The El of Salvador

Video added at the bottom

here are some photos i took in El Salvador. check back later i'll try and add some videos of the guys trying to ride some waves.

i weee little clip of the boys riding waves in el salvador

no words just pictures: Guatemala

so i haven't posted in quite awhile. i don't have many words right now so i'm just going to post pics i guess.

these pics are from Guatemala

getting our bikes "fumigated" it turn part of my engine yellow and it won't come off

 

Laban getting his boots shined.

headed into the mountains of guatemala

Nate always sticks close which makes for good photo opportunities

along the road seems to be a good place to graze your animals

guatemala had some of the nicest high speed sweepers we've hit yet

then came the land slids

we ended up riding on the wrong side of the road or having traffic on our side more often then not

a waterfall on the way to our hotel on some lake

the lake

lunch in Antigua

looking over Guatemala City

the groffies eying up some pie

our hosts for two absolutely splendid meals! thanks a bunch!

being guided by tim on some of the lackadaisical riding in the city. i couldn't get pictures when i wanted to because i needed all my hands and feet running at full capacity to maneuver

COWS!

Dwayne's video blog (Days 68 and 73).

Here are some video blogs that I've done in the last week.

Video Post on Mexico and Guatemala.

Here is a fairly long video of each of us giving our thoughts on our journey through Central America thus far. if you make it through the first video then you may watch the second of our first day of in Guatemala. and if you are really loyal you may watch the last video which is us doing some riding in mexico, no worrys we don't do this everyday.

Central America thus far....

Mexico...

Mexico is big. It took us 10 days to get through, 9 days of riding. Since we stuck to the coast we didn't get to experience much more than the beautiful coast, the miles and miles of endless beaches and shoreline, and the small coastal towns. The northern part that we went through was for the most part dry and flat. After Mazatlan and getting into southern Mexico things became more green and lush. And the road became more twisty and fun as we hit some of the hills along the coast. We could see the big mountains off to our left while riding down but we didn't have the time to go inland and explore. We could have spent a lot more time there but due to the nature of the trip we got through Mexico pretty fast. We'll get to see more on our way back up. We ate a lot of mexican tacos, so good and cheap. Not much can beat a taco street stand.


Guatemala...

I love Guate. We had a beautiful change of scenery after we crossed the border. After a number of weeks of heat we finally hit some cool weather as we climbed high into the guatemalan mountains. The road twisted around back and forth as it took us through small indeginous towns. Beautiful people, beautiful mountains, really looking forward to explore more of it on our way back up.

Border crossings...


Not fun, way to much paper work and waiting and people trying to help. But they're necessary I guess, so we try and have patience as we go through. We're not sure if we've done everything right but we'll find out when we come back up through. Coming from Guatemala into El Salvador, the Guatemala side wanted to fine me like $275 dollars for not having an exit stamp in my passport when I was down here in January for a couple of weeks. I took my passport and walked away, they didn't chase me down so we'll see what happens when we come back up.

-Chad

Late night thoughts wide awake on awesome Honduran coffee

The riches of life are in memories, and memories are in moments... moments that you don't forget.

 Moments like when I was showing off and almost totaled my bike, and four guys spent over an hour sweating and heaving to get it back up on the road and ridable again. After it was all over Kevin walked up and said, "Hey Laban" and gave me a big hug.
 Moments like when Dwayne walked up to me and said, "I'll go with you". I was going way out of the way to see my Dad and there was nothing in it for Dwayne. When I asked him why he came along he said, "Well I just thought wouldn't really be any fun camping all by yourself." (That night we rode till one in the morning through the rain while the other guys were sleeping in dry beds, and Dwayne never complained.)
 Moments like when Nate and I climbed into a Mexican fort in the dark, scaling its walls and arches behind gates that were meant to keep people out.
 Moments like when Chad and I were playing Frisbee in the early morning dew, by a beautiful lake in the Guatemalan mountains.
 Moments like when one of the guys will say,"I'm glad you came along on this trip."
                                       
                                    Friends make moments unforgettable. 

