The Video Trilogy

Due to the aforementioned propensity for guns and undertakers in El Salvador and Honduras, and our desire to get some miles under our belts, we shot through those countries quick sharp. So here's a Neopolitan ice-cream video, with Nicaragua thrown in free of charge.

P.S. The random injection is after I stepped on a stingray, to reduce inflammation and incredible pain. Apologies for its location...

A Standard Day at the Office

We try not to write too much about the specifics of our days as this would make for pretty repetitive blogging. However, we thought it might be interesting to capture the essence of a typical day - the following is from a pretty standard day, riding about 75km from Nicaragua into Costa Rica a few days ago:

Today started somewhat prematurely when raindrops landing on Lizzie’s and my faces alerted us to two facts:

a) It was raining

b) We had not put the flysheet on our tent

This isn’t as stupid as it sounds as we regularly leave the fly sheet (the solid rain-proof outer shell of our tent) off to allow what trifling breeze exists to blow pleasingly through the mesh of the tent and keep us cool. Or at least not really hot. We had left the flysheet attached at one end, so with military precision, impressive speed and in complete silence (we are that good a team) we pulled it over the tent and went back to bed. Five minutes later it stopped raining and the whole exercise felt somewhat pointless, like a fire drill at work.

Our real alarm went off at 3.45am this morning - this is our usual time to wake up when it gets light at 5am, allowing us to take maximum advantage of the cool part of the day without it being so dark as to be dangerous. In reality, I was already awake as the tree next to our pitch seemed to be the community centre for a particularly choral flock of local birds, who met there at the start and end of each day and gave the owner of our campsite a lot of mopping to do.

I cooked the porridge whilst Lizzie took down the campbeds and the tent - this seems to have emerged as the division of labour for no better reason than I carry the stove and enjoy the loud whoosh it makes when I light it, as well as the significant danger the initial flare causes to my eyebrows. This was perhaps the best porridge yet as we had the treat of cracking open a new milk powder which didn’t taste as much like curdled cheese as the last offering, although the dish did miss our usual flourish of adding a banana. Having become quite bored with unpleasant porridge at four in the morning, the prospect of banana + new milk powder has actually made me excited. Wow. It really is the little things.

Today we were leaving Isla de Ometepe, a beautiful island consisting of two volcanoes in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. As our bikes are not like that Lotus from James Bond and do not turn into pedalos, this meant getting a boat. Yesterday, we had smugly noted that we didn’t need to go to the main port 12km away, as the small port 500m away had one of its three daily ferries at 5.40am which was early enough for us. We set off, along with Sam & Laura (two other cycle tourers from England we have spent the last week or so with), and rolled to the port only to be told by a guy sat next to a curiously inactive ferry that the boat “was sick” but if we were quick we could get to the main port to catch the 6am departure. The prospect of a good challenge got me very excited and my adrenaline pumping; we had to push along at 24km/h and that would give us 5 minutes to buy tickets. Go! We didn’t slow for dopey chickens crossing the road, seemingly deaf dogs wandering into our path or even the point where the road just cuts straight across the island’s runway. Only the inordinately large number of speed bumps could slow our runaway freight train. Sam and I took turns on the front and, sweaty and exhilarated, we arrived at the port with the requisite five minutes to spare. Unfortunately, our poor Spanish meant it took about 10 minutes to buy tickets and get our bikes onto the boat unharmed (the deckhands don’t seem to give a s*** that our bikes might be delicate or our most precious possessions in the world). So the boat left late and everybody gave us evils.

The ferry took about an hour and then we rode to Rivas, stopping at a supermarket - we have heard that Costa Rica is much more expensive so we wanted to stock up on provisions before we left. Sadly, due to our daft early start, we got there 20 minutes before it opened and so hung around before buying our dried pasta, tomato sauces and our most exciting purchase to date - a tupperware box! This will unlock all sorts of opportunity to, oh, I don’t know, store some salad, make some rice pudding the night before, keep leftovers. It’s going to revolutionise our DIY dinners. It’s second on my list of exciting things behind the banana + new milk powder combo.

Here we said our farewells to Sam and Laura as they were heading to the Nicaraguan beach to do some surfing and we were going straight to Costa Rica to increase our daily expenditure. 

Nearing an end to Nicaragua

Lizzie and I then put our head downs to cycle the 35-odd kilometres to the border. The road ran alongside Lake Nicaragua, which is well known for two things, both of which fill cyclists with dread: kite-surfing (which means reliable, strong onshore wind) and wind turbines (which means reliable, strong onshore winds). The upshot was a strong cross-wind for the 35km - luckily, we had more than enough to make up for it. The road alongside the lake was flat(ish) and beautiful - with huge, lush green fields on one side, brimming with cows and making us feel all biophilic, and on the other side was Lake Nicaragua. The wind turbines were incredibly impressive - we must have passed the best part of 100 - there were also a few blades lying by the side of the road which makes you realise just how enormous a wind turbine is. Incredible.

