I left Honduras, rode an hour or so to Lake Izabal the largest lake in Guatamala and checked into a family run hotel. There were a few Guatamalans there swimming in the lake but they left at about 4pm.
Around 5pm I realised I was the only person staying there and it felt like the owner was waiting for me to order dinner, so I did.
I’m sitting in the restaurant eating the most wonderfully cooked fish, all alone. The setting is beautiful and I have no problem being alone, no problem at all. And for the first time on this adventure, it dawned on me that I’m not seeing or meeting any foreigners: tourists or expats. Well, a few, but only a few!
I’ve been in Mexico and Central America for 3 months and other than when I was riding down the Baja California, I haven’t seen one car or motorbike with a foreign number plate! Not one! Where are the other ‘overlanders’ I thought 🤔
As I cast my mind back over those 3 months: there were backpackers in Puerto Escondido and tourists in San Cristóbal in Mexico, at Lake Atitlán and Antigua in Guatamala and El Zonte in El Salvador. Tamarindo (which was the only place where there were many), Cuervito and Puerto Viejo in Costa Rica, and a few crazies in my hotel in Panama City. However, nobody in Nicaragua or Honduras. I also saw a few backpackers at 2 of the 10 border crossings.
That’s no other overlanders in vehicles and hardly any people in 3 months and 5,000 miles. I didn’t see one person who I thought was a foreigner in any Capital City other than the crazies in my hotel in Panama City.
There has to be foreigners in all of these countries, and I imagine tourists doing their thing in resorts. But overlanding, travelling, exploring… 🤷♂️
The following morning, just as I was loading my bag on the bike it started to rain! So I returned to the hotel for a coffee; but it was ‘instant coffee’ – yuk! I had been spoilt by the freshly ground coffee over recent months!
I was headed north, to Tikal a massive ancient Mayan city, high up in the rainforest. The road there hugged the Belize border in the mountains. It felt very remote and I felt like a pioneer, riding in uncharted lands.
Having only 24 hours earlier became conscious of not meeting overlanders, I pulled into a small hotel near Tikal and there was an adventure motorbike parked there. An ‘Africa Twin’ if you know your bikes. Wow, I walked over to look at it and it had an American registration plate on it! ‘You couldn’t make it up’.
Wilson, a young Colombian guy who had been living in Utah for the last 3 years was fulfilling a dream to ride from Utah to Ushuaia, Argentina, the far southern tip of South America. An amazing journey which he has Trump to thank for, as he feels America has changed, he has the wrong colour skin and he isn’t welcoming any longer. He won’t be returning to Utah, it’s back to his family & Bogata after his adventure! Americas loss, Wilson is a really positive, great man who worked hard as a mechanic the whole time he was living there!
It was a pleasant change to talk bikes, borders and overland experiences with a fellow overlander.
The following morning I went to the hotel restaurant and ordered coffee. Again, it was instant!!! I couldn’t drink it so wandered outside. How I missed it yesterday I have no idea, but next door was a Coffee Shop and bakery, real coffee! “You couldn’t make it up”.
At 7am it started raining, heavy rain, the rain you only get in Tropical climates, where the road turns into a river! So I ordered a second coffee and relaxed.
It may surprise some of you but it can rain and rain and rain some more in the rainforest! I started riding the 30 minutes to Tikal at 10am.
As I arrived, like magic, the sun emerged, and as I walked into Tikal National Park monkeys were swinging from branch to branch, in the distance I heard a roaring noise and I thought I may have entered the set of ‘Jurassic Park’. What could make a noise like that I thought! 🤔
I had been trekking through the jungle for about 10 minutes and hadn’t seen a soul; was I lost, I wondered! And then I came to the conclusion ‘how reassuring it would be having someone with you, maybe a child to push in front if danger comes along’, I thought! If the wildlife doesn’t eat you the roots wil trip you up.
Having been in the jungle for months, I was now seeing huge trees I hadn’t previously seen. I imagine as a National Park these are protected and outside the National Parks they have been felled for sale – Mahogany, Teak…
I was still trekking through the jungle and wondering where the temples were but also curious to investigate the noise. It was getting louder. And then I saw a temple, ‘Templo del Gran Jaguar’ wow.
And over the next few hours I trekked around the site and saw so many Mayan Temples. It reminded me of Angkor Wat in Cambodia, but on a smaller scale.
Whilst trekking between temples I was fortunate enough to spend 10 minutes watching about 20 monkeys foraging for berries. When not eating, they do a lot of hanging about.
You know they say it’s good luck if a bird shits on you. What about a money? I have purple ‘monkey shit’ splatter on my clothes!
Bearing in mind Tikal National Park is one of the main tourist attractions in Guatamala, I was surprised how few foreigners there were there. The place was near empty and 99% Guatemalans.
I never did get to the bottom of the frightening noise, and as I was walking towards the exit I heard it again and it was getting louder and louder. If I had to guess I would say it was a cross between a very large primate and Alien. I was hoping Sigourney Weaver would pop out and save me any minute! When I arrived at the exit, I asked Adolfo (guide) what sort of beast was making the frightening noise, and he smiled and told me it was a Howler Monkey. I told him how frightening the noise was and he laughed and told me they were quite small! 🤦♂️
Later that day I had my stitches removed by the local jungle doctor for £5
The next morning it was raining so I delayed my ride to the border with Belize, but I got inpatient and misinterpreted a break in the rain for ‘the rain is over for the morning’. I set off and 15 minutes later I had to stop and put my waterproof jacket on. It was only a 40 minute ride to the border, but way more challenging than I anticipated. The Guatemalan authorities obviously had the road to Belize marked as ‘not a priority’ as it was in a far worse condition than all other roads, with massive potholes and long stretches of road which had started to be resurfaced but nowhere near finished! These parts of the road were a combination of sand and dirt. The sand when wet is no problem at all, but the dirt was now mud with a river running over it! I’m soaking, I can’t tell where or how deep the potholes are in places as they’re full of water and I’m riding over an incredibly slippery surface!
