Floribama Riders

The last riding day of my 2008 trip, en route to Antigua

[Written 8 October 2008
Antigua, Guatemala]

Guess what? Restaurant staffs in Latin America play loud, energetic Latin music for their amusement. It's not just in the U.S. I'm sitting close to the bar of El Arco Restaurante and Bar. The bar happens to be empty, except for employees, and I can hear the contrast in what they're playing for themselves, as compared to the tourists in the restaurant. From the bar side, I can hear interesting Latin music, but it's drowned out by the likes of Celine Dion singing the Titanic song. Oh, now it's Chicago from the Peter Cetera era. "You're the inspiration ... " Yuck.

Today's ride took about nine or 10 hours. Some of those hours were amazing, and some were miserable. I rode back from Lanquin to Antigua, where I had to return the rental motorcycle. The road out of Lanquin was slick mud in a light rain, but I looked forward to the pavement that would start along Route 5, headed west toward Coban. I had charged up this road when I arrived at the hostel on Sunday at 4 PM during a dry afternoon. Somehow, a little rain transformed the road surface, and I experienced two front tire slides in my first hour of riding, similar to when I rode up the mountain out of San Pedro.

I'm not talking about the little squeaks and wiggles that occur everywhere on these roads. And thankfully, these weren't full-on, near-crashes either. To be considered a slide, the bike has to be leaned over a little, and the event has to scare me enough that I say, "Whoah" aloud inside my helmet.

The road surface was really strange. It looked like good pavement, but I sensed something funny through the handlebars. I wondered if the front tire was getting flat, so I slowed to a stop. At about 10 MPH, the front tire slid on a light dusting of pea gravel. Whoah. It seemed like the entire road surface was covered with the stuff, but you couldn't see it because the rain made it blend in with the pavement. About an hour later, I slid the front again, and I made a resolution that three was enough, and I wouldn't do it again. I think I held to that for the rest of the day.

For the non-motorcyclists, it's much better to slide the rear tire than the front because you lose steering when the front slides, and that increases the likelihood of a crash. The bike was loaded heavily on the rear without much weight on the front tire. Also, I probably wasn't getting on the gas soon enough in the corners to properly load the rear because I was feeling a little timid.

I followed Route 5 to Coban and made it through the city quickly by following a pickup truck that seemed like it was traveling to the other end of the city. I typically stop and ask directions about three times in medium-sized cities in Guatemala. The roads provide few, if any, signs, and you have to figure out which is the "through" road by intuition.

If the town is small enough, you just follow the main, generally paved, road straight through. If it's a large city like Guatemala City or Antigua, you can follow the signs. But those in-between cities present the biggest challenge because they offer multiple, wide, paved roads, but the direction isn't clear.

Your best bet is to ride behind a well-maintained pickup truck that looks like it's from a larger city. You can also jump behind one of the "collectivo" minibuses that travel between Guatemala's mountain towns. In the more remote regions, these 10-15 passenger Toyota and Mitsubishi vans serve as mass transit. You don't see as many of the huge "chicken" buses that are old American school buses with incredibly creative paint schemes. Chicken buses don't do as well on routes that have deep mud tracks heading up a mountain, but they sometimes appear in the remotest regions, so you always have to ride with the nagging worry, "What would I do if a chicken bus came charging around this corner?"

So following a collectivo is a good bet, although they sometimes stop to pick up passengers in towns. Thus I typically ask for directions about three times per city. I'm seriously considering the advice I received from Jeff from San Francisco, a motorcyclist 10 months into a year-long trip to Panama and back. He swears by his Garmin Zuma GPS, although he wishes it were more rugged for motorcycle use.

Part of me doesn't like depending on yet another technological doo-dad, and I also don't like the fact that I'll have to remove it from the bike every time I let it out of my sight, even to use  a gas station bathroom. On the other hand, I don't think that stopping to ask directions for 30 seconds provides a valuable cultural exchange. I have taken to asking questions with my helmet on, and sometimes I don't even turn off the motor if I'm reasonably certain of my route and just need a confirmation. From the locals' perspective, they get a closer look at the weirdo riding the motorcycle, and in the smaller towns, I probably provide some entertainment, but I can't imagine they think this is a quality interaction. Perhaps a GPS would allow me to ask directions less often but take more time when I do.

After Coban, I was able to follow signs pointing to Guatemala City. That brought me down to San Jeronimo, which was a little past the route recommended by Dave, my motorcycle rental guy. I backtracked a little and headed to Salama, following the route from Rabinal to El Chol to Guatemala City.

