The Nomads

Susie chatting with "Gigi"

No Travel Day

Placencia, Stann Creek, Belize
Temp: 32 degrees C
Sunny/Breezy

Early to rise, off for coffee and breakfast, and try to get an internet hook-up…Free high speed wireless today at the Purple Space Monkey, yahoo!!!

We’re starting to worry more about weather as we approach the rainy season and the hurricane season so that’s always the first order of business.

Next I went off down the “road from hell” to try to reach the next village about 8km away to find Mister Babe Leslie! Mister Freddy at “the moorings” says he is the only one for a hundred miles that might be able to TIG weld the repair needed on the bike.

Susie went to the beach….twenty feet away!! It’s a hard life…..

The repair took about twenty minutes of the four hour 18 Km trip. It’s true we had to wait till Mister Babe finished his lunch, but…..Draw your own conclusions.

I had a hard go and didn’t make it back till three in the afternoon, almost upset the bike a dozen times and hardly got out of first gear, but Mister Babe did a pretty good job!

I looked like i had fallen into a large can of cocoa by the time i got back.

Now if only we can make it out of here in the morning without an accident or cooking the engine I’ll be happy.

The plan is to leave really early and hopefully miss ANY HEAVY truck traffic that makes it a one lane road. That way we can pick our way through and around the obstacles, the ruts, and the bathtub potholes of beach sand.

Richard picking a coconut for a beach "hottie"

Kilometers - Daytrip: 18.4 km total: 10,025
Gas: $0.00
Lodging: Julies Beach Rooms $45

# posted by Richard and Susie @ 5:11 PM 0 Comments

Left Dangriga, Stann Creek 10:00 AM
Temp: 36 degrees C
Sunny & Hot

Stopped in to the Seashell Café for coffee and breakfast then off to Placentia.

We were told the road was good except for the last 25 miles which was supposed to be fair to good dirt road.

This is the 'good' part of the dirt road......doesn't look too bad, eh?

About twenty miles in we ran into a fellow New Brunswicker from Dalhousie who is down here working for an oil company on a thermal generation project. He advised us to turn around and go back but we only had 10 more miles to go and less than half a tank so we had no other option but to go on….We did make it to Placentia but not without incident. We upset in about six to ten inches of beach sand road when we were forced over by a bus. I was caught under the bike and had to dig out, Susie went tumbling in the sand and my right side mirror got snapped off.

Denis’ bike needed digging out and help from the passing army truck to get back on the “road”. Forty kilometers of loose gravel and beach sand with holes the size of bathtubs, construction semis roaring through, no visibility whatsoever for two minutes after every pass…… and no shoulder to pull off on. The bike was in first or second gear for all of the forty miles and it was easily the hardest thing I ever did with a machine! We and the bikes were coated in brown dust a couple of millimetres thick!

No serious injuries….Oh well, if that’s the worst that happens we’ll be grateful!

We found a beachside cabin on the beach and after a good scrubbing felt half human again.

I managed to find a TIG welder about five miles away (ironically about 100 meters back from where we had the spill) so we plan to stop in there on the way back to see if he can fix the broken mirror mount. If not, I’ll have to take the ditch side mirror mount and swap it out for the broken one and replace it when we get to Flores in Guatemala on the weekend. Hopefully we won’t have any upset retracing that horrible road back towards Belmopan. I’m certainly not looking forward to it!

Poor Broken Mirror....

Kilometers - Daytrip: 192 km total: 10,007
Gas: $0.00
Lodging: Julia's Guesthouse $35

# posted by Richard and Susie @ 6:03 AM 0 Comments