Dutch based bicycle manufacturer Santos Bikes gave us a Santos Travel Lite for a first ever durability test. With more than 20.000 kilometers I guess we can now give you some insight on our experiences with this 29-er.

Long, straight and flat roads, nearly 40 degrees Celsius; here and there a Maya ruin and a colorful Cenote to cool down. Yes, this is cycling in Yucatan, Mexico!

Probably one of the most expensive countries so far! We found out on the first day, when I entered a supermarket for a cool drink to make our suffering in this blistering heat a bit more bearable: 3 EUR for a can of Coke! We knew one thing for sure: let’s get the hell out of here and keep on cycling towards our big surprise..!

Yesterday we received a Facebook message from fellow cyclists Joanna and David (an Australian-German couple); they just arrived in Santa Elena (across the bridge from Flores) and would love to meet us! We have a date for a morning coffee on our way to the Maya ruins of Tikal, but we got along so well, we chatted the whole morning away! And just as we finally say our goodbyes…

The map shows some amazing offroad cycle opportunities in Guatemala; dirt roads, steep climbs, hidden villages and single tracks are here to discover! If only we hadn’t got a stubborn cold…

Our short stay in both countries probably doesn’t do justice to them, but we didn’t feel like ‘exploring’ these countries more thoroughly. Why? To be honest, Central America didn’t touch our hearts so far.

The Santos Travel Lite has been our loyal friend since the beginning of our bicycle touring adventure; more than 20.000 kilometers ago. We’ve abused ‘Wilson’ and ‘Storm’ badly! But, the Santos bicycles didn’t even blink! They are strong, stiff and comfortable and MAINTENANCE FREE. Watch this video to see where the Travel Lites have been and what they had to endure.

540 days ago we pedaled our first kilometers in Brasil, 289 cycling days later we reached our 20.000 kilometer milestone! What did we do the other 251 days? Relaxing, siteseeing, hiking, blogging, being sick, waiting for post, just nothing… But with an average of about 69km per day with all those mountainous roads we took, yeah, I guess, we are pretty proud of ourselves. 🙂

The heat and humidity in Costa Rica sucks the energy right out of us. I don’t think I ever saw so much fluid just flow out of my pores, drinking liters of water doesn’t really do the trick. Maybe it’s better to slow our pace down and do what the locals do…: hanging around in hammocks!

We know there’s a ferry from Cartagena to Panama, crossing the infamous Darien Gap. But why take the easy way? Why not sail to Panama? That should be fun! How little did we know…