Thankyou Guatemala...

... for rekindling my joy in riding.

This joy had nearly been drowned in the sultry, sweaty, grimy toil of cycling in the tropics, but every morning in Guatemala when I climbed into the saddle, started pedaling and felt the fresh, cooling breeze on my face I knew it would be another great day.

I'd initially planned to stay in Guatemala for only 4 days, but once I got up into the highlands (mostly I was cycling between 1500m and 3000m altitude) I ended up staying twice as long. The combination of great riding, great weather, great activities and the great people I met along the way was just too aluring to allow me to rush.

The climate is perfect at that altitude with dry heat during the days and cool evenings and nights. I even got some real alpine conditions with low clouds, drizzle and 10m visibility - my waterproof jacket got it's first outing since leaving Oregon 7000km ago! And the scenery is truly stunning punctuated by huge volcanoes soaring above the fertile green plains, many of them still active and smoking. I spent an afternoon climbing one which is a mass of fresh rock and even fresher lava. It's strange feeling the heat coming up through the soles of your shoes, looking down at the rock you're standing on and seeing it's only a couple of inches thick and that's all there is seperating you from the glowing magma below it. Check out some of the photos for the other fun things you can do with molten rock...

So after a fantastic stay I (reluctantly) left Guatemala and headed back to the lowlands and into El Salvador. I can't feel too bad about it though as El Salvador has some of the best surf in Central America and I spent a fantastic day yesterday sampling some of it.

I'm now on route to Honduras. Here I hope the ginger beard will come into it's own. President Manuel Zelaya would never be able to grow one as a disguise so I hope it'll facilitate my smooth progress through the border crossings and any roadblocks I stumble upon :)