"San Pedro - Hangin` with the hippies......."

As the traffic thinned we were making good progress to our destination of Panajechal on the shores of Lake Atitlan. This was great, we would be there by mid afternoon and settle in a nice hotel with a steaming hot shower. With these thoughts playing inside my head, we dropped down another steep and winding road right into another line of stationary traffic. I just shook my head in disbelief.

Overtaking the traffic we got to the head of the queue to be faced by a huge landslide completely blocking the road. People were picking their way over the rubble and a big group of men were attempting to remove what they could but it looked an impossible task. Mark was talking to one of them when a big shout went up and almost as one, the group of men began to scatter looking up at the crumbling rock face.

“Bloody hell, it might be coming down again!”

This was not a good place to be right now. I gunned the engine, hit the horn to try to warn Mark and attempted to manoeuvre my bike out of the tight spot I was in. Seeing Mark was doing the same we headed fast back up the road. When it was safe to pull over we got off to discuss our options again.

“I had a plan B”, Mark said as we removed our helmets,“but you just shot off!”

“You`re damn right I did. Didn`t you see everyone running from the landslide?”

“Listen, this is what we should do. We go back and pay some of these men to carry our bikes across the rubble”

“Are you serious!!??

“Yea, why not? Give `em a 100 Quetzals and they`ll do it I`m sure” He said matter of factly.

“Yea, and while they`re carrying the bikes over and another landslide hits, then what?”

I wasn`t convinced. A couple of locals pointed us in the direction of an alternative route to another little town on the other side of the lake,

“We can take that route, stay in San Pedro for a couple of days and when they`ve cleared the road come back to Panajechal”.

So with Plan C now in operation we rode in the rain towards the little town of San Pedro about an hour away. On the map, the road looked fairly straightforward. Never trust a map!




The route took us down another long, circuitous dirt track, over huge potholes and fast running streams. It was the most demanding riding I`d done since the Dalton Highway. My fear and anxiety was matched in equal measure by Mark`s obvious delight in the appalling conditions! This man loves the dirt! He enjoyed every pot hole and water crossing. When we finally arrived and got off our bikes his face had a permanent grin,

“Isn`t this just fantastic!”

“You must be bloody joking”

“Yea man, it must have been really hard on your bike. I kept looking in my mirror to check you were O.K.. I was feeling sorry for you”

“Not half as sorry as I was feeling”

I was just so relieved to get down unscathed, and in the back of my mind was trying not to think of the return journey. We found a hotel right on the shore and he was right, it was a fantastic place. I just wanted to be able to see it without the constant rain and low cloud. Maybe tomorrow would be better. That night we had a few beers in a local bar run by an Englishman,

“Hi, I`m Brian!”

“I`m Nick”

“Where are you from Nick?”

“Morecambe”

“Morecambe! Bloody hell!” I spent half my childhood on holiday in Morecambe!“What on earth brought you to Guatemala?”

He travelled the world ended up in Central America and had put money into this bar, but because of the weather his business was in serious jeopardy.

“If it keeps raining, my bar will soon be under water”

He told us that Guatemala had been under a state of emergency for several months and this was the worst weather in 60 yrs. Hundreds of people had died because of the landslides. Another very sobering conversation.

“What`s the forecast like?”

“Another storm is coming through” And with that comforting thought to dwell on, we headed off to bed.

The next day during a brief dry spell we went out to explore the town and in the process happened upon a great little cafe down by a very small harbour which sold an excellent cappuccino. Over coffee we made a decision to base ourselves in San Pedro and take the boat across the lake to Panajachel. After the extremely demanding ride the previous day, I was more than happy to take a few days off.

San Pedro turned out to be a very chilled place with a couple of lively bars and brilliant food. It has attracted many ex pats who escaped the rat race and are clearly living a much less stressful life. A point that appealed to Mark in particular. In one little cafe, we got chatting to a Canadian,

“How long have you been here?”

“I moved down from Vancouver a couple of years ago”

He ran his own software business and regaled us with the usual stressful stories of self employment. He just seemed amazingly happy and contented.

“Do you miss anything from your previous lifestyle” I asked, pretty much knowing what his response would be,

“Hell no! I lost most of my money in the recession. Now I`ve got nothing but I`m happier than I ever was! I just chill out, smoke a joint a day, read lots of books, don`t wear a watch! What`s not to love!”

“I`m thinking of doing the same”, said Mark.

“Do it man, check out as soon as you can. It`s crazy up there. Seriously, you don`t need the stress and it`s so much cheaper to live down here!”

We met several people who it seemed, had done just that and none of them seemed to be frowning, even in the worst weather for 60 yrs. It provided an ongoing topic of conversation between the two of us for several days.

San Pedro proved to be the perfect place for some much needed R+R, but all too soon it was time to get back on the road. La Antigua was to be our next destination and I was really looking forward to seeing this famous old colonial town. Before we left I enquired about the road conditions and an estimate of how long the ride would take. The roads were clear and on a bike should take no more than 1/ 2 hours.

The sun was shining, and for the first time, we had a clear view of the volcanoes as we set off. Finding our way back on to the main road, for some reason, proved amazingly difficult, as we attempted to navigate our way through several little villages. Every street looked the same and no signposts existed. After riding in circles and asking several locals, we did eventually get back on track and started to climb the twisty mountain roads.

An hour into the ride and we were making good time on the main road when we the traffic ahead suddenly began to slow and eventually we ground to a halt. Not again! It surely couldn`t be another landslide, this was the Pan American highway! People were getting out of their cars and walking about trying to find out how far ahead the blockage was. I noticed intermittent traffic coming the other way so I guessed that at least there must be some way through. It was clear that there was only one lane open somewhere up the road and it would just be a matter of time when it was our turn. Sure enough, a few minutes later and we started to slowly make some progress. This hold up had set us back at least a couple of hours and a further traffic jam coming into the city of Chimaltenango delayed us even further. Noticing a sign for Antigua, I turned out of the heavy traffic and took an empty road. This was much better, I reckoned we were only about 20 minutes from Antigua when we passed through a little town, and without any signage to the contrary, I assumed the route just continued along the same road. This was to prove a costly and painful mistake.