Cerro Chuquiáculeu

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 !.Baca lagi