The Road To Lanquin

We set off at 9:30, geared up for our longest ride yet. From our research we expected it to be about 6 hours from Flores to Lanquin.

Five minutes out of the town the road turned to gravel, our pace slowed dramatically and the sweat began to pour! It only lasted about twenty minutes though and we were back on beautiful asphalt - we'd heard awful things about Guatemalan roads but were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the roads at this point, particular as we started towards the mountains, winding through jungle with the air cooling around us. What was everyone complaining about!

As we wound up the hills I was taken aback by the beauty of it, the way the mist faded the distant mountains as the afternoon sun softened the landscape. But about an hour into the hills as we turned another hairpin bend the smooth tarmac stopped. And not a gradual stop with the road slowly deteriorating, but a monumental switch from smooth bitumen to dirt and gravel rocks the size of your fist. We had been told that the route we were taking only turned to dirt for the last 11kms - surely we couldn't have done most of the journey in under half the time?

And of course, we hadn't. We still don't know where we took a wrong turn, but we did about 70kms of this dirt road, taking us 5 hours from where it began to when we arrived in Lanquin. As stressful as this could have been, the views around us kept us calm - we saw it as an opportunity so see some of Guatemala that many travelers would not get to see, and an opportunity to see what we were made of as adventure riders!

We stopped frequently to give both Tom and the bike a rest, and were humbled by the many locals who stopped to see if we needed help. We asked most of them how long it was to Lanquin - the time went from an hour 45, to 2 hours, to 1 hour, to 3 hours.. and then we realised that many of these people would rarely have left their mountain villages and probably didn't really know how far it was! So we soldiered on, and accepted it would take as long as it would take.

At one point we came across a man with a spade holding a rope up across the road. Apparently we had to pay for him to drop the rope and let us pass. Not in the mood to argue we gave him 20 quetzals and moved on. Unfortunately this happened another two times in the space of 45 minutes - they probably heard us coming from miles off and saw their opportunity to make some money from the gringos! We contemplated driving off after the first couple, but not knowing what the circumstances of doing this could be further down the road we decided that parting with less than $3 probably wasn't the end of the world. It was amazing to see this glimpse of authentic Guatemalan Highland life, and the stares we received as we drove through made us realise it probably wasn't a route much traveled by tourists.

By the time the road started to descend into the valley where Lanquin lay, the panniers were bent in, the top box no longer locked, the two front forks were leaking oil and we'd lost one of the rear shocks. But we were nearly there, so I carried some luggage on my lap as we crawled the last few kilometres. As we turned off to Zephyr Lodge we breathed a sigh of relief, until we turned the final bend and were confronted with a hill that was not far off vertical. We decided to give it a go with both of us on board (despite my pleas to get off) and made it 2/3 of the way up, until we stalled and swiftly started rolling backwards. We both rammed our boots into the ground as hard as we could and managed to stop the bike before we gained too much backwards momentum. Once we had come to a stomp I pretty much flung myself off the bike, expressing that I would be happily walking up the rest of the way!

We arrived at the lodge at the same time as a bus of fellow travelers (including our friends from the rope swing!), who gave us a cheer when we got to the top, covered from head to toe in sweat and dust. What a day it had been! But what a perfect place to end up, perched in the hills with a cool breeze, a beautiful pool, dozens of like minded people and with happy hour just starting! It's safe to say a few well deserved beers were had that night, followed by a very sound sleep.