Mud Wrestling Again.

I decided to try to head directly South from Utila.
This meant using some smaller roads but I figured that would be fun. I like to try to get onto the dirt roads at least a bit in each country. It lets me see what the people in the really small villages are doing :)


Well, clearly the bridge on this road is out!

So, I used the GPS and pretty quickly found the road I was after.
Thats actually a bit unusual. As I have been getting further South I have been finding that the quality of the "worldmap" in the GPS is getting rappidly worse... There are plenty of highway routes that are completely different in real life to what is shown on the GPS... They can be out by 20Km or more at times!

But, this time it worked OK. The road started out paved... then after about 10 minutes it bacame dirt (but good dirt). I toodled along this for about a half hour. It went along the side of a beautiful river that wound down from the mountains. Not too many people out here, so not too much litter, and the jungle and mountains and waterfalls etc were beautiful too.
But then, as the road climbed up into the mountains, it came to a point where the local chicken buses clearly stopped...
Its a kind of a measure of road quality that I use... If the chicken buses and the Coca Cola truck can get there, then I can too :)


But now, the road turned into a definite 4WD trail...
I asked a couple of questions of the locals and they said "Yeah, its fine... It goes about 25Km till it hits the Highway, and it doesnt get any worse than this"... So I decided to give it a go.
I toodled along more slowly over the rough stuff and through the creek crossings etc for another half hour or so. The road got higher and the quality got lower... but not too bad.
But! It had been raining quite a lot recently, and Im more worried about the mud than the rough stuff. As the road got smaller, the mud factor was increasing. I made it to the summit of the road with no spills and only a few dodgey sections of slimy mud...Then it was down the other side...
Immediately, things get trickier! Going up is easy since I control speed with the throttle and the clutch and if things get out of hand I just stop (clutch and brake held with the hands). But going down, if things get tricky, I have to use the back brake to control both speed and stopping... whuch means one foot off the ground... And that means much more chance of the big bike toppling over. The problem is compounded by the fact that I currently have road tyres on the bike... These are fine on firm rough stuff but useless in the mud.



So, as soon as I hit the first steeper section of track with mud, things go all swimmy and Im struggling. The bike topples over a couple of times but Im only about 5-10Km from the next highway and its well over an hour back to where I came from...so I keep trying to go forward...

But then I meet a local guy on a 200cc size dirt bike coming the other way. He and his bike are well and truely plastered in mud.
We have a bit of a chat and it seems that the rest of the track is both steep and very muddy.... Best I turn back!



So, he helps me turn the big bike around on the narrow trail and then it takes us another 20min to get both his and my bike back up th short 50m section of steep mud that I just came down. The bike topples over even with the two of us working on it :)
But we get there and I then head off back the way Ive come again.
Where the road gets good again, I stop to check the bike over and I have another chat to that same group of guys who told me the road was fine... I tell them that its actually quite a bit worse etc....
I was not actually surprised that they were wrong. They dont have cars... They take the chicken bus when they travel... It goes the other way... They have rarely if ever actually been far down the road they sent me along... They only know what other people tell them about it, and they were just passing the info along to me. It was just that they hadnt spoken with anyone who had been along the road recently ... certainly not since the recent heavy rains... Oh well.


And thats how it seems to go for me when I tackle these dirt trails by myself.... I get quite a way but after the bike has been on its side a few times, and Im trembling with exhaustion from the effort of manouvering it and picking it back up... I turn around and retreat...
The fact is that If I want to do this sort of thing then I need to find a traveling partner, and I need a different bike...

Oh well, Im having fun doing it this way for the time being...
But I think Ill get a different bike for the next trip... No more mods for this one...
Its just not the right bike :)

Done Diving

I was out in the Caribbean for about five days. I did six dives and had a good time, but I feel like I should get riding again now.

Its easy to see why so many people want to give up the "struggle" of modern city life and just head down to islands like Utila and live a relaxed life. I can also see why so many people want to be dive instructors down here... Its so easy to do (Like REALLY easy!... which is why it can be dangerous if you are not paying attention!). Its just like being a cub-scout and collecting badges!...

PADI has this wonderful little progression curve of skills and qualifications. There is always something new to learn, and with each step you get a little certificate (and probably a gold star if your good :) )
There are different options for people who like to be in charge and to instruct, or people who like gadgets, or people who like to do "dangerous" stuff, ... or people who want to rescue others etc... pretty much everything is catered for.... Its quite the well thought-out marketing set-up :))... No wonder there is an alternate acronym for PADI (Put Another Dollar In) :)
That said though, it is quite fun. The down side of course is that so many people want to try to do it for a living, that they become virtual slave labour for the dive shops... And thus the "professionalism" of the dive shops can be rather variable!


