Merry X Mas

Merry Christmas to all. My Christmas wish is for none of you to ever drink the tap water in a costal town in Costa Rica. After travelling for over a month in Panama where the tap water is ok to drink I arrived to the beach town of Dominical in Costa Rica on the 22nd and kept drinking the tap water until on the 24th I took the time to look at the water I was drinking and it was full of black floating particles and some other UFO´s (unidentifed floating objects). For Christmas eve and all night I practiced running between my bed and the toilet. Christmas Day was spent in a hammock eating yogurt. Boxing day I woke up feeling much better so I headed for the waves only to come back 2 hours later beat up and probably feeling worse then the previous 2 days as I learned 12 ft waves are lot funner to look at then to play around in. Paddling out through these waves is a task on its own and when you end up on top of one of them, looking down at the sea below you before being pile drived into the bottom I gurantee your heart will skip a beat. After a few surf outings this trip I am starting to think it might be the ultimate cross training for mountain bike racing as it is great excercise for your upper body and it works on your balance and core strength. The layed back relaxed atomosphere is also pretty chill. More then anything though I figure its the perfect way to practice crashing uncontrollably. I think that after getting tossed around in the ocean with a surfboard tide to your leg that crashing on a bike is pretty tame as once you crash thats it, you dont have wave after wave pounding on top of you reminding you that your hurt and a surf board bouncing off your head. Crashing also makes you more flexible and bend in ways you never though possible. After a few days of this I had enough and road up to Quepos and world famous Manual Antonio National Park to meet my good tico friend Ronald who rode from his home in Sant Ana. Arriving in late afternoon was pretty scenic to see the cars lined up along the rode for over a mile and the beach jam packed full of tourists and vactioning Ticos. The national park has 5km of hiking trails through virgin jungle clinging to the cliffs overhanging the ocean and is full of monkeys and other crazy animals. We were up at 5:30am today to beat the rush into the park and we sccidently walked in the exit and had the park to ourselves for over an hour before the tourists hoards arrived at the park opening time of 7. We met a ranger at around 6:55 am who was a little moody and wanted to deport us out of the park but after some negotiations I think we confused him as I spoke in english and Ronald joked around with him in spanish and he decided to let us continue on our journey through the park. After a quick bite to eat it was on the bikes were we are now headed north towards his parents beach home near Orotina.

Sunday Funday

• Disc golf
• Waterfall adventure
• Shoot papa`s
• Tubing
• Strawberry splits
• Ping pong tourney
  
• Fire
• Cheap fireworks
  

Good bye Map

The trip up to visit Kat, a young peace corps volunteer from North Carolina got delayed a day as the ride over from Santa Catalina proved to much for a gringo biker and his map. Getting late in the day and not super stoked about biking on the Pan American highway again at night I pulled over to check my map. To my suprise there was a shortcut just 2 km ahead, a nice 23 km paved highway to my destination of Cerro Iglesia. Heading straight up hill I biked for 40 minutes into the night before coming to the small town of Nancito and the end of the road. I looked everywhere only to find deadends, exhausted I finally asked a local and he varified that the highway on my map didnt exist. Almost 2 hrs after dark now, my local friend invited me in for the night and the next day fed me a large breakfast and sent me the right way to Cerro Iglesia. ¡
Spending some time with Kat and seeing the life of a Peace Corps volunteer in Panama was pretty cool. I have met lots of these volunteers but I never imagined they were living in Bamboo huts in the middle of the junlge. The Panamians love there volunteers as they are constantly being helped in various ways whether it be developing new agriculture methods or building a shelter for the rainy season. Yesterday with directions from my friend I headed up into the mountains to a small indeginous village at 6 000 feet where my map showed the road ended, but behind town I noticed one kept going so I rode up it for 4 hrs, over a mtn and then started decending down to the caribean but the day was getting short and I could see the road didnt end anytime soon so I reluctanly turned around. After exploring these mtn roads in the highlands of Panama for the last couple weeks I have come to the conclusion that camping supplies, a GPS and a weeks worth of food would be necessary to explore this frontier properly. As for my map it is now in the hands of a young boy on the side of the highway as it is apparent it will make a better fire starter then the directions in was giving.

