While in Belize we were hosted by Ian Anderson’s Caves Branch Adventure Co. & Jungle Lodge and participated in the “River of Caves” Cave Tubing where we met our new spider friend. Nels and I get up close and personal with what our guides, Edgar and Vida, referred to as an “eight foot spider.” While it looks rather scary it really only tickled a little. Although I think the spider took an unnatural liking to me.
Spicy pepper heat that is. I am a spicy foods person. It does not matter what type of food it is, the spicier the better. Maybe it stems from my development as a child. When my brother and I were younger, if we were ever caught swearing in the house or around my parents, the punishment was a few dabs of Tabasco pepper sauce on the tongue. Little did my mom know that after a while, I started to build up a tolerance to the Tabasco, which she can probably now correlate to an observed increase in my obscene language as I grew up. I can not speak for my brother, but for me, the Tabasco sauce was no longer a suitable deterrent to cursing around the house or in the company of my parents. As I have matured in life, I like to think that the swearing has subsided but the byproduct of my childhood cursing deterrent was the development of an appreciation for hot sauce and it did not take long to venture beyond the familiar taste of Tabasco sauce to bolder and hotter sauces. Ever since I moved out of the house, there has always been at least one bottle of hot sauce in my kitchen. In fact, during some lean budgetary times, a bottle of hot sauce was probably one of the only things you could find in my cupboards. Not because hot sauce was the only thing I had left to eat, it simply was the only thing that made Mac n Cheese and Top Ramen noodles taste better.
A few bottles of hot sauce have gone a long way to help me survive the more mediocre gastronomic experiences during the expedition as well. Throughout the trip, I have had the opportunity to try food from all over the globe and believe it or not, most of the people on the planet eat some pretty bland food. Alas, just as soon as I could buy a bottle of hot sauce or have a friend bring one out, it was gone and just when I managed to find another random bottle in a random grocery store in a random country, I could not justify paying the inflated price they were charging for such an unusual and luxurious food product. Do not get me wrong, there are plenty of places in the world where you can indulge in spicy cuisine and move well out of your comfort zone in doing so, but the places in between seem to be much more numerous and the time spent in between much longer. I did manage to light myself up pretty well in Thailand with some spicy tom yum soup, but even when we asked for extra spicy curry in South East Asia or hot chicken in China, most of the time it was pretty bearable. Parts of West Africa spiced up their food a bit but overall, there was actually not really that much in the way of spicy food or even spicy sauce to be found in our travels including much of South and Central America.
Things have changed. We are now on the Yucatan Peninsula. I have been eagerly awaiting and craving for this part of the expedition for some time. The Yucatan is home to the habanero pepper. Touted as one of the hottest peppers in the world, the “Yucatan Killer,” or the “crying tongue” (the name the Mayans used to refer to the little green, orange and red peppers) the habanero has enjoyed unique and perfect growing conditions here on the peninsula for generations. There is even a word here in Mexico for being scorched by a hot pepper… enchilado. The symptoms of enchilado, according to Carl Franz in his People’s Guide to Mexico, include but are not limited to a noisy, desperate sucking of air, head thrown violently backwards, copious sweating, runny nose, and hands clawing at the throat or groping frantically for water. To most people, enchilado and its’ primary cause the habanero pepper are probably things in life to be avoided. However, for me, the habanero is the holy grail of hot sauce and is a tempting, tasty and flavorful additive to any dish. Now that we are in the heart of habanero country, it is an excellent opportunity to see just how hot these little things really are.
Sorting incoming loads of habaneros
TWBR team at the PADYSA production facility
There is no better way to get to the source of something than well, going directly to the source. In Merida, Mexico, the capital of Yucatan State, we were fortunate enough to find Juan Carlos Ledon. Juan is a former professional baseball player turned habanero aficionado and promoter of the regions’ production of the hot peppers. With the help of Juan’s assistant Karla, we toured the Promotora Agroindustrial de Yucatan (PADYSA) habanero production facility. PADYSA is one of the largest exporters of raw habanero products in Mexico and we got to see firsthand how the habaneros are harvested, processed and packaged. The final exported product is pure heat. Just ask Nels… you could see the discomfort in his face and hear it in his throat. All that from just walking around the production facility. The habanero puree and powder exported by PADYSA is ultimately diluted with other various ingredients by companies around the world to make their own hot sauces but they are still some of the hottest habanero products available on the market. According to General Manager Fidel Gonzalez, trying to eat a teaspoon of the pure habanero powder produced by PADYSA would be impossible.
