life @ 13

en estas maquinas esta totalmente prohibido ver pronographia

the central american leg of this trip has come to a close. i'm not sure if i'm just getting sick of travelling, being sick in general or biking too much without taking breaks, but i'm cutting it short. due to all the long-distance busses are booked up due to some holiday and my nondesire to bike back (more of a border-phobia than anything else) i've opted to take a plane, tomorrow, to mexico city. i'm not entirely sure what i'm going to do when i get there, but the general plan is going to be to cycle north from there, probably taking a month or so to hit the border. mexico city is supposed to be a really cool place, so i'll probably hang around there (they have a subway!) until i get the itch to bike.

just when things were getting a little dull, they got duller (or) is my world slipping away?

greetings from costa rica. i find myself south yet again. my 100 mile day didn't go quite as planned (late start, hills, wind, more than 100 miles) but i am here in liberia, CR.
my alarm was set, my bags were ready, and the 1/2 dose of dramamine and 1/2 of american pie 2 had made me dozy, but as soon as i stretched out to go to bed the itching and burning all over my torso and upper legs put any chances of sleeping early and leaving early quietly under the covers. so friday i chilled out, watched some more movies and slathered myself with lotion. saturday i started off about 2 hours later than planned, easily enough to keep me from my century, as it's dark here by six and had only done about 75 (120k) miles by 4:30. my upper legs burned from rubbing against my cycling shorts and my chest just hurt in general -- and for good reason, as i discovered halfway through the day the sweat on my stomach had sandwiched itself between the old layer of skin and the new, making for an interesting sight. but continuing, i finished off the last 60k to liberia today.
a couple of days ago i was thinking that my journals (there's an offline one too) were getting repetetive and generally boring. not that i'm bored in any particular way, but despite the rapidly changing scenery my days had been starting to look all the same. and then i came to costa rica.
as i mentioned before i visited this town in my microtour of costa rica about three years ago, and i remembered passing a very enjoyable three days here. but something has changed, and the answer to the question is "probably both". maybe it's the mediocre burger king i just had, the swarms of tourists here (liberia is a major crossroad for northern CR), or the lack of nicaraguan girls, or the general feeling of sanity and sanitation that costa rica gleams in. maybe i really was trying to escape from something, and that the poor and dirty and war-torn areas provided shelter that the endemically peaceful ones don't. right now i really miss the chaos of san salvador. why did i even leave home (in the nationalistic sense) in the first place, and why do i want to go back yet shudder as i travel the road?
it's really strange, because i expected coming back to a familiar place would bring some sort of comfort, but instead it's made me want to head back into the wilderness. temporairly, i liked being lost, alone, and unable to partake in meaningful communication (my own world) -- maybe i just didn't get my fill.
so that's where i am. or something. i'm gonna lay low tomorrow and let my skin heal some more and make another attempt at flushing out these amoebas. i'm far from being stuck -- the options are endless -- but i'm gonna take a microsecond or two to decide if forward or reverse is the best course.

it's the eights and fifteen (8:15)

another day, another city. besides the constant wind (still against me) and my left crank arm (8-inch part that connects the pedal to the rest of the bicycle) falling off midday it was a pretty short and easy 45k ride from outside managua to granada. since i knew i had so much time and so little to do today i started by getting lost in the streets of managua. most all the capital cities in latin america have a reputation for being somewhat bleak, but so far managua is the only one i've seen that fits. besides literally having no center, when i was wandering around the scenery was dominated by dead grass, dead trees, and trash. and i think the mexican president se?or fox was around (there were a few billboards dedicated to this; i don't think managua gets many visitors) so there were road blocks and police everywhere. about 20k into the day said crank arm came loose and eventually fell off, but a 4k walk and buying a $.20 pepsi at the mechanic's place set things straight.
granada is probably the most popular coloniel city in central america save antigua guatemala. it's a really attractive place, set on the shore of the grand lago de nicaragua and surrounded by cliffs and volcanoes, with more than a sprinking of old spanish churches and architectural stuff. there are a few friendly travellers around, as me and the world are on speaking terms again, and it's not just what's your name and where are you from and how do you like our country. but two things among others set me off about this place:
1) within 5 minutes of arriving in the city a young kid speaking good english offered to sell me some drugs (a bad sign, not a bad thing in and of itself)
2) the two 50-year old americans drinking and chain-smoking at the bar at my hostel
so instead of spending the day i had planned to i was content with eating some tacos and staring out at the lake. as a side note one of the guys staying at the hostel knew about me via gunnar and oskar, which is pretty cool (similarly, vince from guatemala met gunnar and oskar based on my description of them). anyway, after failing to come close to completing the 135k ride from leon to granada in one day, tomorrow should be the perfect day to attempt an imperial century (100 miles, 165k). of course it all depends on the wind, whether or not i adhere to my 6:30 (the sixes and thirty) alarm and my ability to sit in the saddle for 8-10 hours. if i do manage the ride to liberia, CR in one day, it will be the closest i get to the feeling of returning to 1724 after a long day's ride, as i have actually been to this city before and enjoyed it. if i'm really lucky i'll even remember how to get to the hospedaje i stayed at last time, since i certainly don't remember the name.
yet again the forecast doesn't look good. at the very least it looks hot. the weather in northern costa rica will be damn near 100 in a few days, all the more reason to make a sprint for the highlands of the san jose area.