Heat

Panama is somewhat like Costa Rica was before the tourists bombarded the country a few yrs back. Life is laid back here and the tourist scene is just starting to develope in some areas and for now things are the way I imagine they have been for decades. A few days ago I took my bike down a small jeep path over the continental divide and decended into a wild caribean valley. Things were peacful and untouched, the jungle was in once piece, the jeep path was the only contact with the outside world and after 24 kms it turned into a knee deep pile of mud. After hiking with my bike for a 1km I left it and trudged on deeper into the heart of Panama. The locals I saw all stared, most the kids were scared of me and the adults I tried to talk didnt speak a word I knew back to me. At first I figured my spanish had gone to hell and I was getting pretty frustrated but once I made it back to civilization I found out the people I was talking to spoke an indigenous language and only the young kids were taught spanish in school. Returning to the spanish speaking world late in the evening I devoured 6 000 calories of food to get ready for the 150 km ride the next day to the fisherman town of Santa Catalina on the pacific coast. Having seen Santa Catalina on the Panama version of Monopoly I figured I was going to someplace devloped but what I found was a one store town which used a payphone to communicate to the outside world. Throughout the day people would call the payphone form around Panama and whoever was closest would answer the phone and then run around town calling out the persons name for who the call was for. Hardly a Monopoly worthy town, but soon I found out the real reason for the towns popularity was its enormous surf which is famous for being some of the best in Central America. While I was there the swell was small though and the surfers were going snorkeling not surfing. Today I am in the middle of a ride back into the interior to a small mountain town with nothing more than a few thatched houses where I will meet up with an American Peace corps volunteer to tour the area for a day and see more into the primitive lifestyle of the Panamanians. For now its plus 34 and Im off for a little siesta in the shade until the weather is a little better so Im not found melted into the pavement somewhere down the road.

Directions

After some beach time and working on a nice sunburn for a couple hours yesterday morning I set off riding to the city of Santiago around 1 pm. One thing about rides down in central america is that you can never be sure how long they will take and were they may take you. One of these reasons is there are next to no distance signs on the highways, and the other problem is that people will tell you what they think you want to here instead of the truth, especially when it comes to distances. When its really 30 km to some place, they will tell you 15 km because they want to see you smile. This causes problems for a gringo biker. Around 6 pm last night it was starting to get dark and Santiago city was nowhere in sight. I began asking locals and they suggested it was just 1 hr away. Doable, after another hr of riding it was now completely dark and still no city so I asked again. This time the city was just 30 min away. Alright I though I might as well put my headlamp on and keep going as there was a pretty well known and cheap hostal just outside of Santiago. After another hr of biking, still no city so I asked again. Now it was 45 mins to Santiago. Confused, running out of food and getting tired I started looking for an alternate accomodation for the night but there was nothing but jungle and swamplands so I kept riding. Finally at 10 pm, bonking and half in a coma I rolled into the hostal and passed out in a bed swearing to never listen to local directions again. Today its back into the mountains around Sante Fe to get out of the sweltering heat and more Canadian temps. First off I will buy a map and then start biking with my headphones on so I can no longer listen to local directions.

Mud & Rain

The ride over the mudslides started a little late as 95% of the boats stopped running between Bocas and the mainland as they were running out of gas. One last boat company still had a bit of fuel so they were running 4 or 5 times a day, whenever they had a full boatload os passengers. Hitting the mainland at 10 am I started the journey and it was smooth for the first 65 km with only 4 or 5 mudslides but after that the road was a disaster. For 15 km acending up to the divide there were streams running across the road, 40-50 mudslides, no road in 3 places and only half a road haning on over the steep mountainside in 2 other places. Lucky for me there were probably over 50 large machinery working on the mudslides and all but the last 2 mudslides had been cleared just wide enough so small 4x4 supply pickups could get through to the desperate civilians on the caribean coast. Three times during the ride, convoys of 20-30 pickups full of supplys would pass by with a polica car escorting them on either end. Being the only other person on the road I received some odd looks. At the end of the day I pulled into the Lost and Found Jungle hostal, a small treehouse type structure in the middle of a cloud forest with feeding stations all over to attract wild animals.

