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.