Grapefruit, Wind and The Hummingbird: The Belize Part

A few days before Christmas, Lucy from Via Venture suggested we think about starting our Coast to Coast ride from the small town of Hopkins instead of Belize City. We took the suggestion and this proved to be a good thing.

We landed on January 9th, through low tropical clouds and pouring rain. We had a few hours before John would arrive from Seattle so we headed into Belize City for lunch and to look around with Jose, our driver. He took us to a small, local restaurant, Neri’s, where three of us ate chicken curry and Steve bravely tried the authentic ‘boil up’. (There was never a dish more aptly named, so you get the idea.) We paid close attention to our bellies in the hours that followed but we all felt fine.

Belize City is quite a sight: dirty, run down, old, impoverished, potholed dirt roads, and like most third world cities, a lot of people milling around doing nothing. We wafted through the scent of ganja more than once on our short tour of town. As Jose drove us, and we bumped and splashed our way through the city, we were glad that we changed plans and chose to stay elsewhere. On the drive out of town, over the badly surfaced and heavily trafficked Western Highway, we were relieved we would not be riding this stretch on bikes. We met John at the airport and headed south to Hopkins.

The Jaguar Reef resort is right on the Caribbean Sea and caters mostly to divers. It was fine but it would be the most expensive place we stayed throughout the trip and far from the nicest. Our apartment ($500 US for the night) was small and tight but we all managed to build our bikes successfully, (and simultaneously!), in a small sitting area that was little bigger than 12 x 12 feet. We were apprehensive about the rain and the long ride ahead of us but after a few cold Belikans we slept fine.

Day One dawned gray, damp and windy but it was not raining. Loaded up on coffee, fruit and bread and eager to get going after months of planning, we dipped our rear wheels in the sea, took the required photos and videos and headed out to the start.


Two things stand out about this ride. The wind was strong and head on for many early miles. We tried to ride a paceline to ease the way but we had never ridden together before and we arrived in Belize in various states of fitness. As we each took our turns at the front, no one wanted to seem weak so, predictably, we rode far harder into this wind than we should have. We would all pay for it later in the day. Boys will be boys after all, and middle aged boys will be even worse…

On the other hand, the Hummingbird Highway was a delight to ride. The surface was
good and the lack of traffic was better. We rode for miles through groves of oranges and grapefruit. We would stop at will, pick a few pieces and enjoy them on the side of the road. Delicious fruit and a real boost to tired cyclists. We passed some guys weighing watermelons by the side of the road. John, the Spanish speaker among us, engaged them in much talking and even more laughing and we were soon eating free watermelon. A tasty and hydrating pick me up after 50 or so miles.

The Hummingbird also gave us our first taste of hills as we were riding through the eastern limits of the Cockscomb Range. The hills were not long but some were steep. And of course they were nothing like what we would ride in Guatemala but they tested our lungs, our legs and our gears. It is unnerving and worrying when, on Day One, you need the granny gear to get up only a few hundred feet!

At around 70 miles the quiet road gave way at Belmopan, the capital, where we turned southwest on to the Western Highway. We were tired, hungry and saddle sore and now had to negotiate potholes, traffic and waning daylight, but we made it to San Ignacio de Cayo right at dusk. The Hotel San Ignacio is a nice place but it sits atop the nastiest little hill anywhere. A hundred yards of near vertical after 87 miles! I do believe that two of us got off and walked up this one, but I’ll never say who….In all it was good day – ambitious for our first day to be sure, but a good solid effort.

Totals: 87.5 miles; 3800 feet of climbing (gross); 300 feet net gain.

So we did have a good ride in Belize and a fine start to our journey but we were all looking forward to crossing the border into Guatemala. There is little that is exotic about Belize: from the official language (English) to the currency (B$ fixed at US$ 2 to 1), to the ‘boil up’, etc. Guatemala on the other hand was a mystery. Spanish and Mayan dialects would dominate the trip now. There would be colorful money called Quetzales. Tamales, frijoles and coffee. Mountains, not just hills, were ahead of us. Indians, dirt roads, and jungle - all this awaited us over the border. And of course we heard stories of the banditos….

Next up: Peten.


(kgb 3/11/10)

EFI

EFI was our goal in Guatemala,inspired by my earlier ride, far from Latin America.