Studying the habanero pepper is a full time job
As an added bonus, we also toured the local government supported research facilities which are devoted to studying various methods of increasing the local yields of the habanero and are even looking for ways to make the peppers even more “pungent.” You would be surprised to learn that as a result of studying the chemical makeup of the habanero peppers, scientists have discovered that their valuable capsaicinoid content can also be used in a variety of non edible applications, everything from use as an anesthetic during surgery, to use as a headache and pain reliever to a potential cure for some forms of cancer. As a result of their chemical composition, the contents of habanero peppers are being added to marine based paints as a natural repellent to barnacles and other marine organisms. The habanero pepper also supports the law enforcement community and aids in personal protection in the form of some very powerful and potent pepper sprays… “the instantaneous effects of the spray cause inflammation of the eye capillaries and all other mucous membranes resulting in immediate blindness, coughing, choking and nausea with extreme discomfort.” Fortunately for criminals and would be attackers, the effects of habanero pepper spray only lasts for 30-40 minutes with no reported permanent damage.
You can eat habaneros and fight crime with them
The following day, we got up early in the morning for a 250 kilometer drive out into the heart of the Yucatan to visit a ranch that has been growing habanero peppers for over three generations. Melitza and her grandfather walked us through the habanero fields giving an enthusiastic explanation of the growing and harvesting process. Fortunately for us, we arrived in Mexico and the Yucatan right in the middle of the habanero harvesting season, so workers were at the ranch hand picking the peppers. It was an interesting and information packed 48 hours as we followed the life of a habanero from seed to plant to pepper to sauce and beyond in the laboratory. These little colorful fruits definitely pack a serious punch and have a lot more beneficial uses than just spicing up your favorite foods. Oh yeah, I almost forgot. You can believe the hype about the habanero being one of the hottest peppers in the world. Not only has scientific testing recently proved that it is among the undisputed heavyweights of flame throwing flora, my taste buds backed up those findings after I downed a full, raw orange habanero pepper. Let’s just say it had to be done in the name of science and exploration.
Habanero harvesting time
Craig flirts with the idea of a new career in picking peppers
Bouey and Juan Carlos playing with fire
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Countries: Belize, Mexico
Miles Driven:Â 605 miles
Song of the Week: “Listen†–Amos Lee
Book of the Week: “The Old Man and The Seaâ€- Ernest Hemingway
Quote of the Week: “I’m juuust trying to get through. I’m juuuust trying to get through, man.â€Â -Me, hitting the table in utter dispear, talking to a laughing Steven Shoppman, while dealing with a terrible internet connection trying to set up a Skype conference call.
As we awoke on Sunday we said farewell to Placenia, Belize for a day on the road. We traveled from southeast Belize to the eastern city of Tulum, Mexico. Our 10 hours in the trucks were broken up by a really smooth border crossing in which the Steve’s, for the first time in the entire expedition, didn’t have to do anything with the trucks. No registering, no paperwork, nothing. They’re still smiling about that. On Monday we walked around downtown Tulum and then headed to a sinkhole with exposed rocky edges containing groundwater, called Casa Cenote, for some swimming and snorkeling. Tuesday we checked out the Tulum Ruins, and admired the picturesque site located on the Caribbean Ocean. In Maya, Tulum means “Wall”, and the city was named this because it is a walled city, one of the very few the ancients ever built. Wednesday the certified scuba divers were accommodated by Maya Diving and swam in a cen
ote called, Dos Ojos. Steve Bouey said, “I’ve never experienced anything like this before scuba diving.  It felt like I was an astronaut, just kind of floating around in space.â€Â From scuba diving we took the quick trip up to the resort town, Playa Del Carmen. The difference in the two towns is amazing, with Tulum being an old, traditonal town, and Playa Del Carmen being completely commercialized. Small taco stands in Tulum quickly turned into Burger King’s and McDonald’s in Playa Del Carmen.
Thursday marked another day on the road as we trekked 6 hours from Playa del Carmen to Merida and checked into the Nomadas Hostel. It was here that I truly understood how small a world it is, for right in the entrance was one of my Dad’s old buddies, Bob Karlstrand, who has been traveling around the Yucatan Peninsula for the last 4 months. It is a small world, indeed. Friday we had the pleasure of touring the Papik factory, which deals with the entire process of cultivating to the processing of habanero pepppers. These peppers, grown in the Yucatan Peninsula, are very distinctive due to the characteristics of flavor, aroma, pungency (hot degree) and color, and are due to the natural factors of soil, clima
te, and humidity in this region. From the factory we visited the Mexican government agricultural testing center, and there we found that the peppers grown in the Yucatan have been scientifically analyzed and are the hottest in the entire world. From the center we went to a local Merida restaurant and were treated to many local, traditional dishes that are cooked using many habanero spices. The food was amazing, and was a great finish to yet another crazy week for The World By Road crew.
