I swear they are going to get heat exhaustion if they do.  We are back in the lowlands, and the heat is on.  Miles travelled from Oakland - 6119.

Greetings from Granada, Nicaragua.  What a cool town.  Except the temperature.  Ok, it really isn't that bad, I think it was hotter on the Mexican coast around Acapulco and Puerto Escondido. I was just getting used to staying in the highlands where the termperatures drop quickly over relatively little elevation gain.

I last wrote from San Pedro, Guatemala, and we've blasted across a handful of countries since then.  In fact, we almost blasted out of Nicaragua into Costa Rica today, but this town seemed like it was worth checking out for another day.  It looks like we may even stay another day here if a potential plan to adjust the valves on the KLR650's materializes.  I will need a valve check on my bike too but will probably need to take it into a dealer for that.  San Jose, Costa Rica is one possible place to do this, the other one may be Quito, Ecuador.  I'm also going to need new tires in the next couple thousand miles, which may be difficult as the standard sizes aren't the same down here.

We left Lake Atitlan a week ago today, I think.  Is it Thursday?  Anyway we headed to Antigua from there, which was only about 3 hours.  We encountered a little rain along the way, never heavy but the visibility was bad.  I think this was the first rain of any significance at all we've hit since leaving the states.  Antigua turned out to be a fine little town so we spent Friday there.  Some time during the afternoon I was sitting reading a book when I saw a couple of obvious norteamericanos checking out the bikes.  I yelled something out to them like "they're not for sale" or "don't steal those" and they wanted to know who owned the KLR650's.  Turns out Glenn and Sheila are from Vancouver and travelling to South America on a pair of KLR650's that we'd seen in a neighboring hotel.  We had dinner with them and exchanged travel stories.  They are travelling down faster than us, with the intent of travelling back up at a more leisurely pace.  However they were slowed down by an accident when Sheila's saddlebag caught the road after a bump on a corner.  She has two broken ribs and making her laugh is a bad thing.  They are in Granada today and left a message at our hotel.  Glenn knows how to adjust KLR650 valves and has a bunch of shims, so perhaps that will happen tomorrow rather than travelling on to Costa Rica.

On Saturday morning we made for the El Salvador border.  I would say we made a beeline for it but that wasn't really the case.  Bees don't fly back and forth several times along the same road looking for the correct turnoff.  I also don't generally see them going round and round the same rotary.  However after asking directions several times (something else I've never seen a bee do) we managed to acheive the "shortcut" around Guatemala City and get on the road to the more inland border with El Salvador.  The Guatemala side was typical of Guatemala in general, quite chaotic.  But the El Salvador side was refreshingly relaxed.  Two pretty ladies in uniforms greet you half way across the bridge and tell you which buildings you need to visit.  No tramadores swarmed upon us promising to help us through the beaurocratic hastle.  There was no hastle.  You go to emmigration and they stamp your passport (for something like $3) and then you go to a little building where they type up some forms for your bike, which costs nothing.  Even the inevitable photocopies of various documents was gratis.

Driving into El Salvador was a breeze.  The roads were in nice shape, the scenery was nice, and there didn't seem to be as much garbage on the sides of the roads as in Guatemala.  There wasn't as many smouldering garbage fires either.  The Guatemalan air would be so much better if everyone didn't burn all there own garbage in their backyards!

We stayed at Apeneca on Saturday night, and then Sunday rode up to a crater lake (can't remember the name right now) and then tried to find a back way that would circle around San Salvador.  We rode for an hour, asked directions several times, and got spit back out on the main road we came in on.  Ok, let's just ride through San Salvador. 

Riding into San Salvador was fun, but once we got to the center of the city we got stuck in the market area, and it probably took 20 minutes to go a few blocks through it.  After this we ended up in a shady looking section of town, and couldn't figure out which was to go.  We asked a security guard with a big shotgun at a Texaco station, and it turned out we were about to run into the correct main road out of town anyway.  We blasted east towards the Honduras border for a couple hours, and stopped at San Miguel for the night, which gave us an easy shot at the border in the morning.  The infamous border that we had been researching and knew to be a hassle.  There is no good way into Honduras by motorcycle.

We left San Miguel good and early to give ourselves plenty of time at the Honduran border.  Leaving El Salvador was as easy as getting in, very civilized, then we crossed the bridge...
We were immediately assaulted by money changers