The next 6 days it has rained and I made my way to Boquete a small village of 4000 residents up in the Panamanian mtns. Here is a great place to xc ride through the jungles but I´m starting to morph into an amphibian after being wet for days on end. Usually in central american countries the rural folks hike around with machetes in there hands, but now everyone is packing an umbrella. Another traveller at the hostal I´m staying at has bought 3 of them, but they are a hot commodity and keep vanishing. As a result from the rains, most trails and side roads have been closed due to slides and being washed out. I tried one 12 km trail called the quetzal which passes over a small pass into another village but after the first 4 km I travelled about 350 meters over a jungle mess in the next 1 hr, saw a snake, got scared and peeled back to Boquete. On the way back to town I was chased by a few dogs which is nothing new in central america but these dogs were pretty aggresive. Overtime I have started to notice a trend that the wealthier a country is, the more vicious the dogs get as they are fed regular meals to stay strong. In countries like Nicaragua and Guatemala there are stray dogs everywhere but they´re undernourished and seldom a problem. Not here in Panama or Costa Rica. After many trials and errors I have found the best way to deal with these suckers is to stop, turn around and chase them with my water bottle back into there yard. Works 90% of the time. The other 10% of the dogs are a bit braver and pose more of a problem. Tommorow its off towards a small surf town on the pacific coast for a little warmer weather.

Survivor Panama

After MIA for 9 months, ctwally.blogspot.com has been found and will stay around for the forseen future.

After racing La Ruta I headed straight to the small caribean village of Puerto Viejo to rest in the comforts of Costa Rica. 4 days later it was off to the islands of Bocas Del Toro Panama where the rains started to come and stuck around for 7 days, causing flooding and chaos which the locals say they have never experienced ever. Bye day 3 both the highways leading to Bocas were shutdown, the main one for 1-3 months after 40 or more mudslides swept over the mountain road, and the other leading to Costa Rica flooded heavy and is down as well. To boot the planes were unable to fly and the internet and phone lines went down leaving the visitors and locals of Bocas stranded. US helicopters have been flying supplies into the more remote regions and a Barge full of diesel is on its way to fuel the towns electricity which is down to its final 3 days of fuel. Not having internet may sound like a minor detail but when the only way to get money out on the island is through 2 internet connected bank machines there is a problem. One Canadian girl had to sell her $350 ipod to a local for $100 so she could pay for a bed to sleep on and some food. When the locals started taking taxis to the grocery stores to load up on food and supplies us visitors started to get a little worried. Yesterday the weather began to improve and now it is only raining 8-10 hrs a day, down from the 23-24 hrs as before.

One thing which this weather has been good for is the surf. The waves have been huge and the locals have been soaking it up. My American friend Reed and I have been out 3 times now and have been pounded like a couple of ptarmigans sitting on an avalanche slope. All the surf spots in Bocas are only reachable by boats, where you will get dropped off in the middle of the ocean and try to arrange a time with the boat captain to pick you up again. A little sketchy when your spanish skills are that of a 2 yr old. Yesterday a large swell came through and I got raggdolled into a reef and eventually washed up on shore where the only way back was a 4 mile hike to town with bloodied feet from the stinging coral. Possibly a sign my surf skills are being overmatched.

Planes are flying again but are backlogged for days due to this being the only acces off the island... unless you have a bike. After a good rest following La Ruta I am getting anxious to get back on the bike as training for next yr will commence Dec 1. Tommorow is the preview, a 140 km ride across mudslides as I will try to reach the pacific via a trek over the abandoned mtn highway.

