Xela, The Weekend No Two
Sabado (Saturday) a leisurely start, breaky and the usuals.
Game plan was to catch up with Dan and Elaine in San Pedro at Lake Atitlan.
Setting off from Xela we fueled up and looked down the road, the entire main road out of town for (as it turned out) 10 km was closed for a cycle race coming into town.
Hmmmm, needed a game plan to get out cos we had no other way of getting out of town, seeing another big bike with lights on and camera gear ...hmmm ...saweeet.
We rode across the road, passed the Police and some organiser looking types with day glo jackets and proceeded to head out of town at around 40 km per hour staying close to the crowd who seemed to assume we were crowd control.
I switched on the LED lights, Ellen had her camera out so we carried on with thousands of people lining the streets and us looking like official crowd controllers staying in the right lane!!!
So we carried on looking as official as we could pushing the crowd back who respected our authority and we carried on all the way out of town, 3/4 the way out we had a Police vehicle come up behind us then beside us .... they waved at us and acknowledged the great crowd control job we were doing and carried on....too easy, these guys even have a welcome sign
It was really surreal seeing thousands of people lining the streets and we having the entire road to ourselves, the racing bikes had already headed passed us in the opposite direction so we knew we were not causing trouble and turns out unwittingly helping out, Ellen waved to the crowd and they waved back so we just ran with it.
So back down to earth from ten minutes of respect and royalty we carried on our merry way .... Mrs.Garmin was having a siesta and sent us AWOL, we found ourselves taking an incredible little shortcut which turned into a very steep and rutted dirt road, down to first gear and making our way up I was hoping it was not going to get much steeper as I was running out of skill very quickly.
We popped up and out onto the main road and literally had the bike length to stop in on the shoulder and given I was still up it she was all hands on deck to stop with big suspension compression and full anchors.
I headed straight across the road only to find we where heading the wrong way, Mrs.Garmin then got her shit together recognising we were on a main drag and told us to turn around .... in 6 km!!!!
We stopped, looked around, with no-one watching I lined up a plastic bottle on the curb using it as a ramped and we jumped the center island and back on track.
The rest of the trip was normal so that was easier and with the day being stunning we had epic views 3000 metres above stress level seeing for mile each side.
I missed our turnoff, was gonna do another stuntman maneuver but we had Feds watching us and given our earlier game we decided to play it safe and take the next turn off in which we rode through villages etc so quite a cool wee side tour.
Carrying on the road to San Pedro we crested the hill which overlooked Lake Atitlan, coupled with the clear day and our elevation we were wowed.
With potholes, shingle, fine powder etc we finally made it to San Pedro, fluffing around we tried to find a cafe with Wifi so we could contact Dan and Elaine so we rode up the street ..... well their she was on her way back from a tramp so we pulled up beside her and said “where do you think you are going?”
Being a non petrolhead and tired she didn’t even recognize us until we stopped so it was funny.
San Pedro is a cool wee place, very gringo but nice, this is the alleyway leading to our hotel which was 50 Q so about $6.45.
For some reason which are to find out yet some old waterfront building are in the water and half submerged.
Wifi .... yeap
This place the basement is totally under!!
The "ex" waterfront still makes for great photos.
There is some really groovy painted shops there too with incredible colours.
The cab drivers seem to be having some sort of hotrod competition dressing their taxis with all sorts
On Sunday morning we walked up the hill behind the town and watched soccer game, these guys were good with some real expert footwork.
See the ball, 1/4 of a second after I took that pic the ball slammed the fence straight in front of our noses .... that is 300mm away
... I shit myself 
Leaving San Pedro the streets wee busy with markets and we found a sign, no need to say anything more
On our return home at 3200 meters the fog came in so thick we were down to first gear in places and the temperature dropped to 8 deg C
Sabado (Saturday) a leisurely start, breaky and the usuals.
Game plan was to catch up with Dan and Elaine in San Pedro at Lake Atitlan.
Setting off from Xela we fueled up and looked down the road, the entire main road out of town for (as it turned out) 10 km was closed for a cycle race coming into town.
Hmmmm, needed a game plan to get out cos we had no other way of getting out of town, seeing another big bike with lights on and camera gear ...hmmm ...saweeet.
We rode across the road, passed the Police and some organiser looking types with day glo jackets and proceeded to head out of town at around 40 km per hour staying close to the crowd who seemed to assume we were crowd control.
I switched on the LED lights, Ellen had her camera out so we carried on with thousands of people lining the streets and us looking like official crowd controllers staying in the right lane!!!
So we carried on looking as official as we could pushing the crowd back who respected our authority and we carried on all the way out of town, 3/4 the way out we had a Police vehicle come up behind us then beside us .... they waved at us and acknowledged the great crowd control job we were doing and carried on....too easy, these guys even have a welcome sign
It was really surreal seeing thousands of people lining the streets and we having the entire road to ourselves, the racing bikes had already headed passed us in the opposite direction so we knew we were not causing trouble and turns out unwittingly helping out, Ellen waved to the crowd and they waved back so we just ran with it.
So back down to earth from ten minutes of respect and royalty we carried on our merry way .... Mrs.Garmin was having a siesta and sent us AWOL, we found ourselves taking an incredible little shortcut which turned into a very steep and rutted dirt road, down to first gear and making our way up I was hoping it was not going to get much steeper as I was running out of skill very quickly.
We popped up and out onto the main road and literally had the bike length to stop in on the shoulder and given I was still up it she was all hands on deck to stop with big suspension compression and full anchors.
I headed straight across the road only to find we where heading the wrong way, Mrs.Garmin then got her shit together recognising we were on a main drag and told us to turn around .... in 6 km!!!!
We stopped, looked around, with no-one watching I lined up a plastic bottle on the curb using it as a ramped and we jumped the center island and back on track.
The rest of the trip was normal so that was easier and with the day being stunning we had epic views 3000 metres above stress level seeing for mile each side.
I missed our turnoff, was gonna do another stuntman maneuver but we had Feds watching us and given our earlier game we decided to play it safe and take the next turn off in which we rode through villages etc so quite a cool wee side tour.
Carrying on the road to San Pedro we crested the hill which overlooked Lake Atitlan, coupled with the clear day and our elevation we were wowed.
With potholes, shingle, fine powder etc we finally made it to San Pedro, fluffing around we tried to find a cafe with Wifi so we could contact Dan and Elaine so we rode up the street ..... well their she was on her way back from a tramp so we pulled up beside her and said “where do you think you are going?”
Being a non petrolhead and tired she didn’t even recognize us until we stopped so it was funny.
San Pedro is a cool wee place, very gringo but nice, this is the alleyway leading to our hotel which was 50 Q so about $6.45.
For some reason which are to find out yet some old waterfront building are in the water and half submerged.
Wifi .... yeap
This place the basement is totally under!!
The "ex" waterfront still makes for great photos.
There is some really groovy painted shops there too with incredible colours.
The cab drivers seem to be having some sort of hotrod competition dressing their taxis with all sorts
On Sunday morning we walked up the hill behind the town and watched soccer game, these guys were good with some real expert footwork.
See the ball, 1/4 of a second after I took that pic the ball slammed the fence straight in front of our noses .... that is 300mm away
... I shit myself 
Leaving San Pedro the streets wee busy with markets and we found a sign, no need to say anything more
On our return home at 3200 meters the fog came in so thick we were down to first gear in places and the temperature dropped to 8 deg C
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