The following entries are journal entries I wrote every night during my bikepacking trip through Central America. I wrote these entries for myself, my family, and close friends. I never intended to share these entries with the public; but I received a lot of feedback from my friends and family encouraging me to publish these entries to a wider audience. The following journal entries are raw and unfiltered and much of my writing is personal and brash. This trip was filled with some of the best and worst days of my life. I was pushed to my limit in new ways and tested mentally and physically by unique challenges I had never faced before. All of the ups and downs I experienced are detailed below ridden with personal details and notes for myself to return to.

Day 1: 6/4/2024

87 miles, 9,820 ft. elevation gain

Wow. I’m finally here. This trip has been in the back of my mind for a long time and the past week the anxiety of this trip stacked on top of the stress and enormous workload from finals really wore me down. Last week was a really hard week. I’m so glad to be out on the road again.

Before I start my narration, I want to air out my thoughts on something. I was inclined to write this entry and subsequent ones with my audience in mind. That is, I was going to leave out some of the more harrowing details to make my trip seem safer. I really don’t want to make people nervous about what I’m doing, so I thought I’d cut some stuff out. But I don’t want to do that. I’m writing this entry for my future self as well and I’ll want to remember everything. Writing down the difficult parts is also going to help me work through them and prepare for the real Pan-Am this fall. So please never worry about me. I know what I’m getting myself into and I’ve accepted a baseline of danger by being here. But it’s what I’ve chosen for myself, I wouldn’t have it any other way. I’m also 20 now believe it or not, so I can be a big boy on my own. Again, don’t worry about me, I’m just telling the story as it is and if you are reading about something dangerous then you shouldn’t worry because it already happened and I survived to write about it.

I actually got surprisingly good sleep in the floor of the Panama airport last night. A solid 8 hours and I even had over an hour of REM sleep. I took some melatonin so that probably helped. My flight to Guatemala left at 7:27. After an hour and 50 minutes I was on the ground in GUA and ready to start riding. Deplaning, baggage claim, and customs only took about an hour and because I gained an hour from Panama to Guatemala, I was in a taxi before 10:00. It was a short ride to the bike shop I had picked out, but I got absolutely gouged on the price. I had the conversion rate all messed up in my head and settled for probably double what a local would have paid. I need to improve my Spanish so I can haggle better. The bike shop was super nice actually and one of the employees spoke Spanish so it was easy to get them to agree to keep my bike bag for the two weeks. They charged me more than I would’ve liked though, about $30USD. Honestly not that bad, but I thought it would be cheaper. One of their mechanics helped me build my bike up so we had it together in no time. He was a really good mechanic, super fast. I changed, filled up my bottles, and stepped on the bike.

The guys at the shop were incredulous at the idea of me starting my ride from the shop. It’s right on the busiest road through town. It’s actually the official Pan-American Highway, but it’s not part of my route in the fall. I’m going through north Guatemala because it is flatter, more direct, and because my route through Mexico dumps me out in northern Guatemala because my route through Mexico avoids the US State Departments “Do not Travel Level 4” zones, of which much of southeast Mexico is. Riding in the cities of Central America poses quite a daunting challenge. There are essentially no rules of the road. Anything goes. It’s not quite as chaotic as Kathmandu, but it’s a whole different world from US driving. There is of course no shoulder, so I just ride in the lanes. The one good thing is that cars never really go more than 30mph in the city because it’s just impossible to either all the traffic. So I can take a lane and with the draft of the surrounding cars u can just become part of traffic, clipping along at their speed. The problem with auto drafting though is that, while the road surface on the main roads is generally really good, there are some really nasty potholes. The government actually does a great job keeping the pavement smooth on the big roads, but it’s like maintenance doesn’t exist. Once a hole opens up it’s never getting fixed until the next time the road is paved. The other dangerous thing about the roads is the speed bumps or “reductors de velocidad” that are scattered randomly through towns. These speed bumps can be huge. If you don’t slow down for them it’s game over. Every time I come to one it kills my speed and accelerating with all my gear is a pain, so they really suck. But I can go over them way faster than cars, so it’s actually even more dangerous because I ride smack in the middle of the road and lane split between oncoming traffic. Motorcycles do it too, I learned from them. But I go faster than the motorcycles and after a couple of hours I built up a lot of confidence and I’m more daring than most motorcycles now. Every town has a lot of traffic, so I’m constantly lane splitting and weaving in and out. It’s really fun actually but definitely dangerous. I kind of have to do it though.

If I’m not in a town I’m riding straight up or down these incredibly steep hills. The climb out of Atitlan Lake was no joke the hardest climb I’ve ever done. 3,500ft vertical over 8 miles for an average grade of 9%, but the first mile was 13% then it kicked up to 25% for almost half a mile. It topped out at 27% which is the steepest road I’ve ever biked. Absolutely brutal climbing. I have to maintain over 300 watts just to stay upright. And because everything is so steep, it’s not like I can go fast and make up time on the descents. They are very twisty and too steep to go fast. I have to ride the brakes the entire time. It’s always scary getting up over 30mph anyways because you never know when you’ll turn the corner and run into a speed bump or a truck parked in the middle of the road, or even the route cow or goat meandering about. The roads today were really busy since I went through a lot of towns and the climbing was non-stop. Today was probably my biggest climbing day in terms of elevation per mile. Tomorrow will also be really hilly but I should reach flatter roads in 2 days once I get on my Pan-Am route. After 10 miles of getting used to riding in the busy road I was having a lot of fun. To get out of the city I started up my first climb. Nothing too bad, but I could feel the elevation and it was super hazy today; visibility was less than a mile at times. I’m not sure why it’s so hazy even in more rural areas. Some of it is definitely pollution, but some of it must be natural too because it was supposed to be sunny today, but the haze was so thick it felt like I was in Mumbai. So between the pollution and the elevation I could definitely feel it in my lungs. Not bad, but noticeable. I’ve more or less been off the bike the past two weeks with my stuff getting stolen, being sick, then finals all at once, so it’s going to take a couple days for my legs to get back into the wing of things. I didn’t feel awful today, but I wasn’t as spry as normal either. I charted my way to Lake Atitlan by late afternoon, making progress through a lot of really developed areas.

It’s actually pretty arid here compared to what I thought it was going to be like. It’s not really a jungle. I’m actually camped under a pine tree right now, definitely not jungle flora. At times it really felt like I was in India with the air quality, development, and drier forest. Pretty cool experience, but not super exciting riding conditions. I started to feel better on the road the last hour or so of my ride, but I’m definitely still getting g a hang of it. It’s a totally different game than riding back home. The gravel roads and covered bridges in Vermont might actually be the exact opposite of riding in Central America. It’s like a different sport. The stakes are so much higher here. Nobody bikes these roads. Vehicles aren’t looking for you and even when they do see you they don’t care. They will pass within inches of you, that’s just normal here. Massive trucks zooming by on the main roads just inches away. Sometimes it’s even worse on the mountain roads because they pass me on corners and when they cut back over their rear cuts me off. I was pushed off the road twice today because of this. The one good thing about trucks passing so close is that it generates an artificial tailwind. That is fun. Part of getting used to riding here is normalizing the fact that I’m constantly the center of attention. I’m not trying to be a diva, but literally everyone stares at me. Nobody tries to hide it, they just stare. I really stick out. As I said, nobody bikes on these roads. They bike the quiet side roads, not the through roads. Beyond that, I stick out like a sore thumb just because I’m overtly white. It’s not every day a gringo with shaved legs and a mullet, decked out in lycra bikes these roads. I’m also really big by Central American standards. I’m average in the US, but here I am way taller than average and I’m pretty stocky right now. I intentionally put on a couple of extra pounds over the past two weeks because it’s inevitable that I’m going to lose some weight during this trip. So yeah, I stick out like a sore thumb.

I honestly didn’t have that much fun today. The riding here is a lot different and I mean that in a bad way. You always have to be on top of your game. You can’t doze off or settle into a rhythm. It’s intense, I’m not going to sugarcoat it. It’s really not that fun. I’m hopeful the weather will get better and the roads will be less mountainous, but I’m just going to have to get used to riding here. It’s my new reality, I’ve accepted that now I need to adapt. There were moments of fun, and I’m not going to take for granted my opportunities or privileges here. But it definitely wasn’t all sunshine and rainbows today. Bikepacking rarely is. If I wanted to enjoy every minute of my day then I picked a really bad hobby. That’s not to say I’m not enjoying being here. there is nowhere I’d rather be right now. This is me truly living out my dreams. I don’t believe anyone was put on this earth for a specific purpose. I don’t have a prophecy or destiny to fulfill, but sometimes it feels like I do. Sometimes it feels like I was put on this earth to explore the world on my bike and push myself in the process because damn I really enjoy this more than I should and I’m starting to get ok at this whole bikepacking thing. I’m excited for tomorrow. Mexico is on tap! Until then, happy trails.

Day 2: 6/5/2024

166 miles, 11,831 ft. elevation gain

Today was (mostly) fantastic. I did it. I proved to myself that I can ride the distance I need to for the Pan-Am even down here in Central America. That is huge for me and I’m proud of that. 166 miles today. Not great, but a solid starting point. However, I made a big mistake at the end of the day that cast a shadow over all the good riding I did. I didn’t sleep super well last night. Two weeks ago all of my gear got stolen when I was bikepacking in Canada. I tried to get replacement camping gear in time, but I have a sponsor company now (Big Agnes) and it took them a while to iron out my sponsorship guidelines so all my stuff came in late. It should’ve come in time, but USPS delayed their arrival. Oh well. So that means I have no sleeping bag or ground pad. I also don’t have a bivy which is my preferred method of bikepacking camping because it’s much more discreet than a tent. Anyway, I’m sleeping straight on the ground with nothing but a winter liner. It’s essentially a sleeping bag made out of a thin layer of cloth that gives me about 5 degrees of warmth. Unfortunately, it gives me no cushion though so I’m really just laying straight in the ground. I had to sleep on my back and I’m usually a stomach sleeper, so it’s going to take some getting used to. Surprisingly, I also got a little chilly in the night and woke up twice to put on extra layers. By the morning I was wearing everything I brought. That should be my coldest night though since I was up at 8,000ft. It was probably about 45 in the morning. I even started with arm warmers on.

I got moving by 6, a bit later than I wanted to but I turned off my phone last night to save battery, forgetting my alarm was on my phone. Oops. Probably for the better though because my sleep was not great, the extra hour and a half was probably much needed. It was still super hazy when I started so when I stopped to get water I asked the guy to the best of my ability why it was so hazy and if this is common. Apparently, it is always this way during the dry season. All the haze is pollution. Yikes. A lot of it comes from agricultural slash-and-burn practices and a lot of people still cook with fire. Not to mention the complete lack of pollution regulations on vehicles here. It’s disgusting. But the worst part is the burning trash. There clearly isn’t any public waste management in these parts of Guatemala. People just throw their stuff off the side of the road in huge piles. It’s really unsightly. These piles then get burned. I’ll pass a trash burn every couple of miles and it’s really disturbing. The air just hangs thick with that smell of burned plastic and I can feel the smoke in my lungs. It’s gotta be so bad for people. Anyway, the dry season should’ve already ended, but I guess the rains are late this year so the pollution is at its worst. The rains clear the air, but until then the haze builds. I had a couple of big climbs early in the morning. The big one was over 2k vert which took me up to 9,850 ft. That will definitely be the high point of my trip unless something changes. That must be one of the highest roads in Central America. After that it was mainly downhill for a long way. There were some big climbs interspersed, but I eventually dropped all the way down to 1,800ft so there was a lot of descending.

