Category: 2012-2013 Middle America

Motorcycle travel from End of 2012 to Beginning of 2013

Bridging the Darian Gap

January 25, 2013 by bjoernm·3 Comments

Date: 13/01
City: Panama City, Panama
Kilometres ridden: 127
Cumulative kilometre: 30732

We set the alarm clock so we would be at the meeting point early enough. All went well; we used the toll way and didn’t get into a traffic jam and arrived at the meeting point on time. And just as we started to worry about it being the right place, five other bikes arrived. I was a real relief since the GPS position pointed to a different location, but the description pointed to the gate where we waited.

So we waited until 8:30 and eventually took off in the direction of Carti airport. Tonja – one of the fellow riders- took some pictures of us while we were riding 😀

We continued along the highway until the described turnoff, and from here it got more interesting. The road was windy and hilly at the same time. After a while we had a short break and the girls went into the bush…. Apparently there was some prickly weed which made your bum itchy (look at the three girls in the picture 😉 )

When we arrived at the meeting point, the crew told us that it was too windy for the ship to come to the jetty, so we had to put the bikes into a canoe and bring them to the ship that way. The first bike tried to get onto the boat with a plank. After he got stuck in the middle on his bashplate, we realised that this wouldn’t work very well.

So we made use of the scrap pallets that were lying on the beach. That looked much better but I wasn’t confident that the bike and I wouldn’t end up in the sea.

Sigrid was determined to ride the bike onto the canoe herself, which was great. In the end we made it into the canoe and not into the sea! Another great relief!

Then the guys pushed the canoe into the sea. At this point it started to wobble quite a bit and we were only holding the bike feet on the side walls of the canoe – which seemed to flex a bit as well!

Anyway, we arrived at the Stahlratte and they winched the bikes onto the deck.

I was happy when both of our bikes were on deck. Eventually we got all 13 bikes onto the boat, without any incident :).
Then we settled into our sleeping quarters with all our boxes. The quarters were a bed with a curtain in front which was nice and cosy.

We had lunch before we got to an island where we stayed overnight. The island was packed with houses which didn’t have much space between them.

Here is a picture from the ground floor of the house that we were staying in, and another from the outside.

Below is the picture from the top floor, behind the curtains – at the left – are the rooms, we had the luxury to get a room for ourselves.

When we looked around we found some signs of German influence. Have a look at the sign on the right picture, Scheisshaus means Shit house 😉

I was even more impressed when I entered the Scheisshaus, it was something special. I particularly liked the view down the toilet – the picture on the right. Note the fish swimming there! I guess that this was just for the tourists, the people on the island just squatted close to the water.

Anyway, we realised that it is not easy to live on an island – try to get freshwater, electricity and take care of the garbage and sewage. For the evening we went to the local restaurant to get some fish or meat and have a couple of drinks.

What an exciting day, we had a couple of challenges but everything worked out well. I’m keen to see what the next days bring.

Date: 14/01
City: Stahlratte
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 30605

The next morning we got back to the boat and had a great breakfast.

The crew covered the bikes with some foil to protect them from the sea water.

Around lunch time we lifted the anchor and started sailing. We passed a couple of beautiful islands, they looked like pictures from a postcard; we had to pinch ourselves to believe we were really there.

After a days sailing, we moored at Icodub Island, were we had a swim and a leisurely afternoon before the crew prepared the BBQ for the evening.

Here are Gesa, Matze and Maja (part of our crew) posing for the camera:

Below just a couple of pictures from the evening on the island, no more to say 🙂

Ahh, I nearly forgot, there were a couple of Cigars and we got offered one :D.
I enjoyed it so much that Sigrid got curious and asked if she could try it, and here she is!

Hope it doesn’t become a habit 🙂.
As you can see, it was a magnificent evening.

Date: 15/01
City: Stahlratte
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 30605

Today we sailed to another island, close to the reef. We once more passed a lot of smaller islands, it just looked beautiful.

On the way to the island, Nihai – one of the motorcycle riders – caught a big fish. While we were not sure what type of fish, we were none-the-less sure that we could eat it. The crew also bought some Lobster form the locals for dinner, so tonight we’d have a seafood dinner.

Just before sunset, we jumped onto the dingy to get to the island. On the left you can see the Stahlratte, on the right a ship that didn’t make it …and broke on the reef.

On the beach there were big beautiful shells, Sigrid had to listen to one and it did sound like waves in the sea.

And again, some more pictures of the sunset.

And then the experts started to cook the dinner.

