The next destination is Antigua, very close to Guatemala City and not far from Lake Atitlan. We are on the lookout, the idea that a bandit may arise teases us. The winding road offers magnificent views of the lake and we find out a little further a limestone mine. The white walls look like a primitive palace. It is cool and galleries are lost in absolute darkness. If we had not biked only about ten miles, we would spend the night here.

We reach Antigua the next day and decide to stay there for the night. Former capital city with cobbled streets and colorful facades, it hosts a myriad of churches half collapsed due to an earthquake in the 18th century. The event was ultimately beneficial because the government decided to change the capital to Guatemala City. Antigua was able to keep its charm and colonial style and slowly change into one of the main touristic place in Guatemala and linguistic center, hosting hundreds of spanish schools.

Searching on the internet to decide what comes next, we discover that there is an active volcano near us. We have never seen lava or sniffed vapors of sulfur, it sounds like a good idea and we leave in the direction of the shortest path without worrying about the slope or where we will leave the bikes to climb the last kilometer by foot. We must first climb a 500m rise with a nice slope of more than 10% to Santa Maria de Jesus. We notice more and more slogans, painted on the rock or on posters, they say “Together against violence”. It reminds me of the bandidas we haven’t met at Lake Atitlan, but we take it easy because the road is much more crowded than there and nobody is warning us. A police car has overtook us without saying anything, so it must be safe.

Santa Maria de Jesus is on top of the hill, end of the climb. The locals seem unsympathetic here. It happens sometimes without any real explanation, and we do not pay attention.

After the village, the road quickly turns into dirt road. The tension rises, but once again we comfort ourselves when we see all the locals walking on the side of the path with the wood they just cut. The bandits do not wander on busy roads. Greg is in front and quickly a white van comes between me and him. It is dusty and it forces me to take a little distance. They stop a few hundred yards away, a guy gets out and tells me to slow down. He is in his fifties, is not armed and other guys are at the rear and at the front of the truck and they look ok. He explains that there may be bandits on the road. Once again! He mimics me a gun, but all speak at the same time I do not understand anything. They will follow us in the truck, that’s all I got. He tells me to pass by and I find Greg, waiting for me, filming me, to whom I give the good news.

We rush, trying not to slow down the truck, then after a while we realized that the truck is no longer following us. The road is quiet, too quiet. Where are the guys with their wood? Too far to turn back, we continue, forcing the rhythm, staring to the paniers that have the bad habit of falling when there is too much vibrations. I try to comfort myself, thinking of San Pedro where we pushed our bikes and nothing happened.

On the inside of a curve, a movement in the forest draws my attention. I see a man. No, both. Black face. No, hooded. Armed. Shit, they have guns! Adrenaline explodes, I completely release the brakes but I have to keep a close eye on the road. A stone in front of my wheel and I’ll fall. They yell at me, something in spanish, with their guns pointed in my direction. Everything happens in a second. Two seconds later and I’m already far, yelling at Greg who doesn’t hear me at all “Watch out there are guys with guns! “. He has already seen them, but they have had time to reach the road. There are about twenty yards between him and me.

Greg: I was in my thoughts when I see a guy going straight to me, the gun (I think) pointed in my direction. My first instinct is to shout “ Wow! Wow! Wow! Wow! ” as to say “ you dumb ! You scared me ! ” I need a second to really realize that this is not a joke, and I accelerate like hell to escape. And they shoot two seconds after I passed them, I lower my head !

Alex: I hear a bang. One to two seconds after, a second, this time followed by a dry sound of an impact close to me. If the second bullet was for me, where is the first ? I turn my head around constantly trying to see Greg as long as possible, tracking any indication confirming that he has been hit. At that time he also surpassed the two attackers and we pedal like madmen. I turn around three to four times before being reassured. We continue to hit the trail until the adrenaline drops. I think we cycled about two kilometers before we stopped.

Greg stopped in front of a sign announcing a vineyard. He wants to hide away and get help. I can already imagine the bandidas running after us and I am more inclined to continue to cycle down the mountain. We finally choose the vineyard. A panier falls. I pick it up and we keep going downhill. We see a truck, then two, then a large house that looks like a castle. Joy, civilization, help! No sign of man, but three German shepherds keep the house and start barking at us. Not bad buggers and they quickly wag their tails and let us go through.