I stopped for an early lunch which was my first solid food in 3 days. I’ve just been eating cookies and crackers out of the roadside stands. Not good. I have to do better about this. I’m way behind on calories, probably 10,000 behind. But I’m just not hungry so I haven’t been eating. Bad on me. After lunch I dropped into a sweet gorge for the next 40+ miles. The walls got super deep and the road was all downhill so it was a great ride. Towards the bottom, the pavement got worse and worse though. There were sections of super beat gravel where the road washed away years ago. It was beautiful. Really quintessential Central/South America mountains tumbling into a classic jungle river. It had been really arid around 5,000 ft, like all pine trees and really evident damage from the current drought, but below 5k in this canyon, the first was pretty lush again. A short climb out of the canyon brought me to the Mexico border. I don’t have any pesos, so I restocked on water and food because I wanted to make sure I’d make it to the first town that had an atm (about 45 miles). The border crossing was so easy. There weren’t even any guards there. Pedestrians and motorcycles have their own little crossing. It’s just a half closed gate and a speed bump. I just went straight through. Didn’t even come to a stop. Pretty cool. After the crossing I had a long steep descent. It was hot and getting hotter.

By the time the descent bottomed out I was in the desert. There were scraggly trees, but they looked dead and it was oppressively hot. Easily over 100. It had been 95 at 4,000 feet so at 1,800 it was definitely 100+ and it felt like it. The road flattened out and turned straight. There was no development for the first time on my trip. It actually felt rural which was nice. The road was also a nice surface with huge shoulders utilized by motorcycles and bikes so it was in great shape. I was definitely feeling the effects of the sun and the heat, but with only 15 miles until my atm and unlimited water and coke, I figured I’d be fine. Then a huge mountain chain loomed out of the haze. These mountains disappeared into the sky, I’m not kidding. I looked at the map and sure enough I was going through those bad boys. I was almost out of water and it was late afternoon, the peak of the sun. I knew I was in trouble. The climb was 10 miles long with over 3,000ft of elevation gain. Not super steep but that was going to take hours. I ran out of water pretty fast and was on my limit. I was so dehydrated I threw up. The worst thing was, there were people selling water at the base of the mountain, I just didn’t have the right currency. I was cooked. I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. Legitimately, I was thinking about hitchhiking or flagging someone down and begging for water. But I a trick up my sleeve. (This next little bit is what I was talking about yesterday. I wouldn’t include this if I were writing for my audience. Sorry).

Remember how I said everyone throws their trash on the side of the road? Well one man’s trash is another man’s treasure. The majority of the trash is plastic bottles and beer cans along this section. I was looking at every bottle to see if someone had left some water in them. Just as I was thinking my day was over, I found my saving grace. Two bottles. One half drunk water and another half drunk electrolyte drink. I found the electrolyte drink first and was hesitant to drink it. There was definitely sugar in that thing and it didn’t taste 100% right, but I really didn’t have another choice. I forced about a cup of it down and poured the rest in my water bottle, hoping I would t have to finish it. This gave the strength to peddle a little bit allowing me to find the water. This bottle was such a blessing. I know it’s really stupid of me to be drinking bottles from the side of the road, but I made a stupid decision (not bringing enough water or getting pesos beforehand) and had to make more stupid decisions to ameliorate my first stupid decision. I made it up the climb, but was super weak. The town was right at the top of the climb and I managed to get to the atm, get my cash, and buy a ton of fluids. Once I had fluids in hand I made myself throw up. It wasn’t pleasant, but I wanted to get all the roadside electrolyte water out of my system. Yuck. I then tried to drink a lot but just felt sick so have been sipping ever since. Obviously was plagued with a splitting headache, muscle cramps, and stomach issues. I went to a restaurant and half-heartedly ordered some food. I couldn’t even eat it I felt so sick so I just took it to go. I hadn’t eaten in hours because I didn’t have enough water to wash down my food, it would’ve made me more thirsty. I was a wreck. The desert here is all rocks. Literally no soil, so I wasn’t looking forward to camping on that without a pad. Combined with being quite sick I pulled the plug and got a hotel. So here I am. Trying to eat and drink but every bite I feel like I’m going to yak again.

I’m just going to go to bed and eat more in the morning g hopefully. The good news is that I made it 166 miles. I need to average 163 for the Pan-Am record, so that is a good sign. I desperately need a good night’s rest so I probably won’t set an alarm. Getting rest and recovering is way more important than trying to get a couple more miles on the day tomorrow. Feel so bad right now. Off to sleep.

Day 3: 6/6/2024

159 miles, 10,125 ft. elevation gain

I want to preface this entry by saying I am okay and still biking as of the 7th. I’m tired and I had one of the worst nights of my life last night, but I’m okay. I was too tired to finish writing. I will get to it later. I’ll be honest. I’m not doing too well and I am not having any fun. This trip wasn’t meant to be a relaxing vacation, but I really didn’t think it was going to be this hard. I expected to struggle on this trip. It would’ve been weird if I weren’t struggling to an extent. Every bikepacking trip I’ve ever done has been a bit of a struggle. But usually, there is a healthy balance between struggle and enjoyment. I have yet to find that balance on this trip. At best today was manageable, at its worst I was scared, heat-sick, dehydrated, and thoroughly dejected. The past 2 days have changed how I view the Pan-Am. Until now I had never really considered how much of a problem the heat is going to be. It is exhausting. It’s really pushing me to new limits. I’m just a shell of the person I usually am. It hit 108°F today. Humans aren’t meant to bike in that heat under the direct sun. I could feel it cooking me; literally burning me and sucking the water out of me. I drank over 20L today and I’m still horribly dehydrated. I’m doing everything I can to stay healthy and safe, it’s just not enough and I’m running out of answers. Today was not sustainable. I can’t do today over and over again for the next two weeks (never mind for the whole Pan-Am) so unless something changes soon, I’m going to have to do some serious re-evaluation of my plans for the next two weeks.

I slept decently well last night. I think I got a solid 8 hours but I can’t really tell. My heart rate didn’t drop below 80 until 5 hours after I’d stopped biking. Yikes, not good. I woke up around midnight and ate all my dinner that I hadn’t been able to get down before I went to sleep. I also drank water periodically throughout the night. I didn’t feel great in the morning, but started to come around soon after I started riding. I made it through Comitán, a pretty large city, before turning north off the Panamericano highway towards Palenque. It was still very hazy, but that is clearly here to stay until the rains move in or I get to a different territory down south. I don’t know if I’ve ever wanted it to rain so badly. These are some of the most beautiful places I’ve ever been in and I can’t even begin to appreciate the full beauty of my surroundings when everything is choked in smoke and pollution. The rain would also feel so good.

I found myself meandering through some really rural areas. The road was much quieter than anything I’ve ridden here to date which was a nice change. However, the road surface was horrible. The base was a super choppy aggregate, but it was riddled with potholes, gaps, and long sections of very rough gravel. The speed bumps on this section were also heinous. People just put in speed bumps themselves anywhere they want. So the speed bumps are everywhere and they are super chunky. I have to come to a grinding halt to get over them. It’s a real momentum killer. At 10:00 I stopped for an early lunch because I was finally feeling better and I wanted to stay ahead of the curve. I got 4L of water, a quesadilla, and carne asada. A wonderful meal. I was content at that moment, but still hesitant. The riding was manageable, but it hadn’t been fun even when I was feeling alright. The road surface was just too messy to really enjoy anything; I was always on edge. Loaded down by my lunch and loaded up with water I left the town of Altamirano and continued north. I was still up at 4,000-5,000ft of elevation, but it was getting hot. I started feeling sluggish not even 2 hours after stopping for lunch, so I stopped again for water and electrolytes. There is this electrolyte drink that seemingly every store carries. It is miraculous. It’s actually the same stuff I found on the side of the road yesterday. Anyway, it works. This stuff revitalizes me for about 30 min each time I get it. It generally tastes pretty good too. There are a ton of flavors, but I’ve yet to try them all.

Day 4: 6/7/2024

176 miles, 6,545 ft. elevation gain

I’m going to keep it short since it’s late and I need some sleep. My long-winded entries of the first few days are a thing of the past. Now that I’ve acclimated to riding here I’ll be pounding out longer days on the bike leaving less time for journaling. I’ll pick up where I left off yesterday.

It was hot. Really hot. 108° hot. My body was in shock. I just couldn’t function. I couldn’t bike well but even more concerning than that was my brain fog. Anyway, the afternoon was really awful but I found a nice place to sleep after almost 160 miles. It was pretty jungly, but I had a flat smooth spot. Unfortunately, it was still 90+ degrees. I tried to lay down but I was sweating profusely. It pooled on my body and there was literally a puddle in my tent. It looked like I had spilled my water bottle in the tent. It was awful. I’ve never sweat so much and it was a clammy sick type of sweat. The tent made it maybe 3° hotter, but that was enough to make a difference. I couldn’t take it so I just laid on top of my tent. No ground pad, nothing. Just me lying on the ground essentially. Bugs inevitably had a field day.

Anyway, I didn’t sleep much. Even when I woke up it was 87° and I was still sweating. Easily the worst night of my life outside of being sick. And to make my sleeping woes worse, there was a huge howler monkey with his entire harem in a tree right above me. Now this is actually super cool, but you might have guessed based on the name, that these monkeys are not quiet. He made a huge racket all night. Unbelievably loud. Do yourself a favor and look up what a howler monkey sounds like. The male made that noise all night. I got a good look at him in the morning. I set out today in really low spirits obviously. It was so freaking hot, I had no reprise. I was sweating before I even got on my bike.

About 1:30 in I got to Gregorio Mendez Magana which was a landmark because this is where I intersected my actual Pan-Am route. It should’ve been cause for celebration, but I checked my phone and saw a message asking “How are you doing” and I thought about it and realized how bad I was doing. Words really can’t describe it retrospectively and as much as I would like to try, I want to go to bed now so just take my word for it that I was doing horrendous. Things literally couldn’t get any worse or else I would’ve had to stop biking. I was so far over the physical and mental edge. I just broke down and started crying while I was biking. I couldn’t control my emotions or anything and I just sobbed for the better part of an hour. It felt good to cry. It was the first thing that felt right in 36 hours. But then my tears mixed with my sweat and the sunscreen and got in my eyes making my eyes water and I just cried that much harder.