And the big feast, the Lobster was quite nice, and the fish was very tender and hardly tasted like fish! Good catch Nihai 😀

Date: 16/01
City: Stahlratte
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 30605

Today is the day we’d hit the open sea to get to Cartagena, Columbia. As soon we left the reef, we immediately noticed that this wouldn’t be a fun ride. Some people got sea sick straight away, while others took it a bit longer. We took our sea sickness tablets before, which was good, so we survived without getting seasick. I was sitting on the top deck and looked at the horizon the whole time, which helped as well. After a while the frequency of the waves got lower, but the amplitude stayed and the ship rolled quite a bit. In the end we found out that laying in the bed made it easier for us to survive the travel time. By the evening it was not too bad, we started to get used to the sea. However our sleep was interrupted from time to time by our luggage running away from us to the other side of the boat, when the boat rolled heavily. Then, around 3AM, there was a loud bang. As it turned out, a bracket of a boom broke and the boom fell down. Luckily nobody was hurt …and no bike damaged either.

Date: 17/01
City: Cartagena, Columbia
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 30605

In the morning the sea got a lot smoother and hardly anybody looked pale. We arrived in Cartagena around 2PM.

We waited until 6PM before we got told that our passports won’t be stamped today. The crew suggested booking in a hostel where we could park our bikes tomorrow. So we got off the boat, got some money from an ATM, jumped into a Taxi…. Easy as pie. But the driver was not able to find the hostel. He asked other people and even a police man, but nobody knew the hostel. As we found out later, that was good, as it was not a nice hostel.
Lisa (a woman traveling alone around the world) nearly got robbed when somebody tried to climb into her room and grab her luggage from below the window.
But back in the Taxi, I took out my computer, looked into the lonely planet and found a Hotel Marlin, which had reasonable recommendation and the price seemed to be ok. We checked in, and during the time we were sitting in the lounge (the only place that had internet) some of our fellow travellers saw us when they passed by and came in to say hello. It turned out that the hostel was just around the corner. So we went out for dinner, got into a Pizzeria and met some more fellow riders, two brothers, had some pizza together and went home. It was a noisy night, people partied until 4AM and we had to get up at 5:30, so not much sleep that night. I realised the next day that the hotel charged us three times the price mentioned in Lonely Planet, but I didn’t realise it when we booked in… Bummer! I’ll have to pay more attention next time 🙂

Date: 18/01
City: Cartagena, Columbia
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 30605

Today is the day, we get our bikes from the boat and clear them through customs. So we arrived at the jetty at 6AM, got a lift to the Stahlratte and watched the sunrise

before we started to unload our bikes.
Below is a video of us moving my bike from the ship into the dingy and from the dingy onto the jetty.

And here the same for Sigrids bike.

From the jetty we rode the bikes directly to customs to get them cleared. At this time we didn’t have a passport nor paper work that we legally imported our bikes, we just trusted the guys from the Stahlratte who said “it doesn’t matter, nobody will stop us and ask for papers”
So we spend the next six hours getting the customs paperwork done, so we can start to travel again. Here is nearly the whole bunch, waiting for the clearance.

Well, we got the customs paperwork done today, but the insurance was another kettle of fish, more on that in the next blog.

Panama City

January 20, 2013 by bjoernm·0 Comments

Date: 12/01
City: Panama City, Panama
Kilometres ridden: 24
Cumulative kilometre: 30605

In the morning we both jumped on my bike and rode to the Miraflores Locks, which were just 12km away from our accommodation. There was a four story building with large balconies, a museum and a restaurant.

The view from the balcony was great, but it was a bit crowded. The Miraflores Locks is one of three Panama Canal lock systems and it consists of two locks which lift the ships 16.5m in two stages. It was impressive to see how these large ships float up a couple of meters within minutes. The small trains kept the ships aligned, so they wouldn’t hit the walls, but the thrust was done by the ships themselves.

Below you can see a ship coming into the first lock and getting lifted to the first level.

The ship gets now lifted to the second level before it continues over the lake to the next lock.

There was a problem and we had to help out a bit. I was doing it from the traffic control side and Sigrid took care of the ship. 😀

After that bit of excitement, we went to the exhibition which showed some history of the channel and we viewed a 3D movie about the Panama Canal before we went back.

We still haven’t seen much of Panama City, so we had a look around our area

Before we walked to the bay and took a couple of pictures.

Tomorrow we will meet with fellow motorcycle travellers and ride to the ship Stahlratte which will transport the bikes and us to Columbia.

Good Bye Costa Rica – Hello Panama

January 20, 2013 by bjoernm·1 Comment

Date: 06/01
City: San Isidro de El General, Costa Rica
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 29828

Not much happened over the next three days. Marvin, the hotel owner was very nice and organised a mechanic which would have a look at the bike today – Sunday – and see where the vibration on my bike came from. I had a pretty good idea after I mutilated the back tyres bead yesterday while trying to fit it. So he came, had a look at the bike, everything else seemed fine. He was also sure that he could organize a new tyre if needed, and fit it within one day. That was good news! So the next day we dropped the bike off. And after he removed the tyre everybody could see the reason for the vibration. There was no question, we needed a new tyre.

