Category Archives: Personal

Day 37 – San Salvador to San Miguel

This post is dedicated to Mario who has been an incredible host to us here in El Salvador.
Yesterday he met us down by the coast and drove us into to town, took us to the motorcycle dealer, dinner, hotel and all.
Today he came to our hotel at 6:45am to take us to the dealer again! The mechanic drained some of the oil off of Marc’s bike, cleaned the air filter and didn’t charge a penny! Great start of the day!
We then went to Mario’s house and did some laundry!! Awesome!
He then took us to the volcano near the city and then lunch – this time we were faster than him and were able to pay for it – last night he pretended to go to the bathroom and paid the bill!! Thanks again Mario.

From Motorcycle NY to SP


We then called in to get news about the package we were expecting and were told that the candy in the package needed to be approved by the Ministry of Health!
We decided to go ahead to San Miguel – Friday night – it would never go through…
Two hours later we arrived in San Miguel at a Comfort Inn – 100% up to specification – exactly like a Comfort Inn you would see in the US – and with a REALLY fast internet! 2Mb download and 1.5Mb upload!! Very impressive.
And guess what – the package went through customs – about the time we got to San Miguel – oh well – we’ll figure some way of forwarding it to Nicaragua, Costa Rica or Panama.
Posted some new pictures I grabbed from Marc’s camera and some from today:

From Motorcycle NY to SP

And the video…

Day 36 – Guatemala City to San Salvador

Last night we had a great dinner with Henrique, his wife, and a German couple friends of his. I went to RPI with Henrique and hadn’t seen him in 11 years! Was great to see him.
He took us a restaurant owned by a couple friends of theirs. The husband is Italian and does the cooking. The wife is from Guatemala and tends the tables. They live half of the time in Italy and half of the time in Guatemala. The restaurant is therefore only open for a month or two every year. I felt very privileged and honored to be there, not to mention that the food and the wine were amazing.
This morning we headed towards the El Salvador boarder. After struggling a little to find the way out of town we finally got to the main highway that took us South towards the coast. Soon after we hopped onto highway 2 heading East at guess who we found!? ARI! What an amazing coincidence! I saw a motorcycle from afar and soon recognized his red bag and black helmet. We were on a roll and didn’t stop to say hello but knowing that we would see him at the border.
The crossing itself went quite smoothly – the usual photocopying, kids trying to guide you, money exchangers and several minutes waiting for the guys to finish all the paperwork.
Ari caught up to us at the border – was good to see him – he stayed behind because he didn’t have some paperwork that was necessary for him to get into El Salvador… long story… I’m sure we’ll run into him again… he wanted to go straight from Guatemala to Nicaragua – quite hard to do in one day – not because of the mileage but because he would have to do 3 border crossings – Guatemala to El Salvador to Honduras to Nicaragua – ouch!
El Salvador did not look much different than Guatemala as far as the road went. We could tell that it is a little poorer and definitely a lot more people on the sides of the road.
Once we hit the coast the road was fantastic – good pavement and sweet turns – sometimes too sweet due to the melon and orange peels left on the road.
Soon after we ran into Mario – an El Salvadorian who Marc had exchanged some emails with – he was very excited that we were driving through and came to meet us on his KTM 990 Adventure – the same bike I have. It was so immaculately clean that it could’ve been mistaken for another bike 🙂 His had crash bars, Xenon and fog lights, and an after-market exhaust which I got jealous of 🙂
We had lunch at a restaurant by the beach – I had a frozen pineapple juice and fish ceviche to start and then calamari rice – very tasty.
We rode up from the beach to San Salvador with Mario – very relaxing to drive with someone in front of you who knows the roads! We went to see if Marc’s package had arrived (it hadn’t) and then to a BMW dealer to check the tire and the oil situation. This time we had a very warm reception. We confirmed what we had in mind last night – not much we can do about the bent rim, the tire will hold with the bulge, and the extra oil was not good. Marc noticed that his fuel consumption skyrocketed today and Rafael, the mechanic at the dealer, explained that the extra oil drowned the air filter thereby allowing very little air into the pistons.
Tomorrow morning we will go back to drain some oil out and change the air filter.
We also need to do some laundry…
At a non-descript hotel in El Salvador waiting for Mario – we’re going to get him dinner for all his help here.

