Santa Maria De Tule Mexico
To Guatemala to
Playa El Tunco El Salvador
Listening to I Feel the Earth Move Carole King
The fun thing about pulling out the occasional relevant song
is that you turn up something fantastic to explore further.
i.e. Carol King, Tapestry Album
Quaking in the Overlander Oasis
Playa El Tunco El Salvador
Listening to I Feel the Earth Move Carole King
The fun thing about pulling out the occasional relevant song
is that you turn up something fantastic to explore further.
i.e. Carol King, Tapestry Album
Quaking in the Overlander Oasis
I'm awoken by the sensation of being shaken around , kinda like when you hit turbulence in an airliner. First up I don't know if I'm actually awake. The bed is riding up and down like it's on the ocean. Bottles and anything hanging or standing rain to the floor and broken glass quickly covers my escape. The power is out and it's raining outside. It's pitch dark, I'm in my undies and stupidly trying to figure what the unit is made out of and the chances of it crashing down. Hindsight says I should've got out but bare feet and glass don't mix and who plans for these things? I slide down between the wall and the bed as the unit door flies open and eerily moves rhythmically back and forth. The quake continues like a series of rolling waves going on and on pushing the bed back and forth against me. I kinda get used to it and when it finally falters the little tremors feel like being on the back of a shivering animal. I sit for a short while after calm has returned wondering if Mother Nature has any more in the bag. People are gathering outside their houses and the sound of their excited voices pierce the darkness...whoa what a buzz. I find some shorts and footwear and head out. Calvin appears and his initial assessment is only a couple broken pots and stuff. I sweep up the glass and head back to bed but...it's tough sleeping when Mother Nature does her stuff. The next day it appears the town has only minor damage but in a place that has many many tremors,
...that was a biggy!
PS. you can't photograph an earthquake!
Overlander Oasis
...that was a biggy!
PS. you can't photograph an earthquake!
 |
| So I think we were about fourish rings in from the outside. |
Oasis; Something serving as a refuge,
relief or pleasant change from what is usual, annoying or difficult.
Calvin and Leanne's Overlander Oasis in Santa Maria del Tule just near Oaxaca is as above. A friendly refuge a take breath and make plans. Usual, annoying and difficult can all be solved with Calvin having the skill to fix or fabricate almost anything. Stop by, draw breath, check out the local attractions and most of all get the sticker.
Look em up on the web, I didn't want to leave!
The Plan Thing Again!
I've been staying with Calvin and Leanne for four nights. Tyre's on, sprocket changed, boots polished and bike washed, time to move on. We are on the edge of the main quake area in Oaxaca and to get to Guatemala I need to travel through the centre of the very worst hit zone. I plan to leave Saturday but it's a bit sketchy. It's six hundred K's to the border, if I get held up in the quake zone halfway there will be definitely nowhere to stay and information about the route and road condition is pretty much non existent. The night before I'm packed, feeling good and ready to go when...
I get the worst case of food poisoning I've ever had!
Boom, out of nowhere everything inside wants to be out...and out it comes! I've been expecting it some time but the timing is lousy. I can't risk having this on the road so it's another day at the Oasis. You know, I gotta start making sensible decisions and staying one more day is one of them...I guess this isn't a job...where I end up by December is where the trip takes me...
...and I've finally got the cable TV working
...and Moto Gp is on tomorrow morning...
Ah Mexico can wait...
Listening to All Torn Down The Living End
Cos it is, again. These guys are so good and so tight.
Makes a bad musician stare at his feet and mumble.
Hitting the wall again.