So he organized a new tyre and put it on, all within a couple of hours which ensured that we could make it in time to Panama City. Here are our heroes.

During the whole day I felt sick and had a bit of fever which didn’t go away for the next two days, so in the end we decided to consult a doctor. Marvin was once more nice enough to organize a doctor’s appointment and drove us there as well. We are really thankful for his help since I didn’t feel like riding a bike. The doctor ordered a blood sample and prescribed some tablets to get rid of an infection. Marvin was once more driving us around. Below are Marvin and I in the waiting room and the doctor that looked after me. Bye the way, she was not only a nice looking doctor; she spoke English as well, which made the whole conversation easy.

After taking the tablets, the fever went away within a day, so on the 9^th January it was time to get moving; otherwise we would miss our boat to Columbia.

Date: 09/01 – 11/01
City: San Isidro de El General, Costa Rica to Panama City, Panama
Kilometres ridden: 753
Cumulative kilometre: 30581

Today was the day to leave Costa Rica and to go to Panama. I felt much better, so we packed the bikes, said goodbye to Marvin and Vera and got moving.

We arrived at the border two hours later and once more did the border crossing without a helper, using the great border crossing description from Lisa and Dan, an English couple who travel the Pan American Highway 2 month in front of us.

After the border crossing we rode another 50km to David, the next big city, and organized some accommodation. Two days later we arrived in Panama City. Not much happened on the way. In Panama City, Sigrid organized a small flat with a kitchen for two days. Tomorrow we’ll visit the Miraflores Lock on the Panama Canal.

Lucky escape

January 13, 2013 by bjoernm·0 Comments

Date: 04/01
City: San Jose, Costa Rica
Kilometres ridden: 257
Cumulative kilometre: 29700

The goal today was to buy new back tyres and get them fitted (two different things in Central and South America). So we packed the bikes, said good bye to all people in Villa Kunterbunt and got on our way. The road was easy and we only had 160km to go. After a while the sealed road stopped and a small dirt track started. In disbelief we checked the map and the GPS – but we were on the right track. In the end we got back on a sealed road which was much easier to ride. After an uneventful ride we arrived in San Jose when we realised that our address was incomplete. So we started to circle the area, ask people until eventually a nice motorcycle rider rode in front of us to show us the shop ” Moto Boutique”. We were close 🙂
and we felt completely secure in the shop 😀

That’s where we meet Esmond, the owner and his wife; both were really nice and helpful. After chatting a bit, Esmond threw the tires into his car and drove them to the workshop leading us to where Pan, the tire mechanic , was waiting for us. He went straight to work and did my bike first. To get the tyre removed and put on again he went away and came back 10 minutes later. When he started with Sigrid’s bike I became curious and went with him.

I guess I made him nervous since he fitted Sigrid’s tyre in the wrong direction, so he did it again – I thought ‘merde’ is a French word 😀. In Costa Rica they don’t balance tires, the language barrier prevented us from knowing why... Anyway, it got late and we needed accommodation, so Sigrid suggested a hotel that had good reviews in Motorcycle blogs, so we went there and had a nice evening. The view from our balcony over San Jose was great.

Date: 05/01
City: San Isidro de El General, Costa Rica
Kilometres ridden: 128
Cumulative kilometre: 29828

The same view from our balcony in the morning was a bit different, to the left it looked like a slum area and to the right like a banking district.

But the pool area still looked really nice.

Today was our thirty-second Wedding anniversary, so our gift was……wait for it…….. a back tyre. We bought each other a back tyre 😀. When I checked the installation in the daylight I realised that on Sigrid bike the axel was not fitted straight, bummer. At the same time I realised that Sigrid’s bike needs new rear brake pads, so it was lucky after all. So we tracked our way back to the mechanic. We explained the problem and he fixed both (I had rear brake pads in my toolkit). We continued from there and the GPS guided us through the mountain which brought us through the clouds.

At the highest point we were at 3200m and it got really cold, particularly because I only had a sweat shirt under my jacket and the under arm vents were still open. My hands got really cold, so we stopped at the next restaurant. I got the heated vests out and defrosted my hands on a hot coffee. Nice ride after that. When we arrived at San Isidro de El General we turned towards the road to Hatillo, our destination at the coast.
We found some nice windy roads only 30km to our destination and we had one and a half hour of daylight. Things were going great.
Then, suddenly, in one corner I had a tyre blowout. The bike went straight onto the other side of the road and tried to fall to the left, but this time I kept the bike up. I was just lucky that no one was coming on the other side of the road. Anyway, welcome to my nightmare, having to change a tyre. Well I did it once before… What could possibly go wrong?

So we moved the bike to some stable ground and started to change a tyre. We were aware that the sun would set in sixty minutes, so Sigrid started to get the camping light out while I was getting the back wheel out.

