The Reunion of Man and Machine

July 2nd to 10th

After two months back in Britain and an emotional good bye to our families, we finally head back to Nicaragua to try and pick up our bikes and the threads of our interrupted tour.

Arriving in Managua by aeroplane is like clashing the gears of a high power sports car - it jars the nerves! Approaching by bicycle, Central America creeps up on you at low speed. Air travel slams it in your face and allows no time for the senses to adjust. As we leave the airport it's like entering another world.

The heat and humidity suddenly envelop you like a warm wet blanket. The buildings fall apart - all crumbling concrete and exposed steel clawing at the sky. Bodies swarm at you from all sides - gone is the sense of decorum and personal space we British expect from strangers. "Taxi!", "Hotel" the high volume cries, as hopefuls make grabs for our rucksacks to seal the deal and cause you to follow. Despite the jet lag and crusty eyes from a 26 hour journey we run the gauntlet and repel all comers to flag down a taxi down in the street we know will cost less than half price.

It's 10 miles from the airport to Managua centre where we return to Hostal Santos. I feel my legs tensing up and then making for an imaginary brake pedal as we speed towards a red light at 60mph. The driver, seeing my wasted efforts, laughs and casually explains that after two motorcyclists were dragged from their bikes and shot; the police no longer enforce traffic restrictions after dark. Welcome back to Nicaragua!

In our absence, Central America has passed from Summer into Winter - meaning we are now in the rainy season. It's not like a winter back home and temperatures are still in the 80's and 90's. There are just two seasons here and winter lasts for seven or eight months with torrential rains and tropical storms a violent and daily feature. The vegetation has an otherwordly greeness and growth rates are prodigious....

Above, great flocks of parakeets squabble and squawk as they tear between tree perches with the best pickings...

As is becoming a common way to start our tour, we are both laid low with headcolds. By choice we would never have visited Managua and this is now our third stay and it's all a bit depressing. After three days we can stand it no more and head on out.

Travel without the bicis is a torrid affair and I have new found sympathy for backpackers. We take a taxi to the bus terminal where we are assaulted by maybe 10 competing companies looking for fares and all grabbing at our clothes. It's two hours to Rivas and the bus is choc-a-bloc. Amazingly we both get seats - Sue shares with a mother and two young lads and I get half a buttock on a back seat facing sideways. There are people and gear everywhere in the aisle and it's a hot sweaty ride with armpits jammed in your face. As I am the nearest, whenever we stop I am responsible for the rear door and an impossible number of new passengers climb in over my legs and feet. It's a human version of the popular 'Tetris' game fitting them all in.

As we near our stop, the conductor, unable to move down the aisle - spider-mans his way up on to the roof of the moving bus, over the top and in at the back door. He explains he can get us a taxi to the ferry port and; whilst hanging bodily out of the door, slings one of our rucksacks over one shoulder, then the other over his other shoulder. As the bus slows to a running speed, like a paratrooper he disappears out the door taking all our kit. Being less adventurous, we almost wait for the bus to stop before jumping out whereupon the hyper-active bus-man is already running back towards us gesticulating at the car he has launched our bags into. He is up and the bus is off before we can even reach the taxi.

From taxi to ferry and another lesson in how shockingly wasteful Western travel is with it's 'Maximum Passenger Loads'....

From ferry to bus and four more hours of mixed paved and dirt road to cross Ometepe Island. We are minor celebrities it would seem when I explain to the bus conductor we are returning to collect our bikes from Oswaldo's place. 'Ahhhh these are the gringos' he announces to the bus load of locals and they all nod as if a nagging problem has finally been solved. At least we learn that Oswaldo has been good to his word and the bikes and kit is just as we left it. I can't tell you how big a relief this news is!

As luck would have it, the bus terminates at Rancho Merida where we frantically left our trusty steeds two months earlier and it's a happy reunion of man and machine.

Partly to fully recover from our headcolds and mainly to push some money Oswaldo's way (as he refuses to take money for bicycle storage) we stay four days at his hostal and restaurant. Many thanks amigo - you really helped us out when we needed it.

