Surprise destination

Yesterday we did a good job of doing nothing. Slept in, ate lots of god food, rode in hammocks and swam in the natural spring. Late in the afternoon we decided to ride the few miles from the finca into town in search of peanut butter and shampoo. We did not ask for directions before leaving cause we figured someone in town would be able to tell us where the supermarket was. But we were wrong, we were led on a wild goose chase around the crowded town cause no one seemed to be able to pin point just where the store was. It didn't help that every person I spoke to didn't seem to understand spanish! The streets were crowded with little golf cart like cars and lots of motorcycles and people, and I was worried about getting hit or abruptly having to stop and falling off my bike. Plus there was a nasty looking storm rolling in and we didn't feel like being rained on so we gave up after about 15 minutes and high tailed it back to the finca.

We had hoped the storm would pass over night, but no such like, at 4:30am we awoke to pouring rain complete with thunder and lighting and deemed it a bad idea to bike in those conditions. We slept in and decided when we woke up we'd take a bus so that we could continue on to our planned destination of Fray Bartolome de Las Casas. We rode into town around 10:30 and actually encounter a nice guy on a bike that rode with us to the bus stop so that we could find it. At the bus station we learned that there was no bus going to Fray but we could get part way there and switch buses. So we went with that. 3 hours later we had arrived to a small town called San Pedro Cardenas, and all of the transfer buses were mini vans with no room for our bikes. So we decided we'd bike to the turn off to Fray and try to get a ride in the back of the truck. The junction was only a few miles down the road so it seemed like a logical idea. Except that we never found the junction. About an hour into the ride I asked at a mechanic shop if we were going the right way and we indeed were already well past the junction. At this point we were only about 25 km from Rio Dulce and had already gone down a lot of hills and weren't about to go back. So here we are in Rio Dulce at Bruno's Hotel and Restuarant. Not a planned stop, but I had a good day regardless. We biked just under 30 miles and except for the first hour when it was really hot, it was a pleasant ride. We are right on the water which is nice and I bought lots of lovely fruits in the market. And we found the grocery store (owned by Walmart) and I finally got some shampoo. I'm so excited! But no peanut butter, apparently it's not a staple food product here like it it at home.

Tomorrow we plan to head in the direction of Antigua. The reason we we going to Fray was ultimately to get to Semuc Champey. I've already been there but Craig has not and it's very beautiful, so we may try to get there at some other point in the trip. There's just no good way to get there from here so for now we'll bypass it.

Ooh and one last bit of exciting news. I have begun using my pee funnel. It is a glorious thing to pee out of my tree house at night in the pouring rain and on the side of the road and not have to take my spandex pants off or worry about pee splatter all over my legs!! :) :) :) hehe

View from bridge over Rio Dulce