We look at the house and then start cooking after half an hour. It is 1pm and all these emotions have given us an appetite. The owner chose that moment to make his appearance. We explain the reason for our presence on his lawn with two stoves and he immediately leaves by car to go get the police. He returns 20 minutes later, followed by a black truck of the municipal police. We finish eating and then load the bikes in the back of the truck by folding them quickly to fit the car. They bring us to Palyn, 15km further, slightly trespassing the law prohibiting them to get out of their jurisdiction, still in this small dirt road.

The volcano tour is canceled. No more small roads today. We will stick to the main road for a while, and it’s time to laugh at this story. Tomorrow we will cross the El Salvador border, also known to be dangerous. For us, there will be a border between us and our attackers, it feels good.

In such situations, it is often recommended not to show up any resistance and not to try anything. But the primary biological reflexes just took over the clever reflexion. Everything happened so quickly that only our legs responded present at the time, which for once was beneficial.

The church does is own promotion through paint too. At each corner, giant paints promise hell for non-believers who have the choice between 25 churches in town (for 15 000 inhabitants).

We don’t count the spanish schools anymore. Every 100 meters, a school/hostel offer you the best lessons in town. We hadn’t to think for too long, we just picked up the cheapest on internet.
We tried to called our school with Skype but microphones didn’t work. Finally, we ended up in a small shop where we could simply rent a phone for 3 quetzals (50 cents). We are then heading to our host family. We took a formula at 150$ for 20h lessons, food and room. But our cyclist diet obliged us to eat between the meals. Hopefully, Guatemala has bakery with a kind of french bread.

We are hosted by Jose, Maria and their 4 children. The house is rather small and the water is only coming three times a week (monday, wednesday and saturday). They first seem worried about us, to know if the room is good enough, but when we explained how we usually live,
Nous sommes hébergés chez Jose, Maria et leurs quatre enfants (de 2 à 12 ans). La maison est plutôt spartiate, et l’eau n’arrive du lac que les lundi, mercredi et samedi. Entre temps, on se sert des réserves. Ils semblent d’abord s’inquiéter de savoir si la chambre nous convient avant qu’on ne leur explique nos conditions de vie habituelles. Tout va bien, ils n’ont pas à rougir.

Lundi matin 8h, les cours commencent. Atmosphère détente, pas de programme précis même si le prof suit une espèce de ligne directrice qu’il adapte à notre niveau. On parle de participe passé puis de rugby, de gérondif et de bandits de la route. À 10h, pause casse-croûte. Cela dure presqu’une heure mais nous continuons de parler espagnol. Les cours se poursuivent ensuite jusqu’à midi et nous retournons prendre le déjeuner en famille.

Nous ne le savions pas avant de venir mais la ville est bardée de touristes chevelus qui donnent à la ville une espèce d’ambiance Woodstock végétarien. Nous nous tenons un peu à l’écart de tout ça, dans notre bulle. D’habitude, nous aimons bien rencontrer d’autres touristes dans les coins perdus. Si vous avez galéré comme un putois pour arriver à un point A et qu’un autre gringo a bien voulu se perdre tout autant que vous, il y a de grandes chances qu’une affinité se crée rapidement. Là, à part les cours d’espagnol, on a pas grand chose en commun avec les hordes de baba-cool descendus par vagues pour retrouver le paradis du saltimbanque. Les locaux semblent assez bien cohabiter avec tous ces touristes et restent souriants en toutes circonstances. Leur porte-monnaie en bénéficie aussi largement.

Le lac d’Atitlan est vraiment joli, souvent décrit par les voyageurs comme une des merveilles de leur voyage. Cerné par les montagnes et dominé par trois volcans, son niveau monte et descend au fil des séismes qui touchent le pays (ou selon un calendrier “magique” selon les Mayas, chacun son truc). On peut évidemment s’y baigner, même si l’eau est assez rafraîchissante à 1500mm d’altitude et que les locaux n’ont aucun mal à jeter toutes leurs saloperies dedans. Une fois de plus dans un pays sous-développé, ce ne sont pas les touristes qui polluent le plus, mais les locaux. Beaucoup prennent par exemple leur bain dans le lac et laissent systématiquement trainer les échantillons “Head & Shoulders” sur le rivage. Un soir, alors que nous abordions le problème de la pollution avec les responsables de notre école, ceux-ci cherchaient à dédouaner la population par quelques sauts rhétoriques mal venus. Par exemple, si vous achetez une canette de Coca-Cola et que vous la balancez comme un malpropre sur la chaussée, Coca-Cola serait en parti responsable. Et puis, ils ne savent pas comment gérer la problème des déchets plastiques car il n’existe pas de mot en Tzuturil pour “plastique”. Oui, oui, nous aussi avant d’inventer le mot on ne le connaissait pas. Dans tous les cas, ça n’empêche pas de voir que la rue est pleine d’immondices quand on agit comme un sagouin.