I set off from the Overland Oasis in good spirits with high hopes. I'm going to see how close to the border I can get and hopefully get through the next day. I have a brilliant ride down the 190 towards the coast winding through the mountains and give the new tyre a good work out. I meet up with a tour group of Dutch riders going from Alaska to Ushuaia. I chat with their group leader Daphne and she tells me I'm good to string along with them through the border. Brilliant! I head off and we all separate but we're to meet that night in a hotel in Huixtla. I make good time but it absolutely deluges as usual in the afternoon and I get soaked through. Late in the afternoon I've got under a 100k to go when suddenly the bike completely dies. I pull to the side of the road and the nightmare begins. It's got a dead short in the electrical circuit and blows it's main fuse instantly. I'm crouching by the side of the road in pelting rain with no shelter anywhere for over two hours trying to figure the problem. By then everything I own is wet through, everything...and it's almost dark. This is about as down as you can get. A local guy comes along and we push the bike to his house in the pouring rain. The people are so poor they don't have any vehicles or shed or any kind of shelter that's not being used for people and animals to live and sleep in. Even the verandah has hammocks slung in it for the little ones. One of the young lads has a phone (of course!) and we phone a taxi to get me to the nearest town just up the road. We pile all my bike gear into the wrecked Nissan that arrives and I head to a hotel. Yep my luck's not in today...the hotel's a dump and to top it off...no hot water. So I'm sitting in a dump, wringing wet, very little to eat all day, all my gear's saturated, my non running bike is sharing a muddy yard with a heap of ducks in an unknown location and I'm about to shower cold. Hmm...but you know...to the folks that helped me I must have looked like a some kind of weirdo millionaire...what would they think of this hotel,
...how do you measure happiness?
Hmmph...something for the blog...I guess...
The next day I ask the hotel people about where I might find someone to fetch the bike and straight away one of the ladies from the restaurant there volunteers. She ropes in her not to keen son and we set off in the worst running F150 Ford. I swear it was running on five or six of the eight cylinders. I just wanted to stop and maybe chuck some plugs and leads at it. To top it off the tired automatic transmission seemed totally confused banging gears in whenever it was inappropriate. When we arrive we have a logistical problem and are not being able to get the bike up onto the extra tall F truck. The bike cops another lie down and a few more scratches on the fairing and crashbar but we get there. On the way back I get to stand in the back and hold onto the bike Mexican style as the tail gate's busted and there's a real risk we'll all end up on the road. All through Mexico, even in the pouring rain people ride place to place in the back of trucks and pickups. It's bloody dangerous but to be honest it was a hoot and strangely liberating. The lady accepts no payment for our outing and heads back to work laughing and shaking her head. I spend the rest of the day stripping the bike and carefully checking the wiring loom and find...nothing. C'mon! The ignition eventually returns and although it's running I still don't know why it died. I reroute a few things but am worried this will return to bite me down the track...now, back to the border thing...please!
Rain
I'm sitting outside a restaurant and the rain drums a steady rhythmic beat on the patched iron roof above. The water just runs off and pours unfettered onto the street. I'm just wasting time watching life in this small southern Mexican town go by. There's a guy next door working on the front end of his ratty Dodge Ram truck on a sloping driveway. The front wheel is off and the whole thing is supported by a tiny ancient hydraulic jack. He sits on the wheel oblivious to the rain with both legs under the car wrapped around the jack as he belts at the upper control arm with a big shifter spanner. Just when you thought this couldn't get any more dangerous his son comes and squeezes in next to him with his legs under as well. I contemplate thoughts of multiple amputation while watching swarms of green taxis, colourful small capacity motorcycles, unmuffled Ford, Dodge and Chev pickups, their rear passengers swaying and sodden, and street vendors on three wheel tricycles. The parade negotiates monstrous pools of water on the mangled concrete main street spraying pedestrians and shopfronts alike. Stray dogs dine in scattered garbage bags while the ladies behind me in the restaurant kitchen banter in joyful staccatoed Spanish. A battered pickup idles by full of melons in the back. There's a huge speaker roped to the cab roof belting out today's big melon deal at ridiculous decibels.He thankfully idles away, the racket finally succumbing to the relentless drumming from above...
I belch up some hamburger and
blindly study the Spanish print on
the old style glass coke bottle,
...hmm...wet season.