Trans Mexicana Finale

The final two stages of the Trans Mexicana were a great challange for all the riders. Stage 5 was highlighted by a huge climb to open the stage, then a 21 km (2200m vertical) downhill and then finally a 5 km hike a bike section down a river canyon. Lupillo and myself went into this section around 10 minutes ahead of 3rd place Travis Macey before quickly being overcome by the Adventure Racer. At the start of the day the race organizers suggested we send a set of running shoes with them to change into at the start of this river section. Lupillo and I figured wed save the effort of chanign shoes and try to travers this section in our carbon fiber cycling shoes which turned out to be funniest home video worthy as we slipped and slid down the canyon while Macey trotted ahead in his hikers. At the highpoint, I was up on the shore tangled up in thorns and jungle vines as I tried to avoid the river and when I looked back i saw Lupillo sliding on his back getting swept downstream with his bike floating ahead of him. Meanwhile Macey was hopping rocks and running like an Indian towards the finish line. Bloodied, cut and completely soaked, Lupillo and I finally crossed the finish line, 7 hrs after we started, with myself coming in 2nd 1:30 behind Macey and Lupillo another 3:30 minutes further behind.

Stage 6

Going into the final stage of the race Lupillo was leading the overall GC by 5:03 over myself and 43:02 over Macey in third. My plan was to use the 1200 m net elvevation loss of the day to my advantage and try and gap Lupillo on the decent and hopefully make up the 5:03 I trailed on him. Quickly gaining a minute advantage just over 2 km into the decent I was ripping until I came around a corner to see a pickup full of Mexicans headed my way. Having not seen a vehicle in the last 30 km of decents in the last couple of days I was a little suprised by this and slammed on my breaks. The truck also slammed on his and drove his front end into the ditch leaving his back end hanging out which I bounced off of and somehow managed to stay upright. Pretty stoked on not becoming a Mexican hood ornament I continued on my decent a little rattled but still determined to make up some more time on Lupillo. Deciding it would be wiser not to cut the switchbacks as sharply I crashed hard on the next corner as I tried to adjust my decending techniques to allow for the possibilty of more trucks. Bloodied and now implanted with gravel I was soon rejoined by Lupillo and Travis at the bottom of the hill with around 23 km to the finish. At 17 km to go I put in a last ditch effort to break away from my two riding partners and quickly managed to gap both of them on a small incline. Riding full tilt with the help of some dog chases I came across the finish line in 2 hrs 47 minutes and then began waiting for the other riders. Lupillo riding with a hole in his knee from a crash on Day 4 was determined to save his overall GC lead and came across the line 4:41 behind myself meening he had saved his race lead by just 22 seconds, enough to claim the $ 2000 first prize and $ 4000 BMW mountain bike. Pretty tired from trashing each other over the last week of riding, Travis and myself tore out of racing clothes and headed for the pacific oceann just 50 m away. Meanwhile Lupillo was being shipped off to the hospital to patch up the hole in his knee and to be told not to touch a bike for at least 3 weeks. With the first version of the Trans Mexicana coming to a close, the 30 riders and 62 support staff celebrated with a Mexican feast and race videos and then we all parted ways to our homes across the globe.

Trans Mexicana Stage 4

Back online...... After spending the last few days in remote Mexican towns, one of them with just one telephone for the whole town, let alone internet, I am now sitting in Mexico City with my feet high up in the air catching some R & R.

The last 3 days of the TransMexican bike race were full of spectacular crashes, epic climbs and lots of stray dogs along the way to cheer us on.