Day 35 – Antigua to Guatemala City

Motorcycle “problem” day – nothing serious.
First incident was a total lack of attention on my part – last night I topped off my oil and didn’t screw the top back on tight enough, obviously… oil was flying off onto my leg and my side bag… we stopped at a gas station, bought some more oil, cleaned the bike up a bit and went on. Definitely needed to clean up a bit 🙂

The ride to Guatemala City was uneventful.
We then went on the BMW and KTM dealers. Marc also needed some oil and I just wanted to check a little rattling noise I get when I’m off road.
We got a very cold reception at the BMW dealer so we went to the KTM where things were completely different. The mechanic came out and checked my oil, my chain and even gave us some great tips as how to get to El Salvador.
We then went to a hardware store to buy some oil for Marc’s bike and an 12V air compressor for our tires in case of a flat in the middle of the road. It’s interesting that it was one thing that no one, including ourselves, thought of including in our packing list.
I also went ahead bought some more industrial strength velcro to attach the camera on new places on the bike… by the way… no one commented on the new angles 🙁
On the way back to the hotel we found another BMW dealer. We stopped to check it out. The reception here was a lot better. Marc got a new visor for his helmet which was all scratched up and some pieces the had fallen off his bike. We also went ahead and filled up his bike with
some more oil… but we put in too much oil… not good at all for the engine. One of the guys at the dealer told us not to worry since when we turned the engine on, no white smoke was coming out.
While all this was happening I checked the bolts on my KTM – all good.
I also checked the front wheel to see if any of the pot holes I hit caused any damaged… nothing perceptible… just normal little skews.
I then checked Marc’s front tire and found a bulge on the side wall of his tire and an indent on the rim. We got really worried about that but there was not much we could do at that point – we were tired and the dealer was closing shop.

When we got to the hotel Marc called his trusted mechanic – Eric. He told us that over filling the oil is a real problem.
We should lean the bike “20 degrees” to the right and see if we can see air on the window the BMW conveniently has under the left cylinder.
He also said that there is not much to do about the rim or the tire other than replacing them, but if the bulge does not grow, tire pressure does not go down, spokes are not broken, and the wheel is not out of true it will be fine.
We went to the bike to check all of this… but how would we know what 20 degrees was? Eric said that it was about the angle the bike sits on the kick stand… still hard to figure it out on the opposite direction.
As good geeks that we are, we went to the iPhone’s App Store and downloaded a Level application 🙂
On the kick stand the bike sits at 12 degrees.
And to our satisfaction we saw air on the indicator window when the bike was leaned over by 16 degrees…

Spared us a good amount of work in draining the oil… it’s not hard but just time consuming since you have to remove the crash bars and the skid plate to then get to the plug. Then you have to collect and dispose of all that oil and fill it up again. Probably would’ve taken us a good 2 or 3 hours.
Tonight we’re going out for dinner with a friend of mine from college who I’ve haven’t seen in 10 years or so – Enrique Arguello – should be fun!


Day 34 – Panjachel to Antigua

Short day of riding but none less beautiful. We hung around the hotel this morning to upload videos and do some internet related things we needed to do and then hit the road.
Played a lot with different camera angles today – I think it came out nice but ultimately the helmet mount is the best since I can control where it’s pointing and have the mic close to my mouth.
We arrived in Antigua and came to a hotel the guide book suggested – truly cute place – only 4 rooms – we were lucky and there was a last minute cancellation. Tomorrow night I will post a video of the room and the hotel – pristine. It’s called Posada del Angel – our room is right in front of the pool!

From Motorcycle NY to SP

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Day 33 – Coban to Panajachel

WOW – Marc and I agreed that today was one of the best riding we have
ever had in our lives!
After our morning meeting with Trickle Up we hit the road towards Lake
Atitlan (apparently being considered to enter the list of one of the 7
natural wonders of the world). We had no idea what to expect.
Again we could take 2 roads – the long paved route or a shorter
smaller road with unpaved stretches. At the decision point we were
told that it would be only 30km of dirt so we went for it.
The reward was inexplicable. Not a single straight mile. The dirt was
fun. Wet but not slippery. Rocky but not too dusty. The temperature
was ideal. No traffic. Gorgeous views. Colorful and cheerful people in
the villages.
Even when it got dark the road was well marked and appart from the pot
holes it was still great fun to ride on!
We drfintely put our bikes through all of their paces.
The lake looks promissing – we got here at night so we will have a
good morning surprise.
Text only today – the Internet is out in the town.