Listening to November Rain Guns N' Roses
So many rain songs and yeh yeh it's not November but
is there a more stirring rain song. We've got a string section,
Axl banging away on the piano, Slash playing a soaring lead and
a film clip full of stunners...who could want more from a 90's rain song?
Borderline Boiling.
I'm keen to leave Mapastepec and get through the border. I've got a vague plan to get to a hostel at San Marcos La Laguna on lake Atitlan. It's been recommended by friends and as usual I haven't researched it so um, let's set the GPS and see what we find. I get to the border reasonably early after finding the information on the web regarding the location of the customs facility is out of date. It's a bit of a nightmare. First it's super hot and humid. Because I'm alone I become the target of the fixer guys who charge to help you through customs. As I'm the only one there who's not local they are relentless. No matter how gruff I get they will not get lost shadowing me all the way through. It turns into a full shouting match in the end and although I finally get through it wasn't a pleasant experience. I vow to sit and think it through before the next border.
So...into Guatemala.
First thoughts, well, it's so green, steamy and tropical straight away. I set sail for the mountains with only about 160k to travel and my second thought is...so many people! The whole climb into the mountains peaks around three thousand metres and it seems to be populated almost the whole way. No wide open spaces here. The mountains are spectacular but the next thing you notice in a place of beauty is the same affliction I've seen so often all over the world. Garbage. Yep anywhere you want to pull over people have dumped stuff. Can't really judge as I imagine the local infrastructure can't deal with or hasn't kept up with the western love of indisposable packaging. I get to within about twenty K's of the hostel and turn onto a gnarly muddy dirt road. We've got mud and holes but this is just the warm up. At the peak of the mountain you suddenly drop down onto an ultra steep switchback track. This was once a paved road but zero maintenance for years has turned it into possibly the most dangerous road I've been on. Every switchback hairpin has been torn up into just a pile of concrete blocks and holes. It is super steep and the KLR boils it's rear brake on the way down. When I arrived at the hostel it seems I'm the only one there with a vehicle. One of the long timers at the hostel begs me to put something on the net to try and shame the government into fixing the road. Seriously it would be very easy to get hurt. Aaanyway...it was worth it. Wow, take a look at the pictures. The hostel is a sort of modern hippy place with lots of dreads and yoga going on. It's join in drum night on the night I stayed and the youngsters belt away at bongos till about tennish. By then I would've pitched the whole lot into the lake but erm well, I'm a bit out of place here. It's inexpensive and the food's great but I'm ready to go the next morning. Might have been after copping dirty looks for wearing my thongs on the designated yoga platform...who knew?
I meet Chris and we cross the border.
The border is drawing near and I'm a bit stressed. I've not been able to get some extra money and I'm not sure how much I'll need at the border. A motorcycle rockets by and sails off into the distance. Wow, it's another traveller. I speed up but this guy is going for it. When I finally reel him in...shit...it's got Victorian number plates, and he's on a KLR, might be good for a loan if I need it. I hang with him all the way to the border but he's on a mission. When we arrive we pull up near migration and tall gangly guy dismounts. We shake hands...Dean meet Chris. Chris is twenty five and heading in the same direction as me. He's got to catch a boat in Panama on the 26th and is in a bit of a hurry. We agree to hang together through customs and as he's some sort of engineer and speaks a bit of Spanish he's super organised and can handle awkward questions. I'm not bringing much to the table but we gel well enough and work our way through. It is a super slow process, probably about three hours but easier with company. After we leave the border and head into El Salvador we hit a ridiculously potholed highway before turning towards the coast. Then it all turns good. At last! No rain, a perfect sweeping road along the Pacific with almost no traffic, and ending up at an Air B&B for ten dollars at Player El Tunco.
Well...it is bloody hot and humid...and no air conditioning...and a cold shower...
but we're heading in the right direction here!
Reality Check No. 9
Meeting Chris has been a good thing. We'll probably separate in a day or two but working with two at the borders is a good thing. He is from an entirely different generation and is completely organised through the net etc dipping into a vast source of information that I just touch the surface on. There's a thirty two year gap we're struggling with but it's all good. His knowledge of Spanish helps enormously and I suspect he can't figure how I get by at all. It's bloody tough.
