Hobobiker.com

Central America Blog (In Order)

This section is the Central America part of our Big Trip from "the north pole to the south pole", in the first part of 2007.

Feel free to email send us a note with any questions or comments.

Patchwork quilt to honor the dead and disappeared of the civil war

rfay

During the 1980's peak of the Guatemalan civil war, the area where we are was devastated by the army's attempt to root out the guerrillas, whom they could never seem to find. So seemingly they just destroyed all the villages and killed anybody who lived near a piece of communist graffiti. Entire regions of the highlands were deserted due to destruction and the flight of the people. Many fled to Mexico and the US, where some remain.

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Evangelicals and Catholicism in Guatemala

rfay

The Catholic churches in Mexico just wore us out. Every little town had an incredibly glorious cathedral that just amazed. The Spanish did a mighty fine job converting the folks in most of Mexico. However, as we got into southern Oaxaca and Chiapas, we started noticing that the Catholic churches were smaller and less ornate (and less tended) and we started seeing more little Evangelical churches.

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A Day of Joy and Poverty

nancy

Today was full of sights, events and people. We traveled by bus several hours to visit two villages outside of Chimaltenango, El Cojobal and Comalapa . It was a day full of extremes: happiness and complete sadness. I saw the poverty these hard working industrious people have to fight every moment of their lives.

It took us two hours to get to the meeting in the morning. We took a bus, walked 45 minutes up along a mountain ridge and then tromped through a maze of cornfields, farm land and dirt paths. Even though we were 45 minutes late, the women were delighted to see us. No gringos had ever come to visit them in their homes and asked questions about their daily lives. They were all very welcoming and excited to talk with us and have their photos taken. They were also glad to see us because the head of the Chimaltenango office of Friendship Bridge brought the checks for their next 6-month loan. The women were quite happy with this day. The atmosphere was charged with good vibes.

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Sticks to a Walker - Thanks to a great ministry

rfay


Isabel Guitz with her sticks
Isabel Guitz with her new walker
Isabel with her walker
A few days ago I went to the home of Reyes Espantzan in Tecpan to take her picture with her weaving. While I was there, her landlord Isabel (I thought it was her mother at the time) begged me to take her picture too. She's not a Friendship Bridge client or anything, but oh well. Digital photos are free! She said "maybe somebody will see me with my sticks and send me a walker". Well, I just wrote down her name and thought nothing more of it.

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We wrote a little book: The Women of Friendship Bridge in Guatemala

rfay

We have been so taken with the wonderful women of Guatemala and their inspiring stories that we compiled the stories and pictures into a little book. It's only 40 pages, not much of a book, but it does a pretty decent job of capturing what's really happening with Friendship Bridge and Kiva.

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Sidelined by Sickness: Whooping Cough!

rfay

Well, if you've been wondering whether we fell off the edge of the world, the basic answer is "yes". We flew to Denver on September 1 for a "quick" visit with our parents, and unknowingly brought Pertussis, or Whooping Cough, home with us. It's a nasty disease, and it ruined all our plans and is keeping us here for some time yet (we were supposed to fly back to Guatemala on September 18, and we have no idea when we'll be well enough and strong enough to go back).

Nancy is now getting quite a bit better is able to get out and around, but Randy is still having horrible spasms of coughing. This can last up to three months or more.

The good things about this? We don't seem to have infected anybody else (cross your fingers), and we've been staying with Randy's daughter Elisheba in her house in Denver, and it's been a delight. And Elisheba had the adult Pertussis vaccination this year, so has not gotten and is not likely to get it. Pretty lucky, huh? Almost anybody else we stayed with would have gotten it from us.

The Pertussis vaccine for adults is new - just a couple of years old. We sure do recommend it to you. This is a horrible disease.

Don't worry about us. We're going to be OK and we're going to get back to Guatemala. Nancy is certainly past the worst, and Randy should be getting there before long.

Here is a poem Nancy wrote one night lying on the couch-

Why do we feel so sick?
For 5 miserable weeks
I have been terrible ill
We came home from Central America
to visit our family and make sure all was well.
The irony is they are all fine
and we are not.



















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Where we are and what we're up to - Mid-October 2007

rfay

Nancy using bicycle transportation - the easy kind
Photo: Nancy using easier bike transport going to visit a borrower in El Tejar
(Here's the message we just sent out to the mailing list...)

Hi All! We hadn't send out a message for *forever* so wanted to let you know where we are. The last time we sent you a note, we were having a wonderful time as volunteers for Friendship Bridge and Kiva.org, taking pictures of the clients of Friendship Bridge, interviewing them, and posting their stories on Kiva.org where people all over the world funded their loans. We posted over 100 profiles, from more than 100 interviews with these marvelous women, and each loan was funded within a few hours by generous people in the first world.


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Donde estamos, Octubre de 2007

rfay

Nancy using bicycle transportation - the easy kind
Foto: Nancy aprendiendo una forma mas suave de viajar por bicicleta
(Aquí está el mensaje que ya mandamos a la lista de email......)

!Saludos a todos nuestos queridos amigos¡ Hace mucho tiempo no habíamos mandado un mensaje, y quisimos informarles de donde estamos. La ultima vez que mandamos una nota, estábamos trabajando con mucha felicidad como voluntarios para Puente de Amistad y Kiva.org, entrevistando a las clientas microempresarias de Puente de Amistad y subiendo sus fotos al website de Kiva para que los inversores de Kiva (personas normales in todas partes del mundo) puedan hacer préstamos. Sacamos mas de 100 entrevistas, y cada préstamo se fundó en pocas horas en la website de Kiva.


