Alta Verapaz

This is going to be tough to pull off after going nearly a month without blogging. Expensive internet, lack of towns with internet, and lack of desire to sit in front of a computer for more than 10 minutes at a time led to me avoiding the blogging thing, but here we go...

...we are in Guatemala!

Belice
After 4 months in Mexico, and a monthlong surprise visit in Belize, I thought Id never get around to write that. Mexico had much more to offer us than we had ever imagined before leaving. Belize surprised us even more. The diversity of people in that country was staggering in a way that we have grown to appreciate back in the States. There were Chinese, black Caribs, gringo expats, and refugees who fled civil wars in El Salvador and Guatemala to make a beautiful mix of cultures. The north of the country was flat, full of sugar cane fields, and overflowing with smiling people. Lots of raggae music around every corner and the cool slow speech of the Carribean Garifuna culture...speaking in ENGLISH!

We grew a tad soft in our month in Belize, speaking in our native tongue nearly all day long. We took an hour long boat ride out to an island...Caye (key) Caulker. Here the water was that dreamy Carribean shade of jade green. The locals had no cars, but cruised the streets in single speed cruiser bikes like your Granny rides. We took a sailboat out to the Barrier Reef to snorkel with whale sharks, manta rays, millions of fish, sea turtles. Lisa dove the BLUE HOLE. Most importantly we came to realize that we desperately need hammocks in our everyday lives once we have some normal sort of settled life once this cycling adventure ends. Lying around in hammocks has an effect on these people that is impossible to deny...

And then we rode west, back on the mainland, and up into Belize´s Maya Mountains. We initially had laughed at the thought of Belize having quote unquote Legitamte Mountains, but after riding the steep dirt roads to our couchsurfing friend David´s place, we had newfound respect. The longest cave system in the Americas lies under these mountains. And on top of the mountains lie tons of Mayan ruins and beautiful waterfalls. There is also a gnarly singletrack route through the wild and remote Cockscomb Basin that is begging us to return to Belize and ride....

Guatemala

After 4 days, we managed to break away from those jungle clad mountains and enter Guatemala. With our outdated Lonely Planet guidebooks, we were unsure whether or not there was a tourist VISA fee. This made it easy to get scammed out of 25 Quetzales upon entry which we realized hours later once we met other cyclists headed the other way. Oops.

Immediately after getting scammed, the pavement ended on the Belize side, and a dirt road began on the other...welcome to Guatemala. Traffic was nonexistant and the hills began to grow around us. We had assumed that this region, El Peten, would be flat and in the jungle, but it wasn´t. We rode these mellow hills north and into the steep ruins at Tikal. Late in the afternoon we got a nice sunset all to ourselves on Temple V. Early in the morning we got to stare at amazement at the colorful birds flocking and chirping in the trees surrounding Temple IV. Afterwards, we were rewarded with good conversation with a photographer who has spend the past 2 years trying to photograph the elusive jaguar in remote Indonesian islands, and now in Belize.

Then we moved on. At the time we were traveling with our Swedish cyclist friend Hannah and had a blast. Lots of joking and smiles in the green hills leading to Poptun, and Finca Ixobel. We left Hannah behind and made our way up up and up into the mountains. We were blessed with pavement to get us used to climbing uphill for hours on end for the first time in months. Once in Fray Bartolome de las Casas, the pavement ended, and the sweating began.

This is without question the toughest cycling we have done on the trip. period.

Sure there was sand in Baja. The washboards made our wrists go numb and teeth chatter. The rains of the Michoacan highlands had us shivering. But this is a different story. In our lowest gears, we find ourselves pushing the pedals as hard as we can, only to yield a speed that is barely faster than walking the bike. Factor in loose gravel, and it´s tough to even keep the wheels spinning. Pedal too erraticaly and the wheels just push thru the rock and get no traction. Not hard enough and you can´t even get into the saddle. Throw in wide vehicles trying to pass on a road barely wide enough for the both of us, and you´ve got a bit of fun. We´ve found us pushing the limits of what we can ride with loaded bikes. Hell, riding some of this with an unloaded mountain bike with wide tires would be tough.

Naturally, all of the riding is worth it. The challenge is enough to make us keep doing it, and no one really drives these roads. When we roll through tiny villages, there is nothing else going on to distract people from the gringos...filthy and sweating, pedaling through their streets. They shout GRINGO! at us. Once an entire group of schoolchildren on recess started to chant at us as we passed. We can hear the strange sounds of these Mayan languages as we ride past without the noise of other cars to cover them up. And what a strange tongue this is. The people have a really weird high pitched intonation, paired with clicking sounds, which makes their language sound more like Chinese mixed with African languages, than Spanish. Since Spanish is these peoples second, and sometimes third language, we find they speak Spanish nice and slowly....

After 2 tough days, we were rewarded with Semuc Champay. The backpackers bible Lonely Planet claims this to be the most beautiful spot in Guatemala. We can´t quite make claims like this yet, but it sure was beautiful. A raging river cuts thru the rock, goes underground, and then is spit out from under this limestone bridge further downstream. While the river is underground, there are shallow pools on top fed by springs flowing down from the mountains in the valley. These pools are beauitful shades of blue and green and perfect for swimming. Quite the surreal place, and after working so hard, we naturally had to spend lots of time soaking....

Its not tough to say that we are fully in love with Guatemala. With so much to look foward to here, we find ourselves really excited to see what each day is going to bring. We´ve already read several people say that the highway between here, Coban, to Huehuetenango is perhaps the best cycling in all of Central America. We are thinking about living with a family and sutdying Spanish for a week, way up high in a Mayan mountain village called Todos Santos. The tallest volcano in Central America is begging to be climbed. The travelers oasis of Lago de Atitlan is screaming at us to relax in hammocks after baggging volcanic peaks which surround the lake...

Hopefully the next post will have pictures from a USB card reader that is yet to be found in Guatemala. Till then, enjoy your own adventure....