November 29th, 2002
Antigua Guatemala to Quito Ecuador
With Todd's bike suffering electrical problems we decided to stay in
for another week which allowed me to continue trying to learn some Spanish.
I also took the opportunity to hike up one of the local
volcanoes
. While the hike up the the volcano was pretty tough the hike down was completely
insane as it was done in the dark and the first part consisted of knee deep
loose volcanic dirt. This was kind of fun for a while as you just sort of
skated down but after a while I started falling down with increasing
regularity and after a while I ended up tumbling head over heals for a ways.
After we got through the loose stuff it wasn't so bad except for the rocks
to stub your toes on, the gullies to twist your ankles in, and the roots to
trip over. Todd got his bike running by the end of the week so on Saturday
we headed to the Pacific beach town of
Monte
Rico
for a couple of days. The following monday we loaded up the bikes and headed
for Honduras.
Since we had spent longer in
Antigua then originally planned and since we
also intend to ride back through on our way back north we to cruise through
the rest of Central America at a rapid pace. We crossed into
Honduras
at a small border crossing near the ancient Mayan city of
Copan
so we spent a day walking through the ruins. The following day we decided
to take the most direct route to Nicaragua instead of following the Pan-American
highway. That's right we took a
shortcut
(haha). After our less then successful attempt to save time by taking back
roads we got back on the Pan-American and crossed into
Nicaragua
the following day. We went straight through Nicaragua and arrived in San
Jose,
Costa Rica
the following night. Leaving San Jose we got caught in a rain storm in the
mountains and the temperature dropped to the lower 40s. Once again my Aerostitch
pants failed to keep me dry and it was an in credibly miserable ride through
the mountains on pot hole filled roads in the fog. Once we got over the mountains
however the weather cleared up and we entered Panama early in the evening.
The following day we made excellent time and ended up in
Panama City
where we made arrangements to have our bikes and ourselves flown to Ecuador.
We arrived in Ecuador last night but we're still waiting for the bikes to
show up.
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