Day 28 - Hotel Casa Texel, Panajachel

Knowing that we had the day to sort the bikes, pick up laundry and check out the lake, we were able to have a bit of lie-in. We still got up at around 07:00am as our body clocks have become accustomed to waking up early, regardless of the fact that we didn’t need to. Breakfast was included at the hotel, which was very good. A great choice of different dishes, that were all very good. Luckily, we have 2 days to try out different dishes. The Guatemalan coffee was exceptional, the best we have had on the trip so far. I am usually a pretty basic coffee person and at home I drink instant coffee as that is what I like. But so far, the coffee in Mexico has not been great, unless it has been instant. But here in Guatemala, they do proper coffee very well and I was not shy to partake in quite a few cops over breakfast.

Breakfast completed, we set to work on sorting out the brakes. As Cassy’s brakes were by far the worst, and again there was absolutely nothing when I tried them, she would get the full treatment first. We had the replacement screws so all we needed to do was get the damaged screws out so that we could access the master cylinder to not only top up the brake fluid, but so that we could check for bubbles and drain out any air that might have got into the system. The plan was for Jorik to apply maximum downward pressure to the screwdriver, whilst I used a No 12 spanner to twist the screwdriver and undo the problem screw. It didn’t really work, and it looked like we were definitely going to strip the screw head. If we did this, the next option might be to have the damaged screw drilled out, which was way beyond our tools and as such, would mean finding a moto mechanic in the village to help out. It was super frustrating as we didn’t think that we had overtightened the screws when we topped up the brake fluid back in Jocotepec. I gave it one last go on my own and just managed to get it loose, which was a great result. We then swapped out the brake pads for new pads, which we had with us. The old pads were not too bad, but there was clearly some ware on them and replacing them at this stage, over halfway through the trip, would mean that we would not only have plenty of pads left by the end, but we could also ditch the old pads, thus carrying less spares and weight. It isn’t a lot of weight, but I suppose everything helps. We then proceeded to bleed the brakes, and after watching a few YouTube videos to make sure we were actually doing the right thing, we didn’t manage to get a nice clean run of spare fluid through the system. Every time we would pump the brakes, air would come out the top, but very little fluid would come out the bottom through the nipple. Still, we tried a number of times and as there were a few little bubbles that came out of the very limited fluid that passed through the inspection tube, we decided to just top up the fluid in the master cylinder and tighten everything up and do a test ride to see how the brakes handled. Next, we did the same to Jules, with pretty much the same results, but got everything sorted out so that we could go for a test ride. Following our meeting with Mike at the restaurant the evening before, we decided to go for a ride to the nearby town of Santa Cruz la Laguna, which would take us through the hills and certainly give the brakes a good test. We looked up a route on Jorik’s app on his phone, which suggested it would take about an hour to reach the town. When I checked it on google maps, it suggested it was 1 hour 45 minutes, but that would take us all the way back up the mountain to the main road, then drop us down into the village. As we are actually on an adventure motorcycle trip, we decided to take the shorter route as we expected it might throw up a few dirt tracks that the locals use and besides, that is what these bikes are supposed to be used for. So, with little gear on the bikes, we still had the panniers and the top boxes on, but no extra weight, we put on our trainers and helmets and headed out. The clouds were still pretty low, which gave a very hazy feel to the day, and we didn’t even think about sunscreen as it was almost overcast. Neither did we think about riding gear, just shorts, t-shirts, trainers and helmets. The first stretch was perfectly fine, in fact riding up the mountain pass back towards the main road, took us right past an incredible waterfall that we had completely missed the day before on the ride into town. We had to pull over and have a closer look and it was really quite spectacular. It also gave us a great opportunity to look down on the town of Panajachel, which was some distance below us as the pass was exceptionally steep. Having got some great footage, we then pressed on for Santa Cruz la Laguna. The sat nav took us along a stretch of road that quickly become less than desirable for bikes. The tarmac stopped as we left the main built-up area and whilst it was initially block paved, this turned to gravel for sections, which were then block paved through areas where people lived in little houses adjacent to the track. We ended up getting to the end of the road we had taken as we came out to a big sports pitch, which was clearly the end of the track. It was pretty as the pitch was overlooked by the huge mountains, but we were still very high up and way off from the water. We must have taken a wrong turn somewhere so we back tracked and found the very sharp turn off that the sat nav suggested we should take. It looked pretty sketchy and was a mix of gravel and stones, but nothing sold. Having figured that we had got this far, we might as well give it a go. However, after about 15 minutes and some ridiculously steep bends and sections, we pulled the plug. It was just getting too dangerous and way beyond our experience, the capability of the bikes, and the fact that we were riding in shorts and t-shirts, didn’t leave me with a sense of comfort. So, we turned around, very carefully, and headed back up these steep gravel tracks to retrace our steps back to the hotel. One thing that was agreed unanimously, we had thoroughly tested the brakes and they were working fun, so I suppose it was a good result. We did end up getting quite sunburnt as we should have realised that even if there is cloud cover, we should have piled on the sunscreen. Back in town, we grabbed our laundry, clean laundry is always a highlight, and headed down to the lake for a couple of drinks and potentially a swim. The water wasn’t clean so I decided not to go in, and I think Jorik changed his mind when he saw just how much crap there was in the water, not to mention what you can’t see, which scares me more than the bits of plastic and crap floating in the water. It is very pretty, but just not very clean. We had a great experience with a local lady who was selling these beautiful woven products. Blankets, throws and scarves. They really were very well made, and she was insistent that she had made them by hand. They were really amazing, but I tried to explain that I didn’t really have space to be carrying that sort of thing all the way to Panama City and then back to the USA, before taking it back to the UK for Siobhan. Jorik was not as strong as me and caved and purchased a scarf for melody. We had dinner at a small restaurant, which was average, and the retired for the evening early as the next day would see us heading for some local Mayan ruins and from the pictures we had seen, I was excited to spend a couple of hours walking through them as I haven’t seen ruins like these before and I didn’t want to limit our time there, which would mean a long day as we still wanted to cover distance to get to Antigua Guatemala, the historic capital of the country.