Right Place at the Right Time...

Benjamin Rochette takes it all in...

El Dorado Saint Jean Baptiste El Zonte

If you happen to be with French Canadians at Saint Jean Baptiste, we'll nothing can go wrong!
we all put together some dinero and went off on $200 worth of fire crackers!
The night was clear... ( as we usualy get lightning storms) cocktails were passed around, waves crashing, good people laughing.
If you're looking for a surfing spot, excellent waves, the best hospitality I've ever come across my decade of traveling! this place rocks, going back to years back in Thailand, or Mexico... Like some say, " remember when???? " well this is remember now!
As sweet as it gets!

So Cal and I decided to hang for a while here at Eldorado
Cal will be helping with construction and other things around... working on some videos for all of you to see!...
And I'll be teaching yoga and giving massages to surfers. Not to forget on my photography portfolio, being a magical place
makes my job easy with great photo ops!

so enjoy a few of these images .....

Surfing in El Zonte El Salvador

Styling at Eldorado El Zonte
Doesn't get any better!!
sleeping in my hammock, best bacon and eggs, real coffee, good vibes, sweet waves, getting trashed by waves, drinking too much beer and... water!! sunshine, more sunshine, another good wave, dinner... lets not get started!!
This place rocks!! better then this??? good luck!
here we are...
mmm.. ya, life is good

Crazy Market in ChiChicastenango

From Chickens to blankets, fruits and souvenir, ChiChi is one of the biggest markets in Guatemala. Also a great place to experience the true lifestyle of the Mayans. So it is! We got lost for several hours threw the dense alleys. The market takes over the entire town. We didn't even know how we would drive back out!
It offers great photo opportunity but in Guatemala, taking photographs isn't an easy task. Either the people want money to take their photos or you get beans thrown in your face like I got one time trying to take a shot!
With a little undercover work, you can sometimes manage to get the shot you want. But watch those beans coming at you!

After trying hard to bargain for a new hammock ( need a new one since I left mine to our friends in Belize ) I'm usually good at wheel and dealing but here was hard! They didn't like my offer. They usually run at 225 Quetzales aound $30 ~ way too much for us ~ we paid $15 in Mexico ~
My price was 100 Q ... 150 Q is the lowest they would go, but my trick is to only have the money you want to pay and show then you don't have more. It almost worked, lady thought about it.... but didn't go for it.
Tired of the madness it was time to hit the road. between El Salvador and Nicaragua... I'm sure I'll find my price.

Antigua

When travelers arrive in Guatemala, Antigua is usually number one on their hit list. Nestled between three volcanoes, it offers a true colonial feel with cobbled streets, mustard and ochre colored houses. A popular destination for those wanting to perfect their spanish with many schools available.
Antigua was founded in 1543 and served as the colonial capital for 233 years. The capital was transferred to Guatemala City in 1776, after Antigua was put down by an earthquake in 1773. You can see some of the remains of the effect where the preserved some of the buildings.
Fancy restaurants with beautiful courtyards, gift shops, and bars, Everything to please a happy traveler.
We spent 3 nights here, one day fixing our bikes racks and frames and another doing the tourist thing ... found my hammock!
It's time to hit the road again, today we jump back in the saddle and make our way to El Salvador. We hope to cross today, but as we now know.... the roads always take twice the time expected, but we are heading back towards the ocean. I look forward to trying out my new hammock and the smell of the ocean again also a new country. Lets just hope that sunshine will fallow us, as in the afternoons these days, we get hit with pretty heavy storms, after all, we are in the wet season! But we have been lucky at staying dry...

Broken racks and frames

Riding threw Mexico can be hard on a bike. We must of went over 10 000 " topez " - speed bumps -
and that means the bikes get a beating, especially when your riding with climbing gear!
Once we got to Guatemala ( with no more climbing gear since I brought it down to Chile on my visit ), the roads turned to dirt, mud and crater size hole. But Fun!! Until we noticed this...
" Cal, your bike seems low" I tell him, "Ya", at first we didn't noticed, but a screw had broken off where it holds onto the frame of the bike.
The other day we looked at it more closely and saw the frame had cracked in 2 place, also on the rack.
~ Cal's luggage rack had been bent a little for a while and one day burnt a hole in his sleeping bag.~ smelled like burnt chicken so threw it out!
In Antigua, we brought it to a welder to spark it up. Spotted his shop while being lost riding around in the city. (very confusing with all the cobble streets and same looking buildings.) Pulled in and asked the guy, Cal gets to work, "possible' repapar la moto, agui broken! " -Si Si - the guy says. So we start taking our bikes apart for major work. We spent 3 hours
chatting away polishing our spanish. They had a blast. " donde va? " one guy asks ... Sur America! Patagonia!! "haaaaaaa ~ hooooo, mucho mucho lejos " (very very far)..." little ways ya"
We filled in their morning with entertainment. They did a great job on the bikes. Straighten the racks, fixed the frames, put it all back together on the bikes. All for a cost of 200 Quetzales ~ $27 us. We were happy, the bikes were happy, greasy hand shakes and off we go......
NOW ! lets see how long the last, ready for more dirt roads...

