La adventura de Jorge, Jorge, y Samuel

After clinic finished up the first day, Jorge suggested we take a bike ride down to Pasa Bien, a lovely little local spot a short ways away. We got sunscreened and made ourselves repellant to bugs and then learned that all of the bikes had gone. Nonplussed, Jorge said we could walk it easily, so we set out around 4:30. Zacapa, the state in which we live, has temperatures that would make San Antonio proud - I'd guess the min-80s as we left. We walked past a busy open-air food market, past a cemetery filled with brightly colored concrete tombs, past an area earmarked for affordable housing, and then turned left, to face the mountains in the distance, at which point Jorge remarked that we were going to walk to the base of the mountains.

The Cemetery

We'd already covered a good 2 miles on this dusty road, and I began to wonder what made for an easy walk in Colombia. As we walked towards the mountains, the sun began to get lower and lower in the west. Jorge assured us it was just around the next corner half-a-dozen times, and it became clear he had no concept of how far it was. Neither George nor I had brought water for this easy walk. George had ironically been prostrate with some vicious GI bug in Houston two days prior and between packing, flying, and schlepping our luggage from the airport, had not fully recovered. George voiced his concern that he probably couldn't make the return trip, and I noted that the sun would set soon. We had heard again and again to never travel at night and had agreed not to do so, but here we stood with the sun a few degrees above the horizon, on a back-country road, and it was only our second night in Guatemala, which made the prospect of robbery or murder all the more depressing.
Jorge laughed and said that I worried too much. At length we arrived at Pasa Bien where Jorge bought us some water and we saw some nice waterfalls.

The Waterfall at the End

We walked for a good 1:20 and probably covered 4 miles. At that point the shadows of the mountain completely covered us and we had at most half-an-hour of light left. Give the reassurances about the easy walk, we had not brought our flashlights.
Thankfully, we came across a Tuk-Tuk. Tuk-Tuks are half-lane, three wheeled vehicles with a small awning over the driver's seat and the passenger bench in back. I'm told they came from Thailand, but this one came from heaven. Well, actually the first one had a couple in the back seat who found each other far more interesting than three sweaty extranjeros. We took the second, and last, Tuk-Tuk home, listening to Paulina for the 20 minute ride.