To recover from our two weeks of intensive Spanish language immersion, The Zebra and I spent the week-end touring el Lago Atitlan. After about one and a half hours of very entertaining twisties leading to Patzun and a river crossing, we spotted a heavily loaded bike with Columbian plates. We stopped to meet fellow bikers and were surprised to hear a strong French accent behind flawless Spanish. Manon and Sylvain have been riding from Columbia on a 250 Tornado, a remote cousin of the North American 250 XR, and like us were exploring Lake Atitlan South Shore.
If you read any travel guide you will learn that this part of the lake has a dreadful reputation with robberies occurring at random but nonetheless frequent intervals. To make things more exciting, we learned that a couple travelling on a KLR had been held at gun point on April 10, 2014 and recorded their ordeal in the following video: “Robbed in Guatemala, gun and machete”
Everyone around the lake had seen the video and we were strongly recommended to ask for a Police escort. As we were packing up the bikes we saw a police car heading down the road and hoped on its trail. We soon caught up and had a very friendly chat. Naturally the Police knew of the story and were eager to avoid further bad publicity. They followed us from a distance, maybe hoping to catch the bandidos red handed. Nothing happened and we were able to enjoy the amazing landscapes of Atitlan South shore without hick up.
MotoPasaran and us celebrated our non-adventure around a Guatemalan coffee and parted ways wishing each other a safe, but exciting, rest of the journey.

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