To read the details about our trip to and from Tikal, please take a look at my last post. I'd also like to express special thanks to Mark and Paul for their donations that came in after my prompt in the last post, and thanks as well to those who have been using our Amazon affiliate link and search box (see right-hand sidebar) to begin their online shopping. Your support is sincerely appreciated!!! Note: All photos were taken with a…
Having spent so long in Mexico, — just shy of 6 months — it seems strange to now be riding through Guatemala, an entirely different country. It may have been even more surreal had we simply ridden across some arbitrary line in the sand as we did when we crossed from the United States to Mexico. As it was, the river we crossed to arrive in Guatemala made the country change infinitely more defined, even though it was only a…
Having had more than our fill of busy highway riding during the last stretch of our journey, we were more determined than ever to find an out-of-the-way track before it was time to say "So long, Mexico." As luck would have it, our friends Mark and Hana had already done all the complicated work by plotting a largely back-road route from San Cristobal to the border. We knew that we could just follow in their tire tracks (or GPS track…
I mentioned in our last post that riding into a headwind was like climbing an invisible mountain. During our last few days riding from Tapanatepec to San Cristóbal, we experienced that in spades. But not only did we have invisible, headwind-induced mountains to climb, we had some real ones to contend with too. In fact, we knocked off our biggest climb to date. We had a good night's rest in Tapanatepec but before bedding down for the night, we had what…
It's often stated that a sailor's plans are written in the sand at low tide, meaning that all plans are subject to change. While a cyclist may not be at the mercy of Mother Nature in quite the same way as a sailor, we've learned that keeping our plans flexible is a key to happiness. For example, just minutes before saying goodbye to our friend Alex in Oaxaca, he looked over our route and pointed out that a road which,…
Oaxaca City now holds the record for being the place that we have remained stationary for the longest time on our cycle tour, a bit more than a week. While the city itself is awesome, our extended stay is the result of having an exceptionally forgiving host, and the fact that the Dia de los Muertos — the Day of the Dead — celebration was on the horizon. We have more amazing memories from Oaxaca than we can count and were fortunate enough to…