Chrislorenz9
Chrislorenz9, traveler, travel writer, Ciao For Now, Twelve Years Together on the Road, photographer, arranger, hiker, biker, sea kayaker, lover of life, history teacher, tennis coach, human.
First journey together. We began to get ready to leave on a trip of indefinite length by paying off some lingering debts, saving up any cash we could, living quite frugally and putting our things into storage. We worked through the summer and fall at various jobs and prepared Gabrielle’s rusty, duct taped together 1980 Datsun 510 wagon for the journey. Our mountain bikes went on the roof, our camping gear went inside and we drove southwest from Maine, leaving just after Thanksgiving Day in 1992. In North Carolina we were robbed of more than half of our cash and we almost turned back. We drove through a wild ice storm in Texas, and crossed the border into Mexico at El Paso, fully expecting the car to die and to begin riding our bikes at any moment. During six incredible weeks of potholes, bone jarring washboard roads, dust and hills, we explored canyons, volcanoes, historic cities and ancient ruins, and the car kept chugging along. We arrived at the Belize border near Chetumal, where they said for $25 we could have a month of insurance and “welcome to Belize”. We drove in and when we arrived in Belize City (the capital) everyone wanted to buy our car! Gabrielle’s $300 Datsun was now worth considerably more than that, so we spent a month using the car on even worse roads than Mexico’s and sold it for about three times her original price. Half of the money went to the Belize government in taxes (which is why the car was worth more to begin with; it seems imports and spare parts are heavily taxed and hard to come by) and we got on our bikes and headed west into Guatemala.
It was now early 1993 and Central America was just settling down from years of violence. We had heard horror stories from travelers about bars full of “gringos” getting held up by men with guns and machetes, though we had nothing but great interactions and wonderful experiences. We spent several months biking and occasionally riding in and on top of old U.S. school buses (local transport in Guatemala) to see and climb volcanoes, circumnavigate lakes, visit traditional mountain towns and explore ancient ruins and pyramids. El Salvador was next and also could not have been more welcoming. The fighting between the U.S. sponsored Salvadoran government/military and the FMLN (Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front- Democratic Socialism) was finally over and young girls would come up to us while we were resting on the side of the road with aprons full of fruit and tell us how nice it was to have visitors to their country again. Mostly people probably just thought we were crazy to be riding bicycles there in the first place. Everyone rides bicycles, but we were gringo’s and ours were covered with bags and equipment. Not to mention a lengthy civil war had just ended. Next was Honduras, then Nicaragua and Costa Rica – it was all so amazing and hot and full of natural beauty and kind people. When we finally ran out of money we used a credit card to buy a plane ticket home and called my father for a ride, with our last dime, from the airport.