That’s how bad I was doing; crying was the highlight of my morning. I was thinking that my dreams of doing the Pan-Am were shattered because I thought there was no way in the world I could do it in the heat. I was broken and dejected. This might be the most rock bottom I’ve been in my entire life and that’s crazy because I’m literally just biking. I’m going to return to this and elaborate when I get back to the States. There is a lot to unpack here. I somehow made it to the next town and ate and drank a ton. I managed to get back on my bike and keep going. It was so hot and flat and smoky. There were burns everywhere and my eyes stung and I wanted to cry more but I didn’t. I pushed through to the Guatemala border and started to feel a little better somehow. I used the last of my pesos to splurge and ate and drank as much as I could and got some pollo asada to go. My pesos are worthless now so I wanted to use them all up while I could. I rode another hour and a half then stopped at a store for water and then I ate my pollo. The owner came and sat with me and talked with me. What a great dude. His English was about as good as my Spanish so we had a very productive conversation and I was able to explain the pan-American to him. He said he had seen 5-6 other cyclist come through attempting that. I promised him I would stop during my attempt and we would talk again. In an event that is 84 days of unsupported riding, having friends to look for along the way is something so special. That was a turning point for me.

Something clicked. It wasn’t just mental, it was physical too. Over the course of an hour or two, my body finally accepted the heat and started to rebound. I measured my effort very carefully and made sure to keep my heart rate under 125bpm. All of a suddenly I was having fun again. I love the people in Guatemala. They are all so nice. It’s definitely a bit different than Mexico. I wave and say hi to everyone I see and everyone waves and says hi back. Little kids love it and I feed off their energy too. What a great place to ride my bike. The highlight of my day was when a kid came and rode alongside me. I passed him then he started sprinting to catch up, so I slowed down and he got in my draft. We were about to go through a checkpoint, and the guards all clapped and cheered the kid in and waved me right through. After about a half mile we came to a descent and I went way too fast for his little bike. I gave him a fist bump first though and we had a short little conversation.

My afternoon was terrific. It was still 107°, but I managed to have a super fun time and keep myself in check physically. Michelle even talked me into getting a hotel so I was cruising knowing a nice bed was waiting for me. Around 5:15 I noticed the sun had disappeared. It was still super hazy so I hadn’t seen the clouds coming. 10 minutes later I was in the most intense storm of my life. It was pretty awesome actually. The temp dropped 20 degrees. Now I could finally put out serious watts since I didn’t have to worry about controlling my effort in the heat. It was so fun until the sun set, then it got a little scary because I was worried about my visibility to cars. I made it into Flores, my destination for the night, just fine. After an ATM stop, some street food, and a grocery store, I checked into my hostel and grabbed a nice shower.

This hostel is awesome. It’s one of the hip ones where there is a bar and cool decor and it’s open-air courtyard so there are trees inside and everything, but my dorm has ac. Thank you so much, Michelle! Now off to sleep for me. Honduras is 300km away, so if I can hold it together for a huge push tomorrow that’s my goal destination, but I definitely don’t need to push that hard if I don’t want to. Feeling like a new person than this morning and I’m so excited to keep biking now! It’s incredible how resilient the human body and mind are. I’m so thankful to be here.

Day 5: 6/8/2024

173 miles, 7,021 ft. elevation gain

Today was a pretty average day on the bike. But that is actually awesome! For the first time this trip I felt like I was out for a normal ride, not much different than any other ride I would do in New England. I need to be careful not to let my guard down because I’m riding in some pretty unforgiving places, but I can relax a little and just focus on riding. I’m no longer questioning my ability as a cyclist which is really important for my morale, and morale translates to action. When I feel good I ride well. I’m really happy with today even though it wasn’t all that fun and my body didn’t feel that great. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but I’m really happy with how I’m riding right now. I’m easily riding 170+ a day and I am holding back a lot. I promised my Dad I wouldn’t ride after dark in Central America unless absolutely necessary. it’s a good rule to have just for safety, but it does limit my days to 12 hours since there is only 12 hours of sunlight here. Nonetheless, I’m getting my 170 miles in during just 12 hours elapsed time. That’s really really good. Way better than what I need to be doing. When I’m in safer areas I will have 16 hours a day and I only have to hit 163 miles a day. It’s a good sign. But I have some more testing to do.

Today was day 5 (really 4 1/2 of riding). My longest bikepacking trip to date is 5 days long (I’ve done two five-day trips , one being just under 1,000 miles and the other being 1,100, thus far I’ve only done about 780 this trip). So tomorrow will be uncharted territory: my 6th day. I’m really not that worried. The body feels great, I have no reason to believe tomorrow will be any different than today. But who knows? And there is always the potential for injury-every day increases the risk for overuse-related issues. These are important things to keep in mind for sure, but not things to dwell on for too long.

Like I said, today was pretty straightforward and not that exciting so I’ll keep the narration short. I set out a bit after 6:00 and started heading southeast out of Flores. The town looks really cool. I’d live to come back eventually and properly see things and go up to Tikal to see the Mayan Ruins. Dad and Michelle offered to get me a tour of Tikal, but I turned them down in favor of riding. I didn’t want my momentum from last night to wane. I know it sounds stupid: there are all these things I want to see, and people are enabling me to see them, and yet I’m refusing to see them. I’m here to ride my bike. I’m here to prepare for the Pan-Am. And ultimately, I know that if I had taken the morning off I would’ve felt bad about it later. I know it sounds way too intense and I’m taking myself way too seriously, but it’s just the way things are right now. And I’m happy with the way things are. The road surface was fantastic and it was flat and straight for a long ways. All morning I was just chilling. It took a while for my legs to warm up but that is typical. The only thing that really stands out from the morning was the dead ant eater I saw on the side of the road. Poor dude! I’ve always wanted to see one, just not like that. Still a beautiful animal. Such a shame it got hit. Ants were all over the carcass. How the turntables have…

I stopped for lunch in Poptun. It’s cool that I’m on my Pan-Am route now because I spent a lot of time diligently charting out my route so I’ve mapped out each of the towns I’m passing through. It’s fun to see towns that have existed only as marks on my maps and words in my spreadsheets come to life. I grabbed food from a grocery store and sat outside while I ate it. One of my friends from school called and we had a nice talk. He wanted to make sure I was doing alright (shoutout Larbs). Lunch consisted of ham, cheese, horchata, water in a bag, and chips. A departure from my normal street food lunch, but I wanted to get some consistent measurable protein in. Water in a bag is actually pretty fun and aside from the obvious waste of plastic, it’s super satisfying to squeeze the thing empty while you chug. From Poptun i bounced around some mellow mountains for the afternoon before dropping down to the flats close to the ocean. It was hot and the haze was finally gone so the sun was cooking. But it wasn’t much more than 102° and it felt very manageable. Yay!

I came within about 100 yards of Belize but did not illegally cross the river to knock that country off the list even though I was tempted. I’ll have to go back someday. I got to Rio Dolce shortly before 4:00 and re-upped on food and liquids at another supermarket before making a final push towards the Honduras border for the night. The road surface was great all day, but the traffic got progressively worse past Rio Dulce. At times the passing trucks made me pretty nervous. There is was too much traffic, much of it being big trucks too, for a two-lane road. I could see some serious storm clouds brewing over the Atlantic. I knew it was only a matter of time before I got a little shower. All evening I kind of skirted some small storms. I got some rain but nothing huge. It was very hard to find a campsite though because there were houses all along the road. I was looking for hours thinking “if I were going to sleep now where would I set up my tent” and in 50 miles I really only saw a couple of places that would’ve worked. I looked at the satellite map and spotted a huge palm tree plantation 30km up the road. I knew that would work well if I just darted in a few rows of trees and set up my tent there. It was already past 6 and it was getting dark. I seem to have lost my tail light. I think it fell off during yesterday’s deluge because come to think of it I don’t remember turning it off last night. Anyway, it was a little scary riding on this already dangerous road in the dark with no tail light. Then the heavens opened up. I mean buckets of rain. Rain like I’ve never seen.

Yesterday I said the storm I was in was the most intense of my life. Well, today made yesterday look like child’s play. It was so heavy it was literally impossible to drive, so I had the road all to myself. I was in awe of the rain, honestly didn’t realize it was possible to rain so much. I got to my palm plantation and sure enough, it’s a great spot. The only problem is that it’s now raining way too hard to even think of setting up a dry tent. Nonetheless, I tried to make the best of it and got my stuff set up. The rain actually felt really nice. My tent is holding up alright. It was very dry initially, but water is starting to leak through. The rain seems to be letting up a bit after about 2 hours though, so hopefully the tent holds. I’m of course still very wet inside the tent, but drier than expected. Honduras tomorrow (I mean it this time) which means a hostel because Honduras is way too dangerous to camp in. Tomorrow is the most dangerous day of my entire Pan-Am so I’m a little worried, but also excited to see a new country! I’m aiming for Comayagua which will set me up nicely for a push for Nicaragua the following day!

Day 6: 6/9/2024

182 miles, 8,068 ft. elevation gain

I’m going to keep this super short because I want to take full advantage of my hotel room tonight (that’s right, I have my own room, not a hostel dorm. I might be getting spoiled 😝) and get my 8 hours of sleep. Today was awesome. Like so awesome. I was worried about Honduras because it’s probably the most dangerous country I go through on the entire Pan-Am. There were times today were I wasn’t super comfortable, but I never felt in danger. There are security guards EVERYWHERE. There were 8 armed guards at a grocery store I went to. Their presence makes me feel safer, but the fact that they need 8 armed guards also makes me worry about what they are defending against.

Last night’s storm was the craziest weather event I’ve ever been through completely just out there exposed to it. It was pretty fun but my tent inevitably let a lot of water in and the rain kept coming all night, so I was dripping wet in the morning along with all my stuff. It’s all drying right now so I’ll be ready to camp again tomorrow! Camping in the palm plantation was pretty cool. I rode through more plantations to the border where I met a super nice agent on the Guatemala side, Williams. He lived in Boston for 10 years and we had a great talk! He was worried Honduras wouldn’t let me into the country because Mexico never stamped my passport so I have 2 entrances to Guatemala and no exits. Luckily the Honduran agent didn’t notice. If she had noticed (and she definitely should’ve, both entrance stamps were on the same page and she looked right at it) I would’ve been denied entry and would’ve had to completely change plans. Williams came out and talked to me after Honduras stamped me into the country and told me “tiene buen suerte hoy amigo” - you have good luck today my friend. He thought I was going to get rejected for sure. I promised I’d see him again in 4 months when I come back through and we shook hands and went our separate ways.

Honduras definitely felt a little different, but the roads were still good. I saw a cyclist in the distance, only the second real cyclist I’ve seen this trip, so I booked it to catch up to him. He was moving quite fast and I almost didn’t catch him. He had a very nice time trial bike. We rode together for about 20 miles, swapping turns and simple sentences in Spanglish. We were hauling and I was holding over 250 on my pulls. Good times right by the ocean. He pulled off at his house and I continued on to San Pedro Sula. My passage through the city was uneventful, but not fun. Lots of traffic and I was always on edge about the crime there. After I got through the city I had a huge lunch at a supermarket and had a fantastic next couple of hours on the bike. It was hit and sunny and humid. Honduras has some awesome mountains and I got to climb some of them on my bike and see a lot of them from the road. Lake Yojoa was the highlight of the afternoon. Awesome lake. A couple of stout climbs late in the day then another huge thunderstorm around 4:00pm. I can just count on storms every afternoon from here out. I don’t mind them, they cool things off and clean me up a little. It is slightly concerning at times from a safety perspective as the rain is incredibly intense and cars have a hard time seeing me. The rain let up for my descent I to Comayagua and I dried a little bit.

