Just 5 more minutes

This morning at 5:00am when the Bishop went to teach seminary I left on my motorcycle to try the border 1 more time. Being Monday I thought, maybe there will be a manager there who can do more to help me. I waited until 6:00am for him to show up, but I was already out of patience. So I asked 1 of the other Guards to write down the address where I needed to go in Guatemala City. After he gave me the address and phone number, I walked back to Salvador and rode my bike to town. I parked my bike back in the garage, and packed a bag with a change of clothes.

Before getting on the bus I called the number I had been given at the frontier. No one answered, so I took the bus back to the frontier and asked again where I needed to go. This time the manager was there; he looked at the address and told me it was wrong. Through a translator he told me that maybe he could help me, and I should stay there while he made some calls.

As I wondered around the frontier the “Expert” from yesterday shouted “Mister Mister Mister! You give me $5.” “Why would I give you $5?” I asked. “Because I help you yesterday, cross border very fast.” “Really? Then way am I still here?” He had a disappointed look on his face as he realized this was an argument he could not win. I laid down on a bench with my backpack on my chest, and fell asleep for a while, once startling myself awake with my own snoring. I was still so tried from trying to sort all this out. The Manager wanted to see the stamp in my passport from when I left Guatemala the 1st time. I told him that where I crossed there was no building giving out stamps. Then he wanted to see the stamp from Honduras, I searched through my passport a dozen times but couldn’t find it. Maybe they didn’t give me 1, maybe Mitch has 2 in his I don’t know what happened. Now after 10 hours of listening to this guy tell me “Just wait a little bit longer, I will help you.” The solution is for me to go back the 600 miles to Corinto in Northern Guatemala. Since I can enter Guatemala, and my bike can’t I asked if I could take a bus to Corinto, it is only about 100 miles from here. “No they will want to see the bike.”

After 10 hours of listening to them say, “Just 5 more minutes.” I walked back to El Salvador to get a bus to town, the Guards there wanted to know why I was being turned away from Guatemala. So I was taken to an office and asked questions I didn’t understand for 30 minutes. After I said “tourist” enough times they let me go.

I honestly can’t remember anything being on the Guatemalan side of the border, and feel that if I drive all that way I will be stuck with the same problem even father from home. The people here tell me that the form they need to cancel my permit is in Corinto. The guards in Corinto just need to push the “send” button and email it down, but they won’t do it.

I have one last hope; the sister who is letting me store her bike at her house has a friend of a friend who works at a Guatemalan Border. She doesn’t speak English so she called her sister in Calgary, Canada where I served my mission. We passed the phone back and forth as her sister translated the conversation. She is going to call him to see if he can do something to help me.

While she is checking on her connection, I went to an internet café scanned the expired driving permit, and emailed it to JaggiLines. In his control room he will be able to change the date on the document no problem. I have driven to the edge of insanity, and it is Guatemala.

--Ryan

Worlds Mildest Police Chase's

Driving on the roads in Central America is fun, down here it’s a free for all. Just do whatever needs to be done to get to your destination as fast as possible. For me passing cars is a habit. I will be happy if I can drive from Panama to the Untied States and not get passed once by another car. I feel it’s safer to drive fast, than it is to have cars sneaking up on me from behind.

Today around the city of Leon in Nicaragua the police were everywhere. It’s times like these I wish I could turn my headlight off. I can see the police checkpoint from a ways off, but because of the BMW’s super bright headlight they can see me too. When I see orange cones in the road ahead I will try get in close behind a truck or something bigger than me. That way I can hide all the way into the checkpoint, then cruise through before they realize I am there.

Today my plan backfired when they stopped the truck I was hiding behind, maybe they saw me, or maybe it was just a bonus I was there. The officer asked for my documents on the bike, which I gave to him. Then, pointing to his eye said he saw me pass a truck, and I needed to pay. I had been passing trucks all day, and couldn’t think if the last one would have been in eyesight of the officer or not. I pointed to the broken yellow line in the road and told him it was okay to pass. He shook his head and kept pointing to his eye, while I kept pointing to the yellow line, and pretending to not understand what he was asking. This went on for a while, but he eventually became frustrated and let me go.

After this I was on my guard for more checkpoints. I found a truck driving at a good speed and stayed behind it, no more passing and no more speeding. About 10 miles down the road there is another checkpoint. I can see it through the windshield of the Toyota in front of me. When the pickup is through and the cop can see me, he starts waving madly and pointing at the side of the road.

I love the TV show “World’s Wildest Police Chase’s” I watch it secretly hoping the bad guys get away. When they get caught I think, “If I was driving that old red Ford pickup I could have gotten away, even if the cops had spiked my tires and there was no rubber left on the rims.”

So here is this (likely crooked) Nicaraguan cop waving at me. My day has come. I pretend not to see his frantic waving and continue to coast at 10 mph right through the checkpoint. A few more meters I am over the speed bump, and have made a clean get away. We both know his old 4-cylinder cop car rusting on the side of the road will never catch me.