About as obvious a crosswind as it is
possible to capture in a photo

After a couple of hours, we reached the border. Compared with our entry to Nicaragua, this was pretty quiet and the officials were quick to process us. Although, as per usual, we were bombarded with random small charges. I had to pay $1 to get a ticket which allowed me into the emmigration hall and then another $2 to get our exit stamp. After this, we had a friendly attempt to barter with one of the money changers to get the most for our Nicaraguan cordobas. One of the things I’ve noticed at most borders here is the honesty of the money changers - they seem to be far more official than at the borders in Africa and haven’t tried to pull any funny business, which has been nice as it’s definitely one of the times when I’m on guard at the borders.

Lizzie looking all casual going through immigration

Afterwards I pointed out her face was
covered in dirt as she went through immigration -
the dirt is typical and normally fine as she doesn't
have to talk to officials giving her quizzical looks

No caption needed

We rolled into Costa Rica without really realising it, had our passports stamped (with no additional charges for breathing their air, disturbing their siestas or generally putting them out - amazing!). It has become our tradition to eat some food at the border on this trip - to see how different it is to the previous country and also because after all the hassle of the border crossing we’re usually famished. Sadly, there didn’t seem to be much - we tried to wheel our bikes into one cafe only to be animatedly told by the owner to go away (or at least take our bikes out, I’m not sure). “We’ll show him”, I thought, “by not eating at his dive and not giving him any money”. So we carried on, my stomach the only victim of my moral pyrrhic victory. We soon found a small cafe by a petrol station and ordered desayuno (which means breakfast, but is also shorthand for the standard local breakfast, which normally contains most or all of eggs, cheese, cream, tortillas, some form of black beans - either as a paste or with rice - and fried plantain banana). This cafe did dish up a good version and as we went to pay, we performed our other new tradition in a new country - guessing how much it would cost? Aware that Costa Rica is a bit pricier, I adventurously multiplied the Nicaraguan price of breakfast by 1.5 and suggested it would be $3. Lizzie went big guns and went for $4. Imagine our shock when we were told it would be $9. We did our normal aggrieved foreigner routine: “But that’s what we’d have to pay at...at...at home!” With our pockets lightened by $9 and our stomachs weighed down by eggs, beans and tortillas, we carried on our merry way...up a big hill for 20km. Sadly, unlike with swimming, I was never warned as a youngster to leave at least an hour after eating before cycling up a big hill. Needless to say, the taste of eggs and beans stayed with me for quite a while.

My plate two minutes after it was put in front of me

I had been looking forward to the roads of Costa Rica - as one of the wealthier countries in the area, I had presumed that some of that bunce would be invested in the roads. The evidence so far is to the contrary, with no hard shoulder and a worse surface than Nicaragua. Let’s hope it improves as riding with no hard shoulder down the main arterial road through Central America and all the freight lorries whizzing past can be a bit terrifying.

After a bit of a grind uphill, we reached La Cruz - the first town on the road in Costa Rica and our pre-agreed rest stop for the night. We headed to a hotel that some friends ahead of us on the road had used but sadly it was full. The next hotel we visited had nothing for less than $50, which is way above our typical budget. So we headed towards a ‘Bomberos’ (Fire Station) that we had passed on the way into town. These are legendary among cycle tourers as they usually let you camp there for free, perhaps even with showers, use of their kitchen and sometimes (so we’ve heard but this could be a mean urban myth) WiFi. Just before we got there, I noticed a bar that was called “Sports Bar’. This Ronseal-esque name reminded me that the football was on, and England had already started their no doubt futile attempt to beat Slovakia. Lizzie seemed game (pun intended) so we went in, ordered some cold soft drinks and asked them if they would awfully mind turning off the wrestling and putting on the much more theatrical footballers and they dutifully obliged. One guy at the bar started chatting to me in fairly incomprehensible Spanish - I had put this down to the fact he really rolled his R’s, but it may be because he had drunk a considerable amount of beer and continued to do so throughout the game. About the only words he said that I understood were: Margaret Thatcher, Range Rover, Camel Pak and Lennox Lewis. Pick a common thread through that bunch as it currently escapes me…

Making the mistake of watching
England play football

After watching the bore draw, we headed next door to the Bomberos and asked if we could put our tent up. For some reason that we still haven’t fathomed they said no. I felt quite deflated. Having been unsuccessful in our attempt earlier to find a room, and then deciding to go for the free, albeit less comfortable and probably shower-less option, to then be turned down felt like a bit of a punch in the midrift. We stood forlornly outside for a while hoping they might change their minds but to no avail so we cycled back into the centre of town and eventually found a twin room with shared bathroom for $22 which we took.