But I do...
A small thought occurred to me when I first spied the Pacific Ocean crashing against the El Salvador coastline. I think I can claim circumnavigating the world on a motorbike. Having gone from Isle of Man to Vladivostok in 2014, and now having seen the coast up in New Brunswick and the Pacific here, that's near enough. Tick! Cheers Dean
Next Blog...
Honduras in a day and maybe
back on my own again.
relief or pleasant change from what is usual, annoying or difficult.
Calvin and Leanne's Overlander Oasis in Santa Maria del Tule just near Oaxaca is as above. A friendly refuge a take breath and make plans. Usual, annoying and difficult can all be solved with Calvin having the skill to fix or fabricate almost anything. Stop by, draw breath, check out the local attractions and most of all get the sticker.
Look em up on the web, I didn't want to leave!
The Plan Thing Again!
I've been staying with Calvin and Leanne for four nights. Tyre's on, sprocket changed, boots polished and bike washed, time to move on. We are on the edge of the main quake area in Oaxaca and to get to Guatemala I need to travel through the centre of the very worst hit zone. I plan to leave Saturday but it's a bit sketchy. It's six hundred K's to the border, if I get held up in the quake zone halfway there will be definitely nowhere to stay and information about the route and road condition is pretty much non existent. The night before I'm packed, feeling good and ready to go when...
I get the worst case of food poisoning I've ever had!
Boom, out of nowhere everything inside wants to be out...and out it comes! I've been expecting it some time but the timing is lousy. I can't risk having this on the road so it's another day at the Oasis. You know, I gotta start making sensible decisions and staying one more day is one of them...I guess this isn't a job...where I end up by December is where the trip takes me...
...and I've finally got the cable TV working
...and Moto Gp is on tomorrow morning...
Ah Mexico can wait...
 |
| This is Mexico, except it's not raining. So much to see around Oaxaca just from the road. |
Cos it is, again. These guys are so good and so tight.
Makes a bad musician stare at his feet and mumble.
Hitting the wall again.
I set off from the Overland Oasis in good spirits with high hopes. I'm going to see how close to the border I can get and hopefully get through the next day. I have a brilliant ride down the 190 towards the coast winding through the mountains and give the new tyre a good work out. I meet up with a tour group of Dutch riders going from Alaska to Ushuaia. I chat with their group leader Daphne and she tells me I'm good to string along with them through the border. Brilliant! I head off and we all separate but we're to meet that night in a hotel in Huixtla. I make good time but it absolutely deluges as usual in the afternoon and I get soaked through. Late in the afternoon I've got under a 100k to go when suddenly the bike completely dies. I pull to the side of the road and the nightmare begins. It's got a dead short in the electrical circuit and blows it's main fuse instantly. I'm crouching by the side of the road in pelting rain with no shelter anywhere for over two hours trying to figure the problem. By then everything I own is wet through, everything...and it's almost dark. This is about as down as you can get. A local guy comes along and we push the bike to his house in the pouring rain. The people are so poor they don't have any vehicles or shed or any kind of shelter that's not being used for people and animals to live and sleep in. Even the verandah has hammocks slung in it for the little ones. One of the young lads has a phone (of course!) and we phone a taxi to get me to the nearest town just up the road. We pile all my bike gear into the wrecked Nissan that arrives and I head to a hotel. Yep my luck's not in today...the hotel's a dump and to top it off...no hot water. So I'm sitting in a dump, wringing wet, very little to eat all day, all my gear's saturated, my non running bike is sharing a muddy yard with a heap of ducks in an unknown location and I'm about to shower cold. Hmm...but you know...to the folks that helped me I must have looked like a some kind of weirdo millionaire...what would they think of this hotel,
...how do you measure happiness?
 |
| After this I took all the panniers, luggage, side covers and seat off looking for shorts and just to make sure everything was wet...and it was! |
Hmmph...something for the blog...I guess...