Little Rain

We've been driving eight and half months now ( approx 17 ooo kms since Jasper Alberta) and some miraculous way we've been able to avoid the rain. In all that time we have faced five days of forgiving rain. Today was different. We left Panajachel at our usual crack of noon start after a bowl of chicken soup and rode our bikes south towards Antigua. The first hour were beautiful with lush green mountains overlooking a big blue/greenish lake with waterfalls running along the side of the road. That ended when we got on the main highway that leads you towards Guatemala city. We wanted to take a back road because those are always shorter and better scenery anyways but locals warned us of the few gangs and Bandidos in the area and taking that road might be risky.

Wanting to be safe we opted for the longer, less scenic, more busy highway than the dangerous but beautiful dirt road. Well after riding about an hour of roads under construction and millions of buses and trucks trying to drive as fast as they can, (not to miss I came inches of running over a lady and her baby when she decided to run across the street at the wrong time! Then my chain popped off my bike. I pulled over and tried to fix it. Alain was ahead of me and didn't see that I was pulling over so I figured he'd realize after a few minutes of not seeing me in his rearview mirror. And so they we were on the side of the highway lifting my bike up on one side trying to pope the chain back on and Al looks at the sky and says....You see that big black sky ....It's coming for us......I thought to myself we better get this fix, get back on the road and ride t'ill we see shelter cause it's gonna come down hard. And so it did. Luckily we were able to ride quite a long time before it did but we were shy an hour of Antigua and Alain had a feeling it was about to explode so he pulled over under a bridge and we sat there and experienced a full on tropical rainstorm in monsoon season in guatemala. We saw a mechanic type shop a few feet away so I rolled my bike under the roof and alain left his where it was and we both took cover in the Local mechanic's shop. It lasted about a good hour and a half. Not only rain but hail came down as well. We watched our bikes become part of a river that started to flow faster and faster beneath them. I was getting worried for a bit but then I realized we could be in far worse shape. We weren't the ones getting medical attention from the two ambulance trucks that went by. We're actually styling in the rain. Somehow we always seem to escape the heavy downpoors. Lets see how long it lasts....

Languin to Panajachel (Lago de Atitlan)

El Estor to Languin on dirt roads

One of the most beautiful drives yet on this trip was from El Estor to Lanquin via the back roads. It's as if we're back in time. Most of these little villages in the mountains are self sufficient and work very hard just to barely survive. The men gather fire wood up in the hills every day and carry it back to their village sometimes walking for several hours. Some of the wood is used to cook or sell. The women make beautiful Mayan dresses by hand called " Traje" - Maya Traje is village-specific or language-group related.
The smell of burning wood, children running around waving at us as we drive by, no cars makes this ride our highlight in Guatemala. Sometimes we have to ask if we are on the right track, as some of the roads can be confusing without any signs. At one point we got to a bridge that was under construction, we had to wait for an hour while they fill up a hole. So we enjoyed a cold beer and chatted with the locals, always curious to find out where we are from and where we are going. Languin we said... "ohhhh!" one says, "long way" on the map it always looks short in kms, but on these dusty windy dirt roads, it's long!
Finally the bridge was good to go, we needed to unpack our gear at the other end to pass the bikes under a bar that was supporting the structure, but the local kids were happy to help us. Pack up the bikes again and off we go threw the thick jungle and high mountain pass, it was only 120kms, 5 hours later we pulled into the deep valley village of Languin. It was time to get some food in our tired bodies and find camp. It got dark fast and rain started to come down ( lucky we never seem to get the rain while riding!) so we found a nice Posada (room) for less the $3.00. You can find cheap rooms in Guatemala, which sometimes its nice so we can lock our gear, not worry about it and walk around to check things out.