: 35.2 ta: 1980 gps: N 14 degrees 53.497' W 91 degrees 25.429'
I woke up this morning to the sound of loud trucks passing by the hotel where I stayed at. This is not the first time that I have been awoken by loud noise. If it is not loud trucks, it is roosters. If it is not roosters, it will be monkeys. At least I am not awoken by the screeching of an alarm clock. That is the most loathesome sound. I tried to stock up on peanut butter, granola bars, and water in San Juan but to no avail. I couldn't find the former two anywhere and the latter could only be found in half liters and five gallon jugs with nothing in between. Fortunately, Quetzaltenango was only 10 kilometers away and I was able to find all of those things there. I have a feeling that I will be having supply issues all throughout Guatemala.
It is going to be cold again for awhile and this definitely makes me slack off a little more. I spent a whole lot of time just sitting in marketplaces soaking in the sights and sounds. I have a feeling that I will be doing a whole lot of this as there are many interesting sights and sounds here in Guatemala. Maybe I will even take some pictures.
Day 109 kt: 64.2 ta:3659 gps: N 14 degrees 46.297' W 91 degrees 10.996'
When I woke up this morning, I was lazy as expected and did not want to leave my warm sleeping bag. Who would have thought it would be cold above 8,000 feet. Most of Guatemala is quite mountainous so it is surprisingly cold in many parts of the country.
The portion of the Pan-American highway which I travelled on today is mostly under construction. The government is expanding the two lanes to four lanes and they stop traffic in both directions for large periods of time. They, of course, let me pass and I had the road to myself quite often. There are also disadvantages to the road being under construction: I had to go over some rocky stretches of road; I discovered a new road hazard in the form of falling rocks loosened by construction equipment; and, when they inevitably let the drivers through, they are pretty pissed off. All that being said, I did make it to el Lago de Atitlan.
I am in the town of Solola, Guatemala which is on the northern border of the lake. The place where I am staying at only cost 20 Quetzales per night. This somewhere between $2 and $3. I could literally stay here for years without working with the money I have saved up. Granted my room is pretty spartan but I like that. If I keep finding rooms this cheap, I might not camp in the rest of Guatemala.
One of the things that sets Guatemala apart from the rest of Spanish speaking Latin America is that there are more evangelicals than Catholics. I see very few old Catholic churches and lots of new Evangelical ones in the countryside. I am going to have to look into the history of Evangelicism in Guatemala. I have a feeling that Evangelical dominance probably has something to do Catholic neglect and all of those Christian Childrens' Fund commercials I saw when I was a kid in the 1980s. I kind of miss the Catholics as the Evangelicals more aggressively proselytize as they see it as their duty to save all of us sinners. I want to scream, "I don't buy the religions that others sell." but I always end up being more polite as I am an ambassador of good will.
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