One of the raddest roads I have ever ridden

DAY 42-

12/16/2011

All day long I just rode and laughed all the way through the twisties and small villages.. This is living, at its finest…

I woke up this morning in Quetzaltenango walked around for awhile it was very cold all night lots of blankets, I could see my breath this morning. I have been sleeping just in shorts and no sheets for over a month, this is a drastic change. I found a nice small café for coffee this morning and then roamed around looking for a bookstore. I found a nice place which luckly had the A VERY IMPORTANT BOOK THAT I DID NOT THINK TO BRING!!! English to spanish Voccab. Dictionary/ phrase book. OOOOOPS.. I wasn’t feel all that great all night so I grabbed two yogurt drinks for Breakfast and loaded up the bike.

I think Guatemala translates to “Fletcher you’re going to get lost A LOT!!” Haha It took me a lot of wrong way on one way streets, illegal U turns, and a little sidewalk usage to finally get out of the city and get on my way. “Lets make sure I am going the right way” Stopped at a gas station.. yup that’s a negative turn around try again. Finally after a few circles I am on the right road heading in the direction I want to be. The road is a freeway 4 lanes we are moving along zigging and zagging through cars and taking nice smooth turns on a nice smooth road. It was a lot quicker than I had expected to my turn off toward a senic detour that looked nice in my book. I headed down toward Lago de Atitlan a beuatiful lake surrounded by Volcanos. I passed through the lake town of Panajachel, the road started to climb with very twisty switch backs everywhere. The road was like glass extra smooth and no traffic. I was ripping through the turns and all of a sudden the road started to get gnarlier, crazy U turn switch backs that had a steep incline ramp in the middle of the turns, road was rough and then turned into Motorcycle eating Potholes you had to swerve. The road went from a nice 2 lane mountain road to gnarly 1.5 lanes to a single lane highway stilling being used for both way traffic.  I came up to a detour, the road had fallen into the river below, so you had to jump onto the dirt, then all of a sudden around a turn the road dropped down and vanished into the river. I stopped checked out how deep it was, watched a truck go through and then gave her a little throttle and made it through without a swim. The road just danced through the mountains/ volcanos, hands down the raddest road I have ever Ridden, so much fun I was just laughing the whole time from the twistiest to just the incredible views. All along the road today kids would either just sit there waving or run with you laughing and waving at you.

I wasn’t sure my sweet detour would actually work and get me to Antigua, but all of a sudden I was 60km from it and was home free. I blasted through the next big city took my turn and raced through the forrest, I pooped out at a T and kept heading south, stopped for lunch and made sure I was going the right way. Nope past the turn off about 15km ago, haha well lunch was at least really good and a nice break. I finally made it to Antigua.

I raced around town for almost an hour looking for a cheap hostal with safe parking, nope no luck. A guy who was handing out flyers for a Hostel pointed me in the direction, I checked it out but wasn’t a fan of it. There was another one next to it and I liked it a lot more, they didn’t have parking but said I could just park it in the bar. I met a couple who was from Holland and traveling the coast from Mexico on little 50cc Mopeds, with a homemade surfboard rack rigged to one of the them. I parked my bike, dropped all of my gear and took a much needed shower and a walk. Grabbed a little dinner and a beer and I am now just relaxing in Antigua Guatemala who would of ever guessed…. hahaha