First Take on San Marcos

So, Whats it like in the meditation course?

Well, lets start with the town.
San Marcos is a small town perched on the side of the mountains on the shores of lake Atitlan in Guatemala. It is effectively divided into two sections by the road that heads off around the side of the lake. The section above the road is the village where the locals live, and the section below the road is where the tourists live. I am really only familiar with the lower section...
There are no motorized vehicles in the lower section. There are a couple of long paved paths that lead the 150m from the main road down to the lake shore, and then any other paths are dirt. There are perhaps a dozen hotel-hostel businesses and they all seem to have an attached restaurant...Well its a place to eat for Westerners but few of them would qualify as restaurants by Western standards. There are also a couple of small shops for groceries etc.
The thing that makes San Markos different however is the vast number of services offered for healing and meditation and massage etc. It has become quite the centre for "Spiritual Learning".

All these services attract a very definite type of tourist and I have seen more dreadlocks, heavy bead jewelery, strange hats, scraggly beards, and very colourful baggy pants here than anywhere else I have been on this trip. That said though, I have to point out that all these "alternative" people are really very nice. There are very few that seem to be fixated on drugs and the rest are diligently trying to improve their health or learn something new.

My course in meditation is being run at the original spiritual facility in the town called "Las Pyramides" and it was established some fifteen years ago after a spiritual vision by the founder (A guatemalan woman). As for the people in my course, there are about eight other regulars and there are drop-in attendees on a random basis as well. I seem to be the oldest student in this group and the students range from complete neophyte meditators like me, to people who have been doing it in their home countries for years and are deeply into studying the literature and improving their skills as they head toward "enlightenment". For myself, I am just here to try to "turn down" the constant chatter in my head! Again I can say that without exception, they are all nice friendly people.

What does the course involve.
Well its simple really. At 7am in the morning there is a Yoga session that goes for about an hour and a half. Then there is a break for an hour and a half for breakfast and showers etc. Then at 10am there is a class session informing us about astral traveling and lucid dreaming and chakras and spiritual dimensions etc. There is a half hour meditation session at the start of this class.
Most people with my sort of upbringing would pretty much dismiss these classes as being full of wishful thinking rather than anything useful.
For myself, I'm going along for the ride while I'm here and I'm not getting uptight when something I'm told doesn't "gel" with my own views. After that class ends at midday, the afternoon is free for whatever I want to do (mostly work on my bike or do my laundry or read books in the sun). Then finally at 5pm there is a meditation class that goes for another hour and a half and sometimes involves sitting or laying or chanting mantras and also exercises of various sorts. Then the day is done and dinner is with other students at whichever local restaurant we feel like patronizing that evening.

So that's it for now. I'm one week into the course and not feeling much progress yet, but I am quite relaxed about it and plan to stay for a while longer :)

The Tragedy of MotoLard

Sad to say but, I have an affliction!

A quick review of the situation and the people I have associated with over the past few months illuminates the main cause quite clearly!
It seems that motorbike riding does not provide much exercise for the middle and lower body. There is plenty of exercise for the hands, arms, chest, and neck, as you are constantly fighting the headwinds from riding along at 90Kmh or more, and on my big heavily loaded bike, manouvering it around in either rough terrain or just in the parking lot gives the arms and shoulders more of a workout. However, from the waist down, there is not a lot going on. I have found that my legs have atrophied quit a lot and this includes the big muscles in my butt too. The bike seat has become less and less comfortable as the journey has progressed. I find that there is no muscle or fat to sit on and I'm constantly moving around to relieve the pressure points on the bones as I ride through the day.
The fat (what little that I have) has moved away from areas of pressure and exercise and has found a very comfortable home on my belly! So this is an introduction for my readers to "my little friend" whom I know as Babbu! He was named quite a while back before the trip when I first became aware of a minor form of this affliction (back when I was only 40yo) I decided to name him when I learned that my very dear friend Christine´s sister had named her own "little friend" Gershwin, and it seemed like naming him was a good idea at the time.
Anyway, my Babbu has had his ups and downs (he was basically absent just after my ill fated mountaineering trip of June/July last year) but presently he is definitely having an "up" phase.
I am not too concerned over this since all things have their cycles and when I get back to a lifestyle with more exercise and less riding of motorbikes, I suspect he will again move into a position of less prominence. Pretty much all of the people I have met on motorbike tours in the last few months have their own "little friend" as well, especially if they are over thirty years of age.
It was in Cartegena Colombia that the term MotoLard was coined, and one of the riders I was with (Teryk)even went so far as to change his writing name for a large web forum to be MotoLard... needless to say, he is similarly afflicted :)

Oh well, I guess it comes with the territory. - Clearly its not all "active adventure" in adventure touring.