and tramadores.  Everyone wanted to "help us."  Some insane guy kept babbling at me and wouldn't go away.  I walked away and then he started babbling at Eric.  Everyone wanted to help but no one would tell us where to go.  A couple people waved us towards one particular building, but it was mostly deserted.  However Dick stumbled upon this sort of mystery good samaritan there.  He spoke a little English, brought us to the correct building, and got some people started on the Process, and then took off without wanting any money.  Truly a small miracle.  So ok, I was watching the bikes most of the time but here's what I think you do if going into Honduras on this border (was it El Amatilla?  The inland one, that's all you need to know).  Check out of El Salvador and into Honduras at emmigration on the El Salvadore side of the river.  Cross the river, and the process starts at the Administracion building on the right, just before the blue Aduana building in the middle of the road.  They type up forms there, and then take them to the blue building.  We paid something like $10 at one building and then $20-25 at the other (and $10 at emmigration).  Just about $45 total, which from the stories we've read and people we've talked to is an amazing bargain.  There is no set fee and some people have been ripped off for up to $150.  The process took about 3.5 hours including the 1 hour lunch break towards the end of the process.  The very last step was being walked to another building where some woman decided that we had been charged enough and let us go.  Not a fun experience but it just goes with the terrain.  About a half hour outside of the border we got stopped at a police roadblock.  The little weasel was going to write us $10 tickets for not having orange hazard triangles to put out on the road in the event of a breakdown, and we were going to have to ride back to the border to have the checks drawn up.  Eric finally tried "ahora, aqui?" and this guy said we could pay here and now.  He wanted $10 of course but all we "were able" to come up with was $4, and he let us go.
The roads in Honduras are not in very good shape.  There were lots of giant potholes, some 3 feet across and 6 inches deep.  Dick hit one while trying to pass a slow truck and tacoed his back tire.  Miraculously it did not pop, and we made it to the charmless little city of Choluteca, where he was able to make an appointment at a garage for the next morning to get it repaired.  Suddenly we had an unscheduled Bike Day.  All my bike needed was water in the battery, which may need to replaced soon.  It was an adventure finding distilled water in Choluteca.  There was quite a character in our hotel, Carlos, from Costa Rica, who is working at a carnival down the street from the hotel.  He told us where to go in Costa Rica, but unfortunately the town we "have to visit" is essentially at the end of a 100 mile dead end road.  I'm sure it's nice but I doubt we'll get out there.

The following morning, on freshly maintained bikes, and after our 4th meal in a row at Wendy's, we were on our way out of Honduras.  Leaving Honduras was easier than getting in, but could still have been easier.  Checking the vehicles into Nicaragua was a dream.  A Canadian woman went before us, and told us exactly which documents to present.  One of them was of couse my title, of which I only have a nice color copy, and had been worrying about.  I rubbed a Mexican 10 peso coin under the Great Seal of California to give a more official look.  The guy didn't even look at it funny, didn't even check my nice embossing or look for the watermark (This title is not valid without bear watermark).  10 minutes and no dollars later, I had my vehicle papers - well, with the wrong license plate number listed.  My title has the old plate number and the registration has the new SPENCH plate.  The guy at the gate caught it, but I was able to get through anyway by explaining the discrepancy in my expert Spanish.  Yeah right.  "Uhhhh cambio, plaque viejo esta 1M1417, nuevo plaque SPENCH" while showing him the registration and the title and pointing out that the VIN was the same even though the plate didn't match.  I could hardly believe it when he opened the gate for me without making my go back and get it changed.  Immediately I liked Nicaragua far better than Honduras.  Once we started driving, the road was in fantastic condition with nice scenery.  We rode through the interior highlands where the weather was pleasantly cool, and then came down into the lowlands with views of Lake Managua and the volcanoes on the other side.  Everything was going great until we stopped for gas.  After checking the maps we were putt-putting back across the gas station parking to the road, and some idiot kit comes fast from the side on his bicycle.  He's looking fully to his right while I'm on a collision course with him coming in from the left.  I just jammed on both brakes, my tires still wet and oily from where they{d been washing around the pumps, and the bike dropped on it's left side in an instant.  I got away from it without it landing on me, but I'm sure glad I had my armoured riding pants on otherwise I would have hit my knee pretty good.  The kid just took off.  Dick looked in his rear view mirror just in time to see it happen, and he said the kid fell off his bike too - good, and he thought he'd run into me.  Maybe he did but I didn't notice.  Instantly everyone at the gas station was there to help get the bike righted, and the only significant damage was the right front directional was smashed.  I think duct tape or crazy glue may get it through the trip, the lens mostly stayed together, but got snapped off the mount, which was bent back pretty bad.  Now it will more closely resemble the right directional.

The trip to Granada was pleasantly eventless after this.  We got lost once, nothing new there, and then made it directly to town.  I liked it instantly.  The plaza is very scenic, and seemed to be thriving.  Some lovely young ladies dropped a flyer on us for a local hotel, and said there was parking.  A little rain shower was coming in so we checked that place out first, and it looked fine, we have a one car garage all to ourselves for the bikes.

Now we have to figure out what to do next.  If we try to fly to South America before Christmas we need to blast through Costa Rica, but I think we all want to check out the beaches and parks there.  If we don't fly be Christmas we are going to be stuck in the middle of high tourist season there, and lodging prices will be high and lots of places may be full.  We also won't be able to deal with the higher-ups at the airlines to negogiate better shipping costs for the bikes until they return from their vacations after the new year.  So I have no idea what happens next.  We met another guy riding south on a KLR650 last night that says we need to be to Tierra del Fuego by the beginning of March to catch the good weather.  I don't want to hurry through Peru and Bolivia, but we may have to in order to achieve this goal.  His advice was simple  - don't hurry, don't worry about the goal.  I still want to make it down there however.

That's it for now, I still need to get some pictures posted but this computer doesn't have a USB port.  Maybe tomorrow I can find one.

Thursday December 15, 2005 - 10:44am (PST)