The next day I ask the hotel people about where I might find someone to fetch the bike and straight away one of the ladies from the restaurant there volunteers. She ropes in her not to keen son and we set off in the worst running F150 Ford. I swear it was running on five or six of the eight cylinders. I just wanted to stop and maybe chuck some plugs and leads at it. To top it off the tired automatic transmission seemed totally confused banging gears in whenever it was inappropriate. When we arrive we have a logistical problem and are not being able to get the bike up onto the extra tall F truck. The bike cops another lie down and a few more scratches on the fairing and crashbar but we get there. On the way back I get to stand in the back and hold onto the bike Mexican style as the tail gate's busted and there's a real risk we'll all end up on the road. All through Mexico, even in the pouring rain people ride place to place in the back of trucks and pickups. It's bloody dangerous but to be honest it was a hoot and strangely liberating. The lady accepts no payment for our outing and heads back to work laughing and shaking her head. I spend the rest of the day stripping the bike and carefully checking the wiring loom and find...nothing. C'mon! The ignition eventually returns and although it's running I still don't know why it died. I reroute a few things but am worried this will return to bite me down the track...now, back to the border thing...please!
 |
| The lad is attempting to run the rope from the bumper around the tail gate, which has an unfortunate habit of falling open... hopefully the bumper won't fall off first... |
 |
| That's me, with one hand taking a picture from the back of a pickup, the other hand on the front brake, and one eye on the tailgate about to fall open. Lucky I don't have to worry about hair. Multitasking for men? |
 |
| What you can't see here is the dirt floor. Drop anything and it disappears into a pit of smoke buts, spit, oil sodden filth, and a nearby dripping septic pipe. Add in 91% humidity, no breeze and I'm adding my sweat to the already well stocked slurry. |
I'm sitting outside a restaurant and the rain drums a steady rhythmic beat on the patched iron roof above. The water just runs off and pours unfettered onto the street. I'm just wasting time watching life in this small southern Mexican town go by. There's a guy next door working on the front end of his ratty Dodge Ram truck on a sloping driveway. The front wheel is off and the whole thing is supported by a tiny ancient hydraulic jack. He sits on the wheel oblivious to the rain with both legs under the car wrapped around the jack as he belts at the upper control arm with a big shifter spanner. Just when you thought this couldn't get any more dangerous his son comes and squeezes in next to him with his legs under as well. I contemplate thoughts of multiple amputation while watching swarms of green taxis, colourful small capacity motorcycles, unmuffled Ford, Dodge and Chev pickups, their rear passengers swaying and sodden, and street vendors on three wheel tricycles. The parade negotiates monstrous pools of water on the mangled concrete main street spraying pedestrians and shopfronts alike. Stray dogs dine in scattered garbage bags while the ladies behind me in the restaurant kitchen banter in joyful staccatoed Spanish. A battered pickup idles by full of melons in the back. There's a huge speaker roped to the cab roof belting out today's big melon deal at ridiculous decibels.He thankfully idles away, the racket finally succumbing to the relentless drumming from above...
I belch up some hamburger and
blindly study the Spanish print on
the old style glass coke bottle,
...hmm...wet season.
Listening to November Rain Guns N' Roses
So many rain songs and yeh yeh it's not November but
is there a more stirring rain song. We've got a string section,
Axl banging away on the piano, Slash playing a soaring lead and
a film clip full of stunners...who could want more from a 90's rain song?
Borderline Boiling.