To be honest it's also partly to put off the inevitable ride back to the ferry port. Two months off does not prepare you for this as a first day back on a fully loaded bike...

Last time we rode here, we were well in the groove and the roads were dry. Now there are added water features and it's all gone slick and treacherous....

All this water is manna from heaven for butterflies and they swirl and flutter around us, gathering in congregation in damp spots....

Sue manages to spill some of her kit on a nasty stretch....

Later she spills herself and takes a tumble in the dirt. Day one and our first use of the first aid kit as she bangs up a wrist. It all gets too much as we approach a volcanic water hole that boasts medicinal properties for it's mineral rich water. A patient checks in for some aquatic healing....

We intended to stay an hour and remain for four when the healing proves more tempting than the riding. The rainy season proves to be more than a rumour when the heavens open and we deluged with a cascade of water. It's odd to be swimming in a cold sulphurous pool under warm rain.

After so long enjoying long summer evenings of daylight back home in Britain, it's a bit of a shock to be chasing the last of the sun's rays at just six o'clock as we make our sodden ride back to a hotel by the ferry port. The streets are in darkness as the power suddenly fails and we just make it before it's pitch black.

Leaving the island, the imposing cone of Conception volcano is noticeably greener than two months ago. When it emerges from dense cloud banks that is. A swift, flat dash along the lake takes us through a surprisingly modern metal forest of giant rotating wind turbines that supply the local area with green energy....

It's a relaxing ride towards the chaos that is the Penas Blancas border crossing. We are immediately accosted by youths who tell us the wait to be stamped out of Nicaragua is two hours, but for $10 each they can speed things up. We decline and the queue is indeed right around the building. The 'speeding up process' consists of marching people close to the front of the queue and telling them to blatantly push in. Four Americans are having a disagreement with their 'helper' explaining that is not what they had in mind when they handed over what is an average day's wage for a local.

Nicaraguan organisation at it's finest....

The whole thing is chaotic and trying to queue with our bikes becomes impossible with all the jostling. In the melee Sue drops her bike, only catching it when the chain-ring gouges a path down her shin. Where the sharp metal teeth have bitten into her leg, it looks like she has been mauled by the claws of a bear and the blood flows freely into her sock and shoe. I think she is going to need a stitch or two. Eventually after an hour and a half we get the formalities of the passport stamp out of the way and we can finally dress her still-bleeding wound.

Some countries you leave with a heavy heart, some countries you just leave. Adios Nicaragua we'll not miss you....

After the wasted time at the border we again chase the daylight and arrive 20kms later at 'La Cruz' the first Costa Rican town of any size. Bienvenidos a Costa Rica.....

The Next Chapter

January 11th to January 31st

Cycle tours never begin smoothly.....

At least that's my experience of them.

Arriving at Manchester airport 50 minutes later than planned due to snow related cancellation of the early train, I attempt to check-in. What can go wrong this time? I don't even have a bike with me, and thus disguised as just another normal traveller, all should be well - me thinks.

That is until an official checks my itinerary and states categorically that I cannot fly!

Hmmm – that sounds bad....

I'm returning via the United States and I'm informed that as a British citizen, I cannot fly to America on the return part of a ticket. She becomes suspicious when I explain I am on a bicycle tour and after checking my luggage she can't find a bike anywhere. She calls reinforcements and now there are 3 of them.

I left the bike in a pub in Guatemala three months ago I casually explain to them.

Their faces are a dead giveaway - they don't seem to believe me and time is pressing.....

After returning with proof of an onward flight to Guatemala and pages from my blog hastily printed at an internet terminal, they finally begin to waver. Shreds of truth supporting my story are beginning to emerge, but they don't back down that easily. The final debate seems to surround whether Guatemala is 'contiguous' with the United States - whatever that means. If it is – I still can't fly.

In the time honoured tradition of bureaucrats the world over they finally make a decision....

To pass the buck....

'Cameron' should have the final say.... So I am standing at an empty check-in area – (all other passengers have long since gone and are sipping coffee by the departure gate) whilst a phone call is placed to some bloke who gets to decide if Guatemala is indeed 'contiguous' and whether or not I fly today.