when people talk, listen completely. most people never listen -hemingway


my goal today was to hop from one coloniel city to the next, leon to granada, about 135k. about 13 seconds into the day i realized that this was a pipe dream, as the wind here comes out of the East and almost the entire way is ESE, meaning i had a crosswind at best. it was a really rough day, and i doubted that i would even make it to managua, 95k from leon. but i made it, with some spectacular views of lake managua and surrounding volcaones toward the end of the day. my hotel last night cost C75, but the lady would only take C50, and when i stopped along the way i was treated to a free lunch, pretty cool. and my hotel happens to be right next door to a free internet cafe, so here i am.

sucked in

to nobody's surprise, i was unable to leave leon today. i woke up around 8:30 this morning, stared out at the street from the little indoor balcony in my hacienda, and gave myself two choices which were either 1) pack up my bike and start biking toward managua or 2) don't pack anything and bike 20k to the beach. if you saw the color of my stomach now (i'm trying to even things out) the answer is clear.
honestly i had a really great time today. even though i said that i swam in the pacific in honduras, it was off a little concrete pier on a bay -- not exactly a beach. today was a beach, and it rocked. the beach was huge, clean, and there were no more than 10 people in total. felt like a little kid today, crashing into waves, ducking under them, and trying to drown myself in the process. i'm glad i made it to the beach, even though the ride back was a little rough (nasty road, nasty headwind) because i don't think i'll see another one like this for quite a while.
part of the reason i stuck around was i met some cool welsh couple and an american guy staying at my hotel. we're supposed to go see a baseball game tonight, should be cool. and i really enjoy this city, and there may well be none to match it from here on.
i'm already thinking about what i'm going to do when i get to panama. south america is starting to sound a little shaky, since my funds are in doubt and my bicycle/gear in even greater doubt. flying to detroit or chicago from panama city is ridiculous, like almost $600. i learned that i can get a bus from panama city to mexico city for about $100, so i might do that and do a couple more weeks (months?) cycling north from there. but it all remains to be seen.
as a little bonus i'm posting (without consent) gunnar's recent journal, which is similar to mine except his and oskar's trip has been far more exciting than mine.

south of another border, and then another

after weeks of blood and sweat your faithful author and web guru bill stube are able to offer a few pics of my current part of the world. take a look for yourself, eh.