Utila its self is quite the definitive party town for the kids. The down side though is that there is a fantastic abundance of sand-flies (midgies, no-see-ums... call them what you will) as well as mosquitos. The little ones are really small (I reckon you could get about five of them on a pin-head!) but they are voracious... You have only a couple of seconds after they land before you are feeling it; And their bite leaves a 6-7mm red itchy patch on your skin for days afterward. Its really quite amazing given their size... Their mouth must be absolutely minute!!
But, there is a fix for them.... You cover your self in baby oil and they either cant land on you cos they get stuck, or they cant hold on to get a bite, or it gums up their tiny mouths... Whatever it is, the oil is effective :)



Not so for the mosquitoes though: They are vicious too and willing and able to bight you through your clothing (thats not common in my experience!)


So, Ive had enough of being food for the bugs for a little while and Im back on the mainland. If the rain eases up (its back again today) Ill ride on tomorrow.

Utila

I made it out onto Utila after a few days of rain.
This is a little resort island in the Caribbean off the coast of Honduras... But, Boy is it a resort!
Its way more developed than San Pedro where Ive spent lots of time... I have to say that I guess Im not really cut out for the "resort" life style... Too many young kids (20-30) wanting to party it up every night. Too many loud music bars every night. Too many touts always trying to sell you stuff, and in the case of Utila particularly, Too many 2-stroke scooters polluting the air with lots of noise and lots of oily exhaust smoke!
I dont actually mind that the kids want to do this or that the resort towns cater to them, but its painful for me to be in amongst it all for more than a couple of days...

So, I found a dive company that operates off the other end of the island, out on a small kay (basically a small sand/coral island that is a couple of hundred meters long and about 500m off the coast of the main island).
And so, I find myself out here with a few other slightly older tourists spending a few days diving :)))









I rested and snorkelled, took some pictures and lay in the sun yesterday.















Today I did a couple of dives in the morning and I have to say that the coral was quite worth while :))
It was way better than the last couple of places I have been diving with lots of undamaged coral and plenty of fish life too. Having kept my marine aquarium for years, I recognised many of the critters we saw too which made it more fun. I have to say though that the water absorbs lots of the red light and thus the corals and fish seem quite muted compared to when they are in an aquarium, close to the surface and illuminated by good broad spectrum lights... I may well take up aquarium keeping again when/if I ever get settled down again :))

Ill post some pictures when I can but the highlights today were scorpion fish, lion fish, moray eels, pneudibracts, and so many recognisable corals and fish :))))

Two more days of diving and then Ill see if Ill dive some more or hit the road south...

Objects of Desire

I was in a small city on the Caribbean coast of Honduras for a day or so while it rained... and rained... and rained. :))
There was not much to do there and wandering around the dull, grubby centre of town got very "old" very quickly. So I wandered a little farther a field and came across a quite large and modern shopping mall... It was the quintessential US style of mall down to the Dunkin Donuts, Burger King, and Pizza Hut stalls in the food court area. Note here that I dont think this is actually a good thing, but it did make for a bit of a change.

So, I wandered around in the overly bright fluorescent lighting and I happened past a fairly normal glass display case and noticed that it had an assortment of ladies dress purses in it. I looked at them and I thought that I didnt really find any of them very attractive, or even of very good quality... - No, I actually dont have a habit of doing this :))

And then followed a rapid little sequence of emotional responses that went something like this.

Hmmm, Yuk!, Why would anyone want that...
Ohh, but Im from somewhere else and my sensibilities are very different to here.... These would likely be very desirable to the local women...
Ohhh, Thats kinda sad or perhaps a bit child like... I feel sort of sorry, and sort of paternal and supportive at the same time...
Wait on; Im no different at all really!... I just like different things... What a hypocrite I can be...
I wonder where that desire to "have" comes from?

(This was a little sequence of emotions though, so its hard to "wrap it up" neatly with words, but I think you will get the idea.)

And thats the central question I have for this post (Though I dont really have an answer to that question).

It seems to me that this core desire to "have" certain things, is probably the major cause of most of our human suffering (well as I see it at present anyway).
Its the root of capitalism, and corruption, and most theft etc. And it panders to our fears of "not getting our share", or losing what we have etc... All bad stuff as I see it.

We all do it, There are things we want to "have" and we spend huge amounts of our emotional, mental, and physical time and energy striving to acquire these things.
For some people its a pretty purse, for others its a beaten up old 4WD or a motorbike.
For others its a house, or a piece of cake, or a pet, or possibly even another person!