When I removed the tube, I found the culprit. A long nail did the whole damage. So I ensured that the inside of the tyre didn’t have any other sharp edges, got a new tube from the tool box, fitted the tube, just to realise that I cleverly labeled the box wrong. I put the front wheel spare tube in, which is bigger. To cut the story short, after fitting the right tube, I didn’t pay enough attention that the tyre would sit properly when I try to put it on again. So in the end, when I could hardly pull it over the rim, I remembered what Graham (Horizon Unlimited founder) was saying over and over again, ‘if it is too hard, then there is something wrong, sit back, grab a beer and have a look at the tyre again’.
And I immediately figured out the problem.

I didn’t have beer. 😛 ?

By now it was dark out site, but we had our camping light for the tent, which gave us enough light to keep going.

Anyway, in the end I figured out what the problem was, but by this time I already mutilated the tyre bead, so I was sure we needed a new tyre as soon as possible. When we were nearly finished a nice guy with his family stopped in front of us and asked if he could help. When we said we are ok, he insisted to wait until we really got moving, which was very nice of him.

We decided to return to the previous town and have a look for a motorcycle shop that stocks tires tomorrow or on Monday. So we turned around and rode back a couple of km, all the while feeling the vibration of the mutilated back tyre :S.

After we booked into a hotel, Sigrid had a swim at 9PM and I got chills. I must have caught something, hopefully its gone by tomorrow.

Happy New Year

January 7, 2013 by bjoernm·3 Comments

Date: 29/12
City: Playa Samara, Costa Rica
Kilometres ridden: 298
Cumulative kilometre: 29443

We packed the bikes, and Sigrid cooked a great breakfast, so we started around 10:30, not too early, but it was already getting warm. Then we left Granada and hardly got lost, since the GPS only showed three roads in Granada. We arrived at the border around lunchtime, ignored the helpers this time and did the border crossing ourselves, yeah! The roads are nice and the border on the Costa Rican side looked clean and organized, quite different to our previous borders. The GPS started to show detailed roads again, I forgot how easy it is if you can see the road that you are on. We had booked the accommodation in Samara starting from tomorrow, but we worked out that we could reach it today. So we pushed on and arrived just before it got dark. We went straight to the beach for the sunset, it looked great.

At night we meet another Tom (not the owner), he lives in the US but is originally from Germany. He bought a property in Costa Rica with some coffee plants on it. He harvests the coffee cherries and processes them. He promised to make a coffee for me.

Date: 30/12
City: Playa Samara, Costa Rica
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 29443

As promised, Tom made us a coffee from his harvested, processed and roasted coffee beans.

I must admit, it tasted really nice. He was there with his two brothers from Germany and the partner of one. We talked about what they were doing in Costa Rica and our journey so far. Tom offered to have a look around for our back tyres; maybe we can get them in Atenas, which is 50km before San Juan, so we could avoid going to the Capital city. One of his brothers was riding as well, so both wanted to have a look at the bikes and sit on them.

And then there was the problem with the water. It went on and off all the time, so we couldn’t really have a shower and sometimes not even flush the toilet. One suggestion was to get the water out of the pool to fill the cistern to flush the toilet. So Tom, the owner, organized a new fuse for the pump and Stephen fitted it. The interesting bit was he didn’t know where the main fuse was so he had to do it with the power on. He wears the glasses to prevent the sparks getting into his eyes! 😉

He did a great job and we had water. In the afternoon we walked to the village down the beach, below is the beach J

We did some shopping and walked back to the beach. At night, Stephen, the manager, asked us to join him for the Rodeo in town but by the time we had made up our minds to join him he was gone. But it had sparked the idea of going and in the end we met a Danish couple; they were driving to town and gave us a lift. We walked to the place, it was a like a fair with a big rodeo in the middle.

The atmosphere was amazing; there were whole families with their kids watching the rodeo. After trying the local cuisine at the fair and watching a few bull rides we walked back to our accommodation along the beach. The weather was warm and we had full moon, it was magic.

Date: 31/12
City: Playa Samara, Costa Rica
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 29443

We set the alarm clock for 7AM to call Australia to wish our family in Australia a happy new year.

Then we went to the beach. There were lots of people stacking up wood for the bonfires tonight.

And then we made a movie of the end of 2012.

In the evening we watched the sunset

After sunset we went back to the hostel to have dinner prepared by Stephen for us and some other guests.

We sat together for a while before we went back to the beach to have a look at the bonfires and the fireworks. The fireworks happens sporadicly three hours before midnight. The atmosphere was awesome, particularly that we nearly had a full moon and the sea was slightly illuminated.

We had a beautiful start into the year 2013.

