The Golden Arches of Guatemala

Guatemala City – Teculutan, Guatemala

A Note From Our Business Manager. Well, inflation is eating away at our team’s budget. As such, we have been forced to look for new revenue sources. Fortunately, we were able to find two sponsors – a high-quality restaurant chain and a local beer company – both of whom have agreed to use a progressive new marketing style – meaning you probably won’t even notice them in the blog at all.

And now, our regular blog content:

In our modern world – filled with advertisements, instant messages, two-minute news cycles, and social media likeFacebook and Instagram, we sometimes lose sight of the bigger picture. The little things in nature, or the good people that we meet, or the quaint little towns that we pass through as we go.

So I wanted to take today to just think about some of the things that are most important to us all.

Take, for instance, this picture of some of the spectacular mountain scenery in Guatemala. 

I just think it’s so nice to see an unspoiled scene like this. A moment to forget about capitalism, or avarice, or corporate tycoons that might be trying to make money from fattening us up like pigs going to market. 

And here are a few more photos that show scenes that might inspire us to forget about marketing and maybe just focus on the road ahead . . .

And then I wanted to take a moment to talk about a man we met today. 

Ronald. 

Turns out that he is originally from the U.S. He’s an expat down here now. And he says that he helped introduce the hamburger and fries to Guatemala. He’s very proud of that. 

Of course, you want to hear about some of the events of the day. One of them was this overwhelming craving we had this afternoon for McDonald’s. I’m not sure where it came from. But we’re biking along, and we just happened to start thinking about McDonald’s frappes, hot fudge sundaes, and oreo flurries. And then, there it was. Like in a play when the main character has an ah-ha moment and like thirteen spotlights shine down on her as she thinks of her ah-ha thing. 

Anyway, McDonald’s certainly hit the spot. Great for a hot afternoon when you’ve been biking in the sun all day. 

And Guatemalans really seem to love McDonald’s.

But I wanted to show you a few more scenes from today. This is a shot we took as we left the town with the McDonald’s (home of the Big Mac). It just struck me that this hillside is so beautiful. 

And then here are pictures of several other scenes and towns that we biked through . . .

Again, glorious day.

I don’t drink much, but for some reason, at the end of the day I found myself really craving a Gallo Beer. Again, I don’t know where this craving came from – but I sure did enjoy this genuine Guatemala lager. Refreshing. Delicious. And available at most good liquor stores near you . . .

Now, kidding aside, we did actually meet some nice folks today. Herby and his son Jose chatted with us at lunch. Herby is a big biker and talked to us about our route and our trip overall. Jose is heading to the U.S. next month to visit his brother – who is working in Connecticut. Like we’ve said before, everyone seems to have some strong connection to the United States.

And the riding today? Beautiful. 

That is, once we made our way out of Guatemala City it was beautiful. Before that it was actually pretty awful. Cars. Trucks. Tuk tuks. Motorcycles. Mopeds. People riding their motorcycles and mopeds against traffic, on the shoulder that we are trying to ride on. Traffic lights that don’t seem to make sense. Horrible pollution. Honking. Engine noise galore – with apparently no mufflers around. Just generally a bad scene . . .

But the rest of the day was great. First off, it was kind of the opposite of what we’ve grown used to. Net downhill! Lots of descending – with only a few small-ish ascents. 

Nice lunch spot, where we met Herby and Jose. 

Great views as we descended, while still being surrounded by the mountains. 

Enough climbing to keep us honest – even if it was probably 3:1 or 4:1 in favor of descending on the day. 

And we really did love the McDonald’s stop. Diana has always enjoyed their frappes. I had a hot fudge sundae, which was great. And we split an Oreo McFlurry as well. The thing is that the normal ice cream in Mexico and Guatemala is not very good. Not enough cream or something. And frequently freezer burned because apparently it’s been sitting around for a while. I mean, McDonald’s is soft-serve and all – but the reality is that these dessert items are darn good . . . 

We kind of wish that every afternoon at about 2 or 3 we would run into a McDonald’s. Alas, probably some serious wishful thinking . . .

One other thing I wanted to share. At one point we’re going up a long (for today) climb – probably about a mile or so – and a big truck comes up alongside me. It noses past me – but it’s obvious that it’s struggling; it’s belching smoke, and the engine sounds like it’s at death’s door – straining to the max to bring its heavy load to the top of the hill. I look over and see that it’s filled with concrete blocks. But whatever – it has a motor with gasoline or diesel or something. I just have some of Diana’s leftover nuts that I’ve absconded . . .

I’m not sure what came over me, but I decided that I had to beat the truck up to the top of the hill – which wasn’t too far away. Super fun. I actually ended up re-passing the truck – and was going good enough that I was able to take a picture or two . . .

Reminds me a little of our dog Bowie. (I need to tell a Bowie story because I kind of miss our dog – and we’ve been telling lots of Mexico and Guatemala dog stories – so I don’t want him to get jealous . . .) So no complaining – and anyway – this story is kind of relevant . . .

I bring Bowie skiing with me sometimes. He seems to love it. And he can skijor if he needs to. Neither of us really loves skijoring – too confining. I would rather just be skiing and not have to be bothered stopping when the dog wants to stop, and Bowie would rather have the freedom to stop and smell the – well, the poop and stuff. 

Anyway, a few years ago we decided to enter the Bark-a-Birkie – it’s a skijoring race that takes place a few days before the American Birkebeiner in Hayward, Wisconsin. We entered the two lap race. 

We get to the start line and Bowie’s great – not like those other dumb dogs who have to smell the butt of every beast within a mile of them. Bowie doesn’t really care about other dogs much – so he’s not easily distracted. We take off and Bowie shows some mild interest – but you can tell his heart isn’t in it. As I said, he would rather be smelling stuff and grabbing sticks and stuff. 

After a while another team – a woman and her dog – pass us. Kind of a bummer, but what are you going to do? However, after a few seconds Bowie figures out what has just happened. This other dog – clearly a lame rule follower who’s actually happy to be skijoring – is now in front of Bowie. And Bowie is having none of it. All of a sudden I’m getting a real pull from Bowie – and we re-pass Lame-O. 

I’m thinking we’re going to do pretty well. If he stays this engaged the whole race we’ll for sure be one of the top teams. 

And then we get to the end of the first lap. Rather than heading to the finish line I direct Bowie to go around again.

And just like that the race is over. 

Bowie is like: “Are you serious? I’ll pull for one lap – but I’m not stupid – we’ve been around this thing before . . .”

He pulls over and starts smelling poop or something. We get twisted up – and within 30 seconds Lame-O re-passes us and we never see him again. 

So sad.

But that’s kind of like me today with the concrete truck. I could muster the strength to stay in front of that overworked vehicle up to the top of the hill. But beyond that? No way . . .

And that’s the news from Guatemala. A nice long day with a good bit of descending. Almost made up for our short day yesterday . . .

Tomorrow? Another bunch of ascending to get over the mountain range separating us from Honduras and the Copan Ruinas. Might end up being a short-ish day because the hotels are either 35 miles or so – or much, much further. Might have to think about an auto hotel . . .

We’ll see . . .

Editor’s Note: The Gallo and McDonald’s photos are real. I hope Guatemala is making some good money off of those guys… 😁. If you look closely you’ll see that the Gallo rooster is the star atop the town Christmas tree. Pretty funny. I guess Guatemala has followed in US footsteps on commercialization in. And, wow, they seem to love their McDonald’s!