Twenty Eight Hours in Honduras

Well, I blew through Honduras at a high rate of Knots and was there for only about twenty eight hours (I am not proud of this!).
Again, all I saw was the main highway route with just a couple of deviations from the track I took going South. I thought it might take me a bit longer but it turned out to be less distance than I remembered. I made such good time that I decided to take a break before crossing into Guatemala and to visit the Mayan ruins of Copan. It has been a couple of months since I last checked out these sort of ruins and my tolerance was back up a bit.
I was pleasantly surprised by the minimal amount of walking required this time. The site is very near the road and is well maintained too. The thing about these ruins is the quality of the stelate (big standing stones covered in carvings to commemorate significant events). To be sure, they were more impressive than the other sites I have visited, but what made the stop worthwhile for me was the presence of several big red macaws that were completely free but seemed to be somewhat tame too. This meant that I could get really close to them and have a good look and take a few pictures. There was also a small dog sized mammal that I think was one of the rodent family. It was an unusual looking critter but again it seemed quite habituated to people and I could get quite close.
Anyway, after I did that, I hopped back on the bike and drove down the road to the boarder and spent the next half hour crossing into Guatemala.

So, now I am back in Guatemala for another break :)

Doh! I Did it Again!

I have just arrived in Honduras having spent all of about thirty hours in Nicaragua. All I got to see was the Pan-American Highway!

It seems that I am sprinting through Central America again, but this time heading North! I did this on the way South in order to catch a boat to Colombia (the date was fixed). This time I am doing it in order to catch a course in Guatemala (again, the date is fixed).

I don't really mind so much about Panama and Costa Rica but it just doesn't´t seem fair to miss Honduras and Nicaragua. They are tiny little countries and very poor, but the little I have seen of them suggests that the people are mostly very nice, and there are some great things to see in them too. It would only take me two or three weeks to do a good enough job of seeing some more of them but circumstance seems determined to intervene.

So, what kind of course could make me hurry like this? I´m sure my friends will be most amused to hear that I am going to take a month long meditation course!... In fact I am myself "most amused" to hear this too :)
I´m not usually one for that kind of stuff, but I have a very busy mind (bit of an understatement) and I feel a great need to find a way to quieten it down so I get more peace in my life. All I can say is that it seems like the right time and if I don´t like it I can leave and go back to check out Honduras and Nicaragua :)

We´ll see what comes of it...

Those who Shrug

One thing that seems to be consistent wherever I go on the bike (and I have now been through ten countries) is the eternal attraction to almost everyone of a loaded up motorbike.
Sitting outside the hotel in Granada last night while having dinner, I was not wearing any recognizable motorbike gear and was therefore, just another tourist. My bike was parked nearby on the street. I watched people as they walked by and they pretty much all at least give the bike a good long look as they pass, and very often they stop and give the machine a walk around as well. It doesn't´t matter if they are tourists or locals, men or women, old or young - they almost all take a good long look.
What is it about the bike? Its dirty and scratched and heavy. Its not a particularly attractive machine as far as aesthetics go, and anyone with a little imagination can see that it is far from a comfortable way to travel around the place in anything but perfect weather conditions. Then of course there is the extreme limitation of stuff you can carry with you and the dangers of traveling so "naked".

So my guess is that the "attraction" is the dream of freedom that the bike symbolizes. It seems that almost everyone feels trapped and longs for the "freedom of the highway". A place where there is no one to burden you with responsibilities and you have no commitments to anything other than the whim of your own desires. People are envious of the riders ability to apparently just shrug off these burdens of life and they always offer up words of wonder and encouragement.

So then the question becomes, "If it is so attractive then why don´t more people do it?"
It seems to me that the answer is largely a question of fear... What will happen if they were to shrug? ....
But I can not judge people for their choices to shrug or not to shrug - There are far too many complexities in each of our lives for anyone else to see or judge. Believe me I know how trapped a person can feel and I know it took outside events to change and give me the opportunity to "take this ride".. But what I can say is that if my journey is in any way motivating for other people and if I can help others to find the will to face a little more of their fears and step out of their comfort zones just a bit, then I have done a good thing.

