La Frontera

Most border crossings take you through total bungholes (Rahul´s picturing Malawi-Tanzania, Germany-Poland, and Tijuana right now) filled with tractor-trailers, crooked moneychangers, and dudes who look like they´re sizing you up and trying to decide whether to beat you up or just jack your bags. But crossing from Honduras to Guatemala takes you through a beautiful little town (Copan Ruinas) and pastoral (or, dare we say, bucolic) countryside, and the van drivers help you navigate immigration and wait for you to clear customs before they drive, asking you if you´d like them to stop at a bathroom on their way out. Meg was already smitten with our ayudante for this display of toilet chivalry, but when he brought our bags down from the roof when it started to rain (doing some kind of crazy flip maneuver onto and off of the roof while the car was moving), even Rahul started crushing on him hard.

The highlight of the drive was when Meg started to peel an orange and the dude next to her promptly whipped out his machete to try to help. When we declined his offer, he gave us two more oranges instead. So next time you´re in the mood to cross a border, we highly recommend Honduras-Guatemala. Good times!

The five days on the island of Roatan with our friend Kimmy were spectacular. We managed to get recruited as ringers for quiz-night at a local beach bar (coming in second only because we didn´t know that Madonna and Michael Jackson were born in the same year), bike in a quixotic search for dolphins, and leave with over 50 sand-fly bites each on Kimmy´s and Rahul´s bodies (apparently Meg´s skin is delicious only to mosquitos). Also, good times!

Tomorrow, we search for Guatemalan caves and limestone pools.