This is ‘overland adventure travel’ and I love it!
And a few miles from the border my mobile came off the mount on my handlebars and crashed to the tarmac at 50mph! I assumed the car behind had driven over it. I slammed the brakes on and whilst doing a u-turn saw the car behind had stopped and was picking more than one piece of my mobile up. As I stopped and got off the bike I saw the woman had my mobile in one hand and its case in the other. It was alive and working, how fortunate was I. I brought 2 mobiles with me and had already broken one… I thanked and thanked her again and again.
I arrived at the border at 10.35am. It’s at this point I congratulate the Guatemalan Immigration & Customs Guards for processing me out of Guatamala in 5 minutes! This is a Central American record, without doubt the quickest border exit by far!
I arrived at the Belize border and the guard smiled at me and said do you speak English or Spanish?
Belize Border Guards were without doubt the most welcoming and friendly in Central America. Is this because we were both fluent in English, is this because Belize is a former British colony? I have no idea but I liked it a lot 🙂
At 11.25am I’m in Belize
I was requested to buy motorbike insurance and the guy selling it to me said he doesn’t get many people crossing Belize on motorbikes other than Guatemalans. He occasionally gets Europeans, mainly Germans and English but rarely gets Americans passing through. This surprised me as it’s easy for Americans to ride through Mexico to Belize! However, every American I met throughout my adventure asked me about ‘my safety’. What has happened to Americans to make them so frightened of travel and the world!
A few miles into Belize and I stopped at Stella’s Coffee Shop. Jo, Stella’s husband was working and we chatted for ages; I had missed out on so much chatting by not being able to speak Spanish! When I paid for the coffee Jo gave me change, and the note had Queen Elizabeth II’s image on it, I said something about her having died and he said it was an old note. He showed me the new note and it had a Belize man’s head on it. The government had proposed the new note had King Charles’s head on it but the public didn’t want it… I laughed and said “good for you”.
Whilst riding to Belize City, I realised the rainforest had diminished! Where had it gone I thought. Upon further investigation I found out that logging for Mahogany and agriculture were the reasons. Belize was a British colony until 1981, I’ll assume we/they were responsible.
Riding into Belize City felt like riding into a really small rubbish town! It had a very different feel to the rest of Central America.
I was recommended a hotel in the centre of town, but as I pulled up it felt dirty, poor, shabby… ‘Were the British responsible for this too’, I wondered! At the same time a huge guy got out of a taxi and headed to the hotel too.
I parked the bike outside the front door on the street and a man came over and asked how much the bike was worth, shortly after another 2 men asked, ‘this isn’t a great sign’ I thought! I went to reception and the huge guy was there, the receptionist asked if I wanted a room, she said she only had ‘shared room’. I looked at the man mountain and thought I would rather ride back to Guatamala than share with him! She then said “sharing a bathroom”, I thought about my lack of options and said ok.
I asked if it was safe to walk around at night and she gave me an awkward look. I asked what time I should be back in the hotel and she said 8pm.
The big man turned out to be Jonas from Stockholm, Sweden, about 6’6” and 250lbs + and so pale, you could easily lose him in a snow storm!
Before unpacking I needed to do some maintenance on the bike. A local man came over and chatted. Before he left I asked him if the town was safe and he said some areas are safe and some not. Then the Jonas came out and was being friendly, and I thought ‘if I’m heading out into the bronx later I want the big man with me’. I asked him if he wanted to get some food later, he said yes! ‘Good move Dan’, I thought!
I’ve never been to a Caribbean island but I imagine Belize City is similar.
Jonas and I ventured out into the small city and it was a rough, and whilst trying to find a restaurant it got rougher with many people offering us weed and other drugs. So having a ‘Giant’, I mean ‘Jonas’ next to me was a definite bonus. There were only 2 problems; firstly, Jonas walked very slowly as I think he had problems with his knees. And secondly, Jonas was an accountant by day (this is inconsequential) and the worlds biggest ‘speedway nerd’ the rest of the time 🤦♂️
Now, I’m aware there is a sport called speedway, I even went to a speedway race when I was a kid. However, the extent of my knowledge is limited to knowing motorbikes race around a track! Jonas on the other-hand writes for speedway magazines in Sweden and England. I didn’t take notes or record the conversation (when I say conversation, it was pretty one way, where Jonas told me stuff and I listened and he told me more stuff…), but if I had I could now tell you about the ‘heady days’ of speedway in England in the 1950’s & 60’s, all of the racetracks around the country including White City & Wembley in London. The stadium capacities. The names of every World Champion past and present, he even knew the names of some of their wives! I now know Polish riders are the best and the Russians are best at Ice Speedway.
As you can imagine, I was happy to leave the restaurant and venture out into the Bronx. It was at this point that Jonas produced a tin of snus and stuck a pouch under his lip. My giant bodyguard now looked massive and tough!
Thanks Jonas 🙂
And then I left Belize and said “goodbye” to Central America.