Special Thanks:
I am pretty sure that most people have no idea that there is a pretty heated border dispute going on between Belize and Guatemala. I had no idea. No one in the crew had any idea. But while the world moves on and focuses on other more pressing conflicts, the problems between Belize and Guatemala continue, sometimes with violent ramifications.
We first learned about the conflict between the two countries after we entered Belize. Instead of heading directly to the picturesque Caribbean coast, we decided to spend a few days in the Belizean jungle visiting the ancient Mayan archeological site of Caracol. Caracol is a pretty amazing place on several different levels. We started to sense that there was some tension in the sleepy jungles of Western Belize when we were forced to register with the Belize military at a checkpoint halfway down the 40 mile dirt track between San Ignacio and the ruin site. We had been told by some ex-pats back in town that the military was there to protect people venturing out to the ruin site from bandits who sneak across the border from Guatemala to rob tourists and steal artifacts from the temples. It seemed like a logical explanation because only a few weeks prior to our arrival, an English couple and their Belizean guide were robbed on a remote stretch of the road. However, after we found out that we had to travel the remaining 30 odd kilometers to Caracol in the company of a military escort, we knew that there had to be something more to the story.
There was an eery calm over the jungle that day
While the other temple visitors in our convoy started off on their tour of the ruins, (everyone was instructed to be back at the parking lot a 2pm, at which time the military convoy returns back towards San Ignacio), we stayed behind to cook some breakfast. We had to forego eating breakfast earlier in the day in order to make it to the checkpoint in time to rendezvous with the convoy. While we were cooking up some breakfast burritos, we invited one of the military guys over for a chat. Nick was not actually in the Belize Army, but was a 16 year veteran of the Belize National Police Special Forces Unit. Nick explained that he is usually stationed in Belize City where he performs duties similar to a SWAT officer, but two to three times a year, they are sent on two week deployments into the jungles to patrol the border zone along side the Belize military. According to Nick, the Belize military does not have the power of arrest, so a representative of the National Police must accompany the military on their patrols, one police officer and six army soldiers, in case those powers need to be executed. Nick confirmed that some foreigners and their local guide had been robbed a few weeks earlier, it was actually only a mile away from the military checkpoint, but the military has been patrolling the jungle for decades and not just around local archeological sites. Obviously there was something going on behind the scenes in the jungle that straddles Belize and Guatemala, something more that just bandits preying on the odd tourist.
We enjoyed talking to Nick and he enjoyed our breakfast burritos
Nick went on to explain that there is a very tense relationship between Belize and Guatemala, a situation that he felt at the moment was so tense, might actually boil over into war between the two countries in the not so distant future. So what is the problem? To state is simply, Belize feels that it is an independent, internationally recognized country. Guatemala feels that Belize is actually part of its own sovereign territory.
The dispute dates back over a hundred years to when Belize was part of the British empire, known then as British Honduras. Guatemala felt that British Honduras was still part of its territory, but reluctantly agreed to a treaty with the British in 1859 to recognize the existing boundaries provided that the British crown developed roads in the area. The British never did develop those roads so in 1946, Guatemala staked claim to half the territory of British Honduras believing that the treaty signed nearly 100 years earlier had been broken. The Guatemalan’s claim was never resolved and to make matters even more complicated, in 1981 the British crown awarded British Honduras it’s independence. The new country of Belize was born, but it also inherited an increasingly bitter territorial dispute along with their newfound independence.
Caracol is an active archeological site
Bouey and Steel find out Caracol is also active in other ways
During the course of the dispute, dozens of residents of both Belize and Guatemala have been displaced, arrested and even killed. Nick was part of a patrol that at one point was surrounded by an entire village of armed Guatemalan peasants. After several tense days in the jungle, the patrol was freed but not before 300 additional Belizean troops were sent into the area with additional assistance from a British military helicopter. There is growing pressure among Guatemalan peasants in the area to take back territory they feel is rightfully Guatemalan, territory that also happens to be rich in fish, and other natural resources. The peasants threaten they will take back the land themselves if the military does not and each election cycle, Guatemalan politicians promise their constituents that the disputed territory will once again become a part of their country. At the same time, Belizeans are adamant about their right to the land and to not give Guatemala an inch of their soil.
