“We’re back...and better than ever...”

Getting to bed at three in the morning the previous night, we woke up and were on the road by quarter after eleven in the morning. The plan for the day was simple, if not a bit grandiose. After a good night’s rest, we would roll the dice and finish the trip off in style. All the way home, no matter what. Google Maps said 21 hours to Olds from Las Vegas, but be darned if I wouldn’t try to beat that. Climbing up into Utah we watch a massive cold front devour the mountains to our west. Maybe this wasn’t going to be easy like I had thought. The temperature drops all the way to two degrees, and the snow starts to fly in hard pellets. Snow? What is this? Aren’t we in the desert? After the last six months, I’m pretty sure weather just refers to whether you’re going to sweat more than normal, but now we’re plunged back into reality. Do we really want to come back from the sun sand and surf?

The interstates are a beautiful thing, which you can’t really begin to appreciate until you’ve experienced the plethora of speed bumps and toll booths that we’ve endured in the last couple of weeks. The ability to drive, unimpeded, for hours on end, only stopping to refuel the car or ourselves, helps to keep us driving. The kilometres count down, and the traffic begins to dwindle as the last rays of the setting sun fade into the horizon. Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Montana; one by one the states drop by the wayside as we churn for home. Finally we reach the Canadian border at 3:21, answer a few questions for the red-haired customs officer chewing her gum like a cow, and are officially back on Canadian soil. No time to celebrate, I need to beat the Google Maps estimate. The car rolls into Calgary at 5:55, and at 6:55 in the morning we surprise my mom in Olds. 18 hours and 40 minutes door to door. Theoretically, you could leave Vegas Sunday after lunch, and still make it into work for Monday morning. Theoretically.

Anyway, we’re just happy to be home, and exhausted to say the least. I’ll be happy to not drive for a little while, but we must get back to real world operations here. We’re homeless and unemployed. Maybe the customs official wouldn’t have let us in having known that. The next week we’ll be hopefully lining up a place to rent in Calgary and getting our jobs lined up. It’s been a fantastic trip, but all good things must come to an end, or at least go on to a new chapter. So I bid you all adieu until the next adventure.

Keep fit and have fun,
Tyler.

“Little white fluffy clouds...”

Kilometres roll away like marbles on an uneven table, dropping off into oblivion behind us. Time doesn’t really exist as the scenery slips past through the windows of the car. You try not to pay attention to distances, but instead just sit and let it happen, and slowly by slowly you begin to get closer to your destination. The landscape itself is surreal, like a cartoon, or a painted Hollywood set. I keep expecting the car to smash into a hidden rock wall behind the scenery painted by a troublesome road runner, having passed a couple of dead coyotes already. Little white clouds shaped like soft cotton balls litter the cornflower-blue sky as though produced by some celestial conveyor belt in the distance, while dust devils twirl up amongst the dry sage and cactus. A swarm of grasshoppers make good on a suicide pact and emerge from behind a bush en masse into the windshield of our car.

Twenty hours in a car does strange things to one’s mind. Like a sparrow, guided by the stars, there is a deep yearning to return home, so we press on for as long as it takes towards the bright lights of Las Vegas. Over a thousand kilometres pass before we even reach the US border, with the clock already striking 5 pm. An hour of waiting in the line of cars brings us to the first customs officer whom, after a brief look in the back seat and a couple of questions meant to tease apart any inconsistencies with your recent history, allows us into his country, only to be stopped by the next group of officers for a more thorough investigation. “You’re from Canada? That figures.” What’s that supposed to mean? Partially confused, but relieved to be back on our way, we get into the car and head towards Phoenix, eleven hours in, and only a convenient 666 kilometres left until the city of sin. No jokes, I Google Mapped it.

