From Anchorage to Ushuaia by Bike

After some days in Quezaltenango, an interview with a Microfinance Institution (all in Spanish) and 3 days of tourism by bus, we took back our bikes. We went down to a lower elevation and we could feel the heat: turn after turn, we were losing only some meters in elevation and the heat became more and more oppressing and the humidity more and more present. Now it is hot and humid and we appreciate very much the fan that we have in every hotel along the “Carretera al Pacifico”. When going downhill, Sébastien “killed” our speed record that is now 85,3km/h.

So now, the landscapes are full of palm trees, banana trees, café trees, mango groves and field of sugar canes. We share the road with a lot of trucks, including sugar cane trucks, with chicken buses and pick-up trucks. It is hot and humid.

We also witnessed a heavy rain, during our second day (yesterday): we stopped underneath little shelters on the side of the road, where usually they sell coconuts (we tried it: first, they make a hole in the coco that was in a “freezer” and drink the juice. Then, they open it and dip into it with a spoon to eat the inside). We really surprised the locals who were looking at us as if we were from another planet! When the rain stopped we biked again! Bad idea! Two minutes later, it was pouring rain again! We arrived in Santa Lucia (our goal of the day) completely soaked!

We noticed it for the food and we now notice it for the hotels and other touristy infrastructures: life in Guatemala is expensive, compared to Mexico! The price of the food is twice more expensive, the price for a hotel (bargain is impossible and the price depends of the customer) is high for no services and even no hot water. We now understand why people do not eat out in restaurant (big differences with Mexico where eating out is less expensive than cooking ourselves!). At hotels, the staff is not patient at all and not welcome: we are having some trouble to understand with the Guatemalan accent and nobody wants to repeat or if he/she does, it is definitely not happily... It is a big change from what we have known so far...

We do not feel very safe and we choose carefully the places where we spend the night depending of the light in the street, preferring a open street with visibility. We follow our feelings a lot and if we do not feel comfortable in a place, we do not stay. We have with us, when going out, only what we need, no extras, preferring leaving at the hotel what could be stolen at night (which is not always safer...). We have with us our little defense spray. We also always walk on the middle of the street so nobody can hide in a shade on the side of the street and reach us. We do not take a lot of pictures and videos, as we hesitate to take our equipment out. Maybe we see bad things everywhere, but after having travelled for 9 months, we developed kind of a sixth sense and we can feel things: if a place does not inspire us or if we do not feel safe, we keep going or stay on our guards (which is a lot of stress and tiring).

Anyway, we have good contact with the population and we have a nice encounter yesterday morning. My rear wheel showed some weaknesses: the free wheel was not working anymore, which means that the pedals always turn... We stopped on the side of the road, just at the entrance of a little village to try to fix it, maybe some dust. After trying hard and nothing worked, a Guatemalan man by bike came to see us and asked if we needed some help. We explained him the problem (he thought at a flat tire) and immediately told us to follow him to the closest “tienda de biciclettas”. He helped me to load my bike and we followed him. He took some little road and little paths, we still followed him with fear: “where is he leading us?”. Even Sébastien was nervous! We finally arrived to a little house, lost in a large field, that we would never have found by ourselves. The technician came to see what was wrong and left with my wheel, Sébastien followed him to check. I watched the panniers and the bikes. 15 minutes later, Sébastien and the technician came back: he could not do anything. The man with the bike asked us if we wanted him to take us back to the town we left on the morning to fix the wheel: 20km back...We finally decided to get to Santa Lucia. I just needed to pedal all the time! The technician gave us the name and phone number of a bigger “tienda de biciclettas” and even tried to phone, but nobody answered. We hit the road back: 50km to go. 10 km after, we stopped for a cold drink. I pushed my bike and the pedals did not turn anymore. I biked around the car park and everything worked out really good! The dust must have moved!! Hopefully it will stay where it is!

Ps: we should be in El Salvador tomorrow afternoon!