Motorsports
By Art Bone May 2, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

The Great Guatemala expedition continues

On the way into the park at Tikal we met two motorcycles on the way out. We all waved and kept going. The next day when we got to our hotel in Flores we saw a guy sitting at a table in the lobby with his bandaged left ankle up on a pillow.

Carol chatted him up and found that he had been riding one of the bikes we had seen the day before and had braked on some sand and crashed, breaking his ankle. He was in the midst of making arrangements to store his bike and get back to the US. Turns out he’s a regular contributor to Adventure Rider (www.advrider.com), a website to which I also contribute, so we had a lot to talk about. His Advrider name is Nata Harli (Not A Harley, real name Ken). Mine is Gageezer (Georgia Geezer). Ken’s retired and bought the motorcycle in Panama and was riding it back to the US.

While we were in Tikal we met a retired couple from Oregon who were riding a motorcycle to Panama and then planning to turn around and ride back.

Do you see a theme developing here? “Geezer Riders” is the name I came up with to describe us. Plenty of people in the US have the money and the desire to ride to exotic places on motorcycles but who don’t have the time (except for retired geezers).

There are companies that organize adventure trips to almost anywhere you might want to go, from Tierra del Fuego to the Silk Road in China. Now when you get to that exotic location you dreamed about riding to on your bike, there are five other graybeards sitting there waiting for you.

But that only happens in famous places that everyone wants to say they’ve ridden to. It didn’t happen on the next leg of our trip. We left Flores heading for Semuc Champey and the Grutas de Lanquin, a location I don’t think anyone on the trip had heard of two weeks before we got there. And getting there was a challenge.

We started out on the amazing roads (amazingly good) that I bragged about before, then we crossed a bridge in a little town and suddenly we were on a dirt road.

“No problem,” we thought (and when I say “we,” of course, I mean “I”) “We’re only about 50 kilometers from our destination. How long could that take?”

We asked a man walking along the road and he said, “Five hours.”

We all agreed that he must mean how long it would take him to walk there.

The road reminded me of the Uncle Remus story, The Tar Baby. The farther we went, the worse it got. On a particularly bad stretch of sand, I stopped and Carol got off and rode in the SUV with Gordon and Maureen. A few miles later, with the bike lying on its side, I decided that maybe it would be easier if I took all the cases off and put them in the truck. Then there was the construction zone. Then the “chicken bus” on a road so narrow I had to stop and he had to edge over to where his wheels were just on the edge of a cliff.

No wonder you see so many “Bus Plunges Over Cliff and Kills Thirty” stories from this part of the world. The road looked like it should have one of those wrecks every week. Then I looked at my GPS and discovered that we were on Guatemala 5 Highway! This is the main highway!

The trip took five hours, just like the man said. And, it was an arduous five hours on a bike, with rickety bridges to cross, soft sand, rutted rocky hills to climb and a lot of opportunities to fall down, if you weren’t paying attention.

I loved it. It was just what I was looking for! When I got to Semuc Champey without a serious get-off, I felt like I had won the Daytona 200. Of course, George and Mike both made it there before me. They carried all their luggage and George had Lauda on the back, but still. I’ll take a personal triumph any way I can get one.

Semuc Champey is a backpacker’s destination and our group raised the average age by several decades when we arrived. It’s a beautiful spot with mountains all around, a river, waterfalls and beautiful pools, but it’s primitive. They turn off the electricity at nine o’clock.

One of the things we wanted to do was explore Las Grutas de Lanquin, the cave we read about. The description of the tour describes wading into the cave with a candle. Shortly after entering the cavern, as I was dog paddling with one hand and trying to keep the candle out of the water with the other, I was wondering why I had thought this was a good idea. We climbed hand over hand up a rope with water pouring in our faces, climbed down rickety, wet, slick ladders and dropped through a crevice where we couldn’t see the water below.

It wasn’t Carlsbad Caverns. It was with joyous hearts that we emerged from the darkness, cut, scraped and bruised. Carol was the only one who said that she thought the tour might be more fun than she could handle and she was very prescient.

Then we got on inner tubes and floated down the river a few miles to our hotel. We stopped along the way to let several of our group jump off a bridge about 30 feet into the river.

My mother used to say, “If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you do it, too?” Well, Mom would have been proud, ‘cause I resisted the peer pressure. I had had enough for one day.

When we arrived at Lake Atitlan, we stayed right on the lake at a place with a pool, hot tub and beautiful gardens. We were within an easy walk to the zip lines. 

Having never been on a zip line, I was keen to have a go at it and the experience lived up to my expectations. The hard part was climbing up to the starting point. After that it was, as they say, all downhill from there. I was nervous stepping off the side of the cliff the first time but the beauty of the scene and the sensation of flying, as we zipped from one side of the mountain to the other, soon made me forget that. We all really enjoyed it.

George and Lauda had been to Panajachel before and took us all to the Circus Bar. It’s a wonderful place with good music and great food. The whole town is interesting, with shops selling carvings, paintings and the textiles that the region is famous for and many good bars and restaurants.