In between Tucson and Phoenix we’re treated to one of the best sunsets of the entire trip, a nice consolation to hold us over for the next six or seven hours in the car. Pictures taken throughout that day at 80 mph make for some interesting compositions and results. No time to stop and enjoy. My sit bones, as the hippy yoga folk would say, are sore from the extensive drive, and I begin to get creative with some squeezing manoeuvres to keep the blood flowing. I don’t want any driving sores at the end of this trip. The GPS makes itself useful once again as apparently it recognizes roads only on the north side of the border we have just crossed, so traipsing through Phoenix is hassle-free. Now as we head through the desert in the quiet dark the eerie white glow of the headlights briefly illuminate the ghosts of Joshua Trees lining the highway then disappear into the darkness as we pass. You can’t help but wonder what else is out there in the darkness, amongst the trees. How many holes have been dug by the likes of Joe Pesci and Bobby DeNiro. Probably best not to linger. Getting closer now we arrive at Hoover Dam, likely more impressive in the daylight. A brief police check stop yields some wisecracks about the lack of waves in Arizona when they see the surfboards atop the car. The dam itself looks more like some nuclear weapons facility at the height of the cold war. I almost expect to see Russian planes dive in and obliterate the massive concrete walls and pillars strewn about everywhere you look.

We climb atop the last hill separating us from our destination, and the entire city opens up in the valley before us. The lights far down below spread out like a spider web atop the dark emptiness of the desert. Driving along the main strip, the bright lcd screens and flashing lights launch a full assault on the senses, overwhelming any capacity to take any of it in. After all, we have just come from places where it’s not uncommon to go without electricity, or running water for a few days, where you can’t even flush your toilet paper in the toilet. My mind recoils in horror at the sudden overload of visual stimuli. This is far too much to comprehend after 19 hours on the road. We turn around and begin to look for a hotel. I talk Denielle out of the $26 dollar free stabbing at breakfast in the heart of downtown, and we opt for a classier domicile on the north end towards the highway to Salt Lake City, and finally we get to bed after a full 20 hours in the car, only to wake up and do the marathon all over again.

Tyler.

“Escape from Mazatlan...”

The effect of gravity near a black hole is so strong that not even light is able to escape, hence the “black” part of the “black hole”. That’s how I was beginning to feel about Mazatlan today, that we would never be able to escape its gravitational pull. Or perhaps on a less astrophysical sense, one could think of the Eagle’s song, Hotel California, where you can check out any time you like, but you can never leave. After all, in an eerie coincidence, we checked out of Hotel Mazatlan in the morning, as we had a car appointment at the Toyota dealership to get our headlight put in, so we dropped the car off just before nine in the morning and were soon told that the original time of 10:30 was now 11:30, so we went down to walk the malecon, the boardwalk along the oceanfront, in its entirety and back again.

Upon returning to the Toyota dealership, 11:30 soon became noon before we were told that they could not put the headlight in because whoever had fixed the car previously had done a poor job and nothing would line up. I began to laugh when they offered that we should go back to where we had the work done and have it fixed properly. They joined in on the joke when I explained to them that the work was done in Honduras, and I would rather crash through the US border fence at top speed loaded down with contraband than go back to Honduras. So then they offered they could fix it, but it may take a while. They asked when we were leaving, so as always I told them that we were going all the way back to Canada today. Awkward looks and silence was exchanged, followed by some rapid Spanish on their behalf, and then a quote of 5 hours and 1,500 pesos was placed on the table. Deal. So Denielle and I enjoyed another day burning on the beach amongst a number of potato people (picture Mr. Potato Head, that is to say, people who are really short and fat such that seated on a normal chair with their back against said chair, their feet would fail to reach the ground, and would most likely roll with ease down a hill).