Comayagua sits in a valley crowned with mountains. It’s a beautiful spot. Not a safe city, but I have a quaint little hotel (more like a Bed and Breakfast really) and feel totally safe. A couple runs it and they are really nice. The lady here is a gardener and she has hundreds of little plants all potted along the courtyard. I’ll be sure to get a picture tomorrow for you Gigi. I grabbed a bunch of food from a grocery store before I got here and just ate a ton with a lot left for breakfast too. Rotisserie chicken, ice cream, and 7-Up for dinner. Living the dream. My legs were super strong today and I definitely felt the best I have all trip. I’m getting stronger by the day! To Nicaragua tomorrow. I’m so happy right now and so excited for what the next 8 days of biking has to bring!

Day 7: 6/10/2024

152 miles, 6,198 ft. elevation gain

Well, about 3 hours ago I was thinking about how I was going to start today’s entry and I thought “Today has been pretty cool, but it was honestly really normal. My first really normal day on the bike down here, nothing out of the ordinary, decent legs, but nothing to write home about.” Lucky for you guys the Nicaraguan border patrol wanted me to have something to write home about. It wouldn’t have been a proper day in Central America if something special didn’t happen right? Because of what happened this evening, I’ve got a big day tomorrow so once again, I’ll try to keep this short.

I came down with a pretty volatile case of the runs last night so I didn’t sleep as well as I should’ve in my bed. Oh well. It was beautiful biking weather when I got up: overcast, 75°, a light breeze, the most temperate morning of my trip this far. It took me a couple of hours to warm up, as is normal now. I slowly climbed out of the big Comayagua Valley and then dropped over some mountains into this beautiful valley with sharp hills. It was more arid this morning than it had been the last couple of days, but the recent rains have made everything a beautiful green and the mountains were alive. It felt kind of like what I’ve seen of the Ethiopian plateau. The road turned and twisted with some very punchy hills for about 50 miles. It was a perfect 4-lane divided highway and I had it all to myself. There were almost no population centers on the whole thing. It was a great ride. I had one small hiccup though. I was riding along and heard a motorcycle me up behind me. I hadn’t seen a car in maybe 5min or so, the road was really quiet. The motorcycle slowed down, then just sat right behind me and went my speed. I got a little nervous, but thought maybe he was going to come talk to me in a second so I tried to just ignore him. For the better part of 30 minutes, he would ride right behind me, then stop all of a sudden and wait for me to get out of sight before catching back up. I was starting to worry. It would be so easy for him to knock me off my bike and take all my stuff and dip, nobody was around. Finally, he came up next to me and just started chatting like we were best friends. He had a cycling shirt on, he was a fellow cyclist. I’m not sure what his thought process was or why he was so weird about following me for so long without saying anything. He spoke super fast and didn’t seem to care that I couldn’t understand a lot of what he was saying. He escorted me for several more miles then told me to be safe and not to stop anywhere then he rode off. My theory is that he initially saw me and knew we were going through a dangerous spot, so he rode behind me to make it look like I had protection. Beyond that, I have no idea what he was doing. Even if that was the case why didn’t he tell me that initially? Weird. That definitely left me a little rattled.

At mile 70 I got to the main highway on the south side of Honduras, CA-1, better known to us as Carretera Panamericano, or Pan-American Highway. I had a quick resupply and once again emptied my bowels. I felt okay, but my stomach was pretty messed up. I carried toilet paper with me all day because I had a LOT of emergent stops. I’ll spare yall the details, but things got pretty grim down there. I have a little bit of chaffing going on as is inevitable when you bike this long every day. But nothing was horrendous before today. However, all that extra wiping started to take its toll and the sweat, constant riding, and frequent bathroom breaks made for some uncomfortable riding. You get the idea. Enough said. I continued on through the afternoon. Things started to heat up. The high was 99° I believe, but it was humid and the sun was on full blast. I was making lots of stops anyway for the aforementioned reasons, so it was no problem to take lots of hydration breaks.

I got to Choluteca around 3:00. This was my last major Honduran town, and maybe my most uncomfortable one. Unlike the other big cities (Comayagua and San Pedro Sula) the main road through Choluteca isn’t a highway as much as a busy city street. So there is a lot more traffic, a lot more stopping, slower speeds, and more people right on top of you. Maybe I was overreacting, but it felt pretty unsafe. People in Honduras are definitely less outwardly friendly to me. I don’t get as many waves in return and I get catcalled a lot. Unlike Guatemala and Mexico, these catcalls aren’t always friendly banter. Maybe I’m mistaking people’s apathy for unfriendliness. Either way, things are different here and every person I’ve talked to tells me to bike through and o my stop when necessary. I did stop in Choluteca actually. I stopped at a grocery store and got my final resupply before Nicaragua. I feel totally safe at these grocery stores because of all the armed guards.

I pushed on to the Nicaraguan border about 50km past Choluteca. I legitimately did not feel safe in this section. For the first time this trip, I was checking over my shoulder and watching everyone on the side of the road. Some people said some nasty things. My big scare came when a group of rough-looking guys stared me down, had a quick conversation, then all hopped on their motorcycles and peeled out right behind me. They were just trying to scare me, but damn it worked. They saw me jump and start to sprint and got a huge kick out of it. On this 50km stretch I was also buzzed by 3 motorcycles, each time very intentionally. They turned and got enjoyment out of my fear each time. I might be overstating my danger at times (though I really don’t think so) but I’m definitely not overstating the hostility shown to me on this section of road. Not a super fun time. I finally got to the border and had about 30 miles left until the base of the volcanoes I had decided to camp under for the night.

I got through the Honduras side no problem, but then when I got to Nicaragua they told me there was a problem. I don’t have my yellow fever vaccine card because it was stolen with my passport in Canada last month. Nicaragua apparently requires this vaccine card for entry. I showed them digital proof, but they wanted my actual card. I’m unsure what their actual policy is, but it seems like digital proof is probably fine under normal circumstances. Regardless, they weren’t having it. One agent in street clothes took me aside and told me, “if you want to get through, give me $30USD right now”. Everything was in Spanish too, which was all the more confusing for me and they didn’t try to be patient. This whole time I’m the only one at the border crossing and there are about 10 agents all in cahoots around me. The agent in street clothes asking for a bribe was obviously so sketchy. They took me inside and into back rooms and kept asking me the same questions over and over. They took my passport and disappeared into different rooms, talking g to different people. I’m pretty sure this was all a ploy to get me super nervous. They asked for more money. I conceded and gave them another $20, but that was going to be it. At this point, I was pretty sure I was just getting scammed. They asked me a bunch of questions about my bike, its make, its model, its color, and stupid stuff that they could clearly see since my bike was right there. They made me say my phone number like 10 times. They kept getting mad at my Spanish. I was rattled and all this time the sun was setting. If I got rejected I was going to have to ride through the sketchy part of Honduras all over again, this time in the dark, all the way to Choluteca. Finally, they let me through. I was really disoriented by this time and wasn’t sure what the right move was. I had promised them I would stay in a hotel for the night, but the closest hotel is 80km away! I also promised them I would get to Costa Rica by tomorrow night, 320km away (190 miles). I called my dad to talk it through and I’m going to be in Costa Rica tomorrow so long as something bad doesn’t happen, but I’m not staying in a hotel tonight. I’m camping in a cow field about 1 mile from the border. Riding 80km here in the dark is not worth the risk. Anyway, I’m going to bed now. It’s hot, and there is a huge storm moving towards me, so it looks like another not-so-great sleep night, but I’ll probably get a hostel tomorrow night. I’m looking forward to Costa Rica, no matter the circumstances of my arrival!

Day 8: 6/11/2024

176 miles, 5,210 ft. elevation gain

My body is tired. My mind is tired. I don’t want to write this right now. I want to take a shower and go to sleep. The only things that aren’t tired are my legs. They feel great which is a fantastic sign. My fitness is so amazing right now, I can’t really conceptualize it and have no bearing of where my ceiling is. That’s the bright side of things.

It rained pretty much all night. Nothing super heavy, but enough to get me wet in the tent. Still, I slept well. This morning was absolutely gorgeous. I watched the sunrise on the road. Really special. As the clouds lifted a bit I could see numerous volcanoes on the horizon. Massive stratovolcanoes rising to the sky out of the flat Nicaraguan pan. I saw two active volcanoes today that were belching some smoke. Really awesome stuff. The sun was out all morning and I got absolutely cooked. I totally forgot to put on sunscreen in the morning and by the time I realized it was too late. It only took 3 hours of direct sunlight to burn straight through my tan, which is already really dark. The beautiful scenes continued as I rode towards Managua on the banks of Lake Managua. It clouded in before I got to the city and thunderstorms started to roll in. They wouldn’t stop for the rest of the day. I had a nice 3,000 ft climb out of Managua then a steady low-grade descent for a long way out the backside. It rained off and on but never too heavy or for too long. Along the shores of Lake Cocibolca, the road was pan-flat and dead straight for a long way. The lake was a couple miles north this whole time so there weren’t any good views except an occasional glimpse of Concepcion, a volcano that rises right out of the middle of the lake to make an incredible island. There is a second peak next to it. The island is a really cool place and I’d love to visit one day. I almost chose it as the site of my solar power fundraiser for the fall since the Honnold Foundation has a partnership there. I was pretty bored on the bike in the afternoon. 50 miles of straight flats and my earbuds are broken so I was left with my thoughts. My legs felt fine though, I just wanted to push to the border.

About 30 miles from my hostel for the night and 15 miles from the border, my rear tire blew up. The sidewall completely split open and my tube blew. I didn’t have a spare tire, only spare tubes, so my ride was over. I was really disappointed. It’s such an easy fix I just didn’t have the gear to fix it. My day had been very mellow and nice and I was really looking forward to finally logging a 200+ mile day with no troubles on this trip. My ride ended at mile 175. Such a bummer. I’m too tired to elaborate, it just sucks. Not fun. I started thumbing for a ride. I need to get to Liberia to get a new tire. A taxi was the first to stop for me so I just coughed up the money and told him to take me to the border. I didn’t know how I felt about hitchhiking in Nicaragua in the dark. Clearing the border was easy. You never know nowadays, thankfully it was easy though. Across the border, I found two guys who were driving well past Liberia and asked if they could give me a ride. We didn’t understand each other very well because they had a thick accent and no English at all. With a little help from Google Translate, we worked it out and they agreed to give me a lift. I told them I would pay $20 for gas. The driver offered to let me stay at his house in Guyabo, another hour north of Liberia, but there is only one bike shop in Guyabo and I didn’t want to risk that ship not having the parts I needed, so I turned down his offer. He gave me his phone number in case I’m coming back through the area and need a place to crash. Nice guy.

I got to Liberia after an hour twenty drive and am now in my hostel and now am going to sleep. I’m tired of things going wrong, and I’m tired of complaining about it. I want a nice day where my body feels decent and I don’t have any crazy mishaps. I don’t want any more lore tomorrow. Please just a nice ride. Sorry for using this entry to whine once again. I’ve gotta do better. I really loved Nicaragua and this entry doesn’t even begin to describe the natural beauty of my ride today. I’ll try again when I come back through in a couple of days.