I had a bit of a think about that, and I can acknowledge that evolutionary pressures would drive the desire to acquire security items like clothes or houses or the most obvious being food. Likewise, tools that allow us to acquire these things would also be desirable and therefore selected for.
Moving to a different front,we humans are social animals, and many people want attention from other people or power over them, and this also seems like a reasonable evolutionary desire, as would tools to achieve these things like knowledge or beauty dress items etc.

But I looked inside myself again and that doesnt cover the full list of desires to "have"... There are still things that I want to have that dont meet any of these "needs" and I pile them under the heading of "Shiny Beads".
Now, shiny beads can of course be used in the social context for beauty or wealth "image" purposes, but thats not what I mean... There are things that when I see them, I simply want to "have" them, and I dont care if other people see that I have them or not, and I dont care if they have a useful function or not... I want them for me and just for the sake of having them...

And that, makes little sense to me from the evolutionary stand point!!

Why do I want to "have" in this pointless way?
... and I dont have an answer for that question...But its definitely there, deep down in all of us... We want to have things and it drives us to the strangest of behaviours!


But, on the bright side, what I can say is that I used to want to "have" a great deal more than I do these days... With a bit of introspection, I largely got over the having desire, and I found that I was far more interested in "Doing"... The "have" urge was really mostly a "have the use of" urge.
Actually Id always had a strong desire to experience things and its what has led me to take some turns in life that many other people probably would not have done... The experiences became even more valuable than the objects them selves. This changed my goals a great deal and I became far less attached to stuff!
But that desire to experience this or that has also largely faded in recent years, and I no longer feel strong urges to climb mountains or travel to as many countries as possible etc. I still do these things to some extent, but they dont motivate my choices anything like they used to. (Yes, I am traveling at present but it was not the urge to travel that made me do it!)

Im not sure what I am left with now though?... Its very true that I still do have a few desires to have, and a few desires to experience, and they do influence my choices quite strongly, but there are far far fewer of them now than there ever have been before in my life.

And on that same front, I am finding that my current level of "desire" for social interaction is also at a very low ebb.
Its not that I dont like people (though there are plenty of them that I choose not to spend time around); Its more that I dont NEED to interact with anyone at the moment. I dont seem to want anything from anyone.
That may not sound too strange but I can tell you for sure that most people want quite a lot from other people. Mostly we want social acceptance and approval. Some times we want to manipulate and influence others. Sometimes we are motivated by the simplest physical desires for sex etc. Whatever the case, the "normal", healthy human wants lots from other people.

For example, the last time I rode my bike South, after having spent a couple of months on the road and arriving in Guatemala (after a month of little contact with English speaking people) I was quite "wired", and I really needed to talk and "connect" with people. This made me quite an intense person as far as others were concerned.
But, this time, after similar lack of "connection" I find that I have virtually no NEEDs for anything from anyone...

Its actually a very good way to be and Im very free to do as I will, but I dont think other people really understand it at all...

When I say its a "good way to be", that is mostly from a selfish perspective though. I have occasionally come across people with a similarly high level of "independence" from time to time, and while they are largely immune to external judgements and input from others, I have almost without exception found them to have a complimentary, and way over developed ability to be extremely inconsiderate of other people... And I dont think that is a good thing at all!

The individuals dont think that other peoples opinions or desires are important at all and they dissmiss them and prioritise their own concerns only (and thats the other half of the "greed mentality" of capitalism and materialism).

I however think this is actually very bad for others. I think we all have a responsibility to not impinge on other peoples desires if we can manage it. Of course, in some circumstances (mostly when people want something specifically from me) it cant be avoided, but for the most part it takes very little effort to accommodate and is no real conflict (when I am just "in the way" of them getting on with what they want to do for example, or simple polite punctuality)... But it dose take some effort to pay attention to other peoples desires and the ability to see other peoples perspectives (which is much harder to do)... And this is where it seems to me that those other "independent" individuals I have encountered are usually very much lacking and very much unaware!

I have to say also that this is an issue for me. My "independence of social needs" has actually been building for quite a few months, and Ive noticed that I am not always being as considerate of others as I think I should be...so Ive actually been "pushing some people away" a bit... sort of trying to avoid being inconsiderate by avoiding being around...
Its not a great solution though, but its been the best I could manage for a while. Hopefully I get through this phase and on to whatever is next soon :)

So, the "social-independence" thing is a good way to be if you are travelling alone and a lot (how convenient!) but I am still trying to put extra effort into not being inconsiderate to others...

Just the way things are for me at the moment! :)))

A Day to Burn

As I said, I had a day to burn in Antigua, So I decided to go have another look at the local active volcano.