I felt a bit down at this point with Costa Rica - it’s the first country since Mexico that I know lots of people have visited and spoken so highly of. My daydreams on the bike had led me to unfairly expect great roads, lovely people and beautiful scenery and expectations 1 and 2 had been dashed. Our experience with the first restaurant owner shooing us out, the “No Room at the Inn” from the hotel owners and the outright refusal from the Bomberos (having read on another blog how friendly and accommodating this particular bunch had been) had dismayed me. Luckily, a shower, food and time began to dismiss this feeling. It has been further laid to the rest by the huge friendliness of the hotel owner where we have ended up - I feel I have been too quick to judge and things will improve. This has been even further evidenced by some research showing that the border crossing we have just been through is the largest drug-running route in Central America and no doubt increases crime in the adjacent areas. We have had a feeling that the locals are a bit on guard, behind their big gates and fences. No doubt as we leave the main drug route behind this will lessen and people will be more friendly and welcoming. Even if the price of crack increases four fold...oh well. Can’t have it all. 

Nicaragua

We’re getting dizzy with all these border crossings.  It takes a few moments stuttering before we are able to reliably state what country we are in.  Despite taking it slow, with a number of rest days along the way, Nicaragua flew by. The short report says, great road surface, fantastic hard shoulder, volcanos to blow your mind.

For those interested in detail, Nicaragua is absolutely peppered with volcanoes.  We found them all over the shop.  It’s said that the land masses of North and South America did not meet until the volcanos in Nicaragua rose up and solidified the land between the two.  Absolutely our highlight was cycling past a relatively small volcano with an incredible open crater.  We ambled off the side of the road and were whisked up the lava field in a bus to a great visitors centre which sported all the diagrams that we drew for geography GCSE.  The crater was spectacular, with molten rock churning, splurting and spitting away 30 metres below us, the lava a brighter orange than we could have imagined and the roar of the liquid rock emulating the roar of a raging sea.

Jazzing up the exhibition with cotton wool explosions 

'Man in the crater' (not really)

Our convening with volcanos didn’t end there.  Nicaragua sports a massive lake (Lake Nicaragua - obvs) which, back in the day, led many people to think this might be a good spot to cut a passage for boats through the continent - although enthusiasm waned and attention shifted to Panama instead, where you may have heard there is a canal. In the middle of Lake Nicaragua is the island of Ometepe, formed by two volcanoes rising picturesquely out of the water.  We camped at the foot of one for a couple of nights, possibly our best camping spot to date.  

Ometepe by moonlight

We also passed a day in the city of Léon.  We are getting used to the general ambience of these Central American towns - cobbled streets, big open squares, a host of churches, volcanoes looming in the distance, but Léon was notable for its frankly ridiculous cathedral.  For a town of its size, it is outstanding. In fact, it is the largest cathedral in Central America. There are two different versions of how such an oversized cathedral came to be built in Léon - one is that the Spanish were swindled, and that having given planning permission to some relatively modest affair, the Nicaraguans had a field day building a fantastically more elaborate structure instead; the other is that the Spaniards themselves got confused, and that the names Lima and Léon were all too similar for them and that plans for the Peruvian capital ended up in this sleepy Nicaraguan town. Either way, it has a great roof, which we enjoyed traipsing over, soaking up the magnificent views.

Nicaragua has been a bit of a cyclists convention.  It’s basically impossible to know the actual number of cycle tourers in any given area at any one time, but it’s a fair guess to say that over the course of a year, a few hundred tourers cycle through Central America. We definitely feel like we are part of a community (replete with online forums where people provide advice on riveting things like road quality) and yet, it takes quite a bit of chance to actually meet other tourers (going in the same direction).  

Forming a pelaton 

We met fellow Brits Sam and Laura back in Mexico on our second day when we chanced to lock our bikes up in the same place on a rest day outside a Mayan Ruin (what else do you do on rest days in Mexico?).  But varying routes and varying paces mean it’s taken nearly two months before we’ve met up with them again.  We met Canadians Andrew and Amanda sitting out the rain under banana tree one day in El Salvador and have played cat and mouse ever since.

Both these couples are on significantly longer trips that ours - one year; and ten, respectively (now you see why they were sitting out the rain). It’s been interesting to learn about their approaches and mentalities toward their trips.  For example Sam, like Ali, is indulging in not having to be presentable for some time and is growing a beard. Andrew is clean shaven, he considers having no home or job to speak of AND a beard to be a step too far.  We’ve discovered some amazing kit that we wish we had (a solar powered inflatable lamp - can you believe it! It is possible to get pretty geeky about this stuff), but the biggest impact of hanging out with other cyclists has been on our cooking.  Our stove has turned from a one trick pony into a gateway to culinary delight.  We’ve even started to follow Andrew and Amanda’s lead and carry eggs. They do this is a fantastically robust egg shaped plastic holder - fool proof.  We did it by chucking eggs in Lizzie’s front pannier.  Needless to say, ours haven’t all survived.

Perceptions on the Referendum from Afar

Whilst you all vote (our kind proxy dispatched) we observe nervously from afar, pleased not to be too close to the infuriating 'debate' but anxious to see the outcome.

Without making this too political a post, one of the things that seems to have been remarkably absent from the debate is the fact that this vote is also an expression of our attitude towards the broader international community and the relationship that we, as a nation, want to have with it. And by that I mean what are our values and principles in relation to other nations and people, not purely the economics (which are being given plenty of ambiguous air time).

