Cerro El Manchén

We have to circumvent Guatemala City as best we can today within the confines of the roads available. Unfortunately that means 2 unavoidable stretches on highways - basically poor motorways. The first one is not great but manageable. The second is truly awful - it would have been safer cycling on the hard shoulder of the M1. The supposed hard shoulder varied in size and quality, disappearing in many places so we were forced onto the highway with lorry after lorry steaming along. There were tortilla stands and other sellers at intervals on the hard shoulder that you had to navigate round and you had to watch for cars pulling off in front of you to grab their morning snack - or cars and Lorries just parked in the hard shoulder. There were exits and entrances and petrol stations to add to the hazards - all the time with the thunderous and polluted roar of the vehicles. Then there was a patch of muddy water that Catharine passed just as a large lorry went through - soaking her in stale algae. Worse was to come when there was some sort of sewage leak across about 100 metres of road. We tried to time it to avoid being in the soak zone but again Catharine got soaked in sewage - it was effectively like a bucket of sewage down the left side of the body - and it stank. After that it was too risky to drink from the water bottles so it was another 20km - including a hot steep climb before we could get to lunch stop and wash stuff as best as possible using water from the TDA containers (no running water).
Before getting to the second motorway there is a beautiful sweeping descent with amazing views down to Lake Amatitlan and views of Volcano Acatenango. We get stopped at roadworks and they say it will be 3 hours before the road opens - but then say we can go through on bikes - BUT the tarmac is still wet and we get off as soon as we can but not before there is a fine layer of tarmac stuck to our wheels which then makes for very slow sticky cycling for many miles.
The descent into Antigua is very steep - I guess it is surrounded by volcanoes ! Then we reach Antigua and the ancient cobbles are unbelievably hard and uncomfortable to ride on. Eventually we get to our hotel (Hotel Candelabria) which is an oasis of calm behind wooden doors with a central courtyard and soothing fountain.Read more