Melchor de Mencos

We were able to find shelter at some opportune moments during the rainy afternoon, when sprinkles turned into outright downpours. Well placed roofs can be a real blessing for cyclists! We were relieved when we rolled into Macache after yet another downpour to be provided shelter for the night by the first folks we asked. We wondered if there was a church or school nearby that they knew of, and Luis and Juan Jose offered the tiny storeroom of their maize selling business. The small room just fit our tent (sans fly of course, with the tent serving as a bug net only) with some space to cook, but after our drenching ride it was a real treat. In the morning we suited back up in our wet gear and headed out in what was initially a gray but dry morning. With one refueling stop for bread, bananas and french fries, and some more rain, we made it to the border, ready to leave Guatemala for a brief adventure on the Carribean coast in Belize. It was a bit of a shock to leave the Latin culture that we had been immersed in for the last few months and be speaking English again, and a change to enter more multicultural Belize with Creole, Garifuna, Maya, Mennonite and Chinese also part of the cultural landscape. We cycled through Benque and found a nice spot along the river to eat lunch where we could watch a hand-cranked ferry taking vehicles across the river to the archaeological ruins of Xunantunich.Read more