We took a boat tour of the towns around the lake the next day and improved the local economy by buying lots of textiles. The women here wear the most elaborate, colorful embroidered blouses and shawls. I’ve never seen anything like them.

The next day our little group broke up and we headed home by different routes. Gordon and Maureen and Paul and Alice took the direct route back to San Miguel, Mike headed over to the Yucatán, and George and Lauda and Carol and I rode back up to Puerto Angel. The most notable thing on the way back was an earthquake as we were getting up one morning. It rumbled for a few seconds, but nothing fell and it was over before we figured out what it was.

Someone (I think it was me) said that there’s no better way to find out if you like people or hate them than to travel with them. I feel we were very fortunate on this trip because I found that I liked the entire group.

We had some tense and stressful moments but everyone acted like adults and we got through them without bruised feelings.

Nobody got crossed off my Christmas card list and I hope the feeling is mutual.

Guatemala went from being a few pictures in a travel guide to a real place, with real people and a unique culture. I give it the highest recommendation I can give a place. 

I want to go back and spend more time there.

Art Bone’s favorite trip is the next one.

Panamericana lives in the Chihuahua Express
By Mary Murrell

For 20 years the race La Carrera Panamericana in October was the only event in Mexico for highly modified vintage rally cars. Now the Chihuahua Express offers another opportunity for these cars to race and to challenge modern rally cars.

The Chihuahua Express (April 11–13) is a 1050-mile stage rally across the mountains and canyons of Chihuahua. Of this distance, the cars run 335 miles at top speed down paved roads closed by the police. The cars are timed, and those with the best (lowest) times are awarded trophies.

Of the 42 cars that started the competition, 30 were from the United States, and 8 of the top 10 finishers were from the US. The overall winners were pilot Kevin Jones and co-pilot Mark Williams from Los Angeles, driving a professionally prepared Subaru rally car.

Gerie Bledsoe, North American Coordinator of La Carrera Panamericana and the Express, finished first in class (over 4.5 liter cars) and sixth in the overall standings. Vance Stewart III, a US Air Force officer from Virginia, was his co-pilot. Bledsoe was driving a ’93 Chevy Camaro.

Bledsoe is also known as the fellow who brings the Coyote Convoy of Pan-Am cars to San Miguel de Allende each October for the gala banquet on Saturday night and the car show in el Jardín on Sunday.

When asked about his class victory and strong showing, Bledsoe said he had hoped for a top ten finish, but was not optimistic until several faster cars developed mechanical problems and dropped out of the race.

“The old Camaro just burned up the roads for three long day without any problems,” he noted. “There is something to be said for mass production automobiles that are not highly modified for racing. The engine in the Camaro is stock; only the suspension has been modified for racing,” he noted.

When asked about the speeds attained during the event, Bledsoe admitted that he got the Camaro got up to 150 mph or so, but quickly added, that happened only rarely. In the mountains, the speeds tend to average between 80 mph and 120 mph. “Yes,” he admitted, “we take some corners at 120 mph, but those are the easy ones. We slow way down for the dangerous curves.”

The Express, by all reports, is a long, hard, dangerous event. Bledsoe admitted that they spun out one time and “kissed” the guardrail gently coming down from the Copper Canyon. “There was a beautiful woman hitchhiking on the side of the road and it broke my concentration,” he claimed.

Of the 42 cars that started the race, 18 were not running at the finish. Of these, 2 cars had crashed and burned--down to the frame.

Two other cars, including one built in San Miguel by Mats Hammarlund Racing, suffered serious damage when they crashed into ravines. Fortunately, the most severe injury was a broken ankle.

Bledsoe, who has visited San Miguel many times, will be returning to Mexico and the city in May to promote a new event, the Concurso de Motor Sports Panamericano.

“Over the past two years we have raised a fair amount of money for the children in this area by visiting San Miguel in October. Now we want to expand the program during the Pan Am weekend. We want to involve more cars from the entire region and host a series of motor sports activities,” he said. The Concurso has the backing of the city and state governments, who see it being good for tourism and the local economy.

In July, Bledsoe will also be participating in the Pike’s Peak Hill Climb, the second oldest motor sports event in the US. The cars start at 9400 feet and race up to 14,100 feet, along 12.5 miles of paved and gravel roads. In some areas, the drop off is several thousand feet.

Asked if he was ever afraid, Bledsoe responded, “Yes, but fear keeps race car drivers alive. We race for the excitement, because it is dangerous, but we respect the roads, the car, and the mountain. We drive at 80 percent of our capabilities, because it’s a long race. Besides, if you are going too fast,” he said with a grin,” you can’t admire the scenery.”

Bledsoe suffered serious injuries in La Carrera Panamericana in 2005 when his driver managed to roll their car 8.5 times at 130 mph.

Bledsoe, a former college professor, retired last year as a staff person for the California Teachers Association. He and his wife live in Half Moon Bay, California, and consider San Miguel as their home away from home.