I'm keen to leave Mapastepec and get through the border. I've got a vague plan to get to a hostel at San Marcos La Laguna on lake Atitlan. It's been recommended by friends and as usual I haven't researched it so um, let's set the GPS and see what we find. I get to the border reasonably early after finding the information on the web regarding the location of the customs facility is out of date. It's a bit of a nightmare. First it's super hot and humid. Because I'm alone I become the target of the fixer guys who charge to help you through customs. As I'm the only one there who's not local they are relentless. No matter how gruff I get they will not get lost shadowing me all the way through. It turns into a full shouting match in the end and although I finally get through it wasn't a pleasant experience. I vow to sit and think it through before the next border.
 |
| The last photo of Mexico...into Superjoel for some water supplies. It's gonna be a long day...and it was. |
First thoughts, well, it's so green, steamy and tropical straight away. I set sail for the mountains with only about 160k to travel and my second thought is...so many people! The whole climb into the mountains peaks around three thousand metres and it seems to be populated almost the whole way. No wide open spaces here. The mountains are spectacular but the next thing you notice in a place of beauty is the same affliction I've seen so often all over the world. Garbage. Yep anywhere you want to pull over people have dumped stuff. Can't really judge as I imagine the local infrastructure can't deal with or hasn't kept up with the western love of indisposable packaging. I get to within about twenty K's of the hostel and turn onto a gnarly muddy dirt road. We've got mud and holes but this is just the warm up. At the peak of the mountain you suddenly drop down onto an ultra steep switchback track. This was once a paved road but zero maintenance for years has turned it into possibly the most dangerous road I've been on. Every switchback hairpin has been torn up into just a pile of concrete blocks and holes. It is super steep and the KLR boils it's rear brake on the way down. When I arrived at the hostel it seems I'm the only one there with a vehicle. One of the long timers at the hostel begs me to put something on the net to try and shame the government into fixing the road. Seriously it would be very easy to get hurt. Aaanyway...it was worth it. Wow, take a look at the pictures. The hostel is a sort of modern hippy place with lots of dreads and yoga going on. It's join in drum night on the night I stayed and the youngsters belt away at bongos till about tennish. By then I would've pitched the whole lot into the lake but erm well, I'm a bit out of place here. It's inexpensive and the food's great but I'm ready to go the next morning. Might have been after copping dirty looks for wearing my thongs on the designated yoga platform...who knew?
 |
| After the border I had to stop, check all my paperwork and take a big drink. Took about 10K in just to find somewhere to pull over that wasn't filled with people or garbage. |
 |
| It's Guatemala independence day on Friday. That means all this week town centres are closed with people practising for Friday. Cars get stopped but often I got waved in...joining along with kiddies and bands marching and practising for Friday |
 |
| Lake Atitlan from the top. Nice should be good... |
 |
| Oh oh no stopping now...bounce crunch boing !@#$% aaargh...bounce boing! |
 |
| If you look closely you can see part of the supersteep switchback track. This is not a road...it's one hairy dangerous track |
 |
| Rattles the KLR beds down where she can at the Hostel. She was the only vehicle there except for some long timers who live there. |
 |
| Hmm. It's inexpensive and they have great food, and the view... |
 |
| Wow... |
 |
| Jeez I hope this photo works...don't fail me camera. |
 |
| From the Yoga deck. |
 |
| Fortunately riding out uphill was a lot easier. What a beautiful place. |
All but Elvis.
Its bloody hot. I'm strolling along a stunning shoreline with huge waves roaring and rolling in on one side and open bars and restaurants on the other. A hazy mist covered sun is sinking as bikini clad girls stroll by with shirtless men carrying surfboards and towels. I'm struck by the thought I'm on the sixties set of an Elvis beach party movie. Maybe that's because it's six o'clock and I haven't eaten all day...
hmm...wonder if there's gonna be a
clambake tonight...
I'm in a place called Player El Tunco in El Salvador. My fortunes seemed to have turned again as I've crossed another border and landed on my feet in a stunning place.
I leave Lake Atitlan Guatemala mid morning after a great breakfast and head to Antigua. It's only a short run with the usual bumper to bumper crazy traffic jams and I arrive there in the early afternoon. I take a nanna nap at the hotel and oversleep waking to darkness and of course, rain. I'd been hoping to have a bit of a squiz at Antigua and get a few photos but it's dark...and wet. Ah what the hell. So I set off in shorts and thongs on foot into the city centre.
It was a bit weird and creepy really.
