El Salvador - Costa Del Sol

Getting back to Ziggy I tried again putting the key in but again there was no power to anything. I removed my luggage and the seat to access the battery. I wriggled the positive terminal and fortunately the power resumed. The terminal wasn’t exactly loose but wasn’t as tight as the other. I noticed the connectors were also a bit dirty. I removed them and filed them to a shiny brass colour then tightened them on well. 

Sure enough Ziggy jumped back into life. Even on a high tech bike some basics need doing such as cleaning battery terminals!

 I decided in the morning was a good time to attend to a couple of other maintenance issues that I noticed on the bike but hadn’t done anything about. For some time the manual adjustment of the rear shock absorber had been getting more and more difficult to move. I checked and it was completely seized up. The left hand mirror had been knocked out of place with one of my falls and the wind guards on the hand grips were not really guarding me from the wind, they needed to be a little higher.

 The suspension adjuster was really stuck. I had just bought a tin of spray in Santa Ana two days before. I worked on the adjuster for a good ten minutes making very little headway. I didn’t have the correct sized shifting spanner to pull the mechanism off so I sprayed as much lube spray as I could into the thread. I let it sit overnight and in the morning the adjuster had loosened up enough to gradually work it loose. It took another fifteen minutes but finally I was able to turn through the forty plus clicks of adjustment. I undid and adjusted the mirrors and hand guards, evening up both sides and tightening all the screws properly. Little maintenance things and adjustments make such a difference to the riding. I had neglected them a bit so I sought out all of the springs and moving parts and gave them a little spray to keep them lubricated.

 It was a comfortable night’s sleep in my private resort and early in the morning I took a long walk along the beach. 

I was raised near the beach in Sydney and it was a prominent part of my upbringing. I sometimes forget how energising it is to walk along a deserted beach with waves crashing, the breeze off the sea-water filling my nostrils with the salty fresh smell and sea spray forming a haze over the white foam as the waves break far along the coastline. So far El Salvador beaches are matching many I’ve seen in Australia in the remote tropical regions. Beautiful. El Salv-adorable.

 I loaded up Ziggy and followed the road to the end of the peninsular, another fifteen or so kilometres. It ended where a large river meets the sea. It reminded me of the Maroochydore River in Queensland in the 1970s. Wide and wild flowing the ocean, crashing onto unspoilt beaches that stretched as far as the eye can see. 

There was a small town sporting makeshift restaurants with thatched roofs on the banks of the river just above the tide line. 

I picked a restaurant, or let’s say I was herded into it by a spruker, and although I was hungry I had spotted some small roadside kitchens along the way that appealed to me. Once again it is off season and a week day so there are few people around and all the vendors focus on who is present, me. 

I bought a coffee and set myself up in a hammock overlooking the wide flowing river, in the distance I could see the white crashing foam of the sea as it collided with the river flow. I think I dozed off for half an hour. So serene, so peaceful, so perfect.

I dragged myself away and backtracked along the coast and turned inland back to the mountains. 

In Guatemala, Cisco had recommended a place called La Tortuga Verde – The Green Turtle – a turtle protection project with a hostel and environmental resort. It was a long way around to get there and I rode more than 200kms, arriving at Playa Cuco at around 5pm. There was a sign to continue for another three kilometres and after a bit of a dirt road I pulled into a driveway to be confronted by the biggest flag in El Salvador.