Day 9: 6/12/2024

121 miles, 5,584 ft. elevation gain

I’m back on the road after yesterday’s setback. Today wasn’t a crazy comeback of high spirits and excitement, but I’m rolling and excited to be seeing Costa Rica! Only 5 days left; my flight leaves on the 18th and I want to be back in Guatemala City on the 17th to give myself some time to pack my bike and not be super rushed on the morning of the 18th. Tomorrow I’ll go 70km east before turning around in Quepos. There are some really beautiful-looking beaches there. I’m hopeful that I will have decent weather and it will serve as a good turning point. I didn’t plan this trip out at all before I left, but I had a rough idea of where I would be going because I knew I was going to ride my Pan-Am route as far south as possible. For some reason, I thought I had 17 days to ride. Not sure where I got that number from since I had a final on the 2nd and a return flight in the 18th. That alone should’ve let me know that maybe I need to look at my lack of itinerary a little closer. Anyway, because I thought I had 17 days I did some quick eyeballing of the map and thought I would make it to Panama. And if I had those 3 extra days I totally would’ve made it, but I don’t, so I’m not making it to Panama unfortunately. Because I thought I was going to Panama, I got really excited about the prospect of biking the Costa Rican coast from Jaco to Panama because it looks really beautiful. So I’m a little bummed I am not I going to ride the whole section since that was what I was looking forward to. But hey, I’ll be back in 4 months and then I definitely will be riding that section unless something catastrophic happens to me before I get to CR.

I got to sleep in today because the bike shop didn’t open until 8:30. That was nice, but I was a bit down on myself. Having my bike break sucks. Because I was frustrated and angry the night before, I had made even more mistakes. I forgot to close my seatpack bag after getting out my passport at the border and my shorts and toothpaste must’ve fallen out. I only realized this when I got to Liberia later. Ultimately those are two relatively inconsequential items to lose. If my charging cords or battery pack or bike tools, and pretty much anything else, had fallen out it would’ve had a more direct impact on my trip. But still, really disappointed in myself because that’s just money thrown away and it’s because I was angry and I let that get in my head. I guess it’s human nature to make rash decisions when you are angry, but I shouldn’t have been so upset. I should’ve handled my broken bike situation with more grace. I handled the logistics, okay, but emotionally I could’ve been more tempered. It’s easy to make excuses: “Oh I’m so tired”, “Oh it’s been a long day and a long trip and that was a tough break”, or “Oh you’re being too hard on yourself”, but things go wrong all the time and I’m out here to learn how to take those unfortunate moments in stride and not let them affect my riding or mood. So I’m disappointed in myself and now I’m going to have to buy a pair of shorts in Guatemala before my flight. I only have 3 pairs of shorts and those were my favorite ones. Oh well. The toothpaste is less of an issue. It’s actually a little funny because that was my THIRD tube on this trip. My first one ran out, then my dumb ass put my second tube right next to my razor in my bag and it got sliced open and toothpaste went everywhere (that was such a mess, I had an absolutely horrible time cleaning everything) so I had to throw that one out because there was no salvaging it, and now I’ve lost my third tube. Maybe my 4th tube will make it home.

I got my bike fixed and bought some new earbuds at RadioShack then rolled out of town. I was excited to have music again. It’s a small thing but it can really change the whole trajectory of my day. Music is such a powerful mood booster for me. It also fends off the boredom really well. I’ve been missing it since my earbuds broke last week. The RadioShack ones weren’t Apple brand, I’ve been looking for days and haven’t found Apple brand earbuds, they don’t exist down here. They seemed to be of decent quality though. They weren’t. They broke after 3 hours. I was pretty mad. No more music again. Really a bummer. Like I said, sounds small, but it means a lot. It’s one of my few luxuries at the moment. It was mostly sunny this morning, but clouded in really quickly and started raining before noon. Off and on rain all day and some really heavy stuff in the afternoon and evening. As I’m sitting in my tent writing right now it’s coming down in sheets and soaking right through my “waterproof” tent. The ride took me into progressively jungle-ier territory. The jungle here is exactly like the stereotypical jungle I picture in my head, the type you see in movies like The Jungle Book. I’ve been to the Ecuadorian, Hawaiian, and Peruvian rainforests, but here it feels a little more dense and perhaps more diverse. Cool stuff. I wish I could spend some time actually exploring it. Not much to report about my ride. It was one of those take-it-or-leave-it days where I didn’t feel good or bad and the weather was just meh, so not a lot of crazy stuff. I guess that’s what I asked for right? A normal day. I’m getting picky now, but a little less rain would be awesome. The rain is fine though. It’s expected. I’m in the jungle. Without the rain, the rainforest would be… well… just the forest. And I’ve got a forest at home. So yeah I guess I’m fine with the rain. But I do miss being dry. Being constantly wet is starting to get to me a little, mainly my feet. My bike shoes take a long time to dry, so they’ve been wet nonstop since day 4. That means my feet have been crammed in wet shoes for the past 6 days so I have some painful trench foot going on. The skin is slowly dying and peeling off in these white sloughs. It really hurts now to pedal at times. Not really sure what to do about it. New bike shoes is the one big ticket item I have left on my Pan-Am gear list. The ones I have are broken and held together by duct tape at the moment. I’m definitely going to look at getting a more breathable pair so I don’t get trench foot on the real trip. The problem is that breathable means less warm when I am up in Alaska and down in the mountains of Tierra del Fuego. Decisions to be made.

I got to the beach I had picked as my campsite for the night right when I thought I would. I was hoping to set up the tent, go for a little dip, and watch the sun set over the Pacific, but the thunderstorms had other plans for me. I still went for a dip, that was nice. I splashed around for a while actually. Just butt-ass naked on this remote beach with nobody around. Lightning flashing all around me and the roar of thunder combining with the crashing waves to create a symphony of dramatic nature sounds. It was nice. It felt good to swim. Since everything I own is currently soaked I figured I would try to wash some of my clothes a little (as in rinse them and call them clean). I haven’t done laundry since I left Hanover and as you can imagine my stuff is rank. My own stench doesn’t usually bother me on trips like this, but all the sweating and constant moisture from the rain has made the smell really bad. Like really really bad. Camping on the beach is cool (although I have no protection from the wind and my tent is really struggling in a huge storm right now as I’m actively typing, this sucks). But it has its downsides. Mainly the sand is everywhere.

Damnit I’m gonna have to finish this later. Insane t-storm right now and the wind just blew out my tent. Brutal night ahead I fear, these storms are wicked right now.

Had to take a minute to re-stake the tent. Not sure I’m going to sleep much tonight. My narration is pretty much done anyways. I’m going to attempt to fall asleep now.

Day 10: 6/13/2024

161 miles, 5,679 ft. elevation gain

A really solid day today. Not only have I hit my stride, I’ve fallen into a rhythm. The last 3 days haven’t been the most enjoyable or exciting for me, but that’s fine. My days are starting to blend together and I totally have my routine down. Today I was right at 161 miles on just 10 hours of moving time. My average speed is staying consistent, my stoppage time each day is very similar, the ride ebbs and flows in predictable ways. Like anything you do every day, day after day it becomes second nature. The only problem with this is that I feel like I am starting to take for granted some of the things I’m doing and places I’m seeing. It’s also less enjoyable for me in a sense. Sometimes since my day is so formulaic at the moment it feels more like a job. It’s hard to explain, but since this is just training and not the real thing, I don’t have anything concrete to strive for every day. Of course all this work is ultimately aimed at my dream of riding the Pan-American, and that is motivation enough to keep me going day after day obviously or else I wouldn’t be down here. But now that I am on day 10 and the novelty of riding here has worn off a little and I’ve settled into this routine, there are moments where it’s hard to stay 100% driven or 100% grateful for what I’m able to see and do. I woke up this morning and thought “I HAVE to ride my bike all damn day. ” not “I GET to ride my bike all day!” Of course it should be the latter of the two, and it usually is. But there are moments where I don’t appreciate where I am, or I wish I had it another way, and that is really spoiled thinking. There are also moments where I feel burned out. The burnout is inevitable and just another barrier to the type of training that I am doing, not a problem. Easy to resolve, and I always bounce back. But the moments where I am not grateful for what is before me are what bothers me. This hit me really hard today when I was at my turnaround point. I made it to Quepos and rode down to the national park where I had planned to turn around. The beaches there are the most beautiful I’ve ever seen. Tropical paradise. And I did enjoy the view and I appreciated the beauty, but as I took a 5 minute break and sat on some rocks overlooking the beach I found myself wishing I could just sit and relax. Maybe read a book and have a drink. Learn how to surf or walk down the beach and watch the monkeys play at the surf’s edge. I was wishing to have a fun time like the other people I saw. I felt tired and jaded and I didn’t want to get back on my bike and ride for another 7 hours through thunderstorms and traffic. There I was, at one of the coolest beaches in the world, wishing for more. Some people dream their whole lives of seeing what I saw today and in the moment I was belittling the incredible value of my experience. Luckily I recognized this while I was sitting there and I tried to reconcile my conflictions. I’m glad that I saw the error in my thinking at the moment and was able to turn myself back in the right direction, but I’m embarrassed that it ever happened in the first place. I mean look at some of the pictures from today. Absolutely stunning. Sure it rained 80% of the day, and yeah I’m tired, you bet I would rather be in a dry bed with A/C than this sopping tent in a cow pasture right now, but at the end of the day, holy smokes was today a remarkable journey of phenomenal sights.

Camping on the beach is cool, but it always sounds more fun than it turns out to be. The big issue is the sand. I was obviously wet and so was all my stuff. So the sand clung to everything. I felt like a sugar cookie. You know when you take the dough and roll it around in the bowl of sugar and it comes out completely crusted in granulates of sugar. Just like that. Absolutely covered in sand. Like anything else, you just get used to it. I think I spent more time worried at the thought of being a sand monster than I actually spent afflicted by the sand. Still, since I haven’t gotten even remotely dry since last night the sand is still coating my body. It’s actually kind of comical. There is nothing I can do about it. It’s only problematic from a chaffing point of view and I got most of that taken care of this morning. However, I could not get the sand out of my cycling shoes and socks. If you refer to the picture of my trench foot (or don’t. It is disgusting and you probably don’t want to see that. Sorry) you can see that my skin is so shriveled up there are deep creases in the bottom of my feet. Sand got all up in these creases and all day the grit wore away at the skin in these creases. It’s surprisingly painful to walk right now, like I’m limping. It hurts on the bike, but I can usually ignore it and sometimes the pain goes away if it hasn’t rained in a couple of hours. It’s comical for me to go back and read my entries from the first couple of days where I was wishing for rain to clear out the smog. The weather I have now is what I was expecting this whole time. Grass is ALWAYS greener on the other side because a day in the Tabasco desert like day number 3 would do me a world of healing and drying, but at the time I got heatstroke and dehydrated.