Optimistically we returned to the dealership at quarter after four, hoping that the car may be done early, ha, so we could drive for a few hours towards the border. Four became five, and five became six, and finally after almost losing my mind from watching Spanish Animal Planet and all the female employees dressed as children for National Children’s Day, our car was delivered at 6:30. We signed the papers and hit the road, making a run against the setting sun. I cautiously manoeuvred the streets exiting Mazatlan, knowing our luck with the city would leave us with some incident that would pull us back in towards the dirty core, never letting us go. But we managed to flee the city, and are now quite comfortably sitting in a hotel room in Culiacan, 230 kilometres away. Tomorrow will be an early start, with a destination of Las Vegas, and depending on the mood, perhaps Calgary will be the next stop after that, fuelled by Coke Zero no doubt.

Our time in Mazatlan wasn’t all bad however; it’s just hard to relax when you have already flipped the switch on to “go home” mode. But we had some relaxing days on the beach, buffing up the tans for one last time, and getting some mediocre surf under my belt. I thought I may regret not getting in the water for one last session, but now I think I regret that decision. Strong winds all day had turned my sunset surf session into a 2 to 3 foot high wind chop mess with strong ground swell pounding on my head as I feebly attempted to get out into the line up. I managed to catch 2 waves well on the inside after getting tumbled repeatedly for 20 to 30 waves in a row. Paddle, paddle, paddle, duck dive, hold on, tumble, hold breath, hold board for chance to breath, repeat 20 to 30 times. Anyway, no more surfing, just surfing the highways. May the border crossings be effortless and the highways smooth all the way home. I’m really looking forward to getting back to a regular routine where English is the first language and I don’t have to live out of a bag full of dirty clothes.

Quick update to be elaborated upon further at a later time, we made Culiacan to Las Vegas, 20 hours in the car, and are now shooting for Canada tomorrow. The race is on.

Tyler.

“Mexican standoff...”

Heading back from Playa Bruja in the evening, we start to encounter traffic as we approach the main part of Mazatlan. As the car rounds the corner I see a police officer walk out from behind a pulled over car and wave me down. Great, I think, here we go again. By now we are very accustomed to being pulled over for no reason as they see us coming and want to check out our papers. But this is Mexico. The officer says I was speeding and that I’ll have to pay a ticket. He’s got my driver’s license and says that I can get it back in a week if I pay the fine, or I can pay it right here. Are we in Acapulco again?

I tell him that it’s illegal to take my driver’s license, that it’s my personal property and that it’s not legal for the police to take my property. So then he tries to explain that it would be very difficult to find the police station and make the payment. He asks us where we’re staying and how long we’ll be here and that we probably won’t have time to pay the fine properly. I then proceed to tell him that we have driven all the way down to Panama and all the way through Central America, and are now on our way back to Canada. I tell him that we’re only in Mazatlan now because we are waiting for our headlight to show up at the Toyota dealership so we can get out of Mexico. Then the standoff begins. I just stare at him as he asks if we’re going to pay. He repeats himself, and I stare him right in the eyes. I can wait here all day, and you can tell that he’s getting fidgety. So he looks down at his paper pad one last time and then his shoulders drop in defeat as he says be careful and hands back my license. Victory. No ticket.

We managed to arrive in Mazatlan Tuesday night before the Toyota dealership closed, and therefore were able to get two badly needed front tires put on and had the headlight ordered. We have an appointment for Friday morning to put the new headlight in. That should be done by 10:30 in the morning, and since it is now light out until 8 at night, we may still be able to make it to the border on Friday, less than 800 kilometres away. For now though, we’ll spend another day at the beach like yesterday, with some powerful head high surf rolling through. Tyler’s last ride part two and three.

Tyler.

“Vibradores...”

Back in the land of speed bumps, sweet dirty Mexico. I suppose there are pros and cons involved with the speed bumps. While they are extremely annoying and absolutely everywhere, especially when you finally achieve a decent driving speed, they also give an opportunity for passing when there is nowhere else to pass. Leaving Antigua behind that morning, after taking another picture for the "Our Canada" magazine, we soon climbed high between the volcanoes to an altitude of 3015 meters. For those of you keeping score at home, the highest point on the TransCanada Highway is Kicking Horse Pass at 1630 meters. This road is higher than any mountain I have climbed thus far. We zipped along the highways with very little traffic, being limited in speed by the threat of careening off the side of the mountains, and soon arrived at the Mexican border in a mere four hours. The crossing lasted 16 minutes and cost us 6 dollars for fumigation, a new record perhaps, although we did not need to go to the aduana on the Mexican side as we already had the papers.