Date: 01/01
City: Playa Samara, Costa Rica
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 29443

In the morning we went to the town to get some money and to buy some groceries. When we arrived the grocery shop was still closed, so we had breakfast at a nice coffee shop we’d seen before. It took a while before the food came and you can see how patient Sigrid is.

On our way back we discover some gym equipment, which we had to try, you know the New Year’s resolution and all. Being out of shape didn’t help much…

The rest of the day we relaxed on the beach and in the small pool

And, in the evening we went back to the beach to …… watch the sunset.

Date: 02/01
City: Playa Samara, Costa Rica
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 29443

Today was a no move day. It was a really lazy morning (what do you mean, again?) and watched other people working.

Tim (one of the guests who is working here now) and Stephen (the manager) were painting walls in two rooms; well I guess Stephen (picture on the right) was supervising 😉

François, a fellow traveller woman from Switzerland, managed to colour her trousers a nice shade of purple in the kitchen…

At night we went with Françoise to the beach to have a swim and watch the sunset, and here are more pictures…. The ambient temperature was just right and the water was warm, so it was hard to get out.

Date: 03/01
City: Playa Samara, Costa Rica
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 29443

Coffee Tom couldn’t find a dealer that had our tyres, and after yesterday’s sunset, we decided to stay a day longer and try to organize the tyres in San Jose. It took a while but Sigrid found some recommendation on the net, so we called the shop and they had similar tyres. So we got the directions and had a look at accommodations as well. Below is the picture of a group of ants carrying a bit of our scrambled egg upside down on the sink. I guess that’s happen if you are on a long holiday, you start to observe ants 🙂

During the day we met two Germans, Anja from Leipzig and Sebastian from Hamburg, they travelled together for a while through Costa Rica. Anja is a biologist and lived in Ushuaia for a while before she moved to an Antarctic base for a year, so we could pick her brain about Ushuaia. At night, our small group, Anja, Tim, Sebastian and us went to the beach to – you guessed it – watch the sunset. This is our last sunset in Samara, as usual, I don’t wanna go 🙁

Tomorrow we will heading to San Jose, the capital, and get a new set of rear tyres.

Granada

January 2, 2013 by bjoernm·3 Comments

Date: 27/12
City: Granada, Nicaragua
Kilometres ridden: 162
Cumulative kilometre: 29145

In the morning we packed the bikes before we had breakfast. We met Kathy again and had breakfast together. Rick was walking in the hills and joined us later. During our breakfast it started to rain, so we decided to take it easy and see if the rain would stop.

After the rain stopped, we took a couple of pictures and took off.

After an uneventful ride we arrived in Granada and tried to find the accomodation that we had selected in trip advisor. After riding back and forth, one person finally told us that we are in the wrong suburb and that we had to get out of the city again to get to the hotel. Finally we found it. It took us an hour! To put it in perspective, it was very hot, slow traffic in the city and then stopping, talking to people and starting again. It was tiring. I think all hotels should have their GPS position published, instead of the street address, since there are hardly any street signs in Central America. So we arrived at the hotel, hot and thirsty. The room was great, the pool was broken (the water was more green then blue) and the bar was closed, no beer available, bummer (Below the pool you can’t swim in and the bar without beer 😛

To fair, our room had a kitchen so we could cook for ourselves and Sigrid made a great breakfast in the morning.

Date: 28/12
City: Granada, Nicaragua
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 28983

Today was a day of sightseeing. We had a look at the cathedral on the main square, they were asking for an entrance fee, so we decided just to take some pictures from the outside.

Then we walk through pedestrian zone to the lake. There were plenty of restaurants, caffees, accommodation and colourfull houses around here.

The last bit of the road was still in the process of being paved, so the kids had a ball with the sand and the gravel.

In the end we arrived at the lake. On our way to the boat launching place we came across the entry to the lake. It seems that you normally have to pay if you like to get closer, but in our case the guys had lunch, so we didn’t have to pay!

After a nice walk we booked a boat tour and had a look at some nice islands. One island had some monkeys on it, some other had some big villas, including a big yacht and a heliport, and some were just nature.

That was a very nice day; tomorrow we will try to cross the Nicaragua/Costa Rica border.

Christmas in Selva Negra (Black Forest/Schwarzwald)

January 2, 2013 by bjoernm·0 Comments

Date: 23/12
City: Selva Negra, Nicaragua
Kilometres ridden: 158
Cumulative kilometre: 28983

Yesterday we bought some Christmas hats; it took a while before we found some. The people in the streets looked at us a bit strange when they saw us wearing them 😀.
Anyway, we decided to take some pictures with our new trophies before we leave.

Then we packed up the bikes and drove them through the small gap onto the street….-we only lost the plastic cap for the camera..;-)

The rest of the way to was without major incidents and we hardly got lost 😀
Looking forward to Costa Rica where the maps are much better… We arrived at Selva Negra by following the instructions.
These were:
Follow the Road to Jinotega and turn right on the broken Army Tank…

It worked.