There was just a very light drizzle when I woke up and the sky above me was mostly clear. There was a huge thunderstorm bank out over the Pacific though. I’ve never woken up to the sight of a thunderstorm like that. Lightning was flashing over the sea while the sky to the east lightly painted thin cirrus clouds in a rotating palate of every color in the rainbow. I had some blue skies in the morning as I made my way to Quepos and then to Manuel Antonio National Park. I saw 9 macaws on the way there. None of my pictures came out that well, but wow they are incredible in person. I’ve seen them in Peru too at the salt licks on the bluffs of the river. Such beautiful birds and really smart too. They are almost always in pairs (I saw 4 pairs and a solitary flyer) because they are monogamous for life, which can be up to 80 years! (You’ll have to double-check me here. I don’t have internet but I think that is correct). They are loud too. That’s how I saw most of the ones I did, I heard them yapping up a storm and spotted them from there. I’m glad I know what their call sounds like otherwise I probably wouldn’t have seen so many! I also saw an awesome monkey while I was descending down to the beach, but the hill was so steep (29% 🥵) and my brakes were so bad that I couldn’t stop in time to get a better view of him. Like I literally could not stop my bike on this descent. It’s actually really scary to ride right now even in the dry. Right now my biggest fear, even over getting robbed, is my brakes. In the rain, they might as well not be there. If I get to a big descent in the middle of a huge storm in the next couple of days it could be really bad. The brakes on this bike have always been bad, but with the beater wheels I have on right now, the brakes have never been worse. Good thing it’s mostly flat all the way to Guatemala haha. It was weird to get to the beach then just turn around and start heading back to Guatemala. This kind of ties into what I was saying about a lack of motivation to really push myself. Like what would’ve been the point if me going another 10km past Quepos? It was 70km from my campsite to my turnaround so at kilometer 140 I was back on the road I did yesterday into Jaco.

The rain had started at around 9:30 right after I left the park. Very fortunate to have had some sun for the morning! It was on and off rain the rest of the day and now it’s just a steady patter. So typical and predictable. Thunderstorms in the afternoon into the evening that eventually taper into a steady rain that usually stops a couple hours after midnight then there is some clearing for sunrise before the clouds start building again when the sun starts heating everything up. As I am typing there is a lot of thunder all of the suddenly off to the west so I’m not so sure the steady rain is here to stay, it might pick back up. Maybe everything I just said about the weather is irrelevant lol. I took a long break in El Roble at my favorite Central America Supermarket chain, Pali Maxi (aka Desea Familia in Guatemala). Right after I left El Roble in a torrential downpour, I realized my phone said “device not activated” and the roaming data was not working. I’ve restarted the phone and done a dozen other things, but I can’t get my roaming data to work so I can only send and receive stuff on WiFi now which is slightly problematic if I’m camping. I also can’t call, even on WiFi. That is a bummer. So if you have tried to call me or we had plans to talk in the next couple of days, I’m not ignoring you, I simply can’t call. It’s unfortunate not to have service and a little bit of a safety concern if something goes wrong, but I was thinking about it and there isn’t really a situation where not having service would be a do-or-die moment. If I get into trouble in a spot where I would’ve had service, then there are going to be other people around since cell companies put cell towers where people are. Duh. Now I just have to make plans in advance when I have WiFi, which isn’t that bad. I usually keep my phone on airplane mode except when I stop at stores anyways and hopefully I can get WiFi at the stores. The biggest drawback is not having a Spanish translator in my pocket anymore. That has come in clutch a few times including at the Nicaragua border during my little bribery stint. Speaking of the Nicaraguan border, I’ll be crossing that (hopefully) tomorrow late morning. Fingers crossed they don’t try to hold me hostage for more money or even worse, flat-out reject me from entering without my yellow fever card. The agents on the Honduras side promised this wouldn’t be a problem, but the agents on the Honduras front also demanded $50 in bribe money so I’m not super sure if I trust them on this one. I guess time will tell.

Hoping to make it to Managua tomorrow night. I don’t really have much of a choice since I need a hostal; central Nicaragua is not a place I want to be camping, and it’s too populated to find a spot even if safety wasn’t a concern. It should be about 290km from where I am right now (a cow pasture just northwest of Limonal, CR). That’ll be good as long as the border crossing goes well and nothing else goes south. From there I’ll have one day through the rest of Nicaragua and into Honduras which I’m not super stoked on. But once I get past Choluteca I’ll be chilling again and I’m super excited to bike along the coast of El Salvador. 3 big days then one (potentially) smaller (200km) day left!

Day 11: 6/14/2024

79 miles, 3,362 ft. elevation gain

I might be done biking for this trip. The right crank arm on my bike has completely splintered making my bike unrideable. If I cannot get a replacement crank arm in Managua tonight or tomorrow morning then my trip is over. It really breaks me up to even think about this trip being over. There have been so many moments during my journey here where I thought I wanted my trip to be over but now that it might actually be here I am not ready for the end. In those really hard moments it’s easy to miss everything I have back home. It’s easy to want to see the people I love again, it’s easy to miss having my own safe bed to sleep in, it’s easy to miss the temperate NH weather, it’s easy to miss so so many things that I have at home that I don’t have here. I do miss those things, but I love what I have here in Central America. I am totally mentally prepared to have 3 1/2 days left on the bike. Only now that the rest of my bike trip may go up in smoke do I truly understand how much this biking and this journey means to me. I’ve made the Pan-American the focal point of my life. As stupid as it may be, my biking and my training mean more to me than anything else in the world other than the love I have for friends and family. Without the support of friends and family the biking would never happen. I’ve invested so much time and effort and made so many sacrifices for my training this year. In the last 7 months I’ve spent more hours on the bike than I have sleeping. It’s really sad to see things not go my way. This isn’t the way I wanted things to end. But failure is part of the process and it’s not like this is an end all be all moment in my life. It’s just a setback. I really am so incredibly sad right now which is stupid because 1) there is a chance a bike shop in Managua will have a replacement crank arm and I can start riding again tomorrow 2) I made it 10 1/2 days of incredible cycling before this happened, it could’ve happened day 1 and then where would I be? 3) even if this is the end I have learned so much about myself and the world I’ve had the privilege of seeing. I am so incredibly grateful for what I have been able to do. Even if this is the end, the last 10 days have been the greatest adventure of my life and I’ll never forget them 4) my trip could’ve ended with my bike getting stolen or me getting smashed by a car. In the big picture a mechanical is the best way this trip could’ve ended (besides me actually finishing the ride) 5) at the end of the day it’s just a bike ride. It’s not that serious. I keep talking like my ride is over and it might not be. I’m going to stay optimistic for now and hope for the best.

I had a really great tent spot last night. Almost too good actually. It was so flat and smooth that the water that leaked through my tent wasn’t pulled any which way so it decided to just pool up on the floor. It didn’t really bother me at all though. I’m so used to it now. It’s amazing how comfortable I’ve become with being uncomfortable. I can now just plop down anywhere and get a solid night’s rest. Last night while I was watching the water drip down the walls of my tent amid a flurry of mosquitos I thought of all those commercials for the fancy mattresses so many Americans use. Yet there seem to be so many chiropractors too. We certainly didn’t evolve to sleep on temperature-controlled tempur-pedic mattresses. If we all slept on the ground, or at least with less of a cushion, would there be less back pain? Doubtless, a lot of America’s back pain is caused by obesity and other lifestyle-related factors, but still. I’ve got no back pain and I’m just sleeping in the dirt. I mean that too. I’ve never been this filthy. I’ve been smelly or dirty plenty of times. But right now I’m actually filthy. There is dirt and sand caked in weird places and my hair feels like turf, but if you dig down to the roots it’s like playing in a sandbox. I’m still finding ticks on myself from that fateful 3rd night. Sleeping straight on the ground with no pad in the sand and in the rain truly has been a gritty experience in the most literal definition of the word. The rain last night was never super heavy, but it was steady and it never stopped. It followed me through the night and all the way through Liberia this morning.

I got a nice early 4 am wake-up and was biking 20 minutes before the sun was up. I made great time to Liberia. Not much to report on. It was a 4-lane divided limited-access highway the entire way. Costa Rica is in the midst of turning the small 2-lane highway CA-1 into a freeway, and they need to. It’s such a dangerous 2 lane road. I was so scared riding it last night in the waning light during the rain. The problem is, this freeway is technically no bikes allowed. And when I say technically it’s like super obvious because there are signs up “No Ciclistas”. There aren’t any other thru roads to take though. I have no option but to bike this road. If Costa Rica continues to expand the freeway and fails to provide an option for cyclists then the Pan-American could become impossible to actually complete. As is, it is impossible to legally complete by the letter of the law. There are cyclists on the freeway though and the rules definitely are not enforced. Even if they did decide to enforce the rules it wouldn’t be a problem because there isn’t much of a highway patrol in Central America. The police here have bigger problems to deal with than people biking where they aren’t supposed to. I got my food and water resupply in Liberia and used the groceries store’s free WiFi to check my phone then I was off again. The rain kept coming but it was nice and cool.

About 10km past Liberia I started noticing that my right pedal seemed to be slipping a bit. I didn’t think much of it because my cleat is worn down and I thought that it must’ve gotten chipped a bit more and is now slightly off camber. An easy replacement back home. 10km later and the problem was getting a lot worse. I got off the bike to look at my pedal and that’s when I saw that my whole crank arm was fracturing. I planned on just riding until the pedal came out of the crank, but it immediately became obvious that this was going to happen way before I got to Managua and even if it didn’t somehow, I was going to injure myself in the process. The pedal was getting so loose because of the fracturing carbon crank that it was seriously changing the way my foot tracked when I pedaled. My Achilles started hurting as the play got worse to the point where I realized I had to stop. The splintering was getting exponentially worse and it was only a matter of kilometers before the pedal pulled out. Every revolution I could hear the carbon splintering a bit more. I made it to La Cruz and called it. I found the bus stop and got the first bus to the border. Made it over the border no problem at all, and now I’m on a different bus to Managua. I wanted to capture my thoughts in the moment while I have the time to write them down. Already talking it through with myself has made me feel a little better. If this is the end then I’ve come to terms with that. If this isn’t the end and I’m back on the bike tomorrow then I’m going to be so incredibly grateful and happy for the gift of those last couple of days. They will mean so much to me. I’ll check back in later tonight when I should have a clearer idea of my next steps.

I was holding out blind hope that I could fix my bike in Managua, but no shops have what I need. My ride is over. Now I’m sad again.

Days 12-16: Buses, El Salvador, and My Return to the United States

6/15/24: Last night I was disappointed for sure. I just wanted to get out of Managua. It isn’t a very safe city and there is nothing there I wanted to see. I had a huge dinner. I went to a Walmart and got a new pair of pants and loaded up on food while I was there. In the streets there were a lot of little children begging. They were all over the road in the middle of dangerous traffic. It was really sad to see. I got over myself and my whole being sad about the bike being broken mindset after that. I’m still bummed, but not the same way that I was. My problems are very small and pale in comparison to other people’s, especially in Managua.