The area around Rabinal provided the best riding of the day. The rain slowed down, and the road turned into a wide gravel track with occasional mud patches for entertainment. My mind's internal radio had been playing Bruce Springsteen's "The River" over and over because I heard it yesterday at the El Retiro hostel in Lanquin. It's a suitably melancholy song for feeling scared and getting rained on to the point where your underwear gets soaked on your last real day traveling in Guatemala, but then the rain slowed down, or maybe I just had a change of heart.

I forced myself to remember the tune to "Rosalita," which is Bruce's most raucous and romantic love song ever. "Rosalita, jump a little higher. Senorita, come sit by my fire. I just want to be your love, ain't no liar. Rosie, you're my *soul* desire!" I sang the lyrics with gusto inside my helmet, as well as Clarence Clemmons's sax solo.

The bike slid and wiggled on wet gravel as we boogied up the mountains, past collectivo buses, Toyota pickup truck and beautiful green vistas half-hidden by fog and drizzle. I could barely see the mountains with green blankets draped in folds over their knees.

When riding through remote towns, I tried to moderate my voice because I had scratched my face shield on the first day of the trip by scraping off mud while I was riding in the rain. Now I could only see clearly with the shield halfway up, which made my face wet in the rain and subjected locals to an unsolicited, off-key, sliding gravel karaoke performance.

In the middle of a boggy, muddy section with the bike akimbo but still feeling strong, I remembered this lyric.

"My tires were slashed and I almost crashed but the Lord had mercy. My machine she's a dud, I'm stuck in the mud somewhere in the swamps of Jersey."

The mention of driving peril combined with mud seemed to hold some relevance, but out of superstition, I declined to sing the word "crashed" aloud. I appreciated the "Lord had mercy" part though.

The rain picked up again as I approached Guatemala City, a full-on downpour in heavy traffic, with poor drainage providing added excitement.

Following signs and asking directions only twice, I somehow took a mostly-correct route that involved only two wrong turns. Considering the size of the city and the potential for error, I should have been reasonably happy, but the inside of my helmet had finally gotten wet due to my riding with an open face shield. Whenever I shifted gears or braked with the rear, the warm water would circulate away from my toes and bring a fresh chill.

I made it back to Antigua without incident and noticed it was extremely difficult to ride on the wet cobblestones. The bike wouldn't grip them and instead wanted to slide off to the side. I would have expected my riding to have improved in a week of traveling through Guatemala, but I ignored the worry and stopped to ask for directions (ugh). The fellow was very helpful and also pointed to my rear tire, which was flat. At least I was close to the end.

Back at CATours, Dave was happy to see me. He was a little worried because I was late, but he knew I was an experienced rider, and he was happy to see that both I and the bike were ok, for the most part. (He did charge me $10 for the flat tire, plus an extra day of rental, which I thought was a bit much for being four hours late, although it was technically within the bounds of the contract. For once, I was too tired to negotiate.)

I made my way back to the Black Cat hostel, this time choosing a private room instead of the cramped dorm rooms. I spread out all my gear in the room, thinking of trying to dry it out, but everything was so wet, I just stuffed it inside a garbage bag inside my suitcase. That will have some fun smells when I open it tomorrow night in Atlanta.

Wow, Atlanta. In some respects, I'm happy to have some boundaries around this trip. I'm starting a new job with Habitat for Humanity, I have been dating some interesting women and I'm even thinking of buying a townhouse.

I think the short length of the trip also introduced some boundaries between me and the other travelers. I can't recall meeting anyone who was traveling for less than a month. Of course, I'm staying at budget backpacker hostels where long term adventurers tend to congregate. These are my people.

Last night at dinner with Jeff, Nir, Lindsay and Scott, I mentioned that someone once told me I have too much self confidence. "It can't be real. There's just too much of it," she said.

At the time I replied that I thought I knew myself pretty well, and I didn't think I was faking it. If anything, I have become less certain that I'm always right as I've grown older.

This group of travelers laughed at the concept of having too much self confidence. "Anyone who says that doesn't have enough confidence of their own," he said.

I pretty much agree with this, although I don't have the same brash, take-on-all-challenges attitude I did at the end of my last trip. I feel scared of Guatemalan roads, but I know that I can navigate them. I feel a part of the international traveling community, but I am taking steps to increase my ties in the city of Atlanta. I am confident, but I feel more introspective and possibly tentative than I have ever been.