I too have plenty of my own fears and they play around in my mind constantly, But I´m getting better at recognizing them and I try to challenge them when I can. Some of them are still very big and I don´t have the courage for those battles yet, But others I can deal with and I become a better and stronger person every time I manage to make a choice that is in denial of fear. Little by little I am becoming more free :)

That freedom that we all want isn´t on the highway... its in the mind... and it is freedom from fear... and it can be done!

Bit of a Struggle

Well, I am now successfully here in Panama with my bike and gear all intact. Getting to this state was however a bit of a struggle!
The bike shipping effort took all day as mentioned earlier. Then the next day we headed to the airport at about mid-day to catch a 4:30 flight. We checked one piece of luggage and then "pfaffed" around in the lounge area for quite a while reading magazines and such But then we headed for the boarding longe in a hurry when we realized it was getting a bit late. We were in a line up for final customs waiting and Marie mentioned that she was surprised that they didn't do boarding announcements. To that I said that I strongly preferred it this way (I always prefer the quiet and I figure people should take responsibility for themselves - watches are cheap and easy to use. ) Anyway, less than two minutes after my bold statements, as we had just finished the customs stuff, one of the airline staff came up to us and informed us that the gate had closed and we had missed the flight!
Given my comments of minutes before, this was rather ironic to say the least :) We were both surprised by the situation given that it was still 15 minutes before flight time but there was little to be done about it...
I was a bit frustrated by the situation (given that I had alowed myself to not follow my usual airport protocols and just hung out with Marie, and let it "happen", but Marie was unperterbed by the results of casualness, and mostly just amused at the irony...
We were escorted back to check-in and after some wrangling, we were booked in (thankfully at no extra charge) for the next flight on a sister airline for an hour and a half later. This didn't´t cost us anything but it really should have since it was our own fault. - Yes it was very ironic, but in this case at least I think I was no hypocrite since I still feel the same about those annoying boarding announcements :)

That hurdle crossed, we successfully boarded the next flight in time and then found our selves in the Panama airport a couple of hours later. At that point, after some more "pfaffing" around, we decided to spend the night at the airport since it was going to be quite expensive to get a taxi to a hotel and stay the night and then another back to the airport in the morning. So, we found a quiet spot and lay on packs and fleece jackets for the night. I am eternally jealous of Marie as she seems to be able to get a good nights sleep almost anywhere. I on the other hand am one of the worst sleepers I know and I didn't´t get any sleep at all. It turned out though that the money saving measures were worth while...
Next morning, after a coffee, from the international passenger terminal we got a taxi to the cargo terminal and found the office of the people who shipped the bikes for us. A quick peek in the warehouse confirmed that the bikes were there and in good order. We then set about trying to get them out but found that the Panama end of the operation had added on an extra hundred dollars or so of charges. We did not like this!
We were very polite but did not wish to pay since we had asked very clearly and specifically about this and the agent had been very sure that this would not happen. Marie is also an former senior employee of one of the worlds largest freight companies (Maersk) and knows very well how things like this work, so I mostly sat back and let her handle things. So we sent emails and made phone calls and waited but in the end, as Marie expected (thoug she apparently hadnt "expected" it when we had shipped the bikes out of Colombia a few days ago?), we changed nothing. In the end we paid the difference and all I can do now is put a post on the most viewed motorcycle adventure touring web site in the world (Horizons.Com) that this particular agent sux! - But on later reflection I decided that I cant be bothered wasting further energy on these guys so I'm just going to move on and let it "slide", but the company concerned is "Metacarga" for those who are interested.

So, then we had to do a bit of other paperwork at rather distributed sites (involved hitch hiking in the back of a pick-up) before we had our babies back in our care. After that it was relatively easy to find our way back into the city and to the backpacker place that we had stayed at about six weeks ago - love that GPS :)
It was then mid day ish and we separated to get some tasks done in the city. My end of the deal was to find some motorcycle engine oil so we could each do an oil change. Bike oil is not the same as car oil and there are about three kinds: 2-stroke oil that is mixed with the fuel for small 2-stroke engines - very common in the cities down here but not correct for us. Synthetic 4-stroke oil that is great for our big bikes but costs about $15 per litre down here (and we needed 6 litres for the two changes) - again not for us. And finally, Mineral 4-stroke oil - good enough for our bikes and only costs about $5 per litre. So I got a taxi at random and said "take me to your motorbike shop". He promptly did so but alas... They had only the two sorts of oil that I didn't´t want. So, back in the taxi and off to another place... Same problem... then again.... and again... and again. I have no idea what was causing this phenomenon but we finally managed to find some only on the sixth attempt! After that, I taxied back to the hostel in the evening and felt rather beat-up by the whole day.

