Day 607
Guatemala
What's Guatemala like? friends from home ask. Well for us unfortunately it has mainly been about the roads. We have a major target, Tom’s son Jim is getting married and we need to make the wedding! So for now miles are more important than relaxing and sightseeing.
Our Warmshowers host Annie had warned us that we were heading towards a very busy road. It is the main route for trucks to and from the port. We joined it at the end of the day and thankfully it had a reasonable hard shoulder. It was really busy and not much fun though, and we knew that tomorrow we would have nearly 40 miles on it, and in many places no hard shoulder. We weren’t looking forward to it.
When we left the hotel there appeared to be no traffic moving, just trucks everywhere with cars, small buses, tuk-tuks and motorbikes weaving their way through. We headed into the chaos. At first, I thought it was perhaps a military check point with random vehicles being inspected but it was soon clear this was something much bigger. We rode for nearly 2 miles past trucks, avoiding traffic coming towards us on our side of the road. It was crazy but fun. Eventually we reached the cause of the jam. A lorry had jack-knifed at the top of the hill and 3 more lorries had then crashed into each other. There was a tiny gap at the side of the road where smaller vehicles were taking it in turns to pass through. The queue of traffic on the far side was to go on for over 8 miles! Drivers were out of their vehicles chatting, playing cards, some where sleeping in hammocks strung below their vehicles, others were catching lifts in the tuk-tuks, hopefully just off to buy food and water. Cattle stood unmoving in the open topped trucks, seemingly calm and not fazed by the wait. I couldn’t imaging how they would be able to move the lorry without major lifting equipment, nor how it would get there as more and more vehicles joined the queue. We both felt so guilty as we took advantage of a truck free road. Could we make the nearly 40 miles before we turned off it? We stopped for water and got chatting to a tour group who were at the back of the 8-mile queue, though at least they had pulled to a stop outside a shop with toilets! It turned out to be a fickle finger moment, the tour leader, Suzanne Ashton, was from the UK, but not only that she was from Scarborough, where Tom and I live. Tom and Suzanne had even lived on the same road. Small world!
Back on the bikes we pedalled as fast as we could, avoiding traffic coming towards us, and calling out support to the stuck drivers who seemed very relaxed with the situation We made 10 miles, then 20, and still no trucks, 30, 35, we started to believe we would make it! Finally, we turned off , and with just a few miles from our destination for the evening felt quite safe. Unfortunately, this road was crazily busy, either the road block had been cleared or trucks were using this as a, very long, way round the jam. Either way it was awful. We were rewarded with a lovely hotel and a fantastic restaurant. The food was awesome, a real treat.
In the morning it was to be a day of hills. The temperature was now around 40C and with the ever-present head wind it was hard work. We squeezed past yet another accident then headed for the hills. I really was struggling, heat and hills just don’t work for me. Half way up I stopped for a breather then really struggled to find my mojo to carry on. I was dizzy, finding it hard to breath, I felt utterly miserable. We even debated heading back downhill and hiring a car, getting a plane, anything to get me out of there. I dug deep and decided to see if I could finish that hill. I could. We stopped for a fresh coconut at the top. Best 60p I’ve ever spent. My mojo fully restored I blasted up the next hill, Tom stopped once or twice so see if I needed to rest, but I was in the zone, 5 miles of an increasingly steep hill in the bag! Tomorrow, we have a short flat day, yeh!
