After staying a bit longer than I should have in Antigua, I made my way to Lago Atitlan. The lake is one of the biggest and the deepest lakes in Central America. It’s located in an enormous volcanic caldera and surrounded by high escarpments and three volcanoes to the south. Mayan towns and villages...
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I started my trip without a GPS, not really wanting to bother with an electronic item on my handlebars, electronic maps for each country and another potential theft item. I bought quite a few paper maps off the internet before leaving home and figured that this would be adequate. Then, I discovered quickly how...
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After getting my fill of the odd pharmacy filled town of Santa Rosa de Lima, El Salvador, I began my trip across the small country, with the goal of making it to Antigua, Guatemala that night. Before long, the skies began to darken. Not too long after, it started raining. It would rain on...
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Just as I was leaving the outskirts of Leon, Nicaragua, on my way to the Honduran border, a police officer started motioning for me to pull over. I was already a bit worked up over the reports of what I could expect later that day, and had no interest in the nonsense beginning any...
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Paraphrased from Wikipedia: Nicaragua is the largest country in Central America, and is sometimes called La Tierra de Lagos y Volcanes, which translates to: The Land of Lakes and Volcanoes. Since its independence from Spain, Nicaragua has undergone periods of political unrest, military intervention on behalf of the United States, a dictatorship and fiscal...
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After leaving Panama’s Bocas del Toro, I rode through increasingly hot and humid territory, coinciding with less and less gringo influence. Gradually, I returned to the Latin America that I loved. The one where I was usually lost, with no road signs and frequent large holes in the road. In towns, there were many...
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While staying in Boquete, I joined two French Canadians from the hostel to hike up nearby Volcan Baru. We started hiking at 11:00 p.m. in a very warm drizzle. After hiking for about six hours our small group finally made it to the summit, just in time for the sunrise. The summit was over...
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I got on the Red Donkey, turned the key and hit the start button. Nothing. This was not a good sign. After loading the bikes onto a dugout canoe and ferrying them a rather long way to a muddy shore I now had a dead bike. Apparently dragging them out of the canoe and...
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After one of the longest days of my life, complete with a flat tire, a car bomb and way too many miles to count, I finally made it to Taganga. I got to the hostel a bit after 10:00 p.m., with Brian understandably wondering what exactly happened to me. I was exhausted. We wandered...
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A Colombian holiday and my bike repairs in Cali resulted in me being one day overdue to meet my friend Brian, in Bogota. So, I decided to do the ride from Cali to Bogota in one very long day. Before I left, I asked a bunch of people how long the ride would take. ...
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