I did have a few draft posts on my laptop, but unfortunately, along with most of my other possessions this was stolen along with the bike. The end of the trip was not a pleasant experience and I have not rushed to write up my final thoughts. I'll try to recap as much as I can but I think the details will be sparse for this section of he trip.
An inevitable consequence of the local political geography and our schedule was that we would go through a border almost every day until we reached Mexico. As I've described in earlier posts, there is nothing difficult about border crossings, but they are time consuming and frustrating. From pointless, outdated bureaucracy to seemingly petty charges and bribes. The daily millage was not reduced, if anything the pace was stepped up compared to earlier in the trip. The end result of all this was much of Central America passing in a blur (often in the dark).
I feel that if I was writing about the journey through Central America in isolation, I would be talking about the stunning scenery, amazing roads and the mini adventures we had. In reality this part of the trip really was totally over shadowed by South America - multiple crossing of the Andes and the incredible Rutta 40 are a ridiculously hard act to follow, and ultimately the theft of two bikes, the support truck and Jim the drivers personal experience.
One highlight was Copan Ruinas in Honduras. How can a canopy tour by 14 zip lines, one over a kilometer long and falling off a horse not be a highlight? We arrived in Copan Ruinas looking forward to a day off the bikes. For many of us there was very little maintenance required, major work had either just been carried out or, as in my case, was scheduled for our first night in the US. The hotel was reasonable and had a nice pool. I guess he was a tout for the tour companies and restaurants who had spotted a large tour group arriving, but a local bloke called Jesus was very helpful. We arranged a horse ride up above the Mayan ruins followed by a zip line tour back down.
Everything started off sedately as we meandered along and through the river, indulging in wild west fantasies it was a fun way to get out of town and see the jungle. While others in the group appeared to manage OK when the horses decided to pick up the pace, I was not quite so lucky. I will blame it on a loose saddle rather than my lack of skill, but I ended up hanging on to the horses neck, finally sliding to the floor as he finally stopped. Vince had a similar experience and ended up with a cut lip after hitting the saddle with his face. The rest of the group were understandably amused.
The zip line tour gave us an even better view of the jungle, though the view of the ruins themselves was pretty poor. We started off on a reasonable short and slow line, though it did go over some pretty large drops over the valley below. The lines got faster and after a few shorter rides we slid down the 1 kilometer line. In reality I'm sure we not going that fast, but it felt as though we got a fair but of speed up. All too soon we were all the way down and we mounted the horses for the short trek back down the river to the town.
One other event worth mentioning was the sight of the local mafia patrolling the town in there blinged up pickup truck and chromed shotguns, not that there was ever any threatening behaviour towards us.
After the day off we continued on our journey through Honduras, Guatemala and on to Mexico.
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