shortly after my last post in the unlikely honduran internet cafe an even more unlikely event occured -- i ran into another gringo(a) there. adrienne was a peace corps volunteer doing health education type stuff and from a detroit suberb and a former UM student. it was the frist time i'd spoken to anyone in english in nearly a week, which was nice, especially since we shared a decent bit of context. the town, san lorenzo, happened to be right on the pacific coast so she showed me to the pier and the pacific and i had our first rendez-vous in well over 10 years. cool. rest of the day was uneventful, i rolled into choluteca, honduras around sunset, found a decent hotel, ate a whole pineapple (mmmmmmm) and proceeded to pass out for 3 hours, which is not a good thing for a couple of few i.e.
1. i was either overworking myself or biking on little sleep
2. it's damn impossible to get to sleep at 11 when you just woke up at 9:30
3. eating at 10 isn't the best for the digestive system, which is a key player in being able to bike all day
additionally that night i was pretty proud of myself, as i managed to remove 10 almost microscopic stitches with a swiss army knife, a nail clippers, and a flashlight, with one eye open.
next day i was planning to bike 127k into chinandega, nicaragua but faced some really fierce headwinds in the first 48k up to the boarder. i'm not sure how many of you have really seen me swearing and screaming before, but i assure you that if there was a camera and mic on me friday you would have had your fill. i was trying to think of a sonnet to write about my mortal enemy (the wind) but i didn't know the rules of sonnet writing until now, so be patient. anyway after crossing the boarder -- $5 for a tourist card and a $4 sietsa surcharge -- i pressed on, but upon finding a hotel 7k from the boarder i figured it wise to stop since the hour was getting late and making the push to chinandega would not save me any time, my destination city being leon, only 40k from chinandega. so i stopped in somotillo, a little town near the boarder. the hotel owner was a black man (always a little strange to see them in latin america) who spoke some english, so he must of been some carribean descent. i was under the impression that i was the only gringo in town when around 8 i heard a clearly american preacher on the street, who appeared to be making a grand tour of central america, which i suppose gave us something in common. and just after eating dinner a little boy stole the last two sips of my coke, somewhat maliciously. i was unfortunately unable to conjure up the word for "asshole" (cerrote) in spanish at the time. and the electricity in my hotel sucked.
i remembred adrienne telling me that "like half of the road between somotillo and chinandega is, like gravel". naturally i ignored this piece of advice, but i paid for it dearly on friday (i could have taken a different road from choluteca, but that would have cost me at least a day). and it turns out that she was a little off as about 90% of the 70k stretch between somotillo and chinandega was unpaved, meaning again that said camera would have recorded some delicious hostility. the road wasn't nearly as bad as the one outside melchor de menchos (see Jan. 25), but the gravel made the would-be 2.5 hour sprint into a 4 hour slugfest. if i didn't have the decent tailwind things would have been really ugly. towards the end of the stretch i stopped by the side of the road, had one nicaraguan gaseosa (soda) which quickly turned into 3 gaseosas, lunch, and an hour or so of choppy coversation in spanish. the lady there refused to name a price for the drinks and meal, so i gave here 20 cordobas ($1.30) and a $1 tip. the 40k from chinandega to leon was easily the hardest i pushed myself. even with a cross/headwind most of the way i did the stretch in a little over 90 minutes, the first time i'd really pushed myself hard, and the first time i noticed that my legs are starting to pack a little punch, meaning some people are going to have to watch out next time we take a ride. about 110k on the day.
so this is actually my third day here in leon, but the first time the internet's been open. up until now xela, guatemala had been my favorite city and considered the most tolerable to live in, but leon is way cooler. actually nicaragua in general seems to be the capital of cool in central america. but more on that later. it's still damn hot down here, but the difference between 85 here and 95 in el salvador is noticed and appreciated.
my hotel here is really cool -- it's a tad pricy at $5/night, but it's a real house (more like a hacienda) with an indoor courtyard, a kitchen i can use, a tv with lots of shows in english, and a huge bedroom for me. and there's a supermarket barely two blocks away. seriously, you can put me in the shittiest room in the shittiest city, but if there's a supermarket nearby i'm more than content. i had my bike tuned up by a really excellent mechanic (latinos seem to have a gift for this stuff) -- for about an hour of labor the guy charged me $1.65. i'm actually forcing myself to leave this town tomorrow, otherwise i think i'll get sucked in. tomorrow i'm heading 135k to granada which sounds like another antigua guatemala (i.e. not really to my liking), so i'll probably take one more day off to kick around with the gringos, swim in the big lake for a bit, then charge on toward costa rica.

just consider the unparalleled advantage of a natural disaster that's impossible to manage - the RZA

lucky enough for you, just as i stop by the side of a building to look at my map somewhere in the south of honduras i run into an internet cafe. lucky enough for you.
i must have been praying to the wrong gods recently, as my last two posts didn't make it through, one because the internet ran out and the other because i forgot to comfirm the post. just thought i'd let you know that i haven't stopped trying.
any, since i last wrote successfully i've crossed into honduras. not much to note about the rest of my stay in san salvador, except that i discovered an excellent comedor (resturant) across the street from my hotel which served up some very tasty plates at less than a dollar apiece. woke up at 6am on tuesday with the hope of avoiding the worst of the san salvador traffic but it turns out that 6:30 is the worst possible time to go. anyway i ended up walking about 2 miles on the sidewalk (ditch on the side of the road) until i decided that my chances were better than 50:50 of making it. san salvador was by far and away the most bike-unfriendly city i've seen, so don't expect more bus accident stories anytime soon. so i rode about 140k to san miguel which was a surprisingly easy ride, although the last climb 115k into the ride in the 96 degree heat of 2:30 was pretty rough. passed out about 2 minutes after getting a hotel room and eventually woke up to eat my most expensive dinner so far, $6 at wendy's.
yesterday i woke up late, ate breakfast late, and sat around in the hammock in my room for almost 2 hours before leaving at noon. did i mention that it's really hot here? i checked the currency exchange rate before the border and succesfully changed money without being ripped off. rode about 65k to the border, did the whole border routine, tried to keep biking since i had about an hour of daylight left but ended up turning back to the border since there were no nearby hotels on the way. today i've gone about 55k so far with about 35 to go, relatively easy stuff besides the wind. which is one hell of a big IF.
there is a pretty strong wind coming out of the NNE here, which has been reasonable menacing so far but should start helping tomorrow when i head south for nicaragua. the terrain reminds me very much of southern wyoming, and the traffic along this highway (knock knock) is pretty light. next time you'll hear from me will probably be in leon, nicaragua, about 4 days away.