- Laban    

Pounding out the miles

FINALLY GOT ALL THE PICS UP LOADED

Ok so its been awhile since I posted, I’ll try and think back about what we have done. 

our view from the YWAM base

our bunks

Nate on the "beach"

So after Gustavas we road 320 miles to a YWAM base in Masaland. We hung out in their pool, and walked down to the beach. Ok funny story. While down on the beach, well it wasn’t really a beach so much as lots of rocks that we were climbing on while the waves crashed around. We were hopping around each to his own (it was dusk and we couldn’t see real far with any certainty) and there was a huge wave that crashed on some rocks. As fate would have it Laban was standing on that particular rock seeing if he could feel the mist from the waves. He came walking up to us completely drenched from head to toes, dripping everywhere, fully dressed in jeans and a t-shirt and his leather riding boots. We all laughed a lot.

cocking some dinner on our stoves at Carlos and Bonnies

The next day we headed towards a ranch that we didn’t know where it was, and it was owned by people we didn’t know. Dwayne had met Scott Noland (I think that’s right) who said he had a ranch in some small town and that if we wanted to stop in on our way through that we could. He said just ask people in town where the ranch was, so we did. And after a driving past it TWICE we found a small road that headed across a rushing creek. Our first water crossing. Now I wasn’t really excited about this, the creek was maybe 50 feet wide one foot deep of rushing water. There was concrete on the bottom for us to ride on but it was slippery. We found out later that the creek was very low and that it gets very high when it rains. (over 6 feet high) and that the owners mother was once stuck there for 3 weeks waiting for the creek to go down. Anyway we found the house and Bonnie and Carlos were in the front yard. Scott wasn’t there but Bonnie was his sister and they said we could put up our tents or they had a few beds for us with a place for us to park our bikes under a roof. There were four beds so I put up my hammock between two poles and woke up to the sound of rain pattering on the tin roof. All I could think of was that the creek was going to go up and we didn’t have much food left. And I dreamt that the creek flooded. Well the creek didn’t go up and we got out without too much drama. But a special thanks to Bonnie and Carlos for letting us crash on their ranch. Carlos even gave us some good tips on the route for the day.

Now I know Dwayne said about the speed bumps already but I want to try and give a picture of what its like driving in mexico. Well first the speed bumps are everywhere, some small some big and some would even be classified as mountains in Kansas. No lie some are over a foot high and sometimes wide enough that the front and back tires are both on the “bump” at the same time.

spider eggs that i woke up with on my hammock netting, they were as big around as a silver dollor

we followed a military truck with about a dozen armed guys, so we figured we wouldn't have any road blocks to deal with :-)

we had a few military check points, some just wanted to see our documents, this one had drug sniffing dogs. but we were clear

And its not just the size either, it’s the sheer quantity that is border line over whelming! We average almost one bump every mile some days, and when you ride for 40 miles without a bump then that means that they are everywhere in the towns. According to my rough estimates we could ht anywhere from six to ten thousand speed bumps till we get back to the states! The bumps can be fun at times but they tend to get old after a dozen in a row and I’m sure the bikes are less then impressed with them. Also not all of the bumps are marked or painted so once in a while we hit one doing about 50 which always keeps things lively.

Ok so we have speed bumps, rough roads, pedestrians, dogs, and road workers to dodge, and because that’s not enough it would seem the place to leave your donkeys is along the side of the road where the grass in green. You never quite know when you are going to round a corner and have one standing there or just have one pop out of the tall grasses along the side of the road.

I led for the day and we covered 350 hard fought miles, we had lots of towns, and lots of twisties too. Both of which slow you down and also force you to stay super alert. And for the leader it’s more intense because he is responsible getting around the cars then making sure that the rest of the crew knows if it is clear to pass or not, along with blazing through completely unknown corners without knowing what is just around the corner. As the sun set over the water we rolled into the hotel for the night. And I was very ready to be done riding for the day. I enjoyed it but I was exhausted. This was our third day in a row of more then 300 miles or about 7-9 hours of riding a day with usually one gas stop, and some days a quick food stop at a taco stand.

Nate rounding a corner, sticking close to me

we stopped once for some pics

the sun setting as we neared our destination

Dwaynes dirty face at the end of the day.