Stage 4 was a 135 km ride across the Mexican dessert and proved to be an epic adventure as 20 of the 30 competitiors finished after nightfall. Lupillo, Travis and myself pulled away early on in the stage and road strongly until our water bottels became dry in which we then road not so strongly and at one point had to stop for a cry before riding on for a little bit longer to eventually a feed station for 8 gallons of water each. Overall the day was pretty much a full on episode of a looney tunes cartoon show as riders would go in an out of hallucination, some getting dizzy and hiking 1 hr up dead end canyons and others crashing hard (Lupillo) into outcropping rocks and loosing a half pound of flesh. After setting the pace for much of the opening 75 km, Travis Macey would eventually lose contact with Lupillo and myself on one of the long sketchy downhills. We knew wed have to keep up the effort to stay away as Macey an internationally experienced adventure racer is something like the enrgizer bunny and after spending the last week racing across Mexico with him its apparent he doesnt get tired. At km 90 Lupillo put in a strong effort on a steep accent and would gap me by 3 minutes before succumbing to the + 37 c temps and slowing down enough allowing me to pass him and put 5 minutes on him until I became sun fried and crashed into a cacti, flatting my front wheel. After a 5 minute repair i was back on my bike, riding togethar with Lupillo as we headed the last 30 km to the finish were I would gap him by 19 seconds for the stage win. Macey would come in 30 minutes behind, and then Alexy Sokolov (Ukraine) another 45 minutes behind him. After that it was an episode of survior as racers would crawl acroos the line for the the next 7 hrs, well into the Mexican night.

Trans Mexicana Stage 3

After a puke filled 6 hr bus ride across the Mexican Jungle we arrived in an Eco camp where we spent the night in an auditorium and the 30 racers and 30 support staff had a Mexican snore off. The racers were clearly winning before I vacated the premises to find a small tree to sleep under out in the forest. Today we arrose early for a typical Mexican breakfast of corn tortillas and beans before heading out on the hilly 72 km stage 3 of the race. Lupillo was anxious to trounce the competition over the 2000 m climbing of the day and Travis Macey took off behind him. I was left alone to sweat like a small eskimo in a wood burning pepporini pizza oven as the 35 celsius temps were not being kind to the Canadian. As the day went on my pace slowly picked up as first a pack of dogs put the chase on me then a hoard of turkeys gobbled ferociously as I passed by. By this time we`d been racing for 2 hrs and getting close to the top of the 2970 m pass where the temperature showed some remorse and started to feel a little Canadian. Givin a second chance at life for the day I started biking like a cool Canadian biker and road past Travis at the pass and started down a singletrack decent and then climbed another pass up to 2700 m. Then came the cow dodging part of the day as the road decended 18 km through a farmers pasture and into a desert north of Oaxaca to the finish line where I came in 2nd, 7 minutes behind Lupillo and 10 minutes ahead of Travis. Next came stage 3 part deux, the 30 minute (turn into 1.5 hr) van ride into our hotel in Oaxaca in which our driver weeved between semis going 140 km/hr then playing chicken with a OCC bus before wisley backing off at the last second. My heart rate was maxxing out at 190 bpm and the ride had just started. Next up was the traffic system in the Oaxaca city which goes from normal right hand side of the road driving before switching off to left side British style driving then back and forth and back and forth and pretty soon our driver was stunned like a small child peeing on an electric fence on the farm and drove us out the other side of town before remembering the reason he was driving the van was to take us to a hotel. Next came the part of the game in which we tested out how many crazy Mexican drivers we could cut off at once with a wheel screeching u turn and then spending the next 30 minues working the streets of Oaxaco like a jigsaw puzzle and finally arriving at our hotel for some much needed R&R. Tommorow we start all over again with 120 km ride through the Cactus stands of the Oaxaca desert to our next Camp in San Cristobal Amatlan.