it's hot in here

in my last post i neglected to mention that my bike is in fixable condition and will be fixed, knock knock, tomorrow when the shops open up, meaning i should be out of here on tuesday. my eye is a little puffy and i'm going to have to figure how to get the stitches out, but that's at least five days away, nowhere near my field of vision.
it's hot here. the temp. now is 93 degrees with a heat index of 115. i can't remember the last time my non-alcoholic/alcoholic intake ratio was this high (between the amoebas and the drugs even a beer is indigestable). hopefully it will be cooler in honduras and nicaragua.
if you're looking for some comforting bedside reading, take a look at the deartment of state travel warnings and advisories: http://travel.state.gov/travel_warnings.html , but don't believe the hype.

One man scorned and covered with scars still strove with his last ounce of courage to reach the unreachable stars; and the world was better for this - Cervantes

apparently my earlier prediction about lots of internet cafes in el salvador was a little off the mark; even here in san salvador (san sal-va-DOR, fyi) i had to do some bus-scouting to find one. again i will try and keep this updated, but it looks like it won't happen much while i'm on the road.
starting from where i left off, the last couple days in guatemala city were relatively tame. through some combination of not finding bike shoes, subliminal coercion and generally not feeling up to it joel decided to temporarily abandon the whole biking thing. which i think works out well for both of us because this kind of biking is most rewarding when done alone. before leaving guatemala city i ran into a real veteran cyclotourist, vince, who had cycled in africa, iran, packistan, india, and western china -- pretty impressive stuff. besides the usual cyclist-banter the most useful thing about vince was his extra pair of cycling shorts which he donated to me, a very gracious and useful gift. my ass will be forever thankful.
so tuesday i left guatemala city alone, headed for the el salvaDOR boarder. neither the traffic or the climb out of the city presented much of a challenge, and i was on my way to descending about 3000 feet within 90 minutes of leaving. now that i've done a few of them, i've started to dread the descents. besides the fact that the stakes are much higher at 30mph, going down not only means that you're going to have to come back up again, but in this case it means that the weather went from delightfully temperate to oppressively hot. despite all the descending i only made it 100k on tudsday, short of the el salvador boarder.
having still not adapted to the heat (between 90 and 1000 in the valley near the boarder) and the constant head/crosswind i was already exhausted by the time i made it to the boarder only 17 k away, at which point i made my first boarder faux-pas -- not having enough cash to cross the boarder. figuring that since travellers cheques were changed at the guate-belize boarder and that the official currency in el salvaDOR is the dollar i would have no problem changing the cheques, i proceded to the boarder with only $5 in guatemalan quetzal. besides this, when trying to get my exit stamp from guatemala i was informed that i only had a 3-day transit visa, which i had overstayed by about 47 days, at about $1.25/day fine. eventually the boarder officer gave in to my look of befuddlement, dumbfoundedness and stupor and issued me a retroactive 90-day visa (which i should have recieved in the first place) and an exit stamp free of charge. to make a long story short, i took a bus back to the town i stayed in the night before, eventually changed some money, biked back to the boarder, changed my money again (at a really shitty rate), paid the $10 to get my el salvaDOR tourist card, and biked another 12k to an expensive but well-placed hotel with a very talkative owner.
thursday was comparatively uneventful, sometimes very smooth cycling on the smooth parts of the highway and rough cycling on the rough spots of the highway. for the first time in one hell of a long time there were some flat stretches -- my asphault oasis. nothing compares to the feeling of all your pedaling effort contributing directly to your velocity, especially after spending time going up and down mountain passes and the fact that the extra 40 lbs on my bike don't matter as much on the flats. after 90k i stopped in santa tecla just short of san salvador.
so then there was yesterday. somewhat less productive. i'm still not entirely sure how this happened, but my best recollection is that i was travelling behind a bus (typical, as we tend to share the right lane) on the highway near san salvaDOR, which happens to lack a curb lane. the bus slowed down, sped up, then stopped abruptly right by an on-ramp which i briefly glanced at to check for merging traffic. of course my brief glance was more than enough time for the bus to stop right in front of me, sending me smack into the back of the bus at about 10 mph. i walked away without any problems, although i can't say the same for the bike. a very friendly salvaDORian drove me to a national hospital in san salvaDOR for stitches (about 12 around my left eye) and x-rays (at $4 the only cost) to check for fractures, of which there are none. the care at the hospital, while not necessairly first-rate, was damn impressive, as i was taken care of pretty quickly and throughly, despite my nationality and spotty spanish. i actually quite enjoyed my time in the hospital as the female staff were not only friendly and helpful but particularly easy on the eyes. all in all i walked away with only a couple of scrapes, although i can't say i will look at the back of a bus in the same way for a while, which is probably a good thing.
today, and probably until monday or tuesday, i'm just hanging out around the city, not exactly a bad place to be stuck in. el salvaDOR has a considerably different feel than guatemala -- certainly less conservative -- the people here seem to have more flair than their relatives to the west. much, much fewer tourists here (only saw two, on the boarder). i've also made some headway for what seems like required reading for being down here, Don Quixote.
in short, it's one thing to be a tall lanky gringo off the tourist trail in central america, but it's another thing to be a tall, lanky gringo who looks like a pirate off the tourist trail in central america.

