Bloody Qutzals!

The Quetzal is the national symbol for Guatemala. It is even included in the center of the national flag. It is a sizable dark green bird with a head crest and two long elegant green tail feathers and a bright red breast. It is also quite rare.


I have finally found a solution to the constant problem of Quetzals both getting tangled in my hair and plucking it out for use in their nests. I had been using a hat to try to deal with the problem but it just wasn’t effective. I eventually had to cut off all my hair!
So now I look like the bad guy in a B-grade action movie. This is no real problem since it seems that almost all of the riders I have met look about the same (Teryk, Marie, Jean-Luc etc.) It seems that someone had already told them about this Quetzal problem... but I was completely unaware. I did buy a big can of “Quetzal-be-gone” but I used it all up in the first few days in Guatemala. They really are quite an insidious pest here and you have to sleep under netting or use screens on the windows and leave the ceiling fan on all night (or you get eaten alive by the blighters).
When riding the bike, they are quite the hazard as well. I’ve had several get stuck under my windshield and all the squawking and flapping about can be quite a dangerous distraction. Even the dead ones on the road are a definite hazard when you run over them as you instantly lose traction and the bike can suddenly be on its side.
Marie has been having plenty of her own problems with the pesky creatures as well and has had several fly into her ears and then annoy her while riding. Her bike started overheating recently too and we didn’t know what was causing the problem, but on closer inspection it turned out to be that the radiator had become completely clogged up with quetzals. We had to spend quite a while getting all the feathers out. I do hope that we make it out of Guatemala soon and into Honduras... Note: the national symbol for Honduras is the jaguar!…)


p.s . This blog entry is a figment of the writers distorted imagination. Please note that no Quetzals were injured in the making of this blog entry and that in fact the writer has yet to lay eyes on even one of these elusive birds.