Mexicana Racing

The last couple weeks through Guatemala was full of swimming through caves, ripping down guatemalan single track, floating through jungle on rubber tubes and finally a 23 hr bus ride to Vera Cruz Mexico. Leaving Guatemala was tough as theres enough adventure there to last a person a lifetime but even tougher to leave behind were the Choco Banonos. Frozen bananas dipped in milk chocolate then rolled in peanuts all for 12 cents. We lived off these, corn tortillas, beans and avocados for the last month. Our spanish was getting pretty good too. Dougs is probably at a 2 yr old level while mine is all the way up to a 3 yr old. Getting to Mexico was quite a drastic change after travelling in the real 3rd world for the last few months. It was alot like getting back to Canada with shopping malls, Costcos, Walmarts and paved streets. We headed straight to the Costco and loaded up on supplies for the real reason we came to Mexico which was to race in the 7 day, 750 km Trans Mexicana mountain bike race from the caribean to the pacific ocean. After biking around with backpacks and panniers for the last 3 500 km it was like having turbo jets on our bikes to not be hauling around all the luggage. On the first stage of the race, 101 km, Doug finished first in the Master category and I came in tied for second in the elites with Travis Macey (Merrel Team racing) behind a homegrown Mexican racer Lupillo Cruz. On stage 2, the longest day of the race (160 km) Doug had some flat dificulties and came in 8th and I was lucky enough to hang onto Travis and the Lupillo (2 time Mexican XC national champion) through the final steep climbs to out sprint them across the soccer field for the win. The small seculded town we finished in probably isnt too use to seeing white boys as Travis, Doug and I had a hoard of kids following us around for the duration of the day. Somehow they coaxed us into a late night soccer game and we got beaten 14 to -2. Not too bad considering they were 12 yr olds. We tried challenging them to a hockey game afterwards but they were scared. As for now we wait for our luggage truck to show up which didnt do so well with gas in its diesel engine. Tommorow was planned to be a 115 km stage through dense jungle but there been some troubles with wild pigs and rutting jaguars so the organizers decided to give us the day off and put us on busses through to the other side.

Guatemalan hippies, lost bikers, and broken bikes

Doug and I decided to take a day off in the small village of San Marcos along the shores of Lago Atitlan. This day off was weird to say the least as everywhere we looked there were hippies walking around like zombies, no one doing anything that involved moving fast. Pretty much the perfect place to lay low and rest for a day.... we thought. Bored out of our minds by the end of the day we decided to retire to our hotel at 8 pm for a good sleep so we could get out of town asap the next morning to a place that had a pulse. Turns out 8 pm is just the start of the action as a propagandah speech came blaring out of some large speakers somewhere up on the mountainside. For the next hr we lay wide eyed in our beds listening to this blaring noise, then a couple spanish songs were played and finally the racket died down. About 5 minutes later the dogs started barking and didnt stop till morning. And this wasnt just a few dogs, we figure every dog in town got into the action, at somepoints it sounded like there were 30-40 dogs going at it. No sleep that night. Nest morning at daylight we biked 80 km over the highest point on the pan-american highway (3670 m) to the large town of Xela. In this town we found sóme chocobananos for 15 cents. Pretty much the best food Id ever eaten. A semi frozen banana double dipped into milk chocolate. So good we decided to hang around Xela for an extra day so we could eat some more. On our day in Xela we awoke to a deep fog covering the entire town and plus 3 temperatures. Felt alot like Canada for the first time in months. Biking out of the fog we headed 5 kn out of town and climbed Volcan Santa Maria (3860 m). Pretty cool climb and there were around 20 Indigenous Mayans praying on top which added to the ambience. The next day Doug and I left Xela towards the highland village of Nebaj which is situated deep in the highlan mountains far from much anything else. At our meeting point 12 km out of town we missed each other at the crowded intersection which was full of people, cars, markets and dogs. Nonetheless we each ended up biking down opposite roads towards Nebaj. Dougs day was going alright till his bike wheel blew out and my day was going well till my back pannier broke off and jammed into my new wheel. Leaving all my food some clothes and other supplies I couldnt carry with me I packed what I could in my small pack and continued on, falling short of Nebaj by 60 km. The next day I climbed up to Nebaj where I now await for the energy stores to recover enough for the next move. Doug is currently trying to extend his vacation time and change his plane ticket or else hes off to Canada on the 7th.