Finally, Cameron he say 'Yes'..... and I have 40 minutes to get that plane! Sprinting through airports is becoming a form of warm up exercise before cycle tours.

Sue on a separate flight, is also affected by the cycle tour curse. She gets delayed in Manchester misses her connection at Heathrow and is diverted an extra 2000 miles and ten hours via Los Angeles.

Of course her luggage isn't.

We are reunited at 6am outside Guatemala airport and agree it's all been worth it to swap the big freeze in the UK.....

To finally be back in the heat and colour that is Guatemala.....

We head for Antigua to await Sue's bag and collect bicycle number one.

That takes 3 days....

We head for San Pedro to collect my bike.....

That takes 7 days.

Well, getting the bike takes a day as Simon the guy who has my bike at The Alegre Pub is a fine fellow and there are no problems there. No the only problem is leaving Lake Atitlan again. Sue signs up for another Spanish school and I set up a cycle maintenance school as all the locals start bringing me their bikes once they see me overhauling ours.

Leaving this behind is hard....

Luckily we have a deadline to meet and cannot stay longer. We need to meet a friend of my brother's 'Mona Lisa' who is volunteering at an orphanage - 'Nuestros Hermanos Pequenos' (Our Little Brothers) close to Antigua. We have to deliver her bank cards which have been following her from Germany, via my brother's house in Kansas City. It's been in transit for nearly 2 months and it's good to see German banks are almost as useless as the ones in the UK. We catch up with her on her day off.

Milk Shakes – Guatemala style....

Big grins by Sue, me and Mona Lisa....

Thrown in at the deep end, she starts 10 straight shifts of 12 to 14 hours the following morning looking after pre-school age orphans in what promises to be a challenging and rewarding year ahead. It's made all the more tricky by her lack of Spanish which she is rapidly trying to learn. Good luck Mona Lisa – a brave move and it was nice meeting you.

Then follows 7 days I would rather forget as the local bugs test out my immune system gone soft after 4 months back in Blighty. My head fills with lead and my face and body aches as my nasal passages turn to stone. I am Mr Mucus!

Now I am not known for my stoicism in the face of illness, and Sue is not known for her nursing skills, so we slowly learn to despise each other as our hotel walls close in on us. We set the world record for least number of miles cycled in the first month of a cycle tour....

It cannot last – and finally, just like Lazarus before me, I miraculously rise from my death bed in a display of heroic fortitude....

Well, actually Sue tells me she's sick of my moaning, to stop malingering and kicking and screaming she throws me out of my death bed.

Finally – the tour can begin again.

WE RIDE.....

Flores

August 18th to 25th

Another truck.

I hate getting rides, but there was a consensus in the group that the ride down to Semuc Champey would be one way. I suppose that, given it took 3 hours to cover the 7 miles between Lanquin and Semuc, added to the worse road and huge 12 mile climb from Lanquin up to the main road, it would probably take 2 days.

We travel in style....

Honestly there's plenty of room in there for four bikes, gear and people.

So much room in fact, that we actually picked up 3 more people with gear on route.

It's a bruising, uncomfortable journey as we bounce and roll up the uneven rocky surface, but I suppose it beats riding.

The road after 'Fray Bartolome' does not really improve, but at least the gradients are manageable as we ride through hot sticky, lowland jungle....

It's a slippery, bone shaker for 20 miles or so....

Passing by some incredible limestone rock formations. It looks like the ancient remains of a giant game of marbles, discarded playthings slowly being reclaimed by the relentless vegetation....

And finally we hit the paved stuff again as the road angles north, heat hazed and shimmering it stretches to a distant horizon....

Massive 'Ceiba' trees hint at the ancient forest that would have covered this entire plain. Now there are only tiny patches left - remote island habitations for the howler monkeys we hear bellowing and roaring amongst the branches. We are lucky enough to catch a glimpse of a mother and her baby right by the roadside....

This is the devastated land that remains today.....

