We’re in the home stretch of a journey where we’ve swung for the fences…and I simply don’t want to stop riding with Holly. We’ve settled into such an easy routine these past five weeks: up relatively early, find breakfast, pack the bike, find fuel, rain gear on, rain gear off, make new friends, constantly be amazed.
The gear, as always happens on a long sojourn, has found its own places to be. We pop open a saddlebag and easily find our water bottles, sunglasses or camera. The large green waterproof bag that forms part of the cocoon which envelopes Holly carries the gear we seldom use. Our camping equipment has gone untouched as the kindness of others has rendered it unnecessary to this point.
So, in essence, our journey is comprised of various rhythms now: the rhythm of the gear and how it has gently migrated to where it needs to be, the rhythm of the motorcycle and the various sounds it makes throughout the day’s ride, and the rhythm of the road as we weave and pass and brake for errant chickens.
Having ridden these roads a few times in the past, I can’t help but compare their current state to how they were in 1987,1991 and 1994. They have all vastly improved with a few exceptions. Nicaragua gets the award for best paved roads in Central America so far. Glassy pavement, banked curves, a biker’s dream. Honduras has so many internal issues right now that I hate to pile on more but there are potholes along their portion of the Pan American highway that would swallow a cow. Guatemala loves her speed bumps even more than boisterous Mexico but it does serve to keep your speed fairly honest.
I was also struck by how clean the Mexican highways were compared to previous journeys. 20 years is obviously enough time for a generation of children to be raised to not throw their trash out the bus window. There were signs everywhere reminding people to not litter. This same program will hopefully be adopted by the countries south of Mexico as there have been some staggering incidents of litter as we drift further south.
We’ve been riding hard these past five days, trying to sync our daily departures and arrivals with the various border crossings. I knew before we started that most of my mental energy would be spent in the final week and this has proved to be the case. The border crossing between Canada and the U.S. was by far the easiest. I had the passports ready along with the document Mary and I had painstakingly prepared stating that Holly was allowed to travel with me through Latin America. It was a slow afternoon at the border, cold and rainy, and the border guard actually came out of his little booth to talk with me…about the bike. What kind it was, how was the maintenance, was it good on gravel roads? I tried to show him the permission document and he waived it away. Welcome to the United States. Easy peasy.
The Mexico and U.S. Border at McAllen/Reynosa was equally simple but much slower. The U.S. guard didn’t even lift his head as we rode past him across the bridge separating the two countries. He just waived me on. Then we had the great misfortune of catching someone with about two days on the job on the Mexican side and she was bound and determined to check each and every digit and letter in my documents. Two hours. Holly stood watch outside by the bike the whole time.
Crossing from Mexico into Belize was equally simple, though again a little slow. The kind Mexican border guard actually suggested that I keep my bike deposit open until I returned in February as it would save me the time of having to create new documents. The Belizean side of the border was the site of our first insect spraying and the first lines of people queuing up for the immigration stamp for their passport but again I was the solo vehicle entering so the customs portion went quickly. I had to purchase mandatory insurance but it was only $6.
Leaving Belize less than 24 hours later was quick and painless. The Guatemalan side, scene of many frustrating border crossings in the past for me, was again quick and efficient. Something strange was happening here: this was now a far easier process than my previous journeys. The money changers and offers of border helpers now began but we politely declined and they wandered away.
Days later, I was sure we’d be tested at the El Salvador border as we had chosen to enter through a little used mountain crossing instead of the normal crowded Pan American Highway crossing. Our friend Willy Castellón accompanied us on his motorcycle on the paved twisty road as it wove up to the border and when we arrived, we were surprised to see Nelson Marroquin, a Facebook aquaintance who had decided to ride his Ducati all the way from San Salvador to meet us at the border to ease our entry into his country. Again, this crossing was very simple, very professional and…slow. They shuffle paper, have you make copies at little kiosks beside the immigration buildings and did not ask for a dime. There are even signs up on the windows stating that it’s against the law for the border guards to ask for money. Indeed, the only charges along the way have been import charges for the motorcycle and even these have been dramatically reduced in the past 25 years.