I was prompted to think about that as we crossed the border from Nicaragua to Costa Rica yesterday and witnessed some of the impact, from thousands of miles away, of the European 'immigration crisis'. Once on the Costa Rican side, where there is no real border town to speak of, we came across lots of young people gathering on the street, outside what limited tiendas and restaurants there were. We have established a tradition of having food as soon as we cross the border as a way to acclimatise, suss out how much a feed costs, and generally take in our new surroundings, but we found ourselves unable to identify anywhere as all the options had enough people apparently loitering outside to make us too nervous to leave our bikes.

These were largely young people, and nearly all black. At first this wasn't an indicator that they were African as Costa Rica has a sizeable black population (8%) largely based along its caribbean coast, but also in the northern peninsular that the border crossing enters. As we rode out of town I looked to my left and through a gate into a field I saw what looked to me like some sort of transient camp.

Later, we read a number or articles by local journalists, and that is exactly what it was, a fledgling camp of migrants.  What was more surprising was that it was filled with people from Africa; Congolese, Senegalese, Ghanaian for whom Nicaragua has, without explanation, suspended the right to enter. The journalists report that many of these people are young adults, including a number of pregnant women, who, well aware of the situation in Europe, are instead making their way, by way of boat to Brazil and then overland (including some passages on foot) through South and Central America, legally and illegally, to the United States.

I am obviously no expert in what these flows of people normally look like, but what is apparent, is that changing circumstances in Europe are directly contributing to policy in Central America, that that flow is now being stemmed, and that the people that constitute it are finding themselves without means to move forward, camped in a field in the town of Peñas Blancas in northern Costa Rica.

What does this all have to do with the referendum on Brexit? Only that, as we saw crossing that border, we live in a deeply global world, and that the decisions nations make are deeply interconnected. Without any presumption as to what the right or wrong answer might be for the people in Peñas Blancas, we should think hard about how we act as a nation within that knotted web. The act of divorcing ourselves from the union might be being portrayed as a simple act seeking to close our pockets to our neighbours but we should think about its implications for our broader relationships with our fellow citizens of the world.  I for one, think it's important that we don't close our ears and eyes to our neighbours and friends.

Type 2 Fun

Anyone who has willed their body to cycle up a ridiculous gradient in the sweltering heat, yomp up an enormous tor in the pouring rain, subjected themselves to any other form of masochistic endurance endeavour or generally undertaken anything that pushes them out of their comfort zone, might know that it doesn't have to be fun to be fun. We recently met a Canadian who referred to that as ‘Type 2’ fun. To me, that sounds a lot more like a diagnosis, but then maybe it is.

Psychologist, Nobel Laureate and our hero, Daniel Kahneman (if you haven’t read Thinking Fast and Slow then you should) talks about the relationship between our “experiencing” selves and our “remembering” selves.  In the aforementioned book, he recounts some research with two groups of people and a painfully cold bucket of water (this is not the inexplicably popular ice bucket challenge of 2014). One group were asked to hold one hand in the bucket for 60 seconds; the other group were asked to keep their hand in for 90 seconds, but after the first 60, unbeknownst to the subject, a valve was released which slightly increased the temperature of the water, making it less punishing for the final 30 seconds.  When asked to rate the level of pain they had endured, those who had submerged their hand for slightly longer, but with a less painful experience at the end, rated the overall experience as less traumatic than those who had experienced the same 60 second torture but without a happier ending.

This, and a number of other simliarly tailored experiments, led Kahneman and his colleagues to deduce that our memories of a given experience represent a relationship between the peak/most intense emotion (in this instance pain) and our experience at the end/the final emotions we feel in the experience. He also points out the relative influence of the “experiencing” self versus the “remembering” self - the “experiencing” self is fleeting if highly raw and emotionally engaging. Once this subsides, all that is left is the “remembering” self to last until your senile dotage kicks in. It is therefore the memory you hold, your “remembering” self, that is far more important.

Ali's "Experiencing Self" on a brutal, steep and unpaved 5 hour slog

What does all this talk of pschyology have to do with our Type 2 “fun”? We think it very neatly explains why we enjoy trips like this, and endurance events in general. The peak emotion (generally pain in our case) is rarely too bad in a given instance, it is more the fact that it lasts for a while if the riding is miserable/hot/wet/sore etc. The final emotion is nearly always of elation - buzzing with endorphins, satisfaction and the excitement of a cold beer. Any pain of our “experiencing” selves is therefore swiftly rebalanced by the emotions of our “remembering” selves, which reconfigures the peak emotion with the enormous elation at the finish. This pleasure then lasts a lifetime.

The "Experiencing" Self

The "Remembering" Self

We’re probably all impicitly aware of this psychology in some form anyway, through the “rose tinted specs” adage, but Kahneman expresses it in a very engaging and accessible form (and thus should be read).

