for a whole day in the wrong direction, but we are going to the Caribbean Ocean, but I'll start this entry with the crossing of the border to Honduras.
The map only showed a railroad - no street, but we were told there is a road (and a border crossing) and it was confirmed as we asked around the closer we got. My sweet Gurly (as in Surly- Girl - my bike) started skipping the chain and it was discovered that the middle and the small chain ring as well as the chain itself and therefor the cassette is worn out. A detour to the town of Puerto Barrios was in order in hopes for some parts and as we rode the extra 15 km north and passed our turn off to the Honduran border, the front derailleur stopped working and I couldn't change gears no more- stuck in the small ring...
I had just thought of the fact, that we have come to the last part of our journey for this year, a mere 1100km, no more than something like 700miles, like from San Francisco to San Diego .......We can do it, we had done it in less than 7 days last December and when we took our sweet time this May, it took us 12 days. Just when I started to relax..... The detour was ok, 30km round trip....though the town was nothing special, the trucks sucked and so did the air quality. This was about business, but we couldn't find the parts, so we fixed the cable-housing for the derailleur and decided Gurly can make it to San Jose, Costa Rica this way. The sun had come out in the morning (we spend the night in Puerto Barrio) and the border crossing was uneventful. We passed Chiquita and other huge fruit company owned land, the jungle has been cut and I got the eery feeling of cheap labor in every unfair form imaginable........
We had a dirt road scoped out leading us more directly to the pacific coast though the main road was leading only towards the Caribbean, around the mountains to the north. We weren't able to confirm this route, but we went for it. Well first it took us a while to find it and when we thought we did, we felt pretty good, riding the dirt the mud and the beautiful country. We kept asking and were confirmed mentioning the little villages we would pass on the way. San Juan a little village about a third of the dirt route until we would hit pavement again was our goal for the night. The road was rough and we walked some steeper sections - all good and when we reached some houses, we were pretty sure here it is: San Juan. We asked to confirm and got a blank look - this road ends in the river that borders Guatemala...
Sad but true. The nice young woman let us pitch our tent in her front yard and told us: tranquilo - we figure out in the morning how to get back on the right track, but the road we were looking for is high up in the mountains, she said, while it was pouring down rain and she handed us each a glass of water.
It rained all night and the road back as well as the road we hoped to take (we never saw it) were impassible at this point. We packed the tent up soaking wet and while it kept pouring we hired a 4WD truck, paid him $15 and were trucked out of there. No other road seemed available in the direction we wanted to go, so, only option was to go the opposite way ( north again) around the mountains to Puerto Cortes about 150 km out of the way - now, that sucks in my book and it rained all day. While riding, drinking the water running off my face I felt like a fish (out) in the water, I was thinking of all the things I was grateful for and I couldn't find any....