Just when I thought the roads could not become any more tortuous and twisty than those of northern Guatemala, we entered the mountains of southern Mexico, climbing high into the hills and descending deep into the valleys. Dry pine tree forests soon gave way to thick carpeted greenery as the humidity level rose with our descent towards the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven and one half hours later we are now sitting in a hotel, somewhere in Mexico that starts with a P, just south of Villa Hermosa, about 650 kilometres outside of Mexico City. Soon we will join up with the toll highways and will be cruising towards the capital, which I might add has more people than all of Canada in one city. I’m a little scared about getting around that monster, but we’ll burn that bridge when we come to it. No luck yet in tracking down a headlight, but we keep driving in the dark for some reason.

Tyler.

“Nine dollars and twenty four minutes...”

The day started out with a trip to the local cafe for some papaya smoothies and some internet. We needed to phone to extend our travel insurance and Denielle needed to figure out why Star Choice Satellites, now owned and operated by Shaw, decided to place a seven hundred and twenty dollar charge on her credit card on March 19. Several calls later, a dispute was made on the charge, along with the typical who knows what is going on attitude from Shaw. The highlight of the morning was when the horse tour guy with one cloudy eye fell into the room and knocked over a chair because he was that drunk at nine in the morning.

After sending off and email to the Toyota dealership in Mazatlan for the possibility of getting a headlight for the car, we returned to our hotel and began the wait for our car to be ready. When high noon came around, the prearranged time, I strolled through the hot streets down to the auto body shop. One and a half hours I was told, so I went back. Then, at 1:30, I returned to find the car not done, so I sat in plain view and tried my best to look antsy. By 2:30 our car was done, minus the headlight, and we were packing up the car. We filled up with gas and then made the short drive to the border, arriving right at 3. Twenty four minutes and nine dollars in fees, a new record on both accounts, and we were through both sides of the border. Alas, we soon encountered some traffic, a nasty motorcycle versus big truck accident complete with body bag, and the setting sun just as we pulled into Guatemala City with our one headlight.

Just when I thought we had made it through the bustling Saturday night metropolis, the road curved and led us into two hours of not knowing where the heck we were. A few frustrating marital moments later, culminating with an accidental door to the head, and we arrived in Antigua at ten. A late supper at the edge of the night club scene and then back to the hotel where we are now ready for bed and an early morning to enter Mexico. We’re coming home.

Tyler.

“We can drive it home...with one headlight...”

Stranded in Honduras with nothing to do, when life hands you lemons, you get drunk on two for one Cuba Libras and cheap six packs. We had been told that the car would be ready today at noon, so when we went to check on the car this morning, heavily hung over and trying not to throw up, we received the news that they were still waiting on the headlight from somewhere in the ether north of the border in Guatemala. When we returned later this afternoon, after having a nice hot nap while the power and thus the fan was out, we soon learned that there were no headlights for our car model in Central America. So the husband of the lady who marred our beautiful intrepid matrix offered to give us money to buy a headlight when we returned to Canada or the U.S. of A. So now the car is rumoured to be completed and delivered to our hotel doorstep, the initial scene of the crime, at noon tomorrow, leaving us in Honduras for one more day.

I had begun to worry that if we didn’t leave this town soon that I would have to buy a cowboy hat and buttoned shirt to fit in. But now we’ll be back en route to Guatemala tomorrow to Antigua, and then it’s on to the blistering pace to return us home in a hopeful 8 days. We’ll see how it goes.

Tyler.

“Guatemala must wait...”