If the peak emotion is positive, then we really are quids in. A lot of this ride isn’t just Type 2 fun - we’re looking for plenty of straight up, good old fashioned Actual Fun too. Although plenty of people might wonder why we bother with all the Type 2 and don't just max out on Type 1. We've been pondering that during the miles and think we have some seed of an answer which speaks to the above. (This psychology malarkey is pretty straightforward and we could publish our findings without any robust analysis, control experiments or the like.) 

We reckon:

"the magnitude of the final emotion is significantly amplified if it is of the opposite polarity to the peak emotion experienced." (Doctors Insall and Insall, 2016).

In lay speak, we think that if the peak and final emotions are opposite (positive to negative or negating to positive) then the strength of the final emotion is amplified. As your memory of the event, which last for much longer, is a factor of the peak and final emotions, this means the "remembering" self has an unduly but enjoyably positive emotion towards the whole affair, perhaps more strongly and deeply felt with a negative peak and positive end than had both peak and final emotions been positive. To demonstrate the counter, we are sure you can think of an occasion when a thoroughly enjoyable experience has been ruined by a negative ending - a nice meal ruined by a foul up with the bill, going to a gig/theatre ruined by breaking down/delays on the way home, your team winning until the last moment when the opposition score an equaliser. The sour note is all the more so for the fact that the rest of the experience was positive - and how does your "remembering" self fair? When it's happened to us, generally the overall feeling is a negative one. 

And so we think this helps to explain why we love what we are doing - it's not always easy and it's not always fun in the moment that we are experiencing the pain. But in hindsight it's absolutely wonderful, felt in a truly deep and meaningful way, for as long as our memories last.

Disclaimer: no science was involved in this pontification from the road. 

Sources:
Insall & Insall, "Type 2 Fun", 2016
Insall & Insall, "Random Pontifications from the Road, 2016

Gunning Through El Salvador and Honduras

Having spent a considerable amount of time in Guatemala, roaming, criss-crossing, stopping for a spot of Spanish, climbing and descending, we decided it was time to put the hammer down somewhat and shoot through El Salvador and Honduras. It feels like a shame to rush through a country, or even two - however, there is always more to see than time on a trip permits and so El Salvador and Honduras drew the short straw and were not blessed with our presence for long.  

Now we have passed through them unscathed, we would like to thank all the kind people who felt compelled to send us links (e.g. this chestnut) telling us that Honduras has (by far) the highest murder rate in the world, with El Salvador well up there. This certainly put some fuel in our legs and helped propel us through them quickly. However, it was also interesting to observe how much our preconceptions of a place can alter our experience of it.  Aware of the importance of maintaining caution in places that present more of a risk, we also felt very aware that the vast majority of people we would encounter would be ‘good’ people - as in any other country, going about their daily business, with their own interests and concerns, with the usual mix of people not at all interested in us, and those that would show us unexpected kindness.  The question was as to whether our own insecurities would hinder our ability to recognise that, and in doing so, fail to identify and appreciate the kindness of strangers in our determination to ’protect’ ourselves from the one or two ‘bad’ people that might be more interested in causing mischief.  (Interesting contrasting that with Belize, which we were only to realise later is such a big hitter on the list). In addition, images of Ross Kemp in flak jackets, following riot police into gang dens in El Salvador and Honduras were firmly and annoyingly stuck in our minds. Silly Ross Kemp and his silly gangs. 

As it turned out, having spent a little over a week in the two countries, we never felt threatened, saw nothing that was more dodgy than any other small towns in developing countries and we had some lovely conversations with smiling and cheerful locals (although we did notice amust uncommonly high number of funreal directors). However, we can't deny the relief in crossing the border into Nicaragua (notable by its absence in the above mentioned “World’s Most Dangerous…” links) where we felt our blood pressure and adrenaline drop - and were able to recognise that we had felt a bit more stressed and nervy whilst we were in El Salvador and Honduras. This seems a shame in hindsight, but maybe it was this additional caution and care, not to cycle through larger towns, not to go out after dark, to minimise the expensive gear we had on show that meant we had a seamless passage through. Chicken and egg. Pollo y huevos.

In plotting our route through El Salvador, we had two options - a more northerly route, taking us up into the mountains, passing volcanoes and lakes and along more traditional roads through market towns; or the more southerly road, following the coast and passing though a number of surf meccas. Having had our fill of volcanoes, lakes and markets in Guatemala, we decided on the flatter, faster latter option, picking out one surf spot towards the end of El Salvador to rest, practice our lingo (fast sandy point break, hollow take-off, tightly held wave, rad etc) and try to stand up on a surfboard. Having cycled hard for a few days to reach this beach paradise, Ali went and stood on a stingray after tumbling around in the first wave. This resulted in no more surfing, much pain, an injection in the backside and a more holistic remedy of sticking his foot in a tub of boiling water with oregano (who knew?) to suck out the poison. This provided a good excuse to spend the rest of the day in the hammock, drinking beer and margaritas and reading our kindles.

