Antigua To Guatemala City

Due to peer pressure ... here it is 

Well it started off as a normal day with Richard coming to pick us up at Julios to take the scenic way to Guatemala City rather than the main drag.

Right on time for a 9.00 am start Richard arrived at 9.45 am ...thats cool it set the mood for the day which was cruzy.

Setting off we climbed straight out of Antigua through Santa Maria de Jesus on a nice road, the road turned to gravel on the other side of the town, we did catch some roadworks for a short while which made for interesting riding but other than that was plain sailing with great views.

Following Richard



Locals busy at work



Small patch of roadworks which made things interesting



Getting into Palin Richard took us into a restaurant in centro, we had pork with tortillas which was very nice indeed and Maya was creating a bit of interest on the street.





Leaving Palin we headed toward Pacaya Volcan taking in spectacular views with a perfect weather day and the mountain top in full glory.



Not long into the trip we found a patch of volcanic sand/dust on a tight corner, with gravity against us and the front tyre loosing traction Maya started to go down.

We were just about to a stand still when I could not hold her up any longer and off we went, Ellen and Maya were fine but I landed just a bit wrong on the road and managed to clean break two ribs and fracture two others which turned out to be less than ideal.

I could not ride Maya now so I had a ride in an ambo to Guatemala city, Maya had to be put onto a deck truck and bought to the city.

Arriving at hospital I was not a happy camper as any of you who have broken ribs will know about. 

This is my happy hospital look 



They took the X rays which confirmed the breaks/fractures however medically they can’t do anything more than give me some hard drugs and tell me to take a cement pill and harden the fook up...easier said than done on the HTFU front.



So I was all taped up for support and drugged up to take away the pain and start the slow recovery.

I did have a few sneezes in the first days which bought tears to my eyes and some blood curdling screams of pain so it certainly was not a highlight of my life, not sure I will list this as one of life accomplishments on my resume.

Fast forward two weeks now things are starting to improve but I still have one really bad spot and on rechecking the X rays it appears I have one rib that has completely come apart and gone down a notch so I will be back in tomorrow for hopefully a better X ray to see what is happening, we are now back in Antigua and I am recovering slowly still strapped up and on drugs...

Maya is still in Guatemala City and will return on a fine day when Julio or Gene can bring her back .

So being here in Antigua things are easier to get too being a smaller town, also Gene and Neda (Lightcycle on ADV) rocked into town and are doing Spanish for a month so last night we were all invited to Casa Guaterider (Julios) for TEA ... dinner for you foreign fellas, we also met Richard Harwood who hit a cow in El Salvador, unfortunately his good lady took the hit and needed surgery, best to her to come right too.

So we had a gathering, Julio cooked a fine lot of Thai curry which we scoffed with Red wine and beers ... good times all round.