I wanted to leave the city, so I was able to get a bus ticket from Managua to San Salvador, El Salvador. I was really looking forward to biking the coast of El Salvador so I figured why not go see it while I’m here even if I can’t bike it. That’s a long way to go on a bus though. 16+ hours to be exact. The bus left at 1:30am and didn’t get to San Salvador until just before 18:00. It’s funny because if I had a fully functioning bike (ignoring all stoppage time and inevitable delays at the border) I could average 27kph for the entire 500km journey and I would’ve arrived in San Salvador around the same time as the bus if we departed at the same time as well. Riding in the bus really made me appreciate how much ground I cover every day when I’m biking. 180 miles is a long way! While I slept the bus went through Léon and Chinandega. I awoke at the Honduras border at 5:30. The border doesn’t open until 6:00, but I think we were running a bit ahead of schedule and also wanted to be there early because a line forms to get in. Checking us out of Nicaragua took forever. It was ridiculous. Nicaraguan border patrol is the worst. It took 2 hours for them to process 50 people. At least I didn’t have to pay any bribes this time, only a $13 fee.

Despite my best efforts, I have yet to find any book to read in Spanish or English. Thus, my only entertainment during this bus ride was my phone. I should’ve taken the opportunity to journal a lot, but just did t feel like it. The WiFi on board was super spotty and went out completely around 11:00, not to return again. I managed to watch one 25-minute YouTube video over the course of an hour because it was buffering so much. So my boredom quickly found an outlet in food. I had (and still have) a lot of Nicaraguan Cordobas and Honduran Lempiras (local currencies). I was planning on using them while biking back through these countries and I think my cash supply was well sized to get me through with only a couple USD equivalent left over after exiting each country, but getting whisked by in a bus changed those plans. So every opportunity I got I just spent a lot of money on food and kind of binge ate to fend off the boredom. Not a super healthy image, and it’s funny how much of a contrast yesterday was to the previous 11 days. I just sat on my ass looking at my phone eating food all day as opposed to riding my bike all day. Regardless, I ate some really good food, ate way too much food, and drank some really cool stuff (idk what half of the stuff I drank was, so many different juices bought from street vendors that come in little plastic bags and you kind of just hope whatever it is is going to be okay for your body), drank way too much stuff, and inevitably ended up using the bathroom a whole lot to the chagrin of the person sitting in the aisle seat next to me. After demolishing a 2L Fresca soda, a half liter plastic water bag, 2 mystery juice bags, and a 500ml carton of chocolate milk in the span of about 1 1/2 hours I found myself in quite the predicament because my poor friend sitting next to me was taking a nap, but my bladder was about to rip apart. I wanted to climb over him because I really really didn’t want to wake this guy up. He’d already gotten up for me so I could use the restroom probably 6 times in the last 6 hours. Thankfully he woke up when we hit a massive speed bump and I was able to save myself the embarrassment of 1) climbing over him and inevitably waking him up or 2) pissing all over myself when we hit the next bump (who’s to say a little didn’t leak out when we hit that first speed bump, the world may never know the truth). Anyways, lots of solid and liquid calories were consumed, only a portion of which are pictured. I should’ve taken more photos, but it was pretty grim weather and I’d already biked a lot of the roads in the sun, so any pics I may have taken out of the window of the bus during torrential downpours wouldn’t have added much to this journal viewing experience.

Best food of the day: carne asada purchased on the Honduras side of the El Salvador-Honduras Border

Best drink of the day: mystery juice purchased on the Honduras side of the Honduras-Nicaragua Border

Most interesting taste: mystery meat double decker sandwich purchased on the Honduras side of the Honduras-Nicaragua Border (I honestly have no idea what this was. It looked and smelled disgusting, but tasted pretty good, unlike anything I’ve ever had before. Kind of a sweet taste, hints of some type of seafood? But the consistency of like raw shredded chicken? Maybe I’m glad I don’t know what it was. Honestly probably a mix of meats that comes in a can, like spam, in a grocery store if I had to guess).

Like I said, it rained all day. It doesn’t matter obviously since I was on the bus, but I got soaking wet at the border crossings. I’m very used to wearing wet clothes and sitting in puddles now. You just get used to it. You can always tell a tourist or a gringo apart because they run through the rain to try to stay dry. The locals just walk through it like nothing is any different than if the sun is out. Some locals carry umbrellas, but I’ve never seen a man with an umbrella here. I think k it’s probably one of those machismo things where stubborn men refuse to carry around an umbrella and opt to just get wet instead. For some people an umbrella is a permanent fixture since they use it protect against the sun too, especially mothers with small children. If it’s not raining it either just stopped raining and everything is wet, or the sun is out and the UV index is high enough to roast you like the Thanksgiving turkey in just a couple of minutes. During one stop I purchased some food from a street vendor, bartered the price down a little, then slowly walked back to the bus in the pouring rain, eating my food with my hands. One of the bus drivers remarked, “¿Este gringo se cree un local ahora, eh?”, “This gringo thinks he is a local now, huh?” As the 3 other gringos on my bus of ~50 people hunkered under a nearby awning and sprinted back to the bus with their packaged food procurements from a little market. Perhaps the most proud moment of my trip thus far. Progress huh?

I don’t mind the rain, as we have abundantly established, but I keep talking about it so much that it clearly affects me a little. I haven’t seen the sun since my first day in Costa Rica. I’m writing this part of the entry on the 16th, the day after, and it’s still raining. I’m at the beach and was kind of hoping for some morning sun, but rain is fine too I guess. I wish I had a rain gauge because I bet I’ve seen 10+ inches fall over the past couple of days! I’ve only seen rain like this once in the US, last summer in New Hampshire it poured for 3-4 days on top of already water-logged soils. We got about 10 inches over those days and the flooding damages were in excess of $2.2 billion with 13 fatalities across the Adirondacks, Vermont, and New Hampshire. Here it can rain 5 inches in a couple of hours and the rivers barely swell. I legitimately do not understand where the water goes. It’s remarkable. Upon arriving in San Salvador I biked the 2.5 km to the main bus station in the pouring rain and waited for a bus to take me down to La Libertad. It was dark at this point and I was really unsure of where to go and what bus to take, but a local told me to just stand on this street corner and catch the next 102 bus. That’s what I had read online too, the 102 line. The bus was a city bus, a converted school bus. A lot of Central American countries have school buses, both private and public, for transportation. Actual school buses down here are little microbuses that look more like vans. These big converted school buses can HAUL. Also called chicken buses, these things absolutely rip. Some drivers really customize the exterior with stickers, paint jobs, crazy bumpers, antennas, LED screens, and unique hubcaps, you name it. It’s like Mad Max in real life, these buses are awesome. “Pimp My Ride” could come back and have infinite material to work with down here. Maybe I can get some pics of the cooler ones over the coming days. I think the best ones I saw were in Guatemala the first few days so I should be back in the glory lands of pimped-out buses soon.

The buses usually stop running shortly after dark so I’m pretty sure I caught the last one, or second to last one, at 18:50. Getting my bike over the turnstile was a pain but some locals helped me. My ride would’ve been less than a dollar (over an hour trip by the way, so cheap!) but with my bike it was $4. Fair enough, it took up 2 extra seats and was a hassle for other passengers to move around. El Salvador uses the US dollar as official currency. Nice not to have to do conversions every time I’m trying to buy something. Costa Rica was particularly annoying in terms of conversions because 1 USD is equivalent to like 530 Colònes. I would go to the grocery store and end up paying like 4,500 Colónes. Ridiculous currency. Would be so much easier to just drop down two orders of magnitude. The bus stopped in La Libertad but my hostal is 5km west up the coast, so I started slowly biking that way. My crank finally snapped all the way with 4km to go, so I ended up walking all the hills and coasting all the downhills in the dark rain. Definitely a goofy experience. When I go back on the 17th there will be buses running in the daylight and I won’t have to repeat this experience.

I quite like my hostal. It’s a little overpriced since the beach here is a surfing hotspot so there are lots of tourists, but still the cheapest option and a rim with ac for $17 a night isn’t all that bad. I was really excited to finally get a good night’s sleep without having to wake up for anything in the morning. The last time I was able to sleep for as long as I wanted was well over a month ago before finals. Tomorrow I will just do whatever I want to do. Go for a swim, walk along the beach, journal, try to find a book, eat more good food. I have no plans and nowhere to be. I’m staying in the same hostal tomorrow night as well. It would be nice to still be biking, but life is too short to complain and pounding around the El Salvadorian coast isn’t too shabby. Life is pretty sweet at the moment. Cheers!

6/16/24: Yay, beach day! (Kind of) I had a fantastic vision of me sitting on a sunny beach, leaned back against a palm tree, reading a book and maybe swimming a bit. Not quite the day Mother Nature had in store for me, but still a nice peaceful day. I woke up to the nice sound of heavy rain on the corrugated sheet metal roofing. I had a nice laid back morning and went upstairs on the open air balcony to lay in a hammock and journal a bit. The hammocks overlook the river which was quickly rising due to the rain. I sat and sipped some coffee as the rain continued to pound the roof. Unfortunately the river started to smell like the sewer as it got higher and tons of trash we being swept down. The rain was really heavy for about 6 hours after 3 days of continuous rain and it caused some serious flooding. It rained way more than normal even for the rainforest. About 2 hours after waking up I decided to just walk around in the rain. No point in waiting for it to pass since it was clearly here to stay.

I walked through town and down to the beach. I stopped for breakfast first and enjoyed some eggs and plantains. The river flows right into the ocean at the end of town. Due to the flooding the river was not passable by foot, not even close, so I couldn’t walk up the coast, only down. There is no bridge in town since people usually just walk across the river. It was a muddy torrent. It would’ve been really cool to see, but it was just dumping trash straight into the ocean. So much trash all part of the Pacific now. It made me really sad. I picked up some trash but it was pointless. There was so much of it I could work all day and not make a dent in the load. Additionally, I also wasn’t super inclined to wade in the water after remembering the smell of sewage emanating from it. There were red flags on the beach anyways, absolutely no swimming allowed. The sea was very turbulent and the wind was whipping up the coast. The river had turned all the water along the coastline an orange muddy color so the water looked like the roiling mess of a witches brew with trash floating all around. There is a cool rock formation about 50meters off the coast right in town. Not sure how it is there since the rest of the coast is all sandy and small rocks, but it’s a cool feature of the town. The town, El Tunco, is known as Surf City El Salvador because of the famous breaks there. Normally there would be tons of surfers out in beautiful crystal water, but nobody was even walking in the beach today. The waves were swelling at 10ft, but super choppy and not breaking cleanly. Nobody could surf if they had wanted too. I walked down the coast until I got to the next impassible river. This one was also booming and it was rapidly eating away at the beach, calving off huge sections from the sand banks. I sat and watched the beach get washed away for about 30 minutes. I love watching erosion. This whole time the rain was coming down in sideways sheets. I definitely would’ve liked to swim or try to surf. The rain was a little unfortunate. Because of all the surfing El Tunco is very touristy and there are some really nice resorts. I wandered into one and went for a little swim in their pool. Nobody was outside in the rain to stop me. I didn’t swim for long; it felt stupid to swim when it was raining so heavily. After a couple of hours of poking around I headed back i go town and grabbed lunch at a restaurant right on the beach looking over the ocean. The town was dead and so was the restaurant. It felt like a ghost town. After lunch I returned to the hostel for a hammock nap. I was thinking about taking a bus up the coast a little, but there didn’t seem to be much of a point in that and the roads were flooded so I don’t even think the buses were running on their regular schedule. I found a stack of books at the hostel and got super excited. But one was a Spanish dictionary and one was a Spanish Italian translation dictionary. I saw a Stephen king book though and was very happy. The title was Misery, “I haven’t read that one yet” I thought excitedly picking it up. But I opened it to find the whole thing was written in German. The remaining books were also all in German. Bummer.

