THE CRAZY GRINGOS
Customs Office, Guatemala City, Central America: Each of our four motorcycles now has 31 different sheets of paper, ranging from photocopies of passports to typed forms with VIN and registration numbers. Thirteen people at 13 desks had to stamp each piece of paper. Mercifully, not all of them needed to be bribed.
The strain was beginning to show on our faces, along with the sweat. Maybe we had made a big mistake; maybe our motorcycles would be stuck in Guatemala City forever; maybe we should have just ridden down through Mexico.
The idea had seemed simple enough: Buy four beater motorcycles, ship them to Guatemala, and ride as far south as we could in five weeks, but sometimes things don’t quite go as planned. Spending two days in the middle of an expensive Latin American paper chase was not the start we had envisioned in Florida during the planning stages.
Getting started
The story actually began for me in 1988. Having returned to the U.S. after riding around Australia, I was working on a new motorcycle adventure to South America. An industrial accident requiring two major spinal surgeries to correct put an end to that trip, but not the dream. Fast-forward to 1995, and while working at Precision Cycle in Sarasota, Fla., a new ride plan was formed. Ron Kilma (owner of the shop), Dan Ricker, Joe Eriei and I bought four $300 mid-1980s Kawasaki 550s and made sure they were mechanically sound before sending them on ahead to Guatemala City. With each of us riding a similar motorcycle we could carry one set of spare parts that fit all, minimizing the amount of equipment we needed to carry.
We used the shipping time
