Guatemala Motocicleta - San Pedro á la Laguna

Road trip! Guatemala style.

Trees and vines and dirt fly past our heads. Julia is on the back of the motorcycle hugging me with both arms and both legs tight at my waist. I'm in the driver's seat on the fringe of control. In the flow state. She says "careful" with her tightening grip as we take a tight corner. Just another school bus oncoming towards us. This time the bus is using all of our lane except for the width of one motorcycle. We find the hole.

After six days in Central America we finally settled on a plan, a country, a route. El Salvador had the cheapest flights. Then it took a few days surfing in El Tunco and a few more in transit before we found a home in Antigua, Guatemala. Then we just waited to be inspired.

On our second day in Antigua, we were looking to purchase a motorcycle. If we could arrange a good deal for a good bike, we would learn to ride it. The folks at CaTours helped us meet ex pats in Antigua with motorbikes and eventually we were able to arrange a rental with a fellow Vancouverite living in Antigua. Check out this sick DR 250 S Suzuki. There's off road tires, and enough seat for two. Kick start only. No luxuries.

Kenn poses with the candidate bike on our first meeting.

We were eager to depart for a circuit which would take us into the highlands, to the northern jungles, and then back south along the Caribbean coast. But neither of us have ridden a bike and Julia hasn't handled a manual transmission. We had an incredible instructor from Quebec who prepared us over a span of two days. Thanks Frenchie!

Posing on the second day lesson. Up on some volcano somewhere.

Our bags were too heavy, so we trimmed the fat and dropped two thirds of our stuff. Just the essentials - and the Frisbee.

After we graduate, we depart at 10 am sharp. First stop is San Pedro á la Laguna - a chill hangout in the Guatemalan highlands nestled on the far corner of Laguna Atitlan. Chaotic traffic and absent road signs kept us on our toes as we found the Pan-American highway and cruised more than 18 kilómetros beyond our first turn-off. Regresamos!

Random road

Soon we are cruising through the volcanic highlands towards Laguna Atitlan. The twisting pavement is a biker's dream. We reach a river crossing where the bridge has been washed away. No problems. Vroom vroom as we take the river head on.

No bridge!

Cruising on dirt roads we take a hard corner where recent erosion has moved the dirt into a small wall. We don't see it until it is too late. Emergency braking procedures!! But the back wheel locks and Julia starts to slide out sideways. I release the brake and we take the bump head on at reduced speed. It went well. But a scare.

We get our first views of the lake and soon reach Panachel and find a nice break at the local fair.

Then we reach Solola and decide to push through impending storm rains and take a faint dirt road along the north side of the lake through small rural towns, several dead ends, and another river crossing. When we reach Utatlan, we decide to keep pushing on despite impending nightfall. San Pedro or bust!

With the sun setting we reach yet another small town named after yet another saint and ask, "How far to San Pedro?" In a five-minute Spanglish conversation we decipher that San Pedro is 48 kilómetros back in the direction we came from ... then a second villager confirms it, "Caraterra termino" - the road is out.

It has been a great first day out on the bike so we abandon hopes of reaching San Pedro today and race the setting sun back east to anywhere with a room for the night. In Utatlan we settle into Hostalaje Universal well after dark. Then we hit the town and enjoy some delicious corn husks stuffed with potato and chicken in the local plaza.

So ends our first day on the roads of Guatemala.
Tomorrow, Julia is driving! Gulp.