Today we hit the road after three weeks off the bikes. Our 18 days in Xela were great, and we learned a lot of Spanish, but for the most part, we were ready to start riding again. We missed our active lifestyle and being on the road.

We (OK, mostly Bethany) were a little nervous about getting started on foreign soil, but our first day went smoothly. We climbed to get out of Xela, but then descended for about 40 km… what a breeze! That is certainly a benefit of starting in the mountains. We headed south toward the Pacific Coast to get on CA-2, which we have heard will be flat all the way into El Salvador.

We had a pretty great view of the mountains as we rode out of Xela! And yes, that is trash everywhere on the side of the road... pretty common issue here.

Random waterfall we rode past on day 1

The only mishap today was small, and can be blamed on the ridiculous number of speed bumps in the roads here. Last night, we spent about an hour working to prepare a homemade pepper spray to use as dog repellant. We went to the market and bought the most picante (hot!) peppers we could find, then came home and ground them up into powder to mix with water. We put this concoction in a small water gun we bought at a toy store. We have been meaning to buy dog repellant pepper spray for months and just haven’t found it. So now we had our own version, which would be kept on my (Bethany’s) bike. But alas, one of the more intense speed bumps, the water gun fell out of the side pocket of my handlebar bag just in time for me to run over it with my back tire. It was destroyed instantly. What a disappointment!

Our days here in Central America will be much shorter, somewhere between 35-40 miles on average (vs. 60-70 in the U.S. ). We’ll also be staying in more hotels and hostels, since camping isn’t really “normal” here and it would be easy for our bikes to get stolen. We paid 80 quetzales for the room we’re in now (which is about $11), and we have our own private bathroom and everything… not bad! We also went to the “dispensa,” which is a super cheap grocery store and bought food for tomorrow as well as a liter of strawberry cheesecake ice cream to celebrate my birthday!

Our first Guatemalan hotel room... not very big, but it works!

Pretty great to be able to watch an active volcano as you ride along!