Wistful Pelican

Idle Boat

Erm...no comment

The following day we cycled to the border with Honduras, spending a night in perhaps the largest hotel room we have ever set foot in -  with enough space for two double beds, a hammock and a game of indoor cricket. The following day we crossed into Honduras.

Deteriorating Wicket

How long do you have to spend in a country to legitimately say you’ve visited it? Often a quandary for the connecting airline passenger (Spend the night? Leave the airport? Drink a local beer?), our bee-line across the narrow 150km of Honduras that separates El Salvador and Nicaragua left us asking this question. We managed 25 hours, two locals beers and a night sleeping in the spare room/chicken coop of a Honduran/Spanish family. We think we can say we have been to Honduras, but not to form any sweeping generalisations of the place or the people, which we love to nonchalantly and inaccurately do of the other countries where we have spent longer. The night with the local family (organised through Warm Showers (link to other blog)) was a real pleasure. The mother, Carmen, was a Spaniard from Seville who had lived in Honduras for 31 years and was the perfect example of warmth and hospitality. She was great at using mimes alongside her Spanish to help us understand her complex conversational gambits (we covered Honduran literacy, Margaret Thatcher and her views on socialism). Entertainingly, she also had a lens missing from her glasses and a top row of false teeth that kept dropping down as she spoke - all-in-all, a delightful character.

Carmen in her pyjamas

This chicken was obsessed with nesting in Lizzie's pillow

The following day, we finished off our mad dash across Honduras, through some beautiful countryside, and entered country number six - Nicaragua.

Sunrise Over Honduras

An unexpected and additional highlight of El Salvador and Honduras was finally managing to meet some other cycle tourers to ride with and share stories. Whilst bombing along in a torrential downpour, we heard a shout from a shelter beside the road, slamming on the brakes we skidded to an unsteady halt to find Andrew and Amanda, two Canadian cycle-tourers who have been going for two years (and thus know a lot more than we do - it’s been helpful to learn how it can be done, although they are carrying a guitar and a body board which we are quite happy to keep off our extensive kit list) from the top of Canada. Since then we’ve done a bit of leap-frogging each other, shared some riding (whilst our conversations with each other are still scintillating, fresh and exciting this has been a welcome break that has made the miles roll past much quicker) and even a roof over our heads. We hope to see some more of them over the coming months!

Andrew and Amanda - Obligatory Photo of Other Tourers (Ali didn't get the helmet memo)

Fortune Favours the Brave

We recently read an interesting blog about ‘luck’ or good fortune.  In essence it says that in general people are very poor at noticing, or acknowledging, good fortune but that we regularly bemoan bad fortune.  Robert H. Frank says that this negative lilt is both a condition of the human brain and has consequences for how we experience the world. His call to action is that we should become better at taking notice of the good fortune and feeling grateful for our good ‘luck’; he suggests that those who do, have more of a sense of the contribution of the qorld around them to their wellbeing, and as a result are more generous, and build positive spirals of happiness, be that in their relationships, health or even sleep patterns (we don’t have much of a problem with the last one).

In reading the article, there was one quote in particular that resonated with us, and we’ve been thinking about it ever since (excuse the Americanisms).  

‘When you are running or bicycling into the wind, you’re very aware of it.  You just can’t wait till the course turns around and you’ve got the wind at your back. When that happens, you feel great. But then you forget about it very quickly – you’re just not aware of the wind at your back.  And that’s just a fundamental feature of how our minds, and how the world, works. We’re just going to be more aware of those barriers than of the things that boost us along.’

Don’t we know this about cycling.  A head wind can leave you screaming for mercy  (see here and here).  I’ll never forget Mark Beaumont (previous record holder for circumnavigating the globe by bike) describing having to push his bike downhill into a headwind– the misery!  However, on this trip there have absolutely been moments where we have marvelled at our growing strength as we speed down the road, neglecting to acknowledge the powerful patron at our service.  

So, as suggested by Frank’s article, we have been having a go at being more cognisant of our good fortune in general, appreciating it and recognising the contribution it’s making to our day.

Things like:

• sticking our head around an unlikely looking corner to discover a kind and friendly lady who let us camp in her restaurant grounds
• the serendipitous timing of an Irish farmer, who we had arranged to camp with, riding past on his motorbike on his daily outing to fetch water, whilst we were debating whether or not to cycle up a very steep dirt track to check whether it was the 4km driveway to his place
• a very light shower waking us up so that we put the fly on our tent before the torrential down pour started an hour later
• Lizzie checking her map whilst Ali pulled over for a wee and noticing that we were next to a potentially massive shortcut - down hill, cutting off 30km and a 500m climb (or maybe this was just not thorough enough planning to begin with!)
• Being treated to several good belches of ash coming out of a volcano as we sped past one morning
• Ali getting a puncture which put us half an hour behind where we might have been, and then meeting a Spanish tourer coming the other way 10 minutes before our turn off (it sort of depends which way you look at it!)
• Arriving at a bridge that had been washed away to discover the “river” was only 2mm deep and not 2m (as it would be by the end of the rainy season), aided by the fact the rains have come a month late this year
• Extensive cloud cover seems to settle in on some of our longest days helping to keep us from melting

But we’ve also been noticing the bad fortune:

• the unpaved road we took in Belize
• a day and a half spent in Antigua with no views of the huge Volcano that sits next to the city

• Ali standing on a sting ray after catching his first wave whist surfing.
• Knocking the button on the handle of our hotel room door which resulted in us locking ourselves out in our pj's (mostly funny, but pretty annoying that the reception didn't open for another 45 minutes to let us back in and our breakfast was inside the room).

