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  • Ruta Maya
    Tag 36

    Day 26 - Crossing the border into Belize

    8. Dezember 2023 in Belize ⋅ ☁️ 28 °C

    John didn’t have dinner last night as started feeling unwell after lunch. He was violently sick multiple times in the evening and overnight so decided not to ride today which means only one person is left that has completed all the riding to date. They do say it’s their toughest tour ……
    Catharine rides with Sjoerd and Hubert.
    The first 30km are through the national park. It’s a quiet perfectly tarmac-ed road with jungle either side - apparently a large Tarantula crossed the road in front of the TDA lunch van on the way into the park yesterday. However we didn’t see any wildlife today (though we were woken by the Howler monkeys at 4.45am!!)
    It was a fast 70km to lunch but I didn’t feel much like eating. The border crossing into Belize was at 99km. I gave my remaining Guatemalan money to a slightly surprised young man who was weeding the petrol station forecourt, explaining I was about to leave the country.
    There was a military blockade about 2km from the border with a large machine gun on the back of a stationary truck - the gun was pointed at the road we started to descend (the TDA guide apparently thought this might mean the president was coming past).
    The border was pretty straightforward and reasonably efficient - stamped out of Guatemala in one building and then a form and stamped into Belize in another building about 200m further along. The usual money changers were on hand - surprising as the rate they offered was exactly the same as the official rate so I don’t know how they make a cut. (The Belize dollar is pegged to the US dollar at 1 USD to 2 Belize dollars).
    There is an immediate change on entering Belize - the tarmac is the type you see a lot in the UK with the little stones through it - but the road surface is way worse than what we had just travelled in the last couple of days in Guatemala. There are huge potholes all down the outer side of the road that we need to navigate around. The signs are all in English (Belize was a british colony until 1981) and there are overhead electricity cables outside the towns for the first time I can remember since we started the trip - which makes me realise that the majority of the rural homes on the hundreds of miles we have travelled probably had no power.
    The houses look American in style with lawns and gardens so much more wealthy.
    There is a kicker at the end - a 500m really steep hill to the hotel.
    The hotel is very good compared with recent ones - it feels cleaner, the shower has functioning hot and cold controls and doesn’t leak out and there is an on site coffee shop which sells proper coffee and cake (though a double shot americano is nearly £4!)
    The hotel has a great view over the surrounding area and we had a nice evening meal. Hopeful for a better nights sleep - part of my tooth fell off as I got ready for bed ☹️    Weiterlesen

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  • Ruta Maya
    Tag 35

    Rest Day - Tikal

    7. Dezember 2023 in Guatemala ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C

    Tikal is the largest and oldest Mayan city which was inhabited between 600BC and 900AD - at its peak there were over 100,000 citizens. The temples - which resemble pyramids - were built to calculate the equinox and solstice, and they used the 360 plus 5 day calendar as well as a 260 day ceremonial calendar. Archaeologists have uncovered over 3,000 structure but have identified a further 6,000 uncovered.

    Catharine opts for the sunrise tour of the Tikal ruins. The porter comes and checks I am awake at 3.30am. We trek off into the jungle with our guide. It is pitch black and quite slippy underfoot but the heavy rain per the forecast doesn’t arrive. The sky is a bit cloudy but the moon is clear and there are loads of visible stars in the sky.
    We climb to the top of the largest of the temples about 45 minutes before sunrise and sit in silence waiting for the sun to rise. Once everyone has stopped fidgeting it is amazing listening to the jungle slowly come alive as the sun rises. The Howler monkeys make a tremendous racket which echoes round the jungle canopy below and sounds like the roar of a dinosaur. Slowly the peaks of other temples take shape as the sky turns orange and the moon disappears. Weird to think that people would have sat in the same place more than 1,300 years ago…..
    We then toured round the plaza before it got busy - we are staying in the national park hotel so there are very few people in the park for the sunrise tour. 3 of us girls did handstands in front of another of the temples !
    We saw some spider monkeys and a skunk like animal (see picture).
    Was starving by the time we got to have breakfast about 9am and had a late morning nap after doing the laundry (make shift laundry line hung in room!).
    Relaxing lunch and sitting by the pool - fully covered (and in the shade) to prevent any mosquito bites    Weiterlesen