Steve ready to help out by whatever means necessary
There is an upcoming referendum in Belize that will send the issue to an international court for a final decision, but Nick believes people in Belize will reject the referendum on the basis that as an independent nation, no one has the right to tell them whether or not their land belongs to them, especially if there is a risk of that land becoming part of another country. It seems as if the border dispute between Belize and Guatemala will continue and unfortunately, with the pressure rising on the other side of the border, Nick sees the real possibility of a Guatemala military invasion. Guatemala’s military is 60,000 strong, so when you consider that the entire population of Belize is only about 300,000 people, you get the picture. “It is not going to be pretty. America will probably not help us because they have investments in Guatemala and not so much in Belize, but we think the Brits might help if it comes to that. Hopefully they will, otherwise I had better start to learn Spanish,” Nick said as we packed up breakfast and prepared to head into the ruins. Hopefully a peaceful solution to the border issue between these two countries will be reached but if history is any indicator, it will be difficult. Actually it is not just Belize and Guatemala who have problems deciding just what belongs to whom in the region. There are also ongoing territorial disputes between Nicaragua, Honduras, Cosa Rica.
Who would have thought that the Belize jungle could be a potentially dangerous place?
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Countries: Belize
Miles Driven:Â 218 Miles
Song of the Week: “Orange Sky†–Alexi Murdoch
Book of the Week: “One Hundred Years of Solitudeâ€-Gabriel Garcia Marquez
Quote of the Week: “Don’t Steal. The Government Hates Competition.â€-T-shirt worn by Michael, a groundskeeper at a campground in San Ignacio, Belize
Rain awoke the occupants of the big tent, Craig, Melissa, Steel and I, Monday morning, after a night of celebrating Melissa Terry’s 26th birthday in San Ignacio, Belize. Our destination Monday was a campsite 22 miles outside of the Caracol Ruins. The road made us feel like we were manning a jackhammer for a day. It took us 2 1/2 hours to drive 30 miles. We reached the eerie campsite, an old abandoned logging camp, at the Forestry Department in Douglas de Silva Village. We slept in what appeared to be an old classroom of sorts under a thatched roof. The place had a “Blair Witch Project†feel to it. Tuesday morning we headed to a make-shift military base to get escorted to the Caracol Ruins. This was due to a recent robbery of a tourist group and guide. A Special Units Police Officer said they were lucky to be alive. We reached the ruins, and were amazed at its structures. Caracol is the largest known Maya ruins in Belize, and has a pyramid, Canaa (Sky Place), that stands 143 feet high, making it is the tallest man-made structure in all of 
Belize. The Caracol Ruins are a must see in Belize. That night we made it to the Cave Branch Adventure Company and Jungle Lodge in Belmopan.
Wednesday was the highlight of the week. Cave Branch Adventure Company set up Cave Tubing for us, and what we thought would be a stroll on the river turned into river cave expedition. We tubed and hiked into a cave that holds, according to and shown by our guide, ancient Maya Ceremonial centers, pottery, artifacts, altars, obsidian blood letting blades, jade and the actual footprints of the Shaman and priests dated to 400 A.D. From these ruins we headed to Hopkins, Belize and stayed at little slice of paradise called Kismet Inn. It is here that an old hippie from New York calls home, where one can relax, rest and eat the best homemade bread I’ve ever had. Rain, wait, a downpour, awoke us again at 3 a.m. One of the dogs got startled, started to bark and the owner, Tricia, yelled, “B.B. King, B.B. King, it’s ok, don’t 
worry, get back to sleep.â€Â That put a smile on our rain soaked faces. From there we made our way south to Placenia for a three night stay on the Caribbean Ocean for a bit of relaxation. Caribbean Travel and Tours put us up in three wonderful houses, and their excellent receptionists guided us on the hot spots of Placenia; while Splash Dive Shop accommodated us with elite scuba diving and snorkeling. It was a great end to a hectic week on the road.
Special Thanks:
Cave Branch Adventure Company and Jungle Lodge
The reception/owner/your friend while in town at the Kismet Inn
Melissa working on her machete throw at the logging camp
Craig and Nels atop the Canaa Pyramid
Steven, looking a bit frightened in the cave, is reassured by Zsofi
 Since almost all of Central America is one large volcano, we’ve been able to take full advantage of volcanic cauldera’s.  The first crater we hit up was the aptly named El Valle in western Panama and the second was a crater lake in El Salvador where we went on two dives with Oceanica Scuba via DeCameron resorts.Â
El Valle from the top.