We settled in our room and decorated the window with our Christmas bits (we bought a tiny Christmas tree as well :). The picture on the right shows the view of our room.

For dinner we had some typical German food (Sausage with Sauerkraut and bacon potatoes) and the beer was served in a typical stein.

The next couple of days we won’t move and just relax. The most exciting part might be a tour through the farm, since they seemed to be very switched on with their environmental effort (Creating compost, using solar energy, creating hydroelectricity, recycle water, creating methane gas from waste products ……..).

Date: 24/12
City: Selva Negra, Nicaragua
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 28983

Ho ho ho, Merry Christmas! Well that was our first time in our lives that we celebrated Christmas all by ourselves, without any of our family.

It was really quiet and relaxed and the restaurant was nicely decorated for Christmas. At coffee time a huge Christmas cake arrived.

Unfortunately the power went down around Christmas time in Australia, so we couldn’t Skype –bummer!! But sitting in the restaurant with our hats did draw the attention of Eddi, the owner of the farm. He talked to Sigrid for a while about the farm and our travel.

Date: 25/12
City: Selva Negra, Nicaragua
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 28983

The next day we took a tour around the farm and had a look at their sustainable concepts. As far we could see they try to recycle everything and try to keep the carbon footprint as small as possible. During the tour we saw how the coffee cherries grow, were picked, sorted, pulped, washed and then dried. The beans were then sold to companies which do the sorting and roasting. During the trip we looked at the coffee cherry the first time and we realized that the coffee bean is the pip and that the flesh around the bean tastes sweet. I thought that you could only use the bean, but you can make all sorts of things of the flesh, like marmalade and spirits. Below are pictures of a coffee plantation, how the beans grow, the fermentation and washing process and the drying. The beans on the plant are hard to see since they grow in the shade of some trees or other plants.

After the farm tour we had a walk through the rainforest before we took a powernap 🙂

The next day we booked accommodation over New Year’s Eve. It is a nice place called Cabinas Villa Kunterbunt in Samara, a beach area in North-West of Costa Rica. At dinner we meet a nice couple – Kathy and Rick -from the Oregon. They lent us their playing cards for the night. 🙂
Tomorrow we will go the Granada, the oldest European city in mainland America.

Doomsday – or not?

December 27, 2012 by bjoernm·0 Comments

Date: 20/12
City: Leon, Nicaragua
Kilometres ridden: 194
Cumulative kilometre: 28825

In the middle of the night, around 3:30AM, there were fireworks and church bells ringing. We imagined that this was the way to inform the troops that the enemy was approaching and the fireworks were used to brighten the sky – doomsday was close after all. But..not in this case, it was just to signal that Christmas was close. It was the fourth day before Christmas celebration. I believe the line of thought of the church must be: if you’re awake, you can go to church, so the pastor made sure that everybody was awake (3 rounds of firework and church bell torture in 10 to 15 minute intervals). Anyway after the bell/firework torture was finished, we could finally sleep, the rest of the nigh was a bit more quiet.
In the morning we went back to the nice restaurant with peter, the one where we had dinner yesterday. There we had a great breakfast. It looked like this shop was popular with the people living here. Peter decided to travel to a lake, settle there for a couple of days and plan the rest of his Central America trip. We decided to have a look at Leon, a nice city with plenty of active Volcanos around.
Thinking about it, was it a good choice to travel to active Volcanos on DOOMS day?
Time will tell... So Peter left first, we said goodbye and off he went. We left a bit later and rode to Leon where we found a hostel with pool, WiFi in the rooms, hammocks and coffee the whole day… aka Paradise.
Since it was hot, we had to try the pool immediately; I couldn’t decide what to do first, so I drank the coffee in the pool 😀

We had a short look around the town, and guess what, there were plenty of churches. This time I could limit the visit to just one church, phew.

Hmm, let’s see what’s happening tomorrow (Doomsday).

Date: 21/12
City: Leon, Nicaragua
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 28825

I wrote a post in the morning and took a couple of pictures of how everybody was nervously waiting for the end of the world.

