In the Yucatan, we rode from the Gulf of Mexico to the Atlantic, and we visited beaches, Mayan ruins, and even Mayan ruins on beaches. We experienced the Yucatan's modernity, along with its ancient history and traditional culture in some of the most gorgeous and iconic settings on earth.

Chacchoben Ruins, Quintana Roo, Mexico

We ran into another 2-up couple on an Africa Twin; enter Phil and Sapna. We crossed the rest of the Central American borders with them, strength in numbers! The girls would hang out by the bikes while Phil and I got all the paperwork sorted. We would go our separate ways once in a country to explore our different interests (they were ruined out by that time). But, we would plan to meet back up a day before the next border crossing. This ended up working out great.
 

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In Belize, we avoided the coast at all costs... literally. It gets pretty expensive on the coast as it is a tourist hub for scuba divers, sky divers, and boat tours. We checked out more ruins in central Belize, and even experienced a small earthquake in one of the rickety concrete hotels we stayed at... Their public safety protocol is not up to par, no one knew what to do... 

I was originally excited to be back in a country that spoke English, but I have to report that their "English" sounds like speedy gonzales, with a Jamaican twist, and I could barely understand anything.

"Gimmi some a di nice ting", A customer at a small restaurant asked the waitress... 

A video of us exploring Belize's inland wonders.

But after a fairly quick drive through Belize, we entered Guatemala. This is were I started to feel the "Adventure" part of our trip. Our fist stop was... another ruin! We camped at Tikal (an absolute must) and heard the creepy call howler monkeys all throughout the night. Plus, we got to beat all of the tourist busses the next morning and were one of the fist groups to enter the park.
 

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Can you see the Rebel Fighters below? This is the same view used in Star Wars: The Return of the Jedi for the moon of Endor.​

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From Tikal, we explored more of central Guatemala, and while our friends decided to go to Samuc Champey, we opted not to. The owner of a small hotel we were staying at told us of another waterfall that no one ever goes to. We love these local hidden gems and took his advice.​

We left our bike under the watchful eyes of 7 local women all trying to sell the same thing to the only customer of the day. We bought a chocolate bar from each of them and headed towards the Las Conchas waterfalls. We had the entire place to ourselves. I jumped off the waterfall at least twenty times. I strongly suggest hunting down these local insights in place of the main tourist "hot spots".
 

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We moved on to Antigua and then relaxed at Lake Atitlan for a couple of weeks before we rode slowly towards El Salvador. Guatemala was a beautiful country to ride through, and we throughly enjoyed all it had to offer.

A video showing some of the Mayan ruins we have explored in Belize and Guatemala. 
A video of our time in the norther part of Guatemala 
Video: Guatemala - The Volcanic South

The Savior and the Depths

Our time in El Salvador and Honduras was short and brief, but we were able to absorb a taste of what it had to offer. Honestly, these two countries were on our “worry" list. Marisa had spent the last two years before our trip as an ESL (English as a second language) teacher, and many of her students were refugees from these countries. We have always tried to avoid the rhetoric that Mexico and (enter “dangerous" country here) is not safe, especially when it comes from people who have only heard about place, and who have never actually been. But, hearing first-hand accounts of how life can be in these countries from children who have witnessed unimaginable horrors, shines a light of actual perspective.

Some of Marisa's old students asked her, “Why would you go to the country I fled?"

These kids’ lives have been put through so much terror and abuse that they made a long journey to escape the inhumanity of their homeland, and hoped for a better future in... Arkansas(?). Marisa was able to bond with them, and play an important role in their lives when they sometimes had no family in the States to turn to for support or attention, and she took their stories to heart.

El Salvador

- On a lighter note, fun fact: Salvador means “Savior" and is a popular last name in many romance languages. My old direct boss's name was David Salvatori (Italian) and his boss, the VP of sales, was Doug Lord. I was the “acting" manager, I say acting, because that was precisely what I was doing. I had eleven employees under my management, and I would constantly remind them that we work for D. Lord and D. Savior, and that one day, one of the twelve of us would betray them. (Spoiler alert, it was me!) My employees respected my dark humor the day I told them I had put in my two-week notice.

Back to El Salvador... One of the things we thoroughly enjoyed about the country was that the food was great, steaks were 4 bucks!. Plus El Salvador uses US dollars as their currency, which made life easy for us.

While in the capital, San Salvador, we stayed in a cheap hotel and were treated like kings. If you used your imagination, you could see how grand the small hotel was in its heyday, but that was far in the past. Out of the twelve or so rooms they had available, we were their only guests for the two days we spent relaxing in the pool.

You could see that this was a country trying to find its place in the modern world. We by no means rode very far into the back roads, and we did not visit any beaches or volcanoes (what El Salvador is famous for). So though we cannot give a proper full report on the country as a whole, it was pleasant, and a mandatory pass through destination.

Honduras

Honduras had a similar vibe, and because we skimmed through the southern Pacific tip, our stay there was extremely short and uneventful. We heard incredible things about Honduras, especially about the northern coastline and Mayan ruins, but at the time we were there, road blocks and protests were reported across the country due to the contested elections. So we skipped the distant sights and spent only two days rushing through Honduras to get to Nicaragua.

It's strange because in Guatemala the locals would warn us about El Salvador, we would inevitably survive, then be warned by the El Salvadorans about Honduras. This chain of “warnings" started way back in the United States, and has not stopped as of yet. The reality of it all is unfortunately tainted by people’s fears and lack of actual experience in any given place. But we would continue fearlessly, mostly because there was no other option, and sometimes with a little fear.

Honduras translates to “depths" and sadly, we did not ride into the "honduras" of Honduras. We kept to the main roads and made our way to the boarder of Nicaragua in a speedy fashion. The promise of a safer environment, nature, and sloths was calling me to enter and explore.

Both El Salvador and Honduras were not as scary as we assumed, and as an afterthought, I am slightly upset that we did not explore more into some of their offerings. 

Video - El Salvador & Honduras

Up Next: Nicaragua