In El Valle we first tried to seek out a canyoning company to show us around, but when that didn’t pan out we went out on our own.Â
So you can gauge our route down to the waterfall to the pools below.Â
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Nels lovin’ his first time rappelling.
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The dive in the crater lake was also pretty fascinating. First of all know one knows its exact depth and I’m guessing it could be because at one of our dive spots there is a massive black abyss in which I can imagine no one cares to venture. It’s that creepy. Our second dive spot, as the dive master mentioned, contained the only section of the lake where there were unexplainable perfectly spherical balls of clay (possibly from an underwater explosion) of varying sizes. When we reached that particular location on the floor, there was also an unexplainable feeding frenzy for said clay balls. Know one knows why, but all 8 of us on the dive frantically brushed up the dust of the lake bed in a mad scramble to stuff our BCDs full of them.Â
Lake Llopango
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Creed (Craig) aka the Mother Hen of Scuba Diving (self-proclaimed).
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The Scuba Steves.
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In San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua, we had the pleasure of being hosted by Travis Knight at Villa Noche. We definitely enjoyed his beautiful, luxurious home and rental property before we boarded his boat, the Aquaholic, for some fishing. Within one day we went from camping with no amenities to a luxury villa with an infinity pools and million dollar views.
We have recently had the good fortune of spending the last week or so in the lap of luxury here in Central America. We have been hosted by some extremely hospitable people at eco retreats in Costa Rica during the past week, but it only really started to strike us how nice we had things when we were staring out over the waters of the Pacific Ocean from the back deck of the house we were staying at in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. Villa Noche in San Juan del Sur was no ordinary house. In fact it was probably one the nicest places we have stayed on the trip, so we took every opportunity to soak up the sun and enjoy the pool during our stay. The house just so happens to be owned by former NBA basketball player Travis Knight who invited us to stay there while we were doing some filming with his deep sea fishing company, Aquaholic. Deep sea fishing, breathtaking ocean views, an amazing house, we were definitely living the good life. Just when we all thought we were on top of the world, the wind was taken out of our sails a bit, almost literally, when Roman Abramovich drove into the bay in his 300 million dollar motor yacht the Pelorus, but hey, not everyone can live like a Russian billionaire. Extravagant motor yachts aside, we had a great time in Nicaragua and are grateful to Travis for letting us crash at his pad. Nicaragua is an awesome place and is definitely worth a visit even if you can not stay at Villa Noche. And so the pendulum continues to swing in dramatic arcs in terms of where we sleep at night… a few days after we were living the good life in San Juan del Sur, we were camping on on the floor of a bar outside Managua.
View from the pool deck
Upstairs porch
The Pelorus… just one of Roman’s mega yachts
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A few weeks ago marked the two year anniversary of The World by Road. It is hard to believe that two years have gone by since we pulled out of the driveway in Denver. A lot of people did not think we would make it this far, or even close to this far, and at some points, neither did we. It is a good feeling knowing that we have covered so many miles and also a good feeling knowing that in only a handful of weeks, we will be pulling back into that Denver driveway in the same two Toyotas we left with.
Even though the two years have gone by astonishingly quickly, obviously we have packed a lot into those 728 days. The Tundra and the Sequoia are still running strong despite accumulating just a hair under 60,000 hard miles (96,000 km), encountering a wide range of road conditions from some of the best roads in the world to arguably some of the worst, crossing the frontiers of 58 countries (with the crew passing through an additional five), and spending around 11 weeks sealed in cargo containers navigating the waters of the Pacific, Atlantic and Indian Oceans as well as the Caribbean Sea. During the course of these past two years, we have met countless people who have touched our lives and our hearts in many ways and those meetings, combined with other life altering experiences and encounters, have definitely contributed to altering the way we all look at the world.
It is also hard to believe how well we all have grown accustomed to life on the road. Living out of the confined space of two trucks, pulling into dark fields in the middle of the night to camp and finding ways to occupy our time while dealing with the bureaucratic nuances of crossing borders with vehicles have all pretty much become second nature by now. I guess it was only fitting that on the second anniversary of The World by Road, we had to deal with not only crossing one, but two international borders… from Nicaragua to Honduras and again from Honduras to our final destination that day in El Salvador. It was also symbolic to a degree in that while driving through only about a hundred or so kilometers of Honduras on the two year anniversary of the expedition, we were pulled over by the police no less than five times, all in a span of less than two hours. At this stage in the expedition, getting pulled over by the police has become a relatively routine part of driving in foreign countries for our team. However, every time you make eye contact with a police officer at a roadside checkpoint, it can be somewhat of a tense moment. It is always a bit annoying when that eye contact turns into a whistle blow and a firm show of the palm. We have pretty much lost track of how many times we have been motioned to the side of the road by local police, but the Honduran police stick out somehow as being extra diligent in making sure that our “dealing with the cops and avoiding having to pay a bribe” skills were still up to par on our second anniversary.