What I mean by that is that I went there specifically to see and get close to flowing lava. The first time, I got close to tumbling, glowing red rocks... The second time I saw flowing lava but could not get very close to it.

But, it only costs about $12 to go for the half day trip, and I decided to give it another go, and, like they say, "third time lucky", so I booked in for a 2pm tour.

And this time there was indeed flowing lava that I could walk right up to and poke a stick in :)))

But, it was rather warm!

The lava was welling up out of a hole in the top of an older flow. It was coming out at about 10cm per second and then heading slowly off down the mountain in a stream about a metre wide.

The cooler, hard lava that we were standing on was still quite hot, and peoples shoes were melting. Im just guessing, but Id say there was a very good chance that there was more of the hot red stuff just 10-20cm or so directly under our feet.

The lava was radiating a great deal of heat and it was only possible to have bare skin within two meters of the stuff for a few seconds before the heat was too much. Im sure I have very minor burns to the skin on the back of my hands due to standing there the couple of extra seconds while the camera flash charged :)))

I stuck my stick into it while I was there and it immediately burst into flame of course. The lava is very thick and viscous. Id describe it as being about the same consistency as very cold honey, or warm (but not hot) tar. It took a good amount of effort of pushing one handed on the stick for a few seconds to get it to penetrate about 20cm.

I didnt try it, but Id guess that if you stood on it (assuming you were fire-proof) that you would sink in very slowly to a depth of somewhere between ankles and knees...

Maybe Ill try that next time... or maybe not!   :)

If I do go up there again, Im fully expecting  to see fountains and rivers of lava.... Cant wait :)))

Two Weeks in Guatemala

Im in Antigua now for a day or so.
I left San Pedro today while there was a bit of a break in the weather... Its been raining quite a lot for the last few days because there is a fading hurricane in the Caribbean and a tropical depression in the Pacific, and both are nearby.
But, I've had enough of sitting around, working on my bike, and having the same conversations about algae in lake Atitlan day after day. Not that its been bad at all; Ive had the chance to catch-up with all my people and dog friends there... Actually, I think I may know more of the town dogs by name than I do the people! :)
I also got to see a bunch of changes happening in the town in a "sudden" way that you just dont appreciate when you live in a place and things happen gradually day-by-day. It will be really interesting to see how the place has changed again on the way back North after a few more months... The town is definitely seeing a change-over in residents, and big changes in the local social, political, and environmental status-quo... Interesting times!


So, now Im in Antigua for a day or two. I'll mooch around tomorrow rather than move on because I want to post a package home before I leave, and the post office is closed on Sunday... So, Ill hang out till Monday morning. Then I'll move on again.

And that will make for a total of two weeks in Guatemala... A bit of a break after a month of riding South from Vancouver. After that, the current plan is to head for the Caribbean coast of Honduras to get some "beach time" in and hopefully do some scuba diving.
It'll take me two or three days to get there from here though (assuming the weather and the boarder authorities cooperate).

Either way, Ill be "On the road again"

Tooling Around

Ive been here in San Pedro for more than a week now... What have I been up to... apart from the halloween party? ...... Yarrrr!

Well, Ive been working 5-6 hours a day on my bike.
Its done more than 90,000Km and needs some love.

Jobs so far:
Low-beam lights circuit - locate and fix fault
Bash-Plate - straighten and raise
Centre Stand - make level (cut/weld)
Handlebar fixing bolts - shorten and tighten
Side Panniers - Raise and level (new holes)
Oil and Oil Filter - change.
Chain - replace.
Seat Air-pad - needs access hole cut for inflation.
Front Brake - service and bleed
Headset - clean grease, and adjust
SwingArm - complete service all bearings and linkages.
Front Forks - lower 10mm
Rear Brake - service and bleed
Alternate Footpegs - extension (cut/weld etc.)
Side Stand foot - expand (cut/weld)
GPS wiring - shorten.
Battery - check and service electrical connections.
Back Brake lever - lube and adjust.
Back Brake master cylender - fix bolts (drill, rethread, replace)
Gear Lever - lube and adjust
Rear Tyre replace.
Chain Tool - fix (weld punchpin)
HandleBars - clean/service/adjust all fittings.
Headlight - extract loose object from inside.
Riding Clothes - wash
Boots - clean and Dubin

Work still to be done:
High Beam Flash Switch - locate and fix fault.
Front Fork - fluid level reduce
Throttle - balance
Air Filter - clean
Frame Creak "Mystery" - locate and fix
Riding gloves - fix finger holes :)


But Im nearly done, so I should be hitting the road again in a couple of days :))