Coban to Tikal

We were braced for a long day in the saddle today, with approximately 300km to cover between Coban and Tikal.  Tikal really is at the end of nowhere, reached by traveling across the SETA controlled plains and containing some of the best preserved Mayan ruins in Central America.

The military presence is very evident in this area as they struggle to contain the drug routes between South America and the US.  This didn't impede our progress at all and they usually gave us a cheery wave on the way past, but it is a bit disconcerting to come around a corner and see a troop carrier with a roof mounted machine gun pointed at you.  There would not be any intent behind it, but these are poorly trained troops with their fingers on old triggers traveling over badly pot holed roads.  Matthais told us that all of the SETA troubles seem to be settled now, and the military focus is spent on trying to close off the short gap between Guatemala and Mexico here.

Getting ready to leave in the mornings has now become a well-practiced routine, with steps to keep everything secure and wet weather covers to keep everything as dry and dust free as possible.
As we have defended from the mountains onto the plains, the weather has become increasingly hot and humid.  We had started he day with our wet weather liners in the jackets to keep the cold out, but were baking by mid morning.  Combined with the mud from deep potholes and the white dust from the unsealed roads has made us look a bit funny.  Ty has proven himself to be particularly vindictive on these roads, belting through deep potholes at every opportunity to drench the rest of us.

The Peten area is much poorer than the rest of the country, and there are no cafes or restaurants or any shops at all in the towns that we pass through. It is mostly a collection of dusty concrete structures with no doors or windows and a heap of people sitting around doing not much at all.   The kids in the local towns are simply lovely though, and very mischievous.  They sidle up to you to tap on your body armor, or play with the bikes.  
We arrived in one of the small towns to find our path blocked by flooding.  The river would normally be crossed via a ferry here and we had expected to simply ride the bikes up onto a barge for the crossing.  Instead, the barge loading ramp was about 20 feet into the water and impassable except for large multi-wheel vehicles.  The Guatemalans are used to flooding through, and had despatched trucks to a local quarry to collect gravel for dumping in the water.  Once enough was dumped and spread out, we were able to charge through the waist deep water and up the slippery steel ramp onto the barge.  

The river crossing only took a matter of 15 minutes or so, but we then faced the difficult exit off the barge, down the slippery steel ramp and into quite deep water.  Mathias and I had the first run at it, along with several small trucks.  The water entry is a it of a shock, and a lot of momentum is needed to shove the water aside and keep the bike moving up the slope to the roadway.  Gary and Ty stayed on the barge to watch our attempts and to plan their own approach.  Gary went next, but ran out of momentum about 3 foot short of the shore.  Despite shouts of encouragement from the locals on the shore, the bike stalled and Gary had to get off the bike and shove it the remainder of the way.  He wasn't happy about this, but was much less happy when Ty decided to take a brute force approach to the water crossing.  He charged off the barge at a very fast pace, and overtook Garth about two feet from the shore with a tidal wave of water in front of the bike that drenched Gary on the way past.  The locals (and Matthias and I) thought this was absolutely hilarious.  
Riding along the roadway today, Matthias swerved around what looked like a large rock on the road from 30 meters away.  He pointed at it as he went past.  When we passed the 'rock' we were amazed to see that it was a spider.  The insect (a tarantula) was enormous, and we have found out that they are extremely common in the area, so much so that our lodging owner for tonight has warned us to keep the door closed at all times as there are many of these critters in the gardens and surrounds.  Great - thanks - looking forward to a good night's sleep now.

We have stopped for the evening in a small town about 20km short of Tikal and will stay here overnight before continuing through to Tikal first thing tomorrow morning.