Just as we were getting things packed up to leave for Guatemala this morning we heard a loud bang, but thought nothing of it. Having decided to sleep in until almost eight in the morning as our drive for the day was not that long had resulted in us staying in Honduras for at least another day. The maid knocked on our door and said something about the car. I said I didn’t understand what she was saying so she led me to the street. As I descended the stairs I saw a crowd of people standing on the street’s edge, looking at the crumpled front left side of our car. Someone had backed into it, and now the left headlight was smashed, the bumper was hanging a little low, the hood had been pushed in and slightly up, and the driver’s side door caught a little when opening. But the car started up, and although parts were dragging on the tire, we were able to drive it to the mechanic’s who says it will be fixed by noon tomorrow. So here we sit for another day in Honduras. We don’t have insurance on the car, but the husband of the lady who hit it is apparently taking care of it. Hopefully they do a good job and we are able to continue on with our journey safely.

Tyler.

“Where the sun doesn’t shine...”

If the countries of Central America were parts of a body, then Honduras would be completely engulfed in darkness when that body sat upon a chair. There’s not much to like about the country, although I suppose we haven’t given it a fair chance, but first impressions have not been great. The border crossing this morning had Denielle throwing forty dollars in frustration at a man in a shipping container that was typing out our car registration. I won’t elaborate beyond that, but needless to say we spent entirely too long waiting for things to happen, and would later be forced to race across the country to make up lost time. The upside of the whole situation is that we now figured out that “aduana” is Spanish for spending lots of money to sit and wait and not really understand what’s going on.

Later in the afternoon we were soon making sketchy passes on blind corners, following large trucks doing the very same. Weaving in and out of traffic, quick bursts of acceleration were followed by rapid braking to gain space by space as we wound up and down the low rounded mountains surrounding the capital. A quick glance may lead one to believe that we had passed through Kamloops, as the dry mountains were dotted with widely spaced Ponderosa Pine trees with scrub brush and grasses interspersed underfoot. Prior to our adventurous drive however, we became entangled in the mire of road construction that greatly impeded our forward progress. I will say, however, that the capital city of Teguicigalpa was the easiest city by far to pass through, with one thoroughfare winding along the outskirts with nary a traffic light or speed bump to be seen. Immediately upon the other side of the city was where we encountered our first construction-related setback. The precarious roadway is apparently subject to frequent landslides, and as we would soon see, sections of road completely missing, forcing crews to cut a new one out of the mountainside.

Unlike our previous traverse across Honduras during New Year’s Day, this trip had us encounter numerous police check stops, four of which we were asked to stop for. But everything seemed to be in order, and we were quickly back on our way. A brief respite at Wendy’s to refuel, and we realized that we would be squeezing it close with the setting sun, and although I was trying hard to keep an average of eighty kilometres per hour, the heavy traffic was making it difficult. Getting ever so close to our destination of Copan, the evening sun had started to dip below the low clouds on the horizon, setting the heavens on fire in shades of bright orange and yellow. Vampires come out at night, everyone knows that, and here we are in the spooky haunted remains of the Mayan empire. So as the sun crept lower, my foot pressed harder on the gas pedal, and we soon found ourselves safely in the confines of the city without a moment to spare. Tomorrow it’s off to Antigua, Guatemala, so we only have 3 countries left before Canada.

Tyler.

“Tyler’s last ride...”

I could almost hear my joints squeaking out in the water, like a rusty old door hinge that had not seen oil for too long. That’s what I’ve become in the last two weeks with no surfing; a rusty hinge bobbing out in the waves. Two weeks ago I had left Cambutal feeling like surfing was as natural as walking down the street. I felt as though the surfboard was just an extension of my own body, but now after only two weeks without it, it felt obscure and alien to me. Not only that but I had picked up a head cold in the last two days from all the stress of the border crossings and long drives, so the paddle out had already left me exhausted. This was supposed to be my last session out in the water, one last memory of surfing to stay with me, to remind me of our wonderful trip, one last great ride to top off this whole experience. Now I wasn’t even sure if I would catch a wave.