The longest bike race in the world is the Tour d'Afrique. Starting in Cairo, it runs for nearly 12,000 km thru the length of Africa to Cape Town. That distance is covered in 120 days, of which 100 days are spent on the bike. Riders come from all over the world to participate in this great adventure and encompass all different ages, including some who are in their 50's and 60's. Many of the riders have absolutely no expectation to stand on the podium in Cape Town, but most have one aspiration, which is to attain EFI status; or, in other words, the fierce desire to ride "Every Fucking Inch" of the way.

Our Guatemalan tour was a more modest expedition - 12 days, of which 9 days were spent in the saddle, covering nearly 900 km. In some respects, however, it was similar to riding in Africa: beat up roads, funky coke stops, very hot weather, lots of climbing, crazy bus drivers, different types of food which could cause the shits, mechanical failures, and always the possibility of a crash around the next bend in the road. For all these reasons and more, it is bloody difficult to achieve EFI on the Tour d'Afrique, and it proved to be difficult for us on the Tour de Guatemala.

Trying to achieve EFI is both good and bad. For most riders, keeping one's EFI status means he will fight thru considerable pain and exhaustion. EFI fuels the desire to just keep going instead of taking the easy way out and hop on the bus. But, EFI can be a bad thing, for it can make one do crazy things in order to maintain the status of this misguided concept.
For us, we lost EFI on the 7th riding day. Steve, who’d fallen the day before and suffered bruised ribs, found it quite painful to
breath hard on the ascents. A short way into day 7, Steve got in the van. One down. The rest of us were trying to ride from a lovely little town called Uspantan to Chichi, no more than 90 km in distance, but up and down some serious mountains. It turned out to be a brutal day of riding. At the end of a long struggle, in the hilltop town (what else?) of San Pedro Jocopilas, about 27km shy of Chichi, the paved road was washed out and in its place was a deeply rutted dirt road which in sections had 15% declines. It was late afternoon, and the traffic was kicking up great amounts of dust making it hard to see anything. Thankfully, we all decided it was time to declare victory, and after downing a couple of cold beers, we gratefully climbed into Edgar's van to ride the remaining distance to Chichi.

As a postscript, once one loses EFI, there is a feeling of liberation and it is relatively easy to hop on the bus going forward. We were lucky to have lost EFI before Chichi, for it made next day's decision pretty simple. The road south from Chichi dives 2500 meters into a deep ravine with a correspondingly steep climb on the other side. This road carries heavy traffic, including lots of crazy chicken buses, the ride made dicier due to the daunting 15+% inclines and declines. We could have killed ourselves or we could have taken a couple of hours negotiating this section, but because we no longer were concerned with the misguided concept of achieving EFI, it was easy to agree for Edgar to drive us this stretch of the route.



Scott (2/28/10)

Coke Stands

What became one of our favorite activities on our bike adventure through Guatemala was stopping at little road side refreshment stands. They really gave us a sense of how people live in the rural areas; as they were often just an extension of the living area of a local Mayan Indian family. Almost all were little shacks with palm thatched roofs over dirt floors. The stands in the forested lower areas were usually made of rough hewn lumber, and as we rode to higher areas the wood walls were replace with adobe (mud brick) walls. Most were very small about 10' by 10' and and were identified by a "FANTA" or "PEPSI" sign. For lack of a better term we started calling them Coke stops, even though they often did not have Coke.


What they did have was a lot of local color. At the Coke Stands in small communities, people would stop what they were doing and wave, whistle, or shout "que te vaya bien", (may it go well with you) "adios" (literally :"to God") or "Gringo" (No translation needed). The town kids would come flocking to the stand to see these strange travelers on these high tech bikes, with these loud neon nylon clothes and strange helmets. Of course they would be amazed. Many of the towns had little electricity, few cars, no TVs and very few foreign visitors passing through. We would buy 10-15 Lolly Pops and distribute them to the kids (sorry no organic, healthy snacks there) and would instantly fall in love with these beautiful children.

Often times the shacks were next to, or attached to the house. We would get a glimpse of their daily life; chickens running around pecking at bugs, grass, or crumbs, tamales or rice cooking on an open fire in a 50 gallon drum, women washing clothes on rocks by a stream or faucet, children playing with home made toys, young women (13-16 years old!) with babies strapped to their backs. Everyone with a smile on their face and wearing the traditional Mayan clothes. (Edgar our guide told us that you can tell the marital status, and the tribe they are from just from the type of skirt they are wearing.) Not only were the stops important for replenishing our depleted bodies, but they nourished our soul....

