. My heart sank as I hit the road to Flores. Once again, I had to crawl along another twenty odd miles of gravel before I reached hard blacktop and the chance to pull back the throttle and put some miles down.. My heart sank as I hit the road to Flores. Once again, I had to crawl along another twenty odd miles of gravel before I reached hard blacktop and the chance to pull back the throttle and put some miles down.
I arrived at Flores, and couldn’t resist the pull of the first restaurant I came across, MacDonald’s. After a quick quarter pounder, I saddled up and rode along the bridge to reach the island in the lake and without no trouble I found Los Amigos, parked the Harley in their reception, and settled into my new home for the next few days.
Jacquie had e-mailed me while I was in Belize and was going to fly back to Cancun in a few days, and then bus it down to Antigua to meet me.

I spent a couple of days on the lake, took a boat out to one of the islands on the lake and rode out to the amazing ruins at Tikal. I spent a great day walking around the site and the jungle paths, spotting my first Toucans. The howler monkeys were living up to their name, but kept out of sight, the spider monkeys were the troublesome ones, throwing fruits and seeds at me, and peeing in my general direction from the canopy of trees overhead.

I bumped into Andy again, my Canadian buddy who I had met in Baja, and he in turn had met some cool Texans who were self confessed Chupacabra hunters, in search of the mythical Latin American equivalent of the Yeti. We all headed out on my last night for a party in the Chupacabra Hunters camper van, and Andy introduced my to Alex and Thomas, a pair of Norwegians who were also travelling south, in a 1971 VW Camper they had bought from Frank Zappa’s first drummer. We all drank a little too much, and I left with the party getting a touch messy in the wee hours of the morning.

Next day, once again, I packed the bike and headed south for Rio Dolce.
A few hours of riding in more glorious Guatemalan sunshine, and I was on the shores of the river that led out to the Caribbean sea. I stopped on the bridge to take a photo, and just when I was getting back on the bike, I saw the Norwegians VW Camper approaching. It was hard to miss with the sharks’ teeth painted across the front, and behind the van was Andy. Reunited again!

We stopped and chatted on the bridge before heading of together to the hostel at the other end of the bridge. An evening of shenanigans followed, and the next morning we all jumped in a boat with two girls who were volunteering at the hospital, teaching the local kids English in return for free room and board.

We took a trip up the river stopping off at a hot spring that was way to hot to even dip a toe in, before heading on to the very Caribbean town of Livingston. We strolled along the beach, stopped for a long lunch, and then went back to the dock and got back on the boat to return to Rio Dulce.
The girls were pretty fed up of their volunteer work, and decided to jump ship and head off in the Norwegian’s camper van the next day to come with our newly formed posse to Lanquin.

I left with the Norwegians, following their van for the first hour or so, while Andy took his KLR on the Northern dirt road. I was soon quite bored of 50mph, and waved goodbye to the van and its cargo and headed off alone at a more comfortable pace.


The trip to Lanquin was another great ride, except for the last 15 miles of bumpy dirt road to the hostel at Lanquin, El Retiro.
I met up with Andy, and the next day, the Norwegians arrived too.