Guatemala

A week ago today I left El Salvador in grande style. Crusing along through a small town 5km from the Guatemalan border, enjoying the plus 35 weather, then BANG! Everyone on the street took cover and I came to a screeching halt onto the sidewalk as my rear wheel capsized. The rim must of punctured the tire and as it did punctured the 70 psi in my tire creating something a little louder then a gunshot. Pretty sad for my wheel, but still a little on edge as everyone on the street stared my way I quickly waved down a taxi and got out of town where I then hopscotched three buses and a pickup to Guatemaal city. The next day i met my good friend Doug Hammell who was flying down for a couple weeks of riding, and thankfully had a full supplies of bike equipment including a new wheel. After some recovery time for my bike off we headed for Antigua Guatemala, well known for its spanish schools and for having probably as many gringos as locals. Too us though Antigua was a place to ride our bikes on the hundreds of kms of mountainside trails which the locals use to get to and from there small villages. As far as single track xc riding goes this is probably some of the best on earth although the getting lost factor is fairly substantial as these trails go every which way and sometimes into packs of rabid dogs and into steep dead end gullies. Nonetheless after a few great days of riding it was off to Volcan Pacaya, an active volcano in which people can walk across the open lava fields and cook hot dogs if your American, marshmallows if your Swedish or triple AAA sirloin steaks if you Canadian on the open Lava. The marshmallows burnt the hotdogs were black and our steaks were well done as none of us up there seemed to have a clue how to cook on open lava and for the most part underestimated the heat. The fact our shoes were melting below us probably should have been a good clue. After the lava BBQ we headed back into town were our overcrowded tour bus broke down just outside of town but wouldn{t allow us to get out to walk the last few minutes. Some of the Americans crammed in the back seat began to question the logic of our tour guides who felt it was safe to let us walk across open Lava field not safe to walk on lighted sidewalks 5 minutes to town. Once back in town, Doug and I packed up and left early the next morning for 3 days of touring across the country side through open corn fields, through volcano passes and now we sit on the shores of Lago Atitlan were we rest for tommorow.

El Salvador part deux

The surfing in El Salvador is unreal. The waves in El Tunco were over 100 yds long and could be ridden for over 25 seconds. I got up on a good one and was feeling pretty good about myself before crashing hard into another gringo surfer. She came out of knowhere and I flipped over her back with my leash clothes lining her neck and then we tumbled into the wave with our leashes and boards entangled in a great mess. A real beautiful scene. It reminded me alot of a hard body check in hockey. The cool thing about El Salvador is that its pretty much unknown on the tourist trail. Here there are 90% locals and 10% tourists surfing while in a place like Costa Rica those numbers are easily flipped. Being a minority in this country also gives us gringo travellers alot of attention and I must say the El Salvadorians treat us like royalty for the most part as they know we are the keys to there future tourist industry. Even the little kids are pretty smart as they always try to hit us whities up for a dollar or two. In the grocery store one kid was being very consistent with his needs for a dollar but he kept asking in spanish so I kept giving him different yogurt containers. Eventually after about a 1 minute and refusing almost every type of yogurt they had on the shelf the little boy finally got annoyed and left me alone. Chalk one up for the gringo! Another thing about El Salvador that makes it alot different from Canada is that all the old folks have machettes here, while in Canada they got canes. In fact I´m pretty sure every kid gets a machette here when he/she graduates from kindergarten instead of the laim little pieces of paper we get back home. Safety wise El Salvador has seemed pretty good. There are two major gangs which cause most the trouble in the country but they generally fight amongst themselves and leave the tourists alone. Opportunisitc crime is definatly an issue though and a guide or police escort is needed to climb most any of the volcanos. As for today there are cloudforests awaiting. Adios