After the second day of the trip we started to hear a lot less Spanish and more of the local Quiche Mayan dialect. My role as the Spanish translator quickly diminished as we got deeper into the mountains. It was surprising to us at first, but it turns out very few of the young children, or the older ladies spoke Spanish. We later leaned that in the Mexican and Guatemalan mountains there are over 10 million Mayan Indians whose first language is not Spanish. Even when we learned the greetings and a few common expression we were still stymied in our attempt to communicate, for when we arrived at the next town 40 or 50 miles away, they would be speaking one of the 21 different dialects. The words were often similar and people got a kick out of our attempt to say "saque u" -hello! or Ban-tiosh - "thank you" People would break into wide grins when they found we could say a few words.

Even with many people not speaking Spanish we were able to communicate on many levels. It continued to amaze us on how friendly everyone was, and how no aggression was ever shown towards us.

So if your idea of a vacation is more than just lying on a beach and having all the luxuries of home, I would definitely recommend trying a bike trip in a developing country. This was my first bike trip and I can officially say that I have become a "junkie" . I AM ADDICTED!!! Hope you like our blog and my advice is to try to find a route off the beaten track with Coke stands.....



(john 2/24/10)

The Guy with the Van

If the best decision was to travel to Guatemala on our bike trip, the second best decision was to hire a guy with a van. In fact, we hired two guys with two vans.

To ride with panniers or not was a key debating point during preparations for the trip. Thankfully, common sense prevailed, and we ultimately agreed it would be a whole lot easier to ride without panniers. Indeed, that decision was vindicated after the first day, for it would have been very difficult to have biked 87 miles from Hopkins to San Ignacio in Belize with an extra 25-30 lbs of stuff on bike racks. And we know now that it would have been nearly
impossible for us middle aged geezers to cross the mountains with that extra weight.

We also felt great about the decision because of Jose, the first Guy with a Van, who patiently hauled our stuff in Belize. Both drivers were hired thru a Guatemalan tour company, Via Venture (click here) and their very professional Lucy Ashman. We settled, after some brief haggling, on a price of USD 3,884 - $971 per head for the four of us. It would be the largest line item of expense any of us would incur on this trip. And it was worth every penny.

Due to the vagaries of the border crossing between Belize and Guatemala, Jose handed us off to another Guy with a Van, Edgar, who was to accompany us all the way across Guatemala. Edgar was our driver, companion, advance scout, Mayan language teacher, cultural guide and tour director. He had an uncanny knowledge of all the roads we traveled – advising in advance the precise location of tumulos (speed bumps), washed out sections of road and the type of hills we’d be climbing. That information alone proved Edgar’s value, for it probably saved life and limb as we descended torn up Guatemalan roads.

As another example of Edgar’s valuable knowledge of the roads, on the day we left Coban at a key turn on the comfortable road we were biking, we climbed a small rise to find Edgar waving us onto a narrow rutted dirt road. It looked like a beat up old driveway – this couldn’t be the road to Chichi, could it? That road was supposed to be a highway, but, of course, it was the right road, and with all the detailed maps in the world, we never would have known it was the right way without Edgar.

Edgar’s value to making our trip successful can be measured in different ways as well. In every town we stayed, Edgar took us to the best restaurants; not the fanciest, the best. Without a doubt, the final bill was always cheaper than it would have been if we had just been four gringos. Many of the towns we passed through were Mayan towns and the locals often did not speak Spanish. Edgar, who is Mayan and hails from the town of El Estor on Lago Izabal in eastern Guatemala, would translate for us and help us to briefly connect with the villagers. Had we been on our own, our trip would have had far fewer of these human moments. He also took the initiative to have plenty of water in the van as well as assorted fruit; the sight of Edgar waving from the side of the road with freshly cut watermelon, cantaloupe, oranges or bananas in one hand and his machete in the other was one of the small delights of this trip. And Edgar could hold his liquor, a quality we judged highly.

The only thing Edgar failed at – and he failed quite miserably – was poker. The poor guy loved Texas hold ‘em, but he sure didn’t know when to fold ‘em. The only thing that saved Edgar from utter ruin was the fact we played with Guatemalan Quetzales worth 8.25 to $1.00. (Actually, we played with peanuts and tooth picks, but the pot would rarely go beyond 20-30 Quetzales).