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  • Ruta Maya
    Tag 34

    Day 25 - Sayaxche to Tikal

    6. Dezember 2023 in Guatemala ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C

    We start the day with a boat crossing - it’s a wooden boat that’s very flat and low in the water and takes all the cyclists plus riders. We see other similar boats carrying a van or a lorry, which doesn’t seem possible given how basic they look. It’s about 10 minutes across the water and then we are riding through the lowlands - there is marshland on one side that looks very Harry Potter-esque and thick jungle on the other. There are noises coming from the jungle that sound like dinosaurs ! Apparently there are jaguars and lots of snakes.
    Five of us form a peloton and cover 50km in under 2 hours before stopping for coffee - the coffee was mediocre but the service was good and everyone friendly.
    Today there are fewer houses along the side of the road although there seem to be more villages with sandy roads going off the main road that we are on - presumably leading to houses.
    Amazingly we have a dry day in spite of the forecast. It is a really nice temperature to be riding as the sun is out but there is a reasonably strong wind that keeps us cool and also it’s less humid than it has been - the wind is hard work for John though who does the most time at the front (I don’t volunteer !)
    At the lunch stop we buy fresh lemonade with soda - it has crushed ice through it and is quite tangy - delicious when you are thirsty and a bit off your food! The man who serves it says he never goes to Belize without his gun ….. that’s where we are headed next.
    The road heads up through the national park to the eco lodge where we are staying - again thick jungle all around and signs warning of snakes, jaguar and ant- eaters. We see a very large dead snake at the edge of the road!
    The eco lodge is lovely and the food and homemade iced papaya / melon juice delicious. We only have electricity between certain hours    Weiterlesen

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  • Ruta Maya
    Tag 33

    Day 24 - Chisec to Sayaxche

    5. Dezember 2023 in Guatemala ⋅ ⛅ 29 °C

    It rains heavily all night and is still torrential when we get up. Given the dangers of hidden potholes and slippy roads I decide to take the van to lunch and ride from there if it dries up. Given that John has ridden every mile so far, he decides to brave the weather. As it turns out the weather is better than forecast and I ask if we can get out of the van before the lunch stop so we all do. There are open fields and rainforest with mist as we cycle along through more tiny villages - these are the Guatemalan lowlands so pretty flat today compared with where we have been! Then the rainforest either side of the road becomes much thicker and is like something out of Tarzan! And then the landscape reverts to trees and fields and looks almost English countryside - and then back to rainforest and little villages. There are so many stray dogs - many clearly have puppies. Best thing a dog charity could do would be a sterilisation programme. We see a dead dog many days that has been hit by a car and so many of the live ones are painfully thin. Kate on our tour collects any leftover meat every night for feeding the strays the next day !
    It is noticeable again how many churches there are - these are concrete and fancy but many look like they have been abandoned. There are also numerous petrol stations that look like they have never been finished. It makes me wonder whether missionaries were here for a while and then left. Most houses are just wooden - many with some type of thatched roof.
    Everyone is friendly and waves / shouts gringo as we pass.
    The lunch van gets stopped by the fruit police and gets all the fruit confiscated- not sure why - must be some sort of disease that they are trying to eradicate.
    It’s a very straight road today and pretty quiet so it is a baptism of noise as we enter the town where we are staying tonight. Bustling, noisy and chaotic. We arrive relatively early so time to have a coffee at a little place that was very hard to find and looked nothing from the outside. I order an americano with milk on the sauce and I get a black coffee and a large cup of sweetened hot milk !
    There is a little puppy that we all pet (see picture)
    Dinner is at a local restaurant and is surprisingly good - plenty of leftover meat for the strays tomorrow !    Weiterlesen

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  • Ruta Maya
    Tag 32

    Day 23 - Santa Cruz Verapaz to Chisec

    4. Dezember 2023 in Guatemala ⋅ 🌧 27 °C

    A relatively short day on the bike and the first wet day. We were soaked within about 30 minutes ! It was a shame we had to concentrate so hard on the roads because the scenery would have been amazing. It dried up as we arrived at lunch - early. The afternoon was through village after village - houses built into the hillside or alongside the road. Very basic - most of them just wooden structures with a few rooms and concrete floors. Coffee plantations on the sides of the hills and lots of rainforest. There were a few areas of cleared rainforest but not on a massive scale. John and I stopped for an ice cream at a tiny store - there were about 4 kids there watching so we offered them an ice cream too - they were incredibly shy at first but then one by one accepted - I had to tell them to get on and eat them as they were just holding them in their wrappers and would have melted. We then felt guilty and offered all the ladies there one as well - they were all part of an extended family. The toddler grimaced when he first tasted his and then decided he quite liked it!
    We arrived at the hotel about 1 - big bed that pretty much fills the room - pretty basic with 2 large Alsatians outside ! It started chucking it down about 3pm and has not stopped so the washing we have done will probably not dry ! It’s humid but pleasant sitting outside the room in the covered hallway listening to the rain !    Weiterlesen

