South America. That seems awfully far away. Like I said at the beginning, I hope that we can make it to the far side of the Panama Canal, do a little dance and celebrate making it to South America. As it stands now, we’ve been on the road for seven weeks and covered 4,569 miles. The reality is that the distance to Panama is only a fraction of the distance that we’ve come. At some point in the near future we’re going to have to make a decision. Do we turn around and start making our way home or do we spend the time we would spend coming home pushing further South? In the later scenario, we’d have to book plane tickets home at least a month out to get decent prices as well as find a way to sell a US titled bike in a foreign country. Sheesh. At least we have a few weeks to deliberate.
I write to you this evening from Chetumal, Mexico. We’re making our last preparations before crossing the border into Belize. The bike went into the shop today for brakes all around, an oil change, checkup, various adjustments and lubrications. She’s back in good running order and ready to continue with the journey. She’s a champ. That Honda has carried us through 4,500 miles of intense and unpredictable conditions. She’s been overloaded by at least 75 (and growing -“It is not growing!”-Keli) lbs the entire way, whacked a few 
enormous potholes, conquered tens of thousands of topes (speed bumps), dodged countless obstacles and keeps on going. I can feel them all accumulating in her bones though. She’s not the babied Sunday driver of her former years. It’s mile after mile of hard riding now. I’ve got the faith. She’ll hold together for another 6 or 7K. With any good luck we’ll put her up wet in Chile and call it a day. I’ll be talkin’ sweet to her until then.
The humans are tired. We rode 150 miles in anything ranging from drizzle to downpour yesterday. We have yet to get that break we are looking for in a little bungalow on the beach due to budget constraints. Tulum panned out to be a little out of our budget. Belize we know is out of our price range to begin with. There’s not too much Caribbean coast in Guatemala. Honduras is cheap but 
it’s still two countries away. The weather has turned on us and we see rain on the radar for the foreseeable future. I suppose the humans are going to have to suck it up a little while longer and keep pushing on. We got this. For all of our fatigue we are truly excited about our accomplishments thus far. Tomorrow we’ll be off to a new country and pushing ever southward. Wish us luck.
Oh yeah, that’s a random Mayan ruin in the middle of some town.
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