Otherwise, I've met some pretty awesome people here in Antigua. Some at a bar and more later at a house warming party. After some beers with some fellow motorcyclists we all make plans to head to the beach for the weekend. The seven of us left for the beach the following morning. When we took off everything was sunshine and puppy dog tails. Now we did hear rumors about the road being in a bad condition from the previous couple of days of rain, but armed with motorcycles and confidence there was no stopping us. After about an hour of smooth sailing we find the road was completely under water. Now what? Find another route? Go back? Nope. We're going through. It's about a half mile of waist high water, so screw it, I hope bike is amphibious. Turns out with a few little sputters and minor malfunctions all of the bikes make it through. On top of the world we all take pictures, exchange high fives, and congratulate ourselves. We move on only to find that the first crossing was only one of about a dozen. Some deeper, some longer, often forcing us to walk our bikes through the water. After a couple of extra hours, we all make it and I'm definitely glad I bought an adventure touring motorcycle because that was wicked fun with the right equipment. Here's some pictures:
After the rather long, but rather fun travel ordeal we finally end up in our weekend destination: Hawaii, Guatemala. It's a gorgeous black volcanic sand beach that's much nicer then the one in Maui. The sand is soft and the waves are swimmable, as long as you have the balls to mess with consistent 6 to 8 footers. After a nice swim and a little rest we all head out to the see turtle hatchery. It's a nice place on the beach where a bunch of good hearted volunteers store turtle eggs so that they can be released into the wild. This is where it gets interesting because sea turtles are a very touchy subject. Our guide would be content to hug / snuggle / talk about sea turtles all day long which I find pretty hilarious. Here's why: sea turtle eggs are pretty valuable in Guatemala, depending on the season they can go for two to five dollars a dozen. They sell well because the locals have the belief that since turtles can have sex for two days at a time, this magical power somehow transfers into the eggs. Now the turtle loving Americans and Europeans can't even begin to fathom why locals are taking the beautiful and innocent eggs and selling them for consumption. (BTW, the locals have probably been doing this for hundreds of years.) So there has been lots of foreign effort made to save the turtle eggs. Which only one in a thousand will actually make it to adulthood. Now don't get me wrong, I honestly don't view this as a bad thing, it's just really funny to see so many foreigners so passionate about these fucking turtles when there are some other pretty heavy problems out there. So as you can imagine all my well timed baby turtle / boner getting / egg eating jokes didn't go over so well with the people outside of my group. Whatever, all you turtle heroes need to get a sense of humor. Oh! And while I'm being super cynical. Fuck people who pretty much stop while going over speed bumps. You suck.
On a brighter note. I really enjoyed the beach, good company, good setting, good food, and a bright sun shinning day. All of which make me a happy man. After some good beach bumming, the group has been talked into a tour of the local mangroves AKA swamp and bug tour. As you can guess the mangroves were also flooded, so the water level was pretty high. Making another little water adventure. It was fun dodging trees and overhanging branches. There were always some pretty huge bugs and spiders to keep you on you toes too. After a while I finally got to see the the lagoon. Which was pretty beautiful. It really seems that Guatemala is pretty great in the ways of tourism and landscape. It's too bad Costa Rica gets all the Central American street cred because Guatemala really has a lot to offer. I've had a long splendid stay here in Antigua, but tomorrow I'm hitting the road east to the next country on the list: El Salvador.
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