Still In Xela

Just a quick update. Yes, I am still alive and doing well, and yes, I'm still in Xela, Guatemala. But I'm getting ready to take off on the bike in another week or two (although, yes, I having been saying that pretty much ever since I arrived here 2 and half months ago). I've been putting in some cycling miles recently to try to get back in shape before I hit the road again. I'm sort of thinking of riding through some parts of Guatemala I haven't seen, then heading through Honduras and Nicaragua on my way to Costa Rica.

Yesterday, taking a cue from a Natalie Lafourcade song,

( Quiero montar una bicicleta y llegar al mar,
Después nadar y toparme una sirena sin tener que respirar,
Quiero caminar sin zapatos y sentir la arena )

I hopped on my bike and rode about 85 km to the Pacific coast, to a town called Champerico, with a black sand beach. After the initial short climb out of Xela, the rest of the first 45 km or so was all down hill, losing nearly 2100 meters of elevation. It was a great time, and I played leapfrog with various automobiles, which would manage to pass me when it leveled out a bit, but then I'd catch up and pass them again when they had to slow down for the numerous speed bumps in the towns, which I could just bunny hop over without having to hardly slow at all. The last 40 km or so was mostly flat, with gentle ups and downs, much warmer temperatures than the highlands, and a fairly constant headwind. I was dragging the last 15 km or so, and was glad to roll into town, which had huge amounts of bike traffic and a whole bunch of pedicabs for those that didn't have their own bike. I headed to the beach to wade in the warm Pacific waves for a while, to walk without shoes and feel the black sand between my toes, and then consume a bunch of shrimp and a couple of cold Gallos at a restaurant on the beach. Unfortunately, I forgot my swimming suit so didn't swim and bump into any mermaids, but I guess two out of three isn't bad. Actually, for whatever reason, another song by Jean Leloup was the one stuck in my head as I trudged across the plains:

Nous sommes habitants de la terre
Il y a des milliers de frontieres
Quelqu'un existe dans l'univers
Pour quelque d'autre et c'est la guerre

I lost my baby,
I lost my darlin',
I lost my friends,
I lost my mind

Which morphed into:

I lost my downhill,
I lost my tailwind,
I lost my views,
I lost my mind

I took the bus back to Xela, throwing the bike on top, and had a good steak dinner and a couple of dessert courses with Megan.

I've also been having fun exploring the varied and numerous unpaved roads and trails crisscrossing the country-side around town. A large portion of the population gets around on foot, and there are a whole bunch of trails which are often great for mountain biking. One problem is that they usually favor the direct route on hills, going straight up without any switchbacks. So some of the trails are nearly impossible to ride up, or down for that matter. So I often end up carrying the bike on those portions, and sometimes I just end up sliding down the steep slopes in a barely controlled skid, leaning way back over my rear tire to avoid an endo. When it is too steep to ride, I often end up sliding down the hill on my feet, holding the bike next to me, and using it as sort of extra support, a new form of skiing I suppose.

Oh, I also just posted a summary below of some of my travels around Guatemala from about a month ago, which I never got around to posting earlier. Megan and I also made a couple of weekend trips to Antigua and Nebaj, maybe I'll get around to posting more about those later. Other than that, I've mostly been studying Spanish on my own during the week.