We had finally found Popoyo after getting a little bit lost the day before. Several stops to ask friendly roadside Nicaraguans how to get to where we were going had us pulling up to the beach in the late afternoon. There was plenty of time to unpack and take a quick stroll around the beach to find the waves. We walked south a long ways and found where Popoyo proper was, but it was crowded with people, being a Sunday night. So we returned to the hotel, and I prepared my board, and then walked to the northern point of the beach. The typical offshore winds that we had dreaded a few months ago were nowhere to be found, and replaced with some onshore winds that were making the waves an ugly choppy mess. I was weak with the cold and a little foggy-headed with the cold medication, but this was my second last day of surfing. So I got in the water and paddled out and proceeded to have the Pacific Ocean dumped upon my head with closeout wave after closeout wave. This sucks. What a way to end the trip, I thought. The currents were strong and the waves were very unpredictable. I began to wonder if I would be able to get back in. But along came a wave, about head high, nothing too scary, so I went for it. I popped up to my feet and made the steep drop, only to have the wave break on either side of me. No ride to be had, but I at least felt some vindication for making a late steep drop. I then caught some white water in and called it a day to enjoy the sunset.

That brings us to this morning. After sleeping for a very long time to try and rest up and get rid of my cold, Denielle and I had a late breakfast and packed up the car to drive down to Popoyo. I had her take the camera to get some pictures of my last ride, kind of a special moment, an end to a big part of the trip for me. We parked the car by a restaurant and made the walk along the beach and across the river to break. There were a handful of people out in the water, and a lot of big rock shelves exposed at low tide. The swell was still head high, with some occasional overhead sets pounding in, but the waves were breaking predictably in the same spot, over a submerged rock reef. I paddled out, and while I had initially felt rested from sleeping in, I soon felt exhausted perched upon my board at the edge of the line up. I sat there and watched for quite a while, letting my body recover while I learned where the wave was breaking and what it was doing. A small offshore breeze had the wave breaking relatively late, and you had to catch it fairly far on the inside, but then the wall would hold up for a long ways, giving a very satisfying ride from the looks of things. I paddled for a couple of waves that came further to the outside, but just missed them. I would have to mix it up from the inside with the others. You could see boils in the water with each passing wave as the rocks underneath made their presence known. Not a place to be foggy-headed. Finally I caught a break when all the others were too far inside, so I turned around and got up on a wave. It almost felt like I was controlling my body through strings like a puppet, not quite in control, nothing feeling very natural, but I managed to make the drop and was up riding the wave. This was great. I made a few turns, this way and that while the wave slowly decreased in size as it approached the shore. I turned too far in front and lost all my momentum and fell as the approaching white water was not enough to get me going again.

I paddled back out and soon caught another, this time the puppet strings a little shorter, feeling more natural, I was back in control. This wave was slightly bigger, and I rode it for a long ways, even getting in a roundhouse cutback turn towards the white water and continuing along. I paddled back out again and made the decision to go for one more, one last wave. That’s a lot of pressure to put on one wave. What if the wave is small or doesn’t go anywhere, what if I fall on it too soon? But alas, here it came, after waiting for a long time as the others caught waves in front of me, I was able to paddle inside and get up on this wave. I could see the wall holding up way down the line and knew if I could stay up that this would be a long ride. I turned gracefully back and forth, going with the wave, coming back to the white water to let the wave build again, and rode it all the way towards shore. I got off, and stepped on the rocks just a couple of feet beneath, then paddled further over and exited onto the sand. A very nice three long rides to end what has been a great trip full of wonderful surfing has left me happy, though exhausted with my cold. And now, while I type, we watch perhaps our last Pacific Sunset of the trip, for now we are to head inland and make a speedy return home. So hopefully the border crossings go well and we find ourselves back in home territory before you know it.

Tyler.