We thought that it would be the perfect time to slide down an active volcano – the Cerro Negro.
When we booked the trip for the afternoon we got told that we would ride as pillions on another motorcycle… Hrmmm why not? It’s doomsday after all 🙂
At two o’clock we jumped on the bikes with our drivers, after Bonny – my driver – assured us that he and his friend rode off-road races in Panama City and that we would be safe. So the journey started, first over roads with plenty of pebbles and then it got worse – the next 45 minutes we were riding/sliding through sand, dodging cows, horses and four wheel drives on a sandy road… Well, path.
Below is a picture of both riders and one bike, have a look at his protective gear (white top)
I guess it has a magic spell that protects the rider when he falls of the bike. 😛

At one place my driver got a bit close to a sandy dune, hit the boards at the back and both of them broke. Bonny told us that there are other boards at the office, so we continued. Below is the broken board, it wasn’t me J

He managed the bike really well, but still a sliding back wheel puts a knot into my stomach, I’m a bad pillion. After the longest 45min in the last couple of years, we arrived at the office, where we changed our gear to sport shoes and shorts. Then we started to walk up the Volcano, Sigrid was carrying the bag and the board, I couldn’t, as I had to take pictures 😀

Unfortunately, Sigrid figured it out quickly and asked for the camera, now I was carrying the board and the helmet :/

Towards the top it god really windy, but the view was magnificent. From the top we could see the two other active volcanos around here; one was consistently billowing white smoke, Doomsday?

When we looked down we could see the path we came up and the lava that had streamed out of the vulcano during the last eruption (1999).

At the top, our guide removed a bit of topsoil and the earth below was so hot that we couldn’t touch it… Amazing!
We took some pictures before we put our protective gear on.

When we walked to the launch place, we stumbled across a small critter who tried to hide from the wind, our guide said it is a porcupine.

Here we are ready for the slide down.

Off we go.

We arrived safe and sound – without any problems.

Now the next scary bit started – the ride back as a pillion through the sandy paths. Both our drivers did a great job to bring us back without any incidents. What a day, it looks like we’ve survived doomsday! Yippee!! 🙂

Date: 22/12
City: Leon, Nicaragua
Kilometres ridden: 0
Cumulative kilometre: 28825

Hurray, now we are sure. We survived the 21th of December, the interpretation of that one Mayan about the Maya calendar was wrong! 🙂
Happy new start of the 14th Baktún! Today was a maintenance day so nothing exciting happened except that Sigrid went to the hairdresser and I polished our boots. 🙂
What a nice quiet day – don’t know if this is worth mentioning in our blog 😛

At night we saw some kids going from house to house and showing a parody of some Spanish conquistadors. This is commonly done from November to the end of December. The large puppet represents a Spanish lady and the small guy is the person making fun of her.

Later on there was a group of parents and kids going from house to house and singing, which gave us a bit of a Christmas feeling.

Tomorrow we leave Leon and ride to our Christmas retreat, the coffee plantation 160km from here.

The way to Nicaragua

December 23, 2012 by bjoernm·0 Comments

Date: 16/12
City: Rio Dulce, Guatemala
Kilometres ridden: 224
Cumulative kilometre: 27815

We left a bit later, since I wanted to put some Christmas decorations onto our bikes and Almi had another PC for Sigrid to fix. Almi’s sister – Kathy – came to say goodbye as well.

At the Rio Dulce bridge we meet a Guatemalian couple and they suggested a nice hotel with a pool, which was just what we needed, so we called it a day.

We were 240km from the border, that meant an early start tomorrow so we can make the border and find a hotel before it is dark.

Date: 17/12
City: Metapan, El Salvador
Kilometres ridden: 275
Cumulative kilometre: 28090

Early start and it took us two hours to get to the Guatemala border. We overtook a long line of trucks until a guy stopped us and told us to park the bikes on the right hand side. To keep it short, we crossed the border successfully after spending three hours on the Guatemala border and two hours on the El Salvadorian side. During the process we met an Argentinian couple in a 2CV (Ente), which travelled north. They earned some money by performing puppet plays and using the car as their stage.

When we left the border it was 4PM, so we decided to find a hotel in the next town. When we found a nice hotel Sigrid drove her bike up the step and through the door herself 😀

The plan for tomorrow was to get as close as possible to the Honduras border, since we would like to pass through Honduras in one day.

Date: 18/12
City: Santa Rosa de Lima, El Salvador
Kilometres ridden: 353
Cumulative kilometre: 28443

We packed the bikes and went to an ATM to get some more money but my card didn’t work, luckily Sigrid’s did. In the end we left at about 9:30 AM. We bypassed San Salvador and with it a large stretch of road maintenance, which could have easily cost us a couple of hours. Finally we made it to Santa Rosa de Lima, which was just 30km from the border. The hotel was a mixture of normal hotel and car hotel (hourly rented rooms). We have heard from fellow travellers that these types of hotels are safe, clean and cheap, and it was. We had a warm shower the first time in weeks and a good WiFi connection as well.

Tomorrow we will try to get through four border crossings and to ride 160km through a road with large potholes. Honduras border crossing has the reputation of being the worst crossing in Central and South America. So tomorrow we will give it a try.