Pour le reste de la semaine, les progrès linguistiques ont été assez épatants pour seulement 5 jours de cours. Le fait d’avoir de bonnes bases avant d’arriver (45h de cours audio sur le vélo) a tout de même grandement aidé.

http://www.deuxsingesenhiver.com/?p=2315 Lire la suite →]]> End of Mexico is slowly coming. Slowly because of a face wind we had from a long time. It’s sometimes so violent that we need to stop every 50 meters to see the circulation coming behind. When the wind push on the side, we push on the other side and if a truck is coming at this moment… paf the cyclist! Hopefully, the wind turned and finally ended as a tail wind.

Our first Mayas ruins on the roads, three small pyramids. Archeological sites doesn’t always deserve a detour to see it, especially by bicycle.
The kind of place we visit only if it’s at less than 1 km. So, yes, we visit, all day. But not necessary the famous spots or historic places. During 80km or 100km a day, we see what is nice and what is not. We haven’t seen Chichen-Itza or Mexico (It would be an occasion to come back) but we know than Mexicans throw as much as garbages in the nature than Chinese, and than Mexican music is stayed blocked in the 70’s. And this is not in the Lonely Planet.

Finally, we reached the Guatemala border. Our first wild land border since the one between Indonesia and Papua 2 years ago. On the Mexican side, a Mexican stop us to warn me about all the problems I will have at the border and immediately propose me a guide for “only 300 pesos”. It’s so nice… We laugh and head to the real border where everything was as easy as possible. No fees, no paper, 5 minutes, a stamp and adios Amigos!

The other country now. It’s already looking messy. Some cash changers are heading to us with heaps of notes clapping in their hands, while others invite us to stamp our passports between two tuc-tucs. We know since a long time that when there is a tuc-tuc, there is a trick. We are looking for the real office for 10 minutes, still surrounded by the same obstinated sellers in spite of our refusals. Once at the bureau of immigration, we are going in one by one to check the ten people around the bicycles. When they understand they won’t get anything with us, our relations become more friendly. Passports stamped, bis repetita, nothing to pay.
Some of them tried a last time to sale us an other stamp. Just to be sure?

People look more smiling in Guatemala, houses are cleaner, gardens nicer, pigs cross the street in the middle of the villages and prices are more expensive. If the roads seemed cleaner too at the first look, they quickly reached the mexican standard of dirtiness. They are not more concerned with nature than their neighbors, even with the threats of expensive fines. We just see or smell less crushed dogs on the asphalt. You can imagine what we feel when we are out of breathe. The kind of details only cyclists notice…

Shotguns are growing everywhere in the country. We were used to see weapons in Mexico but Guatemala love shotguns. In petrol station a civil is always armed with it, at the supermarket, the bus stations and even at the small tiendas where they sale 3 tortillas and two sodas. Everybody is ready for fighting. Construction sites as well. I don’t know if it’s reassuring or not but it’s now an everyday detail.

Our first destination in Guatemala is San Pedro La Laguna near the Atitlan lake where we have to spend a week in a school to improve our spanish. No road is very attractive and all very steeped. Our first attempt is a fail. After 3 km in a paved road, a local warned us of bandidas in the area and that the road is nearly impraticable. Suspicious, we asked to others locals and we can’t get a clear answer. It’s either possible or impossible. Sometime cars can go, sometimes not. We finally decide to take another way and to stick with the main road this time.

The next day, 22km of rising is waiting us until the lake. According to an old guy, there is 19km more until San Pedro (there will be more than 35…). At the next village, another old timer warn us about bandidas on the road and try… to put us on his boat. OK OK, this guy wants to freak us out and get our money, we don’t trust him. We cycle 5km more and the road is now a dirt road, steeped and dusty. We have to push the bike on 3 km. At this moment, we cross a police car who tell us not staying here cause of the bandidas. What?! It’s not a joke?

Well, we won’t U-turn now. We are a bit afraid now, it’s 4pm and there no one else on the road for half an hour. We remains silent, observing every tree, each field. It’s useless but we are stressed. We reach 2000m high now, the asphalt is coming back and… cars! Hopefully! Other cops cross our way without a word, we are out of danger. It’s time to arrive in San Pedro after 5h of bicycle at 12km/hour. Surely one of our most tiring day of cycling. Tomorrow, the courses are beginning and we now need to reach our guide in town before night. But compare to everything else, it sounds über easy!