Wet cobblestone streets full of light and shadows. Tourists and locals, dodging little three wheel taxis and large sheets of water, wend their way through an odd mix of old traditional and new restaurants. Historical buildings bathed in dark shadowy lighting reveal Guatemalan street vendors in native garb selling rugs, local craft, and the usual Chinese shiny stuff on footpaths down most side streets. Well, I came to see stuff and this is different. That night I can't sleep as I plan to skip another border into El Salvador tomorrow, hopefully without any snags.
 |
| Antigua city centre is about four or five blocks down this way. So I head off down here on the wet cobblestones in shorts and thongs. Not the best combination for the conditions. |
 |
| Well, this looks pretty good at night. |
 |
| So I'm wandering about in this big square not knowing what I'm looking at. |
 |
| It was kind of creepy wandering about on my own on this warm humid wet night but the photos turned out OK. |
 |
| OK I haven't seen one of these before. Maybe I've led a sheltered life but this is an electric shower head. Hmm...water and electricity, Hmm Central American wiring... |
The border is drawing near and I'm a bit stressed. I've not been able to get some extra money and I'm not sure how much I'll need at the border. A motorcycle rockets by and sails off into the distance. Wow, it's another traveller. I speed up but this guy is going for it. When I finally reel him in...shit...it's got Victorian number plates, and he's on a KLR, might be good for a loan if I need it. I hang with him all the way to the border but he's on a mission. When we arrive we pull up near migration and tall gangly guy dismounts. We shake hands...Dean meet Chris. Chris is twenty five and heading in the same direction as me. He's got to catch a boat in Panama on the 26th and is in a bit of a hurry. We agree to hang together through customs and as he's some sort of engineer and speaks a bit of Spanish he's super organised and can handle awkward questions. I'm not bringing much to the table but we gel well enough and work our way through. It is a super slow process, probably about three hours but easier with company. After we leave the border and head into El Salvador we hit a ridiculously potholed highway before turning towards the coast. Then it all turns good. At last! No rain, a perfect sweeping road along the Pacific with almost no traffic, and ending up at an Air B&B for ten dollars at Player El Tunco.
Well...it is bloody hot and humid...and no air conditioning...and a cold shower...
but we're heading in the right direction here!
 |
| Another practise parade for Independence day. Or maybe some sort of lead up parade. On the way to the border I had my route completely blocked in one town and had to retrace belting down multiple cobbled side streets to circle right round. I eventually got out losing another bucket of sweat. |
 |
| I don't usually photo border stuff because people have guns and stuff. Because we were here so long waiting as the guy behind the counter carefully one finger typed all our details I got bored and snuck one in. That's Chris there practising his Spanish on one of the fixer guys. |
 |
| We stopped in the first town in El Salvador to get some more US dollars. Unfortunately the ATM didn't like our cards. A crazy busy street selling everything. Everything here is ridiculously cheap...at last. |
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| This is the air b&b at Playa El Tunco Chris had organised. It's kind of a beach shack with very basic facilities but the location was a ripper. |
 |
| So you head out the gate from the shack and walk along here. Yes folks that's the Pacific Ocean. |
 |
| Another half a K along here, good huh. |
 |
| Then turn right into here and pig out on ultra cheap good food. If it wasn't so hot and humid it'd be perfect. |
Meeting Chris has been a good thing. We'll probably separate in a day or two but working with two at the borders is a good thing. He is from an entirely different generation and is completely organised through the net etc dipping into a vast source of information that I just touch the surface on. There's a thirty two year gap we're struggling with but it's all good. His knowledge of Spanish helps enormously and I suspect he can't figure how I get by at all. It's bloody tough.
But I do...
A small thought occurred to me when I first spied the Pacific Ocean crashing against the El Salvador coastline. I think I can claim circumnavigating the world on a motorbike. Having gone from Isle of Man to Vladivostok in 2014, and now having seen the coast up in New Brunswick and the Pacific here, that's near enough. Tick! Cheers Dean
Next Blog...
Honduras in a day and maybe
back on my own again.