I wonder what tomorrow will bring?

Seperation Anxiety

Yesterday was "ship the bike" day.
It took about seven hours to get through all the steps between getting the bike out of the hostel (tricky to get it back out into the street with the full luggage load from being parked in the back court yard) to returning by taxi in the evening.
There was no real stress involved though since the people that I came into contact with were all very helpful and friendly. The agent that was doing the shipping was very friendly too and really all I had to do was spend most of the day waiting around in various places - They did all the worrying for me :)
The bike was handled well while I was there too. It was loaded onto forklifts twice in order to get it up onto the loading platform and then again to weigh it in on the scales (285Kg fully loaded - that's 50Kg more bike and gear than Marie´s KLR650!). There was also a police inspection of the luggage but it wasn't too thorough (not that I had anything to hide) .
So at around 6pm in the evening I walked away from the airport with my helmet in my hand and no motorbike. It was quite a strange feeling after the last five months with the bike as a constant companion. It was just as strange this morning, waking up at the hostel and seeing a blank space in the back court yard where there was no bike.
I catch a flight myself this evening and I guess I´ll see if the bike has made it through the trip without damage when I try to go through the Panama version of the "waiting game" to get the bike through customs there - probably on Thursday morning.

The Old Spit on The Gringo Scam

So, I´m tooling around here in Bogota Colombia while I try to figure out a cheap way to get back across the Darrien Gap. It seems there is no cheap way other than the boat option (about $600) that we took to get down here in the first place. This is not a very attractive option for a couple of reasons. First is the obvious not wishing to repeat the unpleasantness of the voyage South and the corrosion damage to the bike. The second reason is that this is the wrong time of year and finding boats going North that can take motorcycles would likely take several weeks of waiting in Cartegena which I have already done enough of. The alternative to boats is to fly. I looked into this in Ecuador but the price was high so I rode here to Bogota since the price was reputed to be about $650. I have now looked into this with a couple of cargo companies and it seems I was somewhat misled! The best price I can get is $875 for the bike and then there is another $350 for my own ticket. This is a bit of a bummer but there seems little option at this stage.

On a side note, I could probably ride to the southern tip of South America and then ship the bike back to Canada in a container and fly myself home for the same cost. It would also likely take me about the same time to ride South as to ride North. So why not do it?
Well, because I am tired of touristing, the season is wrong, and I would not do justice to all the wonderful things there are to see in South America. My choice remains to head North.

OK, once I had decided to take the expensive flight back to Panama I then found that the cargo agent will only take US$ and not credit card. So, on Monday morning I trotted off to the bank to change some travelers cheques into cash. This was possible but it cost me an extra fee to do it (which it is not supposed to grrr !"$%&*). Then I headed back toward the hostel I was staying at and to find a travel agent to get a ticket for a flight for me.
A couple of blocks along the way, I suddenly had something wet land on the side of my neck. I figured I had been hit by one of the many pigeons in the city. I assumed the worst and was wondering if I had any tissues or napkins on me so I could wipe myself off without making a bigger mess of things. While I was doing this, I felt some movement around my right front pocket. My hand responded automatically and I found I was holding onto the wrist of a short, middle aged, and well dressed woman with her hand buried in my wallet pocket!
Eye contact was made and she seemed quite indignant and after a surprised/mean look I let her go and continued to deal with the mess on my neck. I wiped it with my hand and discovered that it was probably saliva rather than bird excreta. So, while I didn't´t see the set up, I am pretty sure that is what it was - a perfectly timed distraction within two blocks of leaving a bank and a hand in my pocket - Too much to be coincidence. I had however moved the large amount of cash to an inside pocket in my daypack and was fully wearing the pack (both shoulder straps on) so I would not have lost that much. I had not seen any suspicious behavior at or outside the bank, and I had paid some attention to that sort of stuff. Likewise, I had not noticed anyone following but I was not really looking for it either. It seems my senses and reflexes were enough to save me this time :)
Oh well, got away with it this time...Live and learn :))

Clean Trucks but No Shower Heads

A couple of other observations about Colombia:

