Ok going way back to Costa Rica.
We were able to purchase a motorcycle for pastor Ronald Chacon, Thank you to everyone who donated to the cause. He was very thankful, and the bike will be very useful.
We cruised across Nicaragua, except for having to pay one bribe to the police. Then we rode past the next set of cops who tried pulling us over pretending like we thought they were waving at us. Thankfully they didn't radio ahead to have us stopped cause the next set of cops we came upon actually did wave at us. But the ride up through after Managua to the border was quite beautiful.
Laban dropped his bike while the police had us pulled over
Paying the bribe
And Honduras was some more beautiful riding. And we had a wonderful time with Nate's relatives. There we changed oil in the bikes and Kevin was able to figure out why my headlight wouldn't stay on. Honduras was the only country where we didn't take the time to do something touristy. The border crossing from Honduras into Guatemala was the nicest and quickest so far.
Dwayne changing his oil
Laban swinging away
Playing settlers (Chad won)
Nate helped feed the cows
The sunrise the morning we left for Guatemala
Taking a quick break along the way
Guatemala was awesome. We stayed with my aunt and uncle Galen and Phyllis Groff for four nights. We got there Saturday evening and immediately went with Galen to take a lady and her baby back to her house. She then invited us up to her house which was a 5 minute walk up a muddy path through a coffee field and had an beautiful view of the surrounding hills, and she gave us coffee and bread. It was good to be back in the countryside again.
Sunday morning we went to a local Kechi church. I always enjoy experiencing a different culture worshipping God. We were then invited by a family to eat lunch at their house and that was good to, seeing how simple these people live and yet how happy and satisfied they are. The rest of the day we just relaxed back at the house, played some games and such. Monday we did a work day at the Bezaleel School. We drew a map of their large terraced garden area so that they could be more efficient in what they plant, also fixed some faucets in the girls dorm, and did some painting in the guys dorm. As always it felt good to give the bike a break and do some work for a change. That evening Phyllis made us a delicious thanksgiving dinner.
Sunday afternoon nap
Playing Phase10
Drawing the garden
Tuesday Galen let us borrow their Land Cruiser and we went to Semuc Champey, which has become my favorite place on this trip. Natural water pools of pristine clear blue water. Something like 18 pools in all. We went jumping and swimming from pool to pool searching for small caves underneath the waterfalls. Its hard to explain the area, the large river actually runs underground underneath these pools but some of the pools are quite large, it is really an amazing place.
With Wilmur and his sister Raquel
The rewarding view from our hike up looking down on the pools
The river going in underneath the pools
Wednesday morning we packed up, said goodbye to Galen and Phyllis and headed north towards Tikal. On our way we stopped and toured some caves, massive caverns really with some huge impressive stalagtite/stalagmite formations. And ancient altars where the mayans would have worshipped. We got a hotel close to Tikal and Thursday we spent most of the day touring the ancient Maya ruins of Tikal, another favorite place of mine on this trip since I love old stone structures. But these were really old - 2,000 to 3,000 years old. simply amazing. how does a civilization like that just dissapear?
We crossed into Belize late that evening then and got a hotel for the night. Friday we drove through Spanish Lookout, a successful Mennonite colony there in Belize. Had some awesome ice cream there. We then headed towards the coast and Hopkins Bay. There after checking several housing options we decided to spend some money one last time and stayed at Hopkins Bay Resort, our favorite "hotel" on the trip. We had very nice condo to ourselves. Saturday morning we got connected with a local who took us out to the keys to do some snorkeling. And awesome snorkeling it was, so many beautiful colorful fish and other sea creatures. Its a whole new world underneath the water. So we did that for a coupld of hours then spent the rest of the day back at our house watching football and relaxing, it rained quite a bit then the rest of the day, but we didn't care cause we were inside nice and dry.
And that brings us to today where we left Belize and crossed into Mexico this morning. Now the plan is to ride hard and be in Texas by Thursday. We do have to make a stop to pick up some parts for Kevin's bike though. Anyways, pictures to come soon.
Chad
Mexican streetside tacos
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