El Salvador

Francois and I had a great climb up Volcan San Cristobal with a local guide who took us into the the active crater which was spewing sulphur gases from its bottomless pit. The view from the top was alarming to see that everywhere was agriculture and barely any remaing natural forests. Not at all what I imagined of central america. The next day Francois and I split ways and I headed towards El Salavador. biking into one of the largest citys in el salavador at dusk in the wild eastern side of the country where people are not use to seeing gringos was an experience. There were gangs of kids walking around with machettes and pistols, sketchy older dudes yelling gringo and the hotel i was trying to find from my lonely planet book didnt exist. With night falling quickly, and remebering the words of everyone about eastern El Salvador, ¨don´t go out after dark¨ I headed back towards the pan am highway in an effort to find a place for the night. Luckily there were no shortage of hotels near the highway and I checked into a beauty with ac, cable tv, and room service. Today I awoke early and headed 175 km west to a small beach village just past La Libertad in western El Salvador. Here it is much more scenic, less sketchy as there are other gringos around and thers also one of the best surf waves in central america called Punta Roca. Definatly a place to relax for a day or two.

Nicaragua

As I had a few extra days on the Isle de Ometteppe I took one day to climb Volcan Maderas. This was a pretty intense climb through dense cloudforests with some steep climbing from branch to branch near the top. I decided to hike it alone without a guide and got in some trouble with the local authorities but luckily managed to stay out of jail for now. The next day I cycled the 78 km circumferance of the island and biked through some very remote areas in which everyone stopped and stared as I pedalled by. Everyone greeted me with a large smile and lots wanted to talk so I used my spanish which kinda goes like this, ola (hi), no hable espanol (i dont speak spanish). In the next town, Granada, I picked up some spanish lesson books to try and figure out a few more words. After a couple days in Granada, a colonial city from the 1500´s which is one of the oldest cities in the American continent, I pedalled up to Leon, another colonial city. From here I met Francois, a fellow Canadian and we are now here in Chinandenga waiting to climb Volcan San Cristobal tommorow, the tallest volcano in the country. Nicaragua is a pretty cool country and parts of there citys along the main highways are very similar to citys in Canada with modern malls, movie theaters and mcdonalds. Out in the country is another story though and close to 50% of the population lives below the internationl poverty line. The highways down here showcase the gap between modern and colonial nicaragua perfectly as large semis commonly blow by the native nicaraguan on his horse powered wagon. Adios!

Costa Rica

Well here I am, not in panama anymore but in nicaragua. I spent the last month and a bit touring around Costa Rica and found it to be one of the most hospitable laid back countries yet. The people live by the slogan "pura vida" which means pure life and no worries. Probably the most carefree people ever, which can cause them to make interesting decisions especially on there windy pot hole highways in which you wonder if these people really care about life when you see cars passing each other on crests of hills and around tight corners. Nonetheless these people truly love each moment of there stress free lives and it shows as they have a longer life expectancy then both Canada and the USA where we have much better knowledge about health and sre much more technologically advanced in our treatments but I guesse this shows just what our typically poor North american diet and stressfull lives do to the vast majority of the population. As for transportation ive been biking from town to town and in most cases this is faster then the buses which stop every 3 ft to pick up passengers and they must be constantly swerve from the numerous ruts and bumps on the road. The biking is great, amazing views, nice weather and its a great way to get in touch with the local people. For anyone thinking about a holiday to Costa Rica is in my mind is one of the worlds greatest vacation destinations. Theres volcanos shooting lava, zip lines throught he cloud forests, endless beaches and great surfing. When my family was down to visit for the holidays my bro and I did some surfing and by the last day we thought we were pretty good so we went to the larger waves which ended in me showing off and doing a great faceplant on my board then getting pounded along the bottom of the ocean and finally coming to the surface bloody and concussed. Two days later was new years in Nicaragua were they had fireworks shooting off from 8 pm till dawn and 10$ all you can drink beach parties. Needless to say I had a pretty good headache for a few days. As for Nicaragua they say this place is like what Costa Rica was in the 80's. Still very cheap, limited tourist infrastructure but with endless potential. The people here are much poorer as well but even with this poverty they say Nicaragua is the safest place in the western hemisphere outside of Canada. As for today I'm with a bunch of stranded travellers on the Isle de Omettepp in the middle of lk Nicaragua as the waves are too large for the boats so I figured i'd let you all know this Wallace is still alive and kicking.