Is noticing these things each day changing our experience? Is it making us happier and helping us to sleep better? Who knows! But we certainly do find ourselves gratefully dwelling on the good fortune, thankful for its contibution to our enjoyment. We're also noticing that our list of good fortune it is growing far quicker than our list of bad fortune.  And that the good fortune is really making things better, and that the bad fortune tends not really to be that bad.  (The swelling on Ali’s foot subsided after a few hours). 

King of the Hill

We've been at it again, perfecting how many different camera angles you can get of two people cycling and ensuring the GoPro is still waterproof.

Our latest instalment to appease the video generation is here. 

Guatemala

A wise man (that’s probably the nicest thing Ali's ever said about his Dad)  once told me that the first phrase you should learn in any language is “My friend will pay”. The philistine in me has added a second phrase to this simple guideline: “Two beers please”, particularly necessary after a long day in the heat. This phrase still works perfectly even if you are on your own. However, in Guatemala the most important phrase, which we seem to have uttered almost as much as “Hola”, is “Es asfalto?”  Our route through Guatemala has at times been significantly amended to take account of where roads have beautifully EU-funded tarmac and where they have dusty, dirty, debris-laden driveways (and if that’s not reason enough to vote to stay in the EU, we don’t know what is).  

If only they drove on the left... 

Tale of a broken bridge.... 

The other significant feature of the route planning here has been the hills and volcanoes, which give rise to beautiful, verdant and lush scenery as well as the requisite conditions to grow the wonderful Guatemalan coffee that you drink in Starbucks/Cafe Nero/Costa/(insert independent coffee shop). Ironically, on arriving in Guatemala it took a long time to find a decent cup of coffee but we seem to now have the knack; however, finding a cup of tea that isn’t Lipton Yellow Label is still proving a significant challenge...now back to those massive hills that we’ve been conquering. 

On fully-laden touring bikes, we've truly discover the purpose of a 'granny gear' and learnt just how slowly we are able to go and remain upright (2.1 mph in case you were wondering). However, staying upright isn't the same as going in a straight line and at this pace we find ourselves weaving alarmingly close to the menacing gutter that runs 
parallel to the road, a foot deep. We've also learnt just how much stronger our legs are than our weedy arms, as pushing the bike is so much more exhausting than peddling it. However, on this trip, where we exist so entirely in the present, the intensity of every sensation is so stark and yet so fleeting. So that very moment when you crest the hill is filled with the sweetest satisfaction, the complete submersion of your entire being in the accomplishment and blessed relief as you take in the views and rejoice in the fact that the previous moments are now in the past!

Whilst we generally know what lies ahead by way of climbs (our sophisticated smart phones are able to tell us the elevation at the start and end of climbs) we tend not to have the data for what sits in the middle. We therefore continuously benchmark our progress against these two numbers to help motivate our tiring legs up the mountain (NB: we refer to none of the climbs as ‘hills’, regardless of accurate topographical terminology - they are all referred to as mountains. Or sometimes volcanoes if it’s a bit cloudy or they are actually a volcano). This means that when the road begins to drop prematurely, before we reach the top, our gritted joy fast becomes displeasure and frustration - we are losing hard earned metres as the road-builders confront the reality of a river, and the road drops so as to cross the water and continue up the other side. On this trip, never have we flipped so easily between absolutely loving rivers (immersing ourselves in them at the end of a long day’s riding) and completely despising them, as we slowly regain the metres lost to their unavoidable flow.

A wee bit of pushing

A wee bit more

At last! 

The top of the climbs are often also marked by towns. We usually know when we are getting close, warned by our GPS gadgets. However, nothing is as uplifting as the first sight of a tuk-tuk. Like the dove to Noah’s Ark, tuk-tuks are a sign that you are nearing civilisation. As they are only small three wheeled devices with tiny engines their range is limited. This means that the sighht of a bright red tuk-tuk zooming past (even a tortoise-paced tuk-tuk will speed past our snail pace on the hills) means that salvation, or at least a cold Coca-Cola, is near at hand.

The other lesson we've learnt on the Guatemalan roads is how to handle the extraordinarily prevelant (and pretty mangy) dogs. We've encountered plenty before, and in our pannier free days would tear off into the distance leaving the dogs for dust, but now that our load is significantly more weighty there is a rapid calculation to be done. As a growling bundle of fur charges towards us we quickly assess it's pace, calibre and the size of its jaws, and make a quick approximation of our own momentum and spirit level. It's probably as rarely as one time in four, but when the odds look good, we put our heads down and charge with all we've got, adrenalin pumping and shrieking (Lizzie) as the jaws miss our ankles by inches!  Then holler in delight as they fall away. For the main, we've capitulated to the fact that, counter intuitively, when the chancers are irritatingly yapping at us, the most effective way to deal with them is actually to slow right down and call their bluff. 