nobody said it was easy, but nobody said it would be this hard

after delays in waiting for bicycle bags (never happened) and for the amebeas to clear out of my stomach (more on that later) we finally broke free from xela on wednesday. after two tough days of riding (75 and 90k) through the mountains/highlands and an interesting night in a little hotel on the road, we finally made it to the peace and quiet (sic) of guatemala city. joel is holding up pretty well especially considering how little biking he has done, but i'm quite a bit faster than him and the pace is a little slow for me.
so i'm back in guate city now and besides the somewhat seedy atmosphere at night here in the city center i really like this city. maybe i just like cities in general and all they have to offer; this is the biggest one they have around here, save mexico. friday we tromped around looking for bike shoes (still waiting), soaking up the sights and people of the city from a seat on the $0.12 city bus.
yesterday i learned that fighting a parasitic infection is all work and no play, and that alcohol does nothing to improve matters. i bought some nitroimidazoles at a local pharmacy yesterday and am feeling much better, but apparently these kinds of infections can be hard to kick. although as long as i'm feeling strong on the bike, not much else matters.
monday or tuesday, bike shoes and gotta-go-itch depending, we're heading for el salvador.

after a long dry spell i finally managed to make it to watch a good movie, scent of a women. one thought that stuck in my mind afterwards -- right about now -- is how the greatest and most effectual personal interaction with a movie is not just witnessing a special scene or a special moment but the incredible feeling of anticipation when you know the what's coming and know how it's going to affect you. barring serious disaster (i'm still here, so there have obviously been a couple of setbacks), tomorrow i will be on the road again. now that i've had my taste i'm ready as hell to dig in. as usual the destination is simply one day at a time, but the path ahead will be a good one and if not, the path itself will serve as a tasty surrogate. again, the real goal is panama city, but the thing will be what happens in-between. riding as two will certainly alter the experiences, but i'm more than hopeful that it will add more than detract. some make their dynasties on blood, sweat and tears, others do it with ideas.
keep the emails coming. even if i don't respond i always digest and always appreciate; sometimes i simply don't have enough to add beyond what i'm saying here. moreover i'm finding it interesting to give everyone the same story and i think i'm more honest because of it.
on a final soapbox moment -- trust me they'll fade as my energy is diverted -- i'm finally starting to recognize the value of this excursion. i knew from the outset that by placing myself in unfamiliar and uncomfortable situations (guatemala city (again in two days)) would result in something useful but what and to what extent i didn't know. experiencing how i experience and the experiences themselves have if anything made me think, well, lots of things, not the least of which is how i should construct this senctence. but unlike some, these experiences (how the air changes the moment you set foot in guatemala) need to moor and settle before their meaning can be sampled. and i'm starting to learn from my samples. so i got that going for me, which is nice
tonight's menu: spaghetti bolognese with spicy mexican sauce, fully saturated and toasted garlic bread, guacamole (when the ingredients are this good it's hard to fuck up) with tortillas, a sweet, sweet pineapple, and a beer or two or _____