Generations of slash and burn, plus a more recent clearance policy to turn this into grazing land has totally denuded the forest. Now this is cattle country, but it all looks so fragile as bony, listless cows bake in the heat; their ribs cutting a washboard pattern under thin stretched skin. People are forced to walk further and further in search of firewood and the temperature is dramatically higher outside of the shady protection of the trees. Now the woods are gone I wonder how it will all look if there is a year or two of reduced rains. There is nothing to hold the valuable moisture in the soil and all safety margins are gone.....

We stop for lunch in a small village and unbeknown to us, word has got out - we've been spotted. They come in one and twos at first, then threes and fours, then all at once. Before we know it we're surrounded....

Local children, curious about the bikes and the gringos empty the local school as the teachers give chase across the field - they come happy and smiling from all directions, some with bare feet, some in raggedy clothing. Some are just happy to examine the bikes, and the white faces, others are more bold and demand money. All are curious about the language - their English is rudimentary and they are keen to hear and pick up new words. En masse they repeat words they snatch from our conversations. I tell Anna it's looks like becoming a bit of a mob and they repeat, beginning to chant mob mob mob mob MOB MOB MOB MOB....

We ride away laughing, the road entirely blocked to traffic by the crowd.

We manage 125kms (80 miles) for the day before stopping at 'Sayaxche', a dismal dangerous looking town on the banks of the Rio de la Pasion. The naming of the river seems to have inspired an unusually large number of brothels to set up (knocking) shop here. Faces of questionable beauty, smeared primary colour bright, pout and whisper as I pass.

I pass....

We plan a boat trip up-river to the local Mayan ruin of 'Ceibal', famed for it's carvings and remote jungle setting, but the dreaded lurgy strikes at Ali and he goes down with stomach pains. Maybe that month in Holland gave his system time enough to forget it's immunity to Guatemalan bugs.

Sayaxche is not a place to stay and recover so he bravely decides to ride the next day.

We await the river boat for the short crossing.....

It is a bit of wait as well as the boat meanders agonisingly slowly against the feeble river. Looking closer reveals the problem - under two palm leaved 'palapas' are the engines - two tiny outboard motors manned on rotating outriggers. It sounds like a wasp in a bottle as several tons of boat and cargo slowly zig and zag at the mercy of the swirling current.

While we wait, the smell of fried chicken from a nearby food cart is too much for Ali and he loses his breakfast within 3 feet of it, much to the vendors distaste - not good for business I guess.

Anna negotiates a ride with a truck driver on the boat as Ali wobbles on rubber legs and we load their stuff.

Sue and I ride a hot, flat and dull 60 miles through a featureless wilderness of deforestation. We reunite in 'Flores', an island town on Lake Peten Izta. Ali is in a bad way and generously shares his ailments with a not too grateful Anna. Over the course of the next 4 days he and Anna take it in turns to spend time in the bathroom and make howler monkey sounds..... Not pleasant.

Sue and I are forced to relax on our balcony and enjoy the ever changing mood of the lake.

Blazing thunder and lightning with storm force winds....

To mellow sunsets - Lake Liquid Gold....

Puebla

April 28th to May 2nd

Did I mention I hate taking buses. 

Well I do and we are forced to arrive in one to Puebla. On route we miss one of Mexico's finest volcanos 'Popocatépetl' close to the town of Amecameca. I wanted to climb it so I'm cross. Sue is actually quite relieved as she never really wanted to be dragged up another volcano. At 5286m is a good big higher than the 4260m Vulcan Nevado we climbed earlier, but the views are supposed to be spectacular. Travelling is supposed to cross things off the list of 'places you want to see', but I just keep adding new ones to the 'places to return to' list. Oh well.

Puebla is a good antidote to being cross. It's another Mexican city that is almost absent from guide books and they've got it wrong again! In the Spanish world you can get a bit 'cities out'. It goes like this.

1) Huge central plaza - check.

2) Enormous cathedral - check.

3) 400 other smaller churches - check.

4) Couple of dodgy museums - check.

5) Crumbling colonial style buildings - check.

They're always nice, but it does get a bit samey.

Puebla is different. Settlers from the Spanish town Talavera came here and brought an 8th century Moorish technique for producing hand painted tiles with them. They went slightly mad after that and covered every single building with them, but it does look really good. Once you get closer you start to notice colourful individual tiles, gold leaf and moulded plaster and it's like no other Mexican city we've visited.