Unfortunately, for our grinning, gold toothed Honduran police amigos, we were the wrong gringos to try and shake down that day. Unbeknown to the Honduran police, the gringos in the “Grande Toyotas” have two years of experience dealing with police from all over the world, clutching a wide variety of now non-intimidating firearms and at some checkpoint or another, potentially under the influence of any substance you can imagine. As a result, all attempts to find whatever fault they could with what we were doing at the time… anything from not having a fire extinguisher (which we did) to not wearing seat belts (which we were) to not having valid paperwork (which we always do even when we do not), amounted to nothing more than a waste of their time.
It is was good run for us through that short span of highway in Honduras and even though it was the highest ratio of cop stops per kilometer in a given country thus far, we made it through without having to pay a single centavo in bribes. Steve even managed to get my drivers license back from a cop walking in the direction of the police station mumbling something about a citation for not having a construction cone handy in the truck. It was a cherished victory on the anniversary of the expedition and we still found time to celebrate a bit that night after following some much more helpful police officers in El Salvador to a beach side campsite they recommended.
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Yet another weekly update posted a week late, but this time, I promise…the current weekly update will be posted tomorrow. ~ Steve S.
Countries: El Salvador, Guatemala
Miles Driven:Â 449 Miles
Song of the Week: “Two†-Ryan Adams
Book of the Week: “Mr. Niceâ€- Howard Marks
Quote of the Week: “I Am Thirty and Flirty.†–T-shirt (Pink with blue stripes) for Steven Shoppman, from Zsofi Somlai, on his 30th birthday. It couldn’t be said better.
Monday we bid farewell to the gracious hosts at Decameron All Inclusive Resort and were off to the Guatemala border. We arrived late in what looked like a fortress, Antigua, Guatemala. In Antigua there are many ruins from Colonial churches dating back nearly 500 years. Tuesday marked the day of Steven Shoppman’s birth. We began the day looking at the ruins of the Catherdral of San Jose, and then jumped in the trucks and headed for Santiago, but the construction on the roads resulted in a drive that was pure madness. Bus drivers, beyond insane, passed us on mountain pass curves, honking a crazy musical tune as they took turns on two wheels. Still alive, we decided to celebrate the day in Panajachel. To celebrate, we pulled out the sweet Power Ranger piñata purchased at the store that morning. Steve grabbed his Cambodia machete, and moments later it was raining candy for the local children as they came pouring out of the woodwork when they heard the candy fall.
Wednesday was “Market Day,†as we made our way to Chichicastenango. This town holds one of the largest markets in the country and is said to be the center of the local Maya culture and religion. Stands along the streets sell t-shirts, colorful hand-made blankets, hammocks, traditional clothing, masks, food and machetes. Thursday’s drive brought us to a small town called Sacapulas, and was highlighted by the age of our bartender. He was twelve years old, yes twelve. When we first arrived at the bar, we waited for the bartender to arrive while his son or local kid watched it for him. However, we soon realized that the kid behind the bar that was hardly tall enough to see over the it would be the one sliding us beers, pouring whiskey for the locals, and even kicking out a local drunk. Do not worry, though, he made it to school the next morning. Shoppman found a local mechanic on Friday morning to get new brakes put on the Tundra, and for both trucks to get an oil change. The brakes were more than needed, as we would soon encounter the “Guatemala Death Road.â€Â Due to a massive landslide the main road was closed, so we were forced to take not a road, but a path. It was a steep, switch-back that looked as if it had been gone over but once with a bulldozer. The width of the path gave us a couple inches on each side, and made it interesting when huge trucks met us from the other direction. The Steve duo, however, have done this before, and with their guidance we made it to Coban. Mission accomplished.
Ruins at Catherdral of San Jose
Mask Stand at the Chichicastenango Market
The Crew with our 12 year-old bartender
Old Brakes (left), New Brakes (right)…good call
Landslide that closed the main road
Toyota Tundra navigating the “Guatemala Death Roadâ€