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  • Ruta Maya
    Tag 31

    Rest day - Santa Cruz Verapaz

    3. Dezember 2023 in Guatemala ⋅ ☀️ 29 °C

    We are staying at an odd gated resort just on the outskirts of a pretty uninspiring town. There are quite large grounds - pictures taken by somebody else as John and me take the rest day literally and do nothing much at all other than eat and drink! We can be using as much as 4,000 calories a day and it’s just not possible to get enough food onboard to replenish what we are using - particularly as we are somewhat bored of the scrambled eggs, tortillas and black beans that are served at breakfast! We have a good coffee for once and then I have a pizza at lunch - first time I have felt like eating much in the last couple of days - no idea why. It takes an hour to arrive and I have to ask for it 3 times ! Everyone else has finished by the time I get mine. I clean my bike and don’t do an awful lot. I hadn’t slept well the night before as someone had been beeping their horn for about an hour from 1-2am - initially beep beep beep and then moving to a continual beep as they sat on their horn. I am assuming they were locked out of the complex and were trying to get someone to open up !Weiterlesen

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  • Ruta Maya
    Tag 30

    Day 22 - Sacapulas to Santa Cruz Verapaz

    2. Dezember 2023 in Guatemala ⋅ ☀️ 24 °C

    At the riders meeting we are warned that this is the toughest day of the tour, particularly given the tough day we had the day before. We are going to climb over 9,000 feet and it’s going to be hot and at altitude. I didn’t sleep well at all due to the road noise and breakfast wasn’t the best so it’s not great preparation for a tough day.
    The first climb starts immediately, is 6 miles long and about 3,000 feet of climbing. There are some great views as we climb and there is a beautiful sweeping descent where you have to keep remembering to look at the road surface as the views are quite spectacular. However the next climb starts and my legs die. I crawl into lunch but it’s so hot I don’t feel like eating - just take a bottle of cold water and try and rest. Andrew comes in and is suffering from a terrible bout of gastrointestinal something or other and has had to dive into the bushes a few times. I offer to ride slowly with him if he wants to continue and John goes on.
    Lunch is by a (very basic and precarious looking) viewing platform with amazing views across the rainforest covered mountains.
    Andrew and I set off in the searing heat, sometimes getting off to walk up the steeper sections of the 13 mile, 3,600 feet climb 🥵 . After a while the sweep rider catches us up so I leave Andrew with them and continue to crawl along. It takes all my will to keep going as I have zero energy. However the scenery is beautiful as we pass through little villages along the edge of the hillside. At one point there is the most amazing live music coming from a wooden building high up - lots of people are walking up to it. I look across the end of the hillside at the top of the valley and wonder whether there has been a landslide as there is a scar on the side that appears to be smoking. I realise it is a large rubbish tip that is smouldering. Just as I reach the point where the paved road becomes dusty gravel, Malcolm the tour leader pulls up in the Mafiosa and asks if I want a lift across the 2km gravel section - avoiding the burning rubbish dump - I leap at the chance! John has long since ridden this and passed the people washing themselves / their cars in the water pouring off the hillside above the gravel road.
    I get dropped off at the end of the gravel section and crawl the last 6 miles or so - I don’t know how I managed to make it to the hotel - one of the hardest rides I have done. 9,000 feet of climbing and 8 hours in the saddle    Weiterlesen