Nowhere else in the world have I noticed people tacking so much trouble to keep their trucks clean. I'm talking about the big road rigs here (but I suspect it applies equally to individual cars too). Throughout the whole length of the country, the highways are continually lined with roadside truck washing areas. The water is usually gathered from mountain side creeks and brought down to the road side using 20-50m of poly pipe. It is then a free supply of water with good pressure. These areas are outside of virtually every single dwelling located alongside any highway.
The people here seem to really care about their truck´s appearance and usually about one in three of the sites is occupied by a truck being cleaned. The exception to this is on Sunday when almost every site is occupied and people are out with long handled brooms scrubbing their favourite Juggernaut :)

On a related note, there seems to be an acute shortage of shower heads here in Colombia (in Mexico it was fuel caps for trucks). Most of the hotels that I have stayed in , even the good ones, seem to be missing the shower heads in the bathrooms. It just seems a little strange that people would steal these minor items...They cant be that expensive to buy. Its no real problem since the flow of water is just as effective for getting clean with (if a little less enjoyable) but I don't understand why the phenomenon exists.... Just another of life's little puzzles.

Locked in for the Night on the Road to Bogota

I have just arrived in Bogota Colombia.
It took us three days to get here from Quito. The first day we had boarder formalities that took a little longer than hoped, so we stopped in Pasto at the same hotel as we did on the way south. This was the hotel we had the "noisy night" in but we were smarter this time and took a room on the top floor. It was also a Monday night and it was far quieter - Much more sleep was had by all :)

The second day we made good progress and made it to a town called Palmira, but we took a risk and stayed in a fancy looking Motel just out of town. The security at the place was quite surprising till we figured out what it was all for. There was a large bared gate at the entrance and communication was through a mirrored window and intercom. they let us in and we asked to see the accommodations. We walked over to one of the doors and on the way immediately noticed that every single room had private parking with big metal doors to close the vehicles in, and the only doors to the rooms were from the garage (ie behind the double steel doors). This all seemed rather "over secure". Not to worry, we went in and had a look at the room which was large and very clean and tidy and even had a gym bench in there. It was then that I noticed the instructions for the gym bench on the wall ... It indicated about eight different "arrangements" for two people to "use" the bench!
Smiles were stifled and a request was made for a simpler and cheaper room which was then provided.

Then the next little surprise was that the staff wanted to lock us in for the night! It turned out that the garage doors could only be opened and closed from the outside! It also turned out that the only way to get in or out or any sort of service was by using the phone and that if you ordered from the menu in the room, the requested items were delivered via a little metal box inserted in one wall. There was a door on the inside of the box and a door on the outside of the box...
And a closer look at the menu indicated that there was a section titled "extras" with some very exotic items available!!!
So, it was quite clear what this place was mostly used for... People could drive up in a car with tinted windows and get a room and any needed supplies via phone service and then depart when they were finished without anybody ever having seen their faces. Likewise, other people in the motel would never get to see them or even see their car or number plates. So it was not so much secure as "Private". Regardless of the uses other people put the place to, the room was very clean, very large, and very quiet and so I think it was good value for money :)

Another good nights sleep was had by all.

Day three was spent heading East to Bogota. The road goes through two very large mountain ranges (at right angles) and the whole day was spent either climbing or descending on very twisty mountain roads. These are not hills but real mountains. The scale is like Switzerland and the GPS showed that we had over 3000m of height difference between our high and low points. It was baking hot down in the valley and freezing cold at the high points of both mountain ranges.
The traffic was more or less as expected and we were either fighting our way up past strings of very large trucks crawling up the switchbacks or we were coasting down the same sorts of roads just waiting for the face to face confrontation as the big trucks decide to pass each other on the way up in the other direction and take absolutely all of the road up when they do. We had several exciting encounters but we are both experienced riders and it was really just another day on the roads down here.
Then we arrived in the outskirts of Bogata and I have to say that the traffic here is probably the most chaotic that I have ridden in on this trip. They really have no idea about driving in lanes, and the rules for merging and changing position on the road are different but quite simple = If you can see a gap in front of you and you can get to it then do! Don't worry about what is going on beside or behind you and if you do it reasonably slowly then you can assume other drivers will avoid you. It seems to work OK.
The city its self is the most crowded that I have been in so far (both pedestrians and vehicles) and the roads are confusing too. So we ended up following a taxi to a hostel that had been recommended to us. This also worked fine.

Safe in Bogata... Tomorrow figuring out about flights to Guatemala and Panama for people and bikes.