Panajachel

wow! guatemala is so awsome! these last couple days have been some of my favorite from the whole trip. we crossed the border into guatemala and like just started climbing straight up. it was crazy. it was so steep i almost couldn't do. peter was hanging out with me, and we'd go for a little bit, then stop and take pictures, then climb a little more, and then stop again. i'm not sure, but peter thinks we were climbing for like 5 hours. just straight up. sometimes i couldn't believe how steep the road was. i was in my granny gear and standing up. also, the condition of the road was horrible. we weren't on a major highway, but more of a country road that connects up with the interamericana highway. you couldn't ever take your eyes off the rode because it was just totally filled with potholes. we had no idea how steep the road was going to be, and we were aiming for this town san marcos, but we never made it. i saw a soccer field, and peter and i camped there, erik ended up sleeping in this woman's house, and gary hitched a ride in a pick up. we stopped just in time too, because this thick, thick, fog rolled in and you couldn't see more than a couple feet in front of you, and then it started to pour down rain. seriously finding a spot to camp on a super steep mountain is hard to do, so it was really lucky we got to that soccer field. the next day we all found each other in san marcos.
after san marcos we has some downhill, but also a lot more climbing. this is a picture of erik at the top of this pass after it had stopped raining. it totally hailed that day too. it's been really cool up here, which is so nice after all that insane heat. there's this town called quetzaltenango in spanish and xela (pronounced "shay-la") in mayan, and we wanted to spend some time there. it was about 15 k from where we stopped the night before, and so we figured with all the intense climbing we'd been doing it would take us about half a day to get there. but it was all downhill! it was totally nuts! like we just cruised down there in 15 minutes. it was a crazy downhill too becuase there was so much to see, but then if you took your eyes off the rode, you'd die. like we're flying down this mountain and there are all these indigenous women in hand woven skirts and embroidered blouses balancing jugs of water on their heads, and crazy mud huts, and wildly decorated buses churning out black smoke, but if you turned your head to check them out, you'd fall off the side of the mountain.
after quezaltenango/xela we met up with the interamericana, you can see that the road is in much better condition and there's even a shoulder. the riding was great. unfortunately i got really, really sick the night before we left. like i was up puking and was so nausious i couldn't sleep. in the morning i had diarhea. when we stopped for breakfast, but i was so messed up and ill i couldn't even drink a cup of coffee. i wanted to die. everyone's eating, i felt so bad i just pulled up the coller of my shirt over my head and started crying. getting out of town was a nightmare. the road was terrible, potholes everywhere, buses blasting you in the face with black smoke, dust and sand flying everywhere, street venders hawding crap from all sides. i felt like i was in hell. every bump in the road made my stomach lurch. i didn't think i was going to make it. then the road mellowed out after we got out of town. we had a lot of climbing, but it was an easy grade. we summited the highest point in the central american ineramericana highway, and it seemed like we were higher up than the clouds.
then we had this awesome downhill into this crazy town, where everyone was indigenous, dressed up in these wild outfits, didn't speak spanish, and like a lot of the old people didn't have any teath. we wanted to get lunch, but it was too crazy. all these indigenous kids and old folk surrounded us and like started talking in an indigenous language. i can't even describe how insane this experience was. like i almost felt like we were surrouned by space aliens. i'm sure they felt the same way about us. the guys ended up eating lunch in a cafe later on in the day.
we finished the day with another screaming downhill to this lake called lago de atitlan that is totally surrounded by volcanoes. this was one of the most awesome downhills of my whole life. i bet we were flying downhill for at least 15 minutes. at one point peter turns around and screams at me, "oh my god! what f*cking grade do you think this is?" it was so steap, and the sun was setting, and we're flying past waterfalls, and huge volcanoes. it was really amazing. the crazy thing is, we biked about 50 miles, had a huge climb, and i totally didn't eat the whole day and was really sick. i think if you'd asked me before this stip if it was possible to be up all night puking, and then be violently ill the next day and bike up and down mountains for 50 miles without eating, i'd probably tell you no way. but i totally did it. sometimes i think if you set your mind to something and are just really stuborn about it, you can do it no matter what. i'm still really sick though. we took a day off today to cruise around the lake in boats, and i still haven't really eaten. i kind of feel like there is a midget army in my stomach and like they're all wrestling, or maybe knife fighting. i'm back on the ciphro though...
clyde flew back to the U.S. he left tapachula mexico, but then had a bleeding sore on his lip and was worried it was skin cancer, so he flew home. i feel bad. also, he said he was lost with out me to translate for him. i really wish we could have said goodbye in person. so now we are a group of three...
-jessie