I took a nap for a couple hours then bummed around the hostal making small talk here and there. The rain was still coming down heavily and at this point we lost power and water started leaking in places it wasn’t supposed to. The hostal has a very small pool and it had rained easily 5 inches in a couple hours so the pool was actually overflowing. There was just water everywhere. It was kind of cool in a way. The rain abated some as it got dark which was nice and it fully stopped around 6:30. I went out for some burritos and when that didn’t fill me up I made a second stop at a Pupusa restaurant and got a cheese pupusa and a spinach cheese pupusa. I’d never heard of pupusas before El Salvador. I’m assuming it’s an El Salvadorian dish. The best I can describe it is like a combination of a quesadilla and a pancake. I watched the lady make mine from scratch. She took some cheese and then took some dough and molded it around the cheese, then pressed it flat and threw it in the griddle with a lot of butter and oil. I really liked my pupusas and each one was only a dollar! The dough soaks up all the butter so it’s nice and greasy and the melted cheese gets the inside all greasy too, but the outside is just a little crispy in spots. It’s so nice when they are warm and steaming. I walked along the coast again when it was dark. Now that the rain had stopped all the tourists had emerged from their hotels and resorts and there were a decent amount of people milling about. Definitely the most gringos I’ve seen all trip. Even with all the people there wasn’t much of a nightlife. There were two bars I liked my head into but they were pretty dead and everyone was way older than me so I didn’t really want to stick around. I must I’ve missed the bar where all the young surfers were hanging out at. I know there must’ve been one around but I couldn’t find it. I don’t drink because of my training so I wasn’t really disappointed by the lack of a bar scene anyways. I was just looking g for some conversation. I sat on a log on the beach and let the wind dry me out a bit. I only have one pair of clothes, so when everything gets wet I can stay wet for a long time if I don’t walk around and air out a bit. For example, I’m on a bus right now and I’m still very damp 6 hours after I last walked in the rain. Drying slowly also brings out some unfortunate odors. So it was nice to dry out a bit. It started sprinkling again though so I went back to the hostel and fell asleep to the sound of the returning rain.

6/17/24: Today was my last full day. I’m not sad about that at all either. After my ride ended I really just wanted to get home. Yesterday was fine, but I was totally just stalling. Even if the weather had been perfect I would’ve been stalling since I don’t really enjoy the beach and it’s not natural for me to sit around all day, but the weather made it even worse. It was nice to see parts of El Salvador, but I don’t really believe it enriched my Central America experience in many ways. I’m very happy to be headed in the direction of home now.

You’ll never guess the weather when I woke up. More rain. I walked down the road to enjoy one last meal, but almost everything was closed. Yesterday the floods washed a bunch of dirt and rocks into the road in spots. It was incredible, plants were already sprouting up from these piles of dirt in the middle of the road. It’s amazing how fast life springs up here. I found the only open restaurant 50 meters upstream of the mouth of the river . It was quite nice and peaceful and I was the only person there. All the other tourists were still sleeping or scared by the rain. The power was still out at the hostal, as it was all night, but the restaurant I was at seemed to have electricity and they got my food prepped no problem. I sat on the porch overlooking the river and enjoyed my breakfast. I walked out to the beach again in a light drizzle but promptly turned around when I got to the beach because I could see a huge storm less than a kilometer off the coast and closing fast. I beelined for the hostal and made it just in time to avoid the worst of the rain. For the next 4 hours it really dumped. Some of the heaviest stuff I’ve seen while down here, second only to the 5th night of this trip. No thunder, no lightning, just buckets of rain. My bus left San Salvador at 14:00, but I was supposed to be there 45 minutes early. I wasn’t sure how often the buses ran, so I budgeted myself 2 hours to get up to San Salvador plus an extra hour at the bus station. I knew it would probably be fine if I showed up at 13:55, the bus company just wouldn’t be very happy. So I really had 2 extra hours to play with. I sat in the side of the highway in the pouring rain with my bike for about 20 minutes before the first microbus came by. I took a chicken bus down here to La Libertad, but that is where the city bus routes end. I would have to get a microbus if I wanted to get a single bus all the way back to San Salvador. The first bus went right by me. I thought he didn’t see me in the rain, so I cursed myself for not paying attention and waving better and began the wait for the next bus. 20 minutes later the next microbus came by and I made sure he saw me waving very clearly. He slowed down and pulled into the shoulder, but he must’ve seen my bike and he sped off. I came to the conclusion that they wouldn’t take my bike in the microbus. These buses are much nicer than the chicken buses, it makes sense they did t want my bike. I was begging to worry now so I started hightailing it to La Libertad. Hightailing it in the city diction my bike is in looks like walking rapidly up the hills and coasting down them. I can pedal with one foot, but then have to use the other foot to finagle the crank back up. It’s very dangerous to pedal this way in my tiny little sandals because the crank is splintered with carbon slicers poking out and if I slip off the end off the crank then my foot goes straight into my chain ring. It wasn’t long before my right foot was bleeding a decent bit. But it was raining so hard all the blood kept getting washed away. Out of sight out of mind. Once in La Libertad the traffic was so bad and the road was sloped downhill enough for me to coast, I was able to weave in and out of traffic and actually caught up to the chicken bus headed to San Salvador. A $3 tip to the driver on top of my $1 fare and there were no questions asked about my bike. I made it to the bus station exactly 45 minutes before departure. The bus was super nice and there were only about 5 passengers. By far the nicest bus I’ve ever been on. The ride went by really quickly. The WiFi was good, the border crossing took 5 minutes, and the roads were smooth. I caught up on some emails, watched some news I’d missed while riding, took a nap, and of course, snacked through the ride. The bus conveniently dropped me off just a couple blocks from my hostal in Guatemala City and the rain was nice enough to let up enough for me to make it to the hostal without getting completely soaked. I’m in Zona 10 of Guatemala City. It feels very safe here, not like some other parts of the city. There are high rises around and nice restaurants. Lots of cops everywhere. I definitely unknowingly got a hostal in the nice part of town. Only $10 for the night though and right next to the bike shop. It worked out perfect. I went to a grocery store a couple blocks from the hostal for dinner. This store was like a Whole Foods! Maybe not that nice, and definitely still much cheaper than in America, but the interior was new and nice by anyone’s standards. Highlight of my dinner haul is 1.8L of horchata for $2.50. Beautiful find. I’m up at about 5,000 ft here in the city so the sleeping weather is going to be perfect. I actually have my down jacket on while typing this while I am sitting in the open air kitchen eating my cup of noodles. I’m going to sleep very well, I can already tell. Loooong travel day(s) coming with a 12 hour overnight layover in Miami tomorrow, 2 more flights in the 19th, then a 3 hour car ride to Hanover. Hopefully I leave the rain here, but it looks like the heat will be following me home. 98° in Hanover on Friday! Holy smokes! Climate change is going crazy.

6/18/24: Today I woke up and kind of just bummed around for a couple of hours. It was raining (surprise) and I only had enough Guatemalan cash to get one taxi to the airport, so I didn’t want to spend that cash on a taxi to the other side of Guatemala City. I could’ve withdrawn more cash, but I get ripped off with the exchange rate and bank fees every time I withdraw so it wasn’t worth a $10 fee to withdraw $10. The hostel had free breakfast, which was nice since someone stole all my groceries. Who would’ve thought I could bike through Central America and camp on private property for two weeks without getting anything stolen, but I would get robbed in a hostel. It’s kind of funny, but also really annoying. Who steals food (marked with my name by the way) from a fellow traveler? Thank goodness they didn’t steal my leftover horchata though; then we would’ve had a real problem. That stuff is so good. I went to the grocery store again to get groceries round #2. I wanted to make food so I don’t have to buy overpriced airport food. I’d be in planes and airports for the next 28 hours. I cheffed up some ham and cheese sandwiches then headed to the bike shop to pack up my bike for the flight. I left my bike box there when I flew in. The mechanics were super nice and helpful again and were really interested in my trip. They told me it was quite dangerous to take a taxi in Guatemala City with a bike box like mine. Apparently taxis in general are dangerous here. That’s kind of scary, can’t get around safely at all. They offered to drive me to the airport in their TREK van for about $2 more than I probably could’ve gotten a taxi for. I have no need for my Guatemalan Quetzales (local currency) so spending an extra 20 quetzals wasn’t a worry for me. I took them up on their kind offer and they dropped me right at the door exactly 2 hours before my flight. My flight had already been delayed 45 minutes so I wasn’t super sure if it would be reliable, but I had faith since I’m flying American. We took off late but actually ended up getting to Miami on time. It wasn’t a long flight. My flight from Miami to NYC was actually longer. I had a window seat on the flight and got to see some cool volcanoes over Guatemala then I saw Cuba when we flew over it. This is the third time I’ve flown over Cuba and it looks really awesome each time I see it. I would love to go down there eventually. Miami customs is always an ordeal because you have to walk a long way and there are a million people then they dump you out into a regular security line once you clear customs. All the lines moved relatively quickly though and I had about 10 hours to enjoy the airport by the time I was through customs. I went on one of my favorite websites sleepinginairports.net to find a good place to curl up for the night. People post their best sleeping spots here. As foretold, I found a quiet nook at the top of the escalator to the Admirals Club next to gate D15. Highly recommend for anyone spending the night in Miami. Good ac, nice solid hard floor, relatively clean carpet. 7.3/10. I was wearing all my clothes so my dry bag full of charging blocks and other miscellaneous items was my only pillow. It was not very comfortable and after I dozed off I ended up shifting my head a bit and using my sandwiches as my primary pillow. Oh well. I guess they are paninis now. P.s. the last pic on here is actually rotated 180°. The sea and sky looked mirrored so I flipped the image around for kicks

6/19/24:I awoke from my rather fitful and disturbed sleep at around 5:50 and headed to my gate. My flight left just after 7:00 we touched down in LaGuardia less than 3 hours later. Despite my lack of quality sleep I wasn’t feeling tired so I took the opportunity to watch Barbie. I hadn’t seen it yet. Pretty good movie, but Mattel did not convince me that they’ve been able to turn Barbie into a feminist icon. Valiant effort though. You probably won’t be surprised to hear that my Nicaraguan headphones broke. NEVER buy electronics in Central America. That’s my main takeaway from this trip. LaGuardia is a really cool airport. The redesign reminds me of Star Wars. There is a great view of the city too. This is about as close as I want to get to NYC so it’s perfect! My flight from LGA to Boston was short and uneventful and my Mom picked me up from the airport and we are now en route to Hanover!

Thank you guys for following along. This trip has been the greatest adventure of my life and it’s only just starting. I can’t wait for this fall! I am coming away from this trip with the confidence of knowing I can bike the whole Pan-American and I am bringing profound and invaluable lessons back to Hanover with me. I have a lot to work on and a lot to look forward to.

Until next time,

-Bond

Central America Bikepacking

Bond Almand

bondalmand4@gmail.com

Central America Bikepacking

Down in a Hole: Cracked in Quebec

Sickness and Theft in Ontario

Bond Almand

bondalmand4@gmail.com