Edgar also suffered from one occupational hazard of accompanying bicyclists on a tour of his country – he put on weight, lots of weight. After riding 8-9 hours a day, we were pretty hungry. For the most part, Edgar was sitting in his van the whole day, but at dinner he tucked into the food as much as we did. By the end of the trip on the beach at Sipacate, he was as excited as we were, his stomach as wide as the grin on his face. Our director sportif enjoyed the beers and the rum that night as much as we did. (But no, he still did not enjoy the cards…..:)

The Bikes

Three of us rode road bikes, one a mountain bike, all in touring trim with rear racks.

Gearing is a key issue on a route that would total 40,000 feet of climbing.

Scott (far left) was on an all-steel Salsa 29er with a hard fork, 48/36/26 chainrings and a 12-32 cogset, with thumb shifters.

John (in blue) rode an all-steel REI Novarra touring bike with (coincidentally) the same gearing as Scott and STI shifting.

Kevin (far right) rode a new aluminum (carbon fork) Specialized TriCross with 50/39/30 and a nine–speed 12-32 cogset with STI Tiagra shifting.

I ( in yellow) rode an older all-steel Novarra touring bike, with 48/36/26 chainrings but an 11-28 seven-speed cogset shifted by traditional bar-end levers.

Do the math: If you ignore tire circumference (and they were roughly the same), Scott and John had the same gearing and the lowest gearing. Kevin and I had the same gearing. According to a Sheldon Brown calculator, at a cadence of 40 (groan), Scott and John went 2.6 mph. Kevin and I went 3.0 mph.

On Guatemala’s common 10% grades and on the occasional 12+% that we encountered, John and Kevin climbed like goats. I struggled and sometimes so did Scott. Next time, I will use a 32 cogset. Maybe 34.

I used the widest tires 700x35mm, Scott and Kevin used 32mm. John used 28mm. I loved the high speed cornering of my round-profile Vittorias. Kevin wished his tires had less rolling resistance. Everyone suffered a rear flat except me. No high speed blowouts. I crashed, perhaps because of my tires’ profile, when I went too far to the right on a high-crowned gravel-dirt road descent and the front tire washed out. Boom. Might it have gripped if it were a more traditional cyclocross tire with a slightly raised and ribbed “corner?” Maybe.

The all steel bikes were comfortable but heavy. The alu TriCross too was heavy. All weighed in the mid 20’s…beefy, with not-light components. Some of us used 36-spoke touring wheels. Sure, it would be fun to take your 16 pound, scant-spoked, flimsy wheeled roadbike on a climb in Guatemala, but the descents, on broken pavement and gravel, and over unmarked tumulos (speed bumps), would have been more hazardous for sure, and I suspect ordinary road frames might not survive the conditions.

The bikes got a bit beaten up. Mine broke a rear spoke and that wheel, of course, went out of true. I continued with 35 spokes and trued the wheel in our makeshift Lake Atitlan “bike stand.” (see photo). A shifter worked loose on the bar.

All the bikes needed headset tightening. All suffered a lot of brake wear. At least one needed a shifting adjustment.

Our motors, too, suffered wear and tear. More on that later…

But our bikes were our mostly reliable friends for 500+ miles. Like friends, we occasionally got sick of one another, but we made it together, all the way across Guatemala.

(Steve1223bike 2/3/10)

The Route

For a map of our trip click here. (Click on the markers for ride info.)

A proper bike trip needs a great starting location and an even better destination. In between, it is supposed to be fun.

When we pivoted from Bike Cuba to Biking Coast-to-Coast, it meant that most of the trip would be thru Guatemala. None of us knew much about Guatemala – death squads in the early 80’s, Mayan ruins, relatively poor, and plenty of mountains -- was about the extent of our knowledge. From a biking perspective, the only thing that really mattered was the mountains.

It makes no sense to start climbing 5000 feet on the first or second day of a 2-week bike trip. So, it was an easy decision to start in Belize and head west into Guatemala. The roads would be flat and we’d be able to gain fitness before hitting the Guatemalan highlands. From the coast in Belize there are two main roads going west towards Guatemala – the Western Highway and the Hummingbird Highway. Sight unseen, this was also a no-brainer decision, we’d ride the Hummingbird Highway starting from a town called Hopkins on the coast. A speck on the map, Hopkins with its grand, but quiet beach was the perfect spot to start our bike trip.

