Cunén to Santa Cruz Verapaz

Landslides, Mudslides, Rockslides and Sinkholes

Escaping a sinkhole

Mudslide

This was fun! First I’m thinking, “We’ll get out of town and soon I’ll have a signal on my phone.” The weather is great and the scenery is opening up all around. A policeman told us yesterday that we could not get through on this road and that the crews were cleaning up lots of landslides from the day before. The man at the hotel said that they were cleared by morning. We take a roll of the dice. Again we are lucky. Every 100 yards we pass another landslide. Sometimes they are mud, sometimes rock, sometimes gravel. They are so bad in certain stretches that the guys are walking the bikes across and I’m in four-wheel drive so as not to get stuck. They get back on the bikes and cruise down another half mile to another slide. This becomes the rhythm of the day. In parts the road narrows to one lane, sometimes to ¾ of a lane. We keep going. This is by far the most stunning stretch of highway we’ve traversed. We are in the department of Baja Verapaz and its all mountains, valleys, rivers and tropical forests. Plus, one long, winding downhill after another. We know that it’s leading to another long climb in the afternoon but for now, ENJOY.

This is what a landslide composed of gravel looks like

Uspantan was the largest town on the way. Still no phone signal. We have the best lunch of the trip as we pull up to watch the Saturday afternoon soccer game. We are in the land of the Maya and it’s obvious. We hear more indigenous languages than Spanish on the road. We see more traditional garb than western fashion in the fields. We keep rolling down. On a side note, the people eating breakfast near me are talking about the 4 deaths caused by landslides during the storms two days ago. Good thing we are out of the worst stretches of road now.

A landslide composed of "land"

The descents are faster, the coffee with cream colored-river down below is getting closer. We are nearing the bottom out point for today and getting psyched up for the long climb ahead. We are ten or fifteen miles to the final destination. Check out this cool bridge, the water is rushing by under our feet. The road is pocked with potholes and they are getting bigger and more frequent with every turn. I drive ahead and see that it’s only worse. Finally the road turns to gravel, dirt and mud and I come back with the bad news. We decide to ride to where we cannot anymore and then have no choice but to load the bikes into the car and drive ahead looking for pavement. This part of the route was not very clearly marked on the map and we knew there was a chance we might not get through. We almost didn’t.

Landslide composed of rock

Here we are on safari or an assignment with National Geographic. This is legit indigenous territory. There go the little old ladies carrying bags of corn on their heads. We roll by a small village and see the smoke rising out of chimneys, there is no electricity here. People are working the fields of corn, beans and coffee. The road is in bad shape and even with the car we are progressing slowly. Then, shazammm! A big ‘ol sign saying THERE IS NO PASS! On the sign a little image of people running away from giant rocks that are falling on them. LANDSLIDE ZONE. OK, this is not a landslide, this is the entire face of a mountain that disconnected and tumbled into the valley below. Who knows when and who knows what it destroyed besides the road. It did, however, take out the road completely. A half-mile stretch at least.

We’re screwed!

There’s that feeling like your heart falling through your pyloric sphincter into your stomach.

“How can this be, we have to turn back and go all the way through Guatemala City to continue?” Noooooooo!

It’s a miracle when Pat notices the tiny road going through the landslide down in the distance. It’s so far down that a pickup passing by looks like a Matchbox car. We start looking for the access road and find our way down and across. This adventure is drawing to a close as we emerge into civilization through the town of San Cristobal Verapaz. Pat and Greg begin riding again as we make our way to the Park Hotel in Santa Cruz Verapaz. This place is awesome! It is a self-proclaimed four-star hotel but relatively speaking we put it at seven stars. The owner, Emanuel is an Italian from Rome and he is the man. We showed up at his restaurant, covered in mud and looking like something that cat dragged in. We told Emanuel about ROMP, the ride and asked for two nights. He donated a little cabin for two nights.

The mountainside slide blocking our path

We are reflecting on the tragedy that struck on a stretch of highway we passed a few days ago. On km. 171 along the highway near Totonicapan a bus was buried by a mudslide. A team of rescuers began digging to free the passengers when a second landslide buried them as well. As of today 23 bodies have been recovered and 40 people are missing. This is just one of the several deadly landslides that occurred on Saturday. We were already out of that region of the country travelling through the route about which I just wrote. Guatemala has had a string of natural disasters this summer, making an already tough situation even worse for most of its people.

Pat finds our road to freedom, look at that little car below