Sunday 3 January 2016

Back in the game!

Apparently the Guatemalans wish for rain on NYE as it is said to wash away the old year. I quite like that actually. Well, they got their rain, 24 hours late. At 6am when we got up it was chucking it down. Oh, just before I continue with this I just wanted to show you this pic from last night's dinner. We had delicious BBQ chicken and flour (not yucky corn) tortillas. I just love the 'I'm off to the nightclub as soon as works over' look the chef had!


Anyway, we waited for a break in the rain and rode back down to the port. We were soon underway



After a while it started pelting down again and in true 'form follows function' style, El Capitano's assistant handed out some big sheets of thick black polythene. The locals knew the drill and within seconds we were in an almost surreal scene of skimming across the Caribbean Sea, hiding under a giant bin bag. Flipping hilarious!
Our speedboat was heading for the town of Puerto Barrios. Now would you believe that by chance today PB made the bbc news? Just a few dead and beheaded inmates at the local prison that allegedly holds 900 prisoner but is designed for 125.... More here if you're interested http://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-35210901

We didn't have plans to hang around so after a quick brekkie at the Golden Arches ( that makes our first & last meals of Guatemala courtesy of Ronald) we cycled on.
The cloud cover was pretty good, keeping the temperature down but the humidity was way up, making for a sticky ride. 

The road was pretty flat as we headed for the border with Honduras. 



We were stamped out of the country and then rode on through no mans land (plenty of bananas though) until we got to the Honduras immigration which all went smoothly.


Meal No.1 of the Big H was rank KFC style chicken and about 4 cold chips. Fuelled up, we powered on, enjoying the scenery. I have to say that it did feel pretty cool to be riding down a road from Guatemala to Honduras on a bicycle. It made me smile 


This dude probably didn't ride as far as us today but top marks for load carrying



At about 4pm, after some serious torrential drenchings we arrived at the seaside town of Omoa. We'd done it! 90 hot, wet, sticky but pretty flat KM. so we can still ride ok, we were beginning to wonder if we could!
Now Omoa is a classic case of a town being a victim of its own success. The sea is almost blue here and the sand actually pretends to be a bit white(ish) as in not the colour of dishwater. It sits on a picturesque bay, sunsets to one side, jungle mountains to the other

But.... It is unfortunately overrun with Honduran CUBs - no, not small boys in uniforms helping old ladies cross the road but Cashed Up Bogans (a great Aussie saying that you can google if you still don't know what it is). Here is the reality shot

We (don't ask me why) chose to eat in a Canadian owned bar/restaurant that soon after we sat down cranked up the American soft rock ballads on a cheap but a bit too loud stereo. Not to worry we had the 3 giant screens showing sports to take our mind off it all. It's only redeeming feature was a tardis 


And an English woman who used to live around the corner from us in London (Beacosfield rd). No, in fact she wasn't redeeming at all. She was boring and a bit annoying. Hmmm

We felt pretty wiped out so brought most of our uber greasy pizzas home in a doggie bag. I hope they enjoy them more than we did...

Just before we totally leave Guatemala behind forever I just wanted to mention something that slipped through all the previous blogs. The showers. It would seem to be too much trouble for the Guatemalan plumbers to run hot water to the showers. Up north in the heat that's fine but further south in the mountains a little bit of warm water doesn't go amiss. They do however have a cunning solution to this. They attach a special electrically powered heater shower head to warm the water as it flows out. Here's an example of one


This one has the additional ingenious solution to the shower rose - a plastic bag with a few holes in it... Anyway, putting the bag aside for the mo, I think it would be a really good idea if the electricians and plumbers of this fine country were to get together now and then to discuss a bit of physics. In quite a few of the guest houses we got electric shocks from these crazy contraptions. I got my first through the trickle of water when I raised my arm up close to the shower head when washing my stinky pits. It didn't even touch the thing but zapped me though a few inches of flowing water. That was a lesson quickly learnt I can tell you! But, as they say, you learn something new everyday. In another much more pro looking installation I showered safely until the end when turning off the tap the bugger zapped me when I touched it. In the end the only way I could turn it off was to knock the tap round, using my shower gel bottle as a hammer. Choice!

2 comments:

  1. I know a British guy travelling in Africa who got badly electrocuted by having a shower. We learnt from him to always touch the taps with the back of your hand so you don't grab on!

    Happy Travels

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  2. Yeah, don't like the sound of those showers. Every so often someone here gets killed by electric shock in the shower. Got any wellies? Now that would be choice Will!

    Sounds like you're back on track though, inspite of the rain. Love the boat captain's wet weather provision - saw a bit of that in Vietnam when they covered the whole family on a moped with one poncho.

    Love to both xx

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