Getting away from the Nicaraguan police has given me a big confidence boost for when I get back home. Even if it would be classified under World’s Mildest Police Chase’s, it makes me think, maybe I could….

--Ryan

Solo Gringo

Nothing could ever match the hollow feeling I had as the plane circled lower to the Baghdad International Airport. The plump girl overflowing in the seat next to me was jabbering on about the desert. “Look at all the buildings, I think that’s the Tigris River.” She says tapping me on the shoulder, and pointing out the window. My head is buried in the book “Kite Runner” I keep hoping something in the book will be happy, just like I’m hoping the plump girl in the seat next to me will shut up. I don’t want to think about Iraq, or how crazy it was to sign up to go there. For the moment I want to ignore where I am, and the fear I have.

It has been 7800 miles since I left home, and for the first time I am riding alone. After traveling so far I have a habit of looking in my mirror for Mitch. Now he isn’t there, only this time it isn’t because he is broken down somewhere waiting for me to notice and turn around to find him.

Riding solo isn’t all bad, I will have to rely completely on myself. But not being able to carry on a conversation in Spanish will make the trip a bit lonely. Conversations inside my helmet have already started. Soon they will take place in the hotel, and then as I walk down the street. A good defense against would be thugs. “Hey, don’t mess that gringo. I heard him arguing with himself about whether or not it’s bad to drink motor oil.”

I am afraid to go alone, and just as before I will ignore the fear and do what needs to be done. I don’t know how much money it will cost, or where I will be staying at the end of each day. I don’t know the route I will take, or how much longer I will spend on the road. But I will get there…. Eventually.

--Ryan

Halfway

It has been 8 countries, 56 days, and 7000 miles since we left Utah. Don’t think 7000 miles is far? Try driving from Seattle to New York to Miami to San Francisco. You still wouldn’t be at 7000 miles, but by then you would get my point. Through blasting heat in Mexico, and pounding rain in Costa Rica half-throttle has made it halfway!

During our journey the only real danger we have experienced has been the traffic. We haven’t been robbed or chased by bandits. Crossing borders was tough, but I don’t think we paid anything that wasn’t due. We haven’t been pulled over by crooked police and intimidated for bribe money. In fact the only place we have had police problems was in Utah.

So where is the party? What did we do to celebrate crossing the Panama Canal, and getting to Panama City? We checked into a hotel and slept for 12 hours, woke up and took a siesta. Then we went to see Transformers and watched some giant robots tear up a city.

Reaching halfway in the trip has brought me no relief, or sense of fulfillment. Panama is the only country on this trip I haven’t seen before, the only new frontier. Thinking about turning north and heading home makes me feel empty. To the south is the Darien Gap and a continent I have never seen. After driving this far, I feel adventure pulling me south, south across Darien.

--Ryan

They call him Pinball

Mitch “Pinball” Curwen has made it through Mexico.

It took 4992 miles, and 2 motorcycles. He is on his 6th chain, and 3rd sprocket. He has dropped his motorcycle 5 times, been in 1 accident, 1 ambulance ride, had 4 stitches, and 1 high-speed dismount on a muddy road. He has been pulled over by Mexican Police and watched them siphoned his gas tank. Broken a turn signal and lost a pair of nail clippers. He had a Guardian Bell, a gift from a friend to ward off problems when placed on a motorcycle. But he has crashed so many times it fell off.

He made his way through Mexico with the strategy of a pinball. One large unshaven steel ball bearing bouncing off of, around, and over anything in his way. How many times can it be the end of the road for one person? His first motorcycle gets a blown engine? He gets a new motorcycle. Hit a car going 30mph and land in the hospital? He gets his stitches and rides the bike to the next town that very night. He breaks a chain in the middle of nowhere? He waits on the side of the road for me to bring him a new one.

There is no motorcycle endorsement on his driver’s license, he hasn’t taken any riders safety courses, and he has more balls than brains. But he does have a ½ shell helmet, combat boots, a leather jacket, and a black handkerchief. Nobody could have blamed Mitch if he had gone home after the Heritage broke, or after his accident in Sonora. But someday when Mitch is an old man, and his grandkid climbs on his knee to ask what he ever did that was so great. He won’t have to say “Well… I was going to ride a motorcycle from Utah to where the road ends.”

--Ryan

Regret?

Being alone inside my helmet listening to the wind rushing by, my mind starts to wander. I really can’t control it, so when it asked me if I would ever regret taking this trip I laughed out loud. If comedy is all about timing, my mind is perfect at it.

This really was the most ridiculous question anybody could ask. I analyze it from every angle. If I make a fortune in the stock market, or go bankrupt and live on the street. If I get married have lots of fat babies and live a long life, if I get cancer and die young. Could I ever look back and think this was all a huge mistake? Can a person ever regret travel?

Of all the places I could be, none could make me happier than the inside of a sweaty helmet on the bumpy Mexican road to Veracruz.

--Ryan