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  • Ruta Maya
    Tag 29

    Day 21 - Panajachel to Sanapulas

    1. Dezember 2023 in Guatemala ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    We had our riders briefing at 5.45am in the hotel restaurant. The TDA tour leader said we he to be shuttled 4k in the Mafiosa van to avoid a section of the Pan American highway that had no hard shoulder. I joked about a dream I had the night before where my dad had said he wasn’t happy about my safety on the roads we were cycling on - so maybe this was it.
    We started with a 15k climb of about 3,500 feet but there were great views back towards the volcanoes and lakes.
    After the shuttle we had more climbing. We stopped at a viewpoint and there was a bus with basically one extended family on. They wanted pictures with us and so we stood there while about 10 local people took multiple picture of us - the tourist attraction.
    The area seemed poorer again and we stopped at a bakery in one of the towns and ordered coffee - and a couple of the bakery items. Coffee turned out to be instant (no milk available) but the biscuits were nice enough - 3 coffees and 3 bakery items for £2. While we were paying an older man came in and was hassling us for money. I gave him half my biscuit and John offered him the mug of coffee. The man drank it like his life depended on it and it slopped out as he had very few teeth. John then asked if he would like some food and bought him this enormous loaf/ cake thing and he disappeared off putting the remains of the biscuit in his pocket.
    We were then routed through a town that had a busy market and roadworks going on. We couldn’t go on the actual route and ended up going the wrong way downhill on a one way street . John was ahead and hadn’t realised and a car pulled out at some cross roads not looking at the direction we were coming from because they were crossing a one way street. I was 30 metres behind and shouted but it was too late. John tried to swerve away but the car still impacted and sent him sprawling. Amazingly he didn’t break anything and the bike was relatively unscathed. Bump to the head and a wrenched neck and back though. There were locals everywhere trying to help, asking if we needed a doctor etc and the young lad who had been driving the car looked terrified. John insisted he was ok to cycle so we checked the bike and left after a while. I offered to pay for the scrape to front of the lads car (it was pretty bashed up generally but there was a new bash I think) but he insisted no - he was just glad John was ok.
    We cycled onto lunch with John having some issues with the gears.
    The countryside changed in the afternoon - very dry and mountainous and then back to rainforest and mountainous.
    I had to leap down into a ditch at one point as some idiot lorry driver coming the opposite way decided to overtake coming straight at me and a pedestrian - who also had to jump in the ditch. So all in all a bit of a scary day in places.
    Hotel is basic but cool and clean and we enjoyed beer and ice lollies after we had washed the day away. We are at over 4000 feet tonight so it’s a nice temperature in the evening sun. Multiple power cuts in the evening !.    Weiterlesen

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  • Ruta Maya
    Tag 28

    Panajachel - Rest day

    30. November 2023 in Guatemala ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

    A relaxed day not doing a lot! Hotel overlooks Lake Atitalan and we had a wonderful view of the sun as it set and as it rose.
    Catharine had a pension fund call and then did washing and John read by the pool. Lovely temperature.
    We returned to our favourite coffee shop for a cortado before wandering round the stalls. There are hundreds of them, mostly selling very similar stuff and there are barely any tourists so no idea how they make a living. ATM deducted money from my account but gave no cash - second time this trip 😠 though I have now had first one refunded.
    Lovely lunch with wine followed by the most amazing ice cream from the ice cream shop - 70% vegan dark chocolate plus some ginger ice cream - amazing !
    Also added a photo of the 2 for 1 mojitos we had last night at same restaurant we went to today for lunch !    Weiterlesen

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  • Ruta Maya
    1
    Tag 27

    Day 20 - Antigua to Panajachel

    29. November 2023 in Guatemala ⋅ ☁️ 23 °C

    We started the day with the riders briefing at 6am on the roof terrace as the sun was rising and were treated to amazing views of the surrounding volcanoes.
    We were on the road before 7 and once off the cobbled roads of Antigua we started to climb. Then we got to the section described as hike-a-bike - it is a narrow road made of compacted clay / dirt which is really a series of pockmarks and water channels winding upwards through trees. It was just about rideable so long as you didn’t lose your nerve - except when we got to a bit in the deep shade which was wet and the slick tyres just slid so we needed to walk. The 6km on the Pan American highway was ok as there was a metre consistent hard shoulder without too many obstacles in.
    Then we climbed into a beautiful lush mountainous area with great views before lunch stop at 10.15 - Just before the river crossing. They use 25 avocados in the fresh guacamole that they make most days to feed about 18 people including staff. They have to dispose of the perishable food after every lunch but usually they are able to give to locals - or stray dogs!
    The river crossing isn’t that high but it is very smelly so shoes will need washed again 😩
    The temperature is lovely - hot but cool breeze as we climb. There are loads of fields with crops everywhere and a lot of workers still using hand tools.
    When we start the descent we get truly amazing views of Lake Atitalan. There are beautiful flowers and plants everywhere as well.
    We enter Panajachel and it is very pretty but clearly touristy. We are at the hotel by 1pm so time to sit by the pool and relax !    Weiterlesen

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