We woke to a caged toucan. Sadly, they had no Froot Loops.
By the time we got going, the sky was overcast and it soon started raining. Hard.
One of the disadvantages of not riding alone is that you must occasionally compromise. I could ride all day. I'm usually awake by 5am and am ready to go. Today, I could have missed the rain completely. I'm sure that my travel buddies have their own lists of things that would rather not have to deal with - my snoring, boring stories (over and over), etc. Fortunately, we get along great and it's no big deal
We stopped for awhile to wait out the rain, rode for awhile, then stopped again. Given that we were at a high altitude in the mountains, this thing could stall over us all day so we got going again and, sure enough, it wasn't long before the skies cleared and we were tearing it up once again. After a lunch break ($2.00) in the city of Coban, we headed off to Lanquin. The riding was terrific and the pictures hardly portray how beautiful it was.
The road to Lanquin was 11km of some of the worst pot holed and washboard gravel that I'd ridden in a long time and it was good to park the bike and walk around town for a bit. We checked out the village square.
All of the towns seem to have a village square or central meeting place. This is pretty cool. There are usually kids playing, a small market, and at least one or two vendors selling food. We ended up spending two nights in Lanquin and on the first night, it seemed that everyone was at the same festival. The next night, a Tuesday, was church night. By the end of the night, there was litter throughout the area but by morning, many people would pitch in and the streets would be clean. We saw this in all of the towns where we stopped.
This is the bathroom door in our room. It's closed. No frame and it is "shut" in the middle of a window.