Days later the fun began: Honduras. We had waited a day in a town in El Salvador near the Honduras border so we would be crossing on a weekday, as recommended by many other recent travellers. We decided to try a double border crossing as we were not comfortable spending more time than necessary in Honduras with their current political climate. We hit the border early and we were immediately besieged by about 15 men, all yelling and waving their laminated badges in my face, begging for me to pick one of them to be our border helper. I couldn’t even get off the bike. I’ve prided myself on remaining calm the entire journey for Holly’s sake but I could sense her unease from their aggressive nature and I began to boil. “You’re scaring my daughter,” I shouted, throwing my visor up. I told them to back away from the bike but they were like a pack of frenzied dogs, all yapping because the others were yapping. It got so bad that a nearby border guard with a machine gun waded into the fray and asked them in a calm voice to stop and move away.
I had Holly step off the bike and go under an awning to get out of the sun and then I had words with the jackals. They weren’t at all a physical threat, they just desperately wanted to be picked and paid to guide us through the border. I explained that I had done this many times in the past and the process was simple. They replied that I absolutely needed one of them to guide me through the labyrinth of offices on both sides of this famously annoying frontier. Just then a giant New Zealander rolled up on a tiny Suzuki 125 with Guatemalan plates, saw these buffoons crowding me and Holly and roared for them to leave us in peace, tastefully using the F word to great effect.
Peter had been travelling the world since retiring seven years earlier. He asked what we were doing there and I told him about our Motorcycle for Miracles journey and he told me he’d lost his 33-year old son a few years earlier to a brain tumour. The pain of his great loss was still very evident in his voice. We decided to scoot through the borders together. At that very moment, two BMW motorcycles pulled alongside us and we had a motorcycle party. Originally from Scotland, Darren and Caryl had shipped their BMW enduros to the US and were riding from Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina.
So we left El Salvador and entered Honduras together. Again, the process was very slow but we were relieved to be halfway through our most challenging day. Peter at some point decided to ride on without us as he was only able to ride at slow speeds due to the size of his bike. So it was just us and the Scots now. We blasted through Honduras in record time and soon found ourselves approaching the Honduras-Nicaragua border via a beautiful mountain road with motorcycle twists and motorcycle turns and we arrived with plenty of time to spare.
Again the Hondurans surprised me with their professionalism. This border crossing is a place forever etched in my mind because in early 1988 during the war in Nicaragua and I had a green canteen of water seized at gunpoint by the Honduran border guards and they made me remove every single item from my bags and lay them all in the dirt. Things had changed dramatically in the years since.
The beautiful cushion of time we had built up quickly evaporated when we met Tommy Two-Thumbs on the Nicaraguan side of the border. This guy was astounding. This was the epitome of a protected government worker because he set out typing on the computer and cared nothing about the quickly building line of people behind us, all trying to enter Nicaragua. He couldn’t find Scotland on his drop-down menu for the motorcycle importation documents so after half an hour (!) he just decided to go with Estonia and printed their documents. I could smell rain building in the already humid air and we were losing daylight fast so we were glad to finally receive all of our documents and be on our way. As I was putting away my paperwork, Holly said, “Dad, I did a really good thing.”
“What did you do, sweetie?” I asked.
“There were all of these sad starving dogs everywhere and these mean girls were trying to kick them so I gave them the rest of our granola.” My eye twitched.
“And then more dogs came, so I gave them our crackers.” Another twitch.
“And then a mom doggy came and she looked so hungry I gave her your beef jerky.” Twitch twitch twitch.
“You gave her my jerky? The jerky I was looking forward to eating right now?”
“Uh huh…”
Love that kid’s heart…but I really loved that beef jerky.
On the bike again, this time rolling down from the high mountain pass separating Honduras and Nicaragua. It was one of the most visually stunning moments of our journey, with emerald green valleys and a high-walled canyon, dark clouds above and two broad rainbows…which meant rain. Lots of rain. And it came in hard and fast and slicked the beautiful pavement and soaked our pants quickly. We had to make up for time so we all forged ahead through the storm and an hour and a half later pulled into Estelí in the dark and found a room and much needed sleep. We had been on the road riding and sluggishly moving through the borders for over 12 hours, our longest day of the trip.