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Move to Palisade, Colorado

nancy

We are staying in Colorado until the beginning of 2008, at which time we will continue our trip to the bottom of South America. Why, you ask, well mostly to get healthy and get rid of the long lasting affects if whooping cough. One way to do this is to exercise daily which we believe we will be able to do here even in the winter. So we will take this opportunity and explore the western part of Colorado.

We have decided to relocate for two months to Palisade, Colorado where Randy's parents live. We will hang out with them and help out as we can. Randy will get some work doing website design and I will continue with my new profession. Painting. Not the wall type, but the type you do on paper which is called art. Palisade is such a beautiful place with wine vineyard and orchards through out the valley and surrounded by towering mesa called the Bookcliffs, the Colorado National Monument and the grandest of the grandest mesa called Grand Mesa. The sun in this part of the world is crisp with a golden rays brightly eliminating the landscape. Can you tell I am excited?

We are staying in migrant housing (normally used by Mexican workers here at Talbott's orchards) because they have all left for the season and there is lots of room for a couple of hobobikers. We have two roommates, Ryota who speaks Japanese and Artemio who speaks only Spanish. Our view out of the bunk house bedroom is looking at the sun rise of the towering Grand Mesa and the sunsets illuminating them and the orchards that all around our quarters. Read more · Lee más

Our trip so far - The Big Picture

rfay

We've finally started figuring out what to do with our GPS, and I'm a map nut, so we have lots of geographic information coming your way now - including the details of our Mexico/Guatemala section. But here's the whole things so far: You can zoom in, use satellite view, lots of things. Most of the pictures we've taken on this part of the trip now have geographic information, too.

Update: More in-depth maps are now available for each region and even daily for the entire trip

Podcast: Friendship Bridge Women We Remember from Nebaj

rfay

We remember so very many women and have so many stories to tell from our time in Guatemala - we thought we'd just tell a few stories.

Maria Brito

To get to Maria Brito's house, we rode our bikes just up into the skirts of the valley where Nebaj is. As you leave the city (or town, really) you end up right away in green cornfields with people's houses scattered among them. Before long, you get to the end of the electricity lines, and well beyond the paved road, and end up on a muddy track headed up the hill. That's where Maria's house is. When we first met her, we thought "Oh, she's pretty poor" because she lived in a shack that she herself would not consider a house, with no electricity and with the water spigot across the road (at least she had one). But like many of the women we met, her dignity and friendliness transformed her right before our eyes from someone to be pitied into a woman to be honored, repected, and treasured. Read more · Lee más

Treats for Geeks, Geography Nuts, and Bike Tourists going to Mexico

rfay

You might wonder what we're doing with all this time off here in Palisade, Colorado. Well we intended to be riding and trying to get into shape, but winter has now set in...

But here's what I've been up to . If you're a computer geek or a geography nut or a bike tourist planning to go to Mexico, you'll probably like it. Otherwise you'll think I'm crazy.

Our new Mexico Route Section has the complete and accurate maps of where we went in Mexico, down to daily detail. Each region in Mexico has an overview map with some narrative about our route (how the road was, what the best sights were, etc.) Then at the bottom of each regional map are links to the daily detail, with a map of the day's ride and an elevation profile, and downloads of the .gps and .kml files.

Geography geeks of the world, unite! Thanks to Google Maps for their incredible free services (and the fact that they turned on imagery for Mexico and Central America a few weeks ago).

Enjoy the new Mexico Route Section. And the Guatemala Route Section is ready too... But we have more to do with that one!

New features on hobobiker.com

rfay

I've been working on some new features for you in our downtime before we go back to Guatemala:
  • The forum is a place for people to discuss our trip or other issues about bike touring or Latin America. To post there you need to (painlessly) create a new account.
  • There's now a contact form on the menu that you can use to contact us - it's easier than pasting our email into your email client.
  • The "Trip Info" section now gives full geographic information about where we are and where we've been, including maps and gps files.
  • If you're using a newer browser like Internet Explorer 7 or Firefox, you'll see pull-down menus at the top of the page. This makes navigation easier and we can use the page more effectively.

How do you like our new banner?

nancy

Our new website banner is a combination of 3 photos taken in Guatemala. Two photos of volcanoes along Lake Atilan Guatemala are merged together displaying three volcanoes along the lake. The other photograph which is superimposed on the volcanoes is a handmade quilt I saw at a market in Chichicastenango. The quilt tells a story of the Mayan's belief of natural forces such as volcanos, and seasons and the culture of the people of this part of the world. Many panels of this quilt illustrated the family and the strong bonds the Guatemalans have to the family and the community and the ancient beliefs of their ancestors.

Our bike touring gear

nancy




Click on the picture for a larger view

Lots of people ask what bikes we used for the trip, so here they are.

We both used Specialized Stumpjumpers with front shocks, trekking handling bars with extenders, Old Man Mountain racks, Ortlieb panniers, kickstand, wide touring tires from Continental and 36 spoke wheels.

In Peru, Randy switched from panniers to a BOB trailer. See the update and the picture on the right.

We both started out with Brooks saddles but both of us switched to various version of the Terry Liberator Y - we never did get comfortable with the Brooks saddles, despite waiting thousands of miles and the rave recommendations of so many people. Neither one of us use clipless pedals - we just use regular shoes with flat pedals. We always wear a helmet and use a marvellous helmet mounted rear view mirror. We ride with riding shorts for comfort. Read more · Lee más