As in Mexico, one of the highlights of Guatemala has been the Mayan ruins - early on, we visited the hugely impressive Tikal and were blown away. We planned to ride up one afternoon and camp near the ruins, nipping in briefly to watch sunset, cook dinner and then get up early to watch sunrise from the top of one of the temples. 

Tikal

The pleasure of dispatching this plan was only disrupted by Lizzie's vivid imagination as she imagined more and more elaborate encounters with more and more terrifying animals during the hour and a half that it took to cycle through the national park to reach the site of the temples.  She was egged on by the signs we encountered along the way, the rustling in the under growth and the terrifying growls of the howler monkeys that sound distinctly like a lion roaring with ravenous intent. We'd been warned about the uncanny similarity between these sounds, but feeling particularly exposed on our bicycles and a bit emotionally vulnerable (on Lizzie's part) from the persistent warnings of dangerous creatures (jaguars more so, turkeys less) made it harder to ignore the deafening chorus.

A strange collection of turkey,  deer, snake, jaguar and something with a long nose

Bleary-eyed the following morning (from dreams of lions ripping us limb from limb) we were lucky enough to have a clear sky and see a fantastic sunrise from the top of one of the enormous temples in Tikal and then have a great few hours with a local guide. Tikal is home to a huge number of temples, the majority of which have not been excavated. The Mayans abandoned the site in 900 A.D, probably leaving the area as a result of drought. The jungle then reclaimed the land, which, fortunately for us budding archaeologists, meant the conquistadors were unaware of its existence and so didn’t destroy it and re-purpose the stones to build hugely lavish cathedrals as they did elsewhere. The cost and time of excavating the temples is huge and so happens in quite a piecemeal fashion as, usually foreign, archaeology groups raise the funding to unearth them. This provides the tantalising prospect of imaging that any bulge in the landscape could be a hidden Mayan temple, as many of the hills near Tikal are. This provided us with hours of fun on the bikes, analysing pointy hills and playing “Hill or Mayan pyramid?”

Hill or Mayan Pyramid? 

We have talked before about one of the pleasures of bike touring being the ability to end up in the most random and remote villages, where our passing elicits wide eyes and dropped jaws. This means that even medium-sized towns, without another gringo in sight, feel like a capital city to us, bursting with amenities (this accolade is awarded to ‘towns’ where the shops are big enough to sell Pringles, there is a 24-hour trucker hotel - although we’re yet to dare venture into one of these - and we can find a restaurant with free Wi-Fi). Camping, or even just stopping for a drink, in these rural villages has been hugely enjoyable. Our smug-ometers at how intrepid we are being were off the scale for a few weeks where we passed through villages where the locals didn’t really speak Spanish, just one of the many Mayan dialects that exist across Guatemala. This meant we had to dust off the PhD’s in miming we had picked up in Vietnam - always a fine line on how explicit to be with certain needs (see previous post on why we wanted to learn Spanish).

It's really notable how in these rural communities, the women dressed completely differently. In the north, and to the east of Antigua, we found the women to wear short shorts and low cut tops, understandable given the opressive heat. But in these mountain villages they wore thick embroidered tops with beautifully elaborate designs in vivid colours. Each village has their own design, distinguishing the women who live there. We had the pleasure of coincidently arriving in the wonderfully named Chichicastenango (known to its friends as Chi Chi) on market day when thousands of people, mostly women, descend from the surrounding area to shift their produce and tout their wares. The streets were buzzing with beautifully clad women sizing up the quality of one another's tortillas and exchanging gossip.  

The ladieswear section at Chi Chi

As we mentioned previously, we finished our time in Guatemala with a trip to Lake Atilan to improve our Spanish and a day in Antigua, the old capital and a beautiful colonial city. The only downside to both was the locals enormous fetish for fireworks and firecrackers. These would be let off at any time of day and for any given reason (no evening, weekend, special occasion required). We lost the number of times that Lizzie got 'air' as she jumped and shuddered at the unexpected shock. Let's hope she doesn't need a pacemaker fitted before El Salvador, a country which which we are fast approaching.  

View over Antigua

Milky Way

There is a strange prevalence of Milky Way bars in Guatemala, considering the simplicity of most other snacks. This fact, combined with the lottery-winning odds of Lizzie and Ali wearing red and blue t-shirts when coming across a broken bridge, left us no option but to create an homage to a very memorable ad from the early 90s.

Watch our valiant attempt here. 

P.S. We had ordered the producers to find us a 2' river but accidentally wrote 2" on the visioning board...#spinaltap. The river does actually get to 2m by the end of rainy season so lucky we were there at the start to attempt our heroic fording of the "river".