Of course Puebla does have the requisite central plaza and cathedral, but it's a beauty and the cathedral has the highest towers in the country so Puebla is closer to God...

It does have old colonial buildings and we sneak inside to see just how nice they are. It's very nice....

But the tiling is everywhere and it just feels a little different here....

Of course, there are the churches. Puebla is allegedly more religious than any other Mexican city..... 

Now I'm a little bemused as to just how these things get weighed or measured or whatever you do, but apparently it's true. Did they hold a competition? I know not, but apparently it's just true! 

Have faith.

Above in the background is the 17th century Iglesia Santa Domingo and the gold leaf covered mouldings inside the Capilla del Rosario are genuinely incredible . 

But I really like Puebla for the food! Birthplace of many of Mexico's traditional recipes such as tinga (meat stewed in chiles) and Mole (pronounced mol-eh) - a rich, smooth, nutty, chocolaty confusing amalgam of taste sensations absolutely nothing like the black velvet fured blind rodent thing. There is an entire market dedicated to making these wonder dishes and the women inside this building will give them all to me for just 3 dollars!

If the building looks this good - the food was even better!

But panic has spread and the flu has closed down all government run buildings here as well - schools, libraries and museums. It's a shame as Puebla again has a good reputation in this area. The musuems I mean - no idea about the schools. Luckily Puebla is a good ambling kind of place and nothing shuts down a local market. You can get anything here, provided you can find it on the overstacked stalls. 

It's OK for browsing, but a ciclista buys nothing he cannot eat....

There's an artist's quarter where easels sit out on pedestrianised streets and you can watch the painters work, their creations taking shape before your eyes. Botanical garden anyone? Rather nice for chilling out....

And here's the crumbling old colonial style buildings. Actually they're not that crumbly and Puebla has a more up market, well kept air about it than many other places. We find coffee shops here and ponder....

We're getting close to the rainy season now in Mexico, which runs roughly from May through to September. On cue, every evening at 6pm, grey curtains draw themselves over the otherwise cloudless blue skies and turn the air to liquid. I am talking biblical rain, the type that turns roads to rivers and the inside of our hotel to a swimming pool. It clenses and cools everything and is welcome now afternoon temperatures approach 3 figures....

Unfortunately after 5 days, the 'flus', sorry news about flu is no better and it looks like we will have to abondon all thoughts about seeing Mexico City.

Tomorrow - we ride East.....

Plans Change in Taxco

April 22nd to 28th

Taxco was originally settled by the Aztes, and then later by the Spaniards after Hernan Cortes inquired about the origins of a coin he was given; he was searching for the source of the tin it contained. On arriving in Taxco, the Spaniards found not tin but iron, but that was OK and they stayed anyway. 200 hundred years later they found silver and now the place has more silver shops than the rest of the world combined.

Nearly. 

An estimated 900 silver vendors do business in this town of around 100,000 people. If you're not the shop guy, you're the guy making the stuff, and if you're not that guy, you're the one looking for the tourists to buy the stuff. This is a silver town. Designs are original, craftmanship outstanding and the competition is fierce.

I guess there was no other reason that could possibly persuade sane people to build a town here. Nowadays inhabitants spend more time trying not to slide off the mountain than actually mining it. It's a tough place to ride a fully laden bici....

It's also another of Mexico's "Puebla Magicos" - magic towns that offer the traveler just that little bit more than other, less enchanted destinations....

I like it. Big business has been forced to tone down it's garish shop frontage and blend in. Streets are cobbled and the place has an olde worlde charm with teeny tiny plazas crammed in between miniature buildings. Nothing is large here - there is just no flat land to build on other than the beautiful Plaza Borda where Indian laurel trees provide the shade in front of pink stoned Santa Prisca Church.... 

The rest of the town is precipitous. One museum walks you in the front door and leads you through a couple of rooms overlooking a 4 story drop at the back! It's all steps and higgledy piggledy alleyways that disorientate and confuse....

Bloody difficult to get about with heavy shopping as these locals take a breather in altitude depleted air.