Date: 19/12
City: Zomoto, Nicaragua
Kilometres ridden: 188
Cumulative kilometre: 28631

Started relative early and headed to the border. There was a long line of trucks that we ignored as usual and passed on the left hand side. When we finally stopped at a place that looked a bit official, plenty of helpers stormed toward us – a bit like flies. To cut is short, we met Peter -a fellow bike rider from England – on the border and we decided to share the cost for a helper to speed things up. Below is a picture of Peter and us on the bridge between El Salvador and Honduras.

The helper was doing all the work while we were chatting and after three and a half hours we were through the first two borders. That didn’t look too bad. Now there was plenty of time to ride the 160 km and to get through the other border as well before it gets dark. That was the first time that we rode a long stretch on the Pan American Highway. The first bit was like a normal highway, straight and reasonable well maintained. It was in no where near as bad as people described other roads in Honduras. Towards the Nicaragua border the highway changed into a nice twisty road, still well maintained, which was unexpected fun to ride it.

We arrived at the Honduras border around 1PM, so plenty of time to get through it. When we approached the border, a chain was tightened over the road, so we stopped and thought that an official would approach us. Instead the helpers were coming like flies again, we decided to take advantage of their service again to make the border crossing fast. Three and a half hours later we left the border and where in Nicaragua, Yippee, we made it in one day! To be honest, without the helpers we wouldn’t have made it in one day. We stopped at the next bigger town and had a look at the two hotels, one couldn’t park our bikes securely, the other was not flash, but it would do after a long day.

Tomorrow we have a look what we do for the next days, particular at the 21^st December, Doomsday, the end of the world.

Teachers don’t cry

December 23, 2012 by bjoernm·0 Comments

Date: 09/12 – 15/12
City: San Andres, Guatemala
Kilometres ridden: 63
Cumulative kilometre: 27591

We packed the bike and had breakfast, took a couple of pictures of our accommodation and the wildlife around.

We were waiting until 10AM when the internet was available again. We needed to get a confirmation from our language school, and we got it! Somebody on a motorcycle will meet us on the Island of Flores, behind one particular hotel at 2PM. Not sure why we couldn’t meet us at the school? So we went on our way. At a petrol station stop we meet two bike riders – Damian and Alexander – from Argentina. They ask questions about the Guatemala/Belize border and the Belize/Mexico border, how much money they had to pay and what the process was. Shortly after they continued to the Belize border and we on to the Island of Flores. Just after 2PM a motorcycle rider appeared and guided us to the school, where we finally meet Ernesto, the organizer of the courses and accommodation. He showed us where we could park our bikes safely and our host – Almi – arrived and opened the door to the secure bike park. It was the unused house of her brother, where the bikes where safely looked up :).
After settling into our room, Almi introduced us to the rest of the family: Raul, her husband, Kevin, her son and Naomi, her daughter. In addition there where two dogs – Doggy the dog of the house – Boody, neighbour’s dog who appears at her house as soon she has students, one goat and two turtles.

After the introduction we started to make some lemonade together, which was fun. Maybe we can do the same with our grapefruits at home.

We were keen to have a look at the lake, so we went for a short stroll to the beach and a dog – Boody – was with us all the time. We were a bit concerned that the dog would get run over by cars or motorcycles, since he was completely oblivious to them. In the end we arrived safely at the house and could just witness a wedding from the rooftop.

Almi very nicely and patiently talked to us, which was not easy. She cooked Spaghetti with rice and something cooked in Banana leaves, it tasted nice. Then her husband arrived and we had a nice conversation with him. Seems they have a problem with a virus scanner on their computer, we will have a look at that later on. Tomorrow at 8AM the Spanish school starts.

The next day was our first school day, the bags are packed and the school is in walking distance, just 20m from our accommodation.

After the first day, it felt like my head would explode. So after school we had a power nap. Once completed, we went on a small excursion to the town centre – a few steep uphill roads, but the view from there was nice.

In the evening we went swimming with Almi and the kids, which was nice since the ambient temperature was still high. The next days in school went well; I adore the patient my teacher showed when he described the same words over and over again. The daily routine was: go to school after breakfast, come home have a power nap, then we did homework and in the evening we studied Spanish at the terrace until the sun went down (not sure how the bottle of beer came into the picture…) 😉 .

And in the morning, I asked ????? – my teacher – not to cry when he was correcting my homework, and here are both our hero’s, ????? and Julia.

The conclusion of this week is, ‘Spanish teachers don’t cry’ 😀. Sigrid wanted to take some pictures, so I was pretending to know what I’m doing.

We really enjoyed being part of a family, so when Almi had to peel more than 150 bananas I offered to help, since Sigrid tried to fix her computer overrun by viruses. The peeling was finished it in no time, but the computer took considerably longer since the virus prevented a virus checker download (a good old USB stick with linux and virus scanner solved the problem in the end).

Almi does a lot of volunteer work; she teaches in a school twice a week and helpes in school to wrap Christmas gifts for kids. One day we went with here to the school to help, some people worked, some played silly with the kid.