Guatemala

[Eoin]

Here is a summary since my last email, since I've been slow to update
the blog, and a summary is probably a lot easier to read anyway.

I met my rideshare partner, Kevin, in his '83 Mercedes Benz Diesel
just South of Phoenix. We drove a lot each day, but the roads were
good, and it was pretty easy. The hard part was the heat, no A/C, and
the vinyl seats.

We stayed a couple of nights with a guy in Guasave that looked a lot
like Barack Obama, and turned out to have been involved in trafficking
drugs from Colombia.

Kevin decided he wanted to go through Mexico City because he heard the
roads on the Pacific Coast were bad. Terrible choice: Mexico City was
a nightmare. We got stopped three times by police who told us that
cars with foreign plates aren't allowed to circulate through the
city. They threatened to impound the car for 48 hours but would let
us go if we "helped them out." Each bribe was a different, steep
amount, but it totaled $650.

After that, Kevin's wife got angry at him, and wanted him in Costa
Rica quickly. So we drove and drove. Too much driving. It sucked.
Our plans to stay in Oaxaca for a day were changed, and we completely
bypassed it. So once we got to Tapachula, and I found out my
CouchSurfing host, Fabian, was cool, I decided to part ways with
Kevin. I didn't want to miss all of Central America too.

I spent about 5 days in Tapachula, planning the rebirth of my cycling
trip. One of the highlights was buying a bag of 20 mangoes for 10
pesos, which is about $0.75. So I ate mangoes in the tropical heat of
Tapachula, shirtless. Natural one. I also had to do a big job on my
bike which got damaged and really dirty sitting on the back of the
car. The front wheel was way out of whack from hitting speed bumps,
the rims got pock marks from stones flying up and hitting it at high
speed, and dirt from the exhaust pipe and road and Mexico City got all
over.

I also visited the migrant shelter where Fabian is volunteering. The
shelter houses migrants from all over Central America and even
Colombia who are trying to make it to the US. A common mode of
transport to the border is to sit on top of the train, but many times
they fall off, and if they don't die, they might lose a limb. I
walked into one of the rooms where about six guys were staying and
they all had either lost legs, burns on their body, or a combination.
It was pretty shocking.

I helped out at the shelter by playing chess with a few of the people,
and letting these two boys play with my computer.

Oh, and I had a conversation with this one El Salvadorian woman who
had been living in Mexicali, CA, but got deported because of child
abuse. She told me, matter-of-factly, that "I liked working as a
stripper, but I also liked working in prostitution." I didn't know
how to respond. "Oh yeah, is it pretty good for money?"

Yesterday, I biked from Tapachula to Xela, Guatemala. When it started
to rain, a guy in a pickup truck stopped and offered me a ride. I got
in. He couldn't take me all the way to Xela though. When he dropped
me off, he called out to a passing pickup truck, and the driver
stopped, and agreed to take me the rest of the way to Xela. It was a
great introduction to Guatemala. A good example of how friendly the
people are here.

I am on my way to Guatemala City where my sister, Eleanor, is flying
into on Thursday. We are going to spend about a week visting
different parts of the country, by bus.

It is a chore to update the blog, so I think I will be making my posts
a lot shorter, and only including interesting stuff. Sorry for some
of the previous long boring posts.

I updated the map of my route.

Eoin
http://badicalindustries.wordpress.com