However, plans change when the Swine flu hits. Originally we planned to stay a day or so and then ride the 2 days into Mexico City. This all changes when the panic hits and Mexico starts to close down. It would be pointless to ride there now, and maybe a little dangerous as well, so we decide to stay a little longer and watch the news unfold.

It gives us a little time to sight see at Las Grutas de Cacahuamilpa (big caves) where you are guided into a simply gargantuan cavern. The tour stretches over 2kms into this subterranean expanse and the tour is apparantly hilarious judging by the Mexican's reactions. Unfortunately, my Spanish lets me down in amongst the confounding echoes....

And then all the museums and some of the restaurants here begin to close. Blue face masks are starting to appear and the smell of disinfectant pervades the air as people begin to murmur and whisper. Nothing deters the silver merchant in the various markets and the ever industrious VW taxis though....

However, after 5 days we decide to make a break for it and take a bus around the outskirts of Mexico City (MC). I hate taking buses and this breaks the chain where we ride the whole route, Canada to Panama, but at this point things are looking grim. MC is officially closed, the death toll is 190 and rising. Flights from Peru and Argentina have been cancelled and travelers are leaving before the airport closes down completely. We don't want to leave Mexico, but we don't want to be trapped this side of MC either. So we take the bus to Puebla, figuring if things worsen we can still fly home from this major city. If things impove we are still  on route heading South and East. MC sounds dangerous at this point and in any case is a washout as everything will be closed for the forseable future. It's a bitter blow. I hate breaking the chain and I know how these guys feel. 

Writing now with 20/20 hindsight, the swine flu threat is being played down in the media and the world is on the verge of questioning Mexico's "over reaction". Amazingly, these same people simultaneously forget that they had earlier criticised the Mexican government for not acting quickly enough. The media is as capricious as ever! Taking the bus was the right thing to do given the situation and information available at the time. Even now MC is only just returning completely to normal and nobody then could say for certain what the extent of the threat was.

But the chain is broken and I still hate taking buses!!

Swine

April 30th

Most of the time on this blog, I am posting a couple of months out of date, desperately trying to catch up....

However, recent events have brought me crashing in to the present....

Newsflash....

WHO fears pandemic is 'imminent'

Disasters do seem to follow me around (like the volcano erupting in Chile). We were about 80 miles outside of Mexico City (MC) in Taxco and planning to head there the very next day when news of the Swine flu hit a week ago. Luckily we had an internet connection and had seen the news, otherwise empty streets and seeing people suddenly wearing surgical masks would have freaked us out. News that schools and government buildings were closing in the capital demanded a rethink of the route. 

Unfortunately, we were getting in to that spiders web road system that forms round all huge cities where all roads form spokes to the central hub - narrowing our options. Cycling round Mexico City would take time and retreat back to the coast was not a good option. So we broke our self imposed rule to cycle everywhere and took a bus to Puebla about 100 miles to the East of MC. It just seemed prudent to 

1 - Get slightly further away in the direction of less cases of flu.

2 - Still be in a city should we need to get further away still.

3 - Be on the right side of Mexico City should we carry on cycling.

 

Currently the number of fatalities in MC is 168 with around 2000 hospitalised depending on what source you choose.

All "non essential" government services have closed down including all tourist services. Peru and Argentina amongst others have suspended Mexico flights, with France calling for other countries to follow suit. Options are narrowing and Sue and I are currently debating what next? The WHO is stating that there is no need to close borders.... but then if the UK simply refuses entry of Mexican flights to it's airports???? 

Life in Puebla seems to be carrying on fairly normally except for the face masks and museum closures. Schools are closed, and families have been asked to remain indoors, but a walk around the city centre shows that many people are taking the opportunity to spend time socialising with family and friends, streets are busy and businesses remain open. People here seem to be taking a wider perspective and it's a pretty tranquil place.

There's doesn't seem to be any reason to be overly concerned at the moment, and Mexicans seem to be taking this in their stride. However, from a totally selfish perspective, the closure of everything that is good is gonna put a serious crimp on the tour....

The WHO meets in Luxembourg today and we're awaiting their report before making any kind of a decision....