Rest days are a crucial element in any multi-week bike trip. Ideally, rest days should be at interesting spots along the route and after (or before) difficult stretches. Our route was flexible enough to allow for 3 rest days over a 12 day period. The first rest day after two days of riding was at Flores in Guatemala. Modest hills on the Hopkins-Flores stretch did not provide an accurate preview for the next stretch which would take us south to Coban. Even the numbers don’t accurately portray the extent of the hills, but for the record: Flores is at 374 feet while Coban is at 4353 feet. Initially, we thought we’d be able to ride from Flores to Coban in 2 days, but it ended up taking 3 days. Aside from the hills, an extra day was needed because of a long stretch in the route where there were no places to stay. One is definitely off the beaten track when riding between Flores and Coban.

From Coban, the route would see us bike thru Chichi (7125 feet) to Santiago Atitlan (5269 feet). The maps indicated this stretch would be the most mountainous and challenging section of the ride. We’d also be riding on dirt roads which inevitably would slow our pace. Initially, we thought it would take 3 days just to get to Chichi; in fact, it took 3 days to cover the entire distance from Coban to Santiago Atitlan where we took our third rest day. Of note, Santiago Atitlan is a charming town on Lago Atitlan and is located on the south side of the lake across from its bigger cousin Parajachel. The steepness of the hills into and out of Parajachel looked to be especially daunting, and for anyone headed to the Pacific coast, it makes tremendous sense to ride around to Santiago on the south of the lake.

Santiago Atitlan is at 5269 feet and Sipacate is on the Pacific coast, so we knew it was going to be fun on our last day to glide downhill, payback for the grinding hills. We were looking forward to this day weeks before the bike trip even began. And, it was somehow fitting that to reach our hotel on the beach, we had to load our bikes into a narrow boat and cross a lagoon. The roaring Pacific – the perfect place to end a bike trip.

(Scott 2/2/10)

The Genesis

The idea of a January bike trip started when Scott called around looking for interest in August 2009. Scott is a veteran traveler of faraway places and more recently has participated in, or organized, several exotic bike tours: he has ridden the Tour d'Afrique; he and a buddy rode through China; and he rode with another friend from Geneva to Copenhagen a few years back. Knowing this, when the call came I figured any trip Scott was organizing would be both rare and fun. Having worked with Scott for a few years I also knew it wouldn't be over organized - there would be enough slack in the plan to encourage flexibility and spontaneity. I jumped at the chance and so did a few of his other friends.

The original idea was to bike Cuba. There is a fair amount of information on the web about riding in Cuba (e.g. this one) so we started working on it. We planned on starting in the east, in Santiago, and riding to Havana - about 1300 km. It would be hilly, rural, and a great way to see a large part of the island. Scott's research indicated we would find pretty good roads, a few big towns along the way and probably plenty of accommodation in the form of 'casa particular', or B&Bs. The lack of frequent shops for food and drink along the way was a potential negative.

But 'Destination Cuba' bit the dust in late October. The exceptional piece of foreign policy known as the Cuban Embargo got to us. Of the seven guys (yes we were all guys) who were still interested, most were holding various positions of (ir)responsibility in our businesses or in our communities - and we collectively decided to succumb and obey The Law, even though skirting it would have been easy enough by routing our journey through Mexico or the Dominican Republic. We'll politely call it the perils of middle age...

Scott wasn't daunted and quickly proposed several alternatives in Central America. "The Tour of Central America" would wind about 1000 kms from Managua, Nicaragua through Costa Rica and finish in Panama City. This route would have plenty of places to stay, some interesting sights like Lago de Nicaragua, and would be pretty flat the whole way. The big negative was most of the trip would be on the Pan American Highway. Ugh.

"The Mayan Circuit" would start in Belize City and loop through many of the archeological areas in eastern and central Guatemala, finishing back in Belize City. Some hills on this route but no real mountains and even a ferry boat ride back into Belize. No major negatives. Nothing too exciting either.

"The Coast to Coast" route would also start in Belize City and initially follow the Mayan route, but instead of looping back into Belize it would continue on to the Pacific. It would traverse the wilds of Peten and cross the Guatemalan highlands before descending to the ocean. Rural roads and small villages would keep our attention and we liked the idea of a point to point route.

Coast to Coast got the votes. Riding the Pan Am Highway did not sound like fun. Belize too excited no one and the idea of a loop route that entailed more time there was uninspiring. On the other hand the benefits of quiet roads, hard climbing in the mountains and a swim in the Pacific won the day. Scott began pouring over maps, elevations, weather statistics, etc. in trying to come up with The Route.

We were making progress.

(kgb 2/01/10)