One of the most beautiful drives yet on this trip was from El Estor to Lanquin via the back roads. It's as if we're back in time. Most of these little villages in the mountains are self sufficient and work very hard just to barely survive. The men gather fire wood up in the hills every day and carry it back to their village sometimes walking for several hours. Some of the wood is used to cook or sell. The women make beautiful Mayan dresses by hand called " Traje" - Maya Traje is village-specific or language-group related.
The smell of burning wood, children running around waving at us as we drive by, no cars makes this ride our highlight in Guatemala. Sometimes we have to ask if we are on the right track, as some of the roads can be confusing without any signs. At one point we got to a bridge that was under construction, we had to wait for an hour while they fill up a hole. So we enjoyed a cold beer and chatted with the locals, always curious to find out where we are from and where we are going. Languin we said... "ohhhh!" one says, "long way" on the map it always looks short in kms, but on these dusty windy dirt roads, it's long!
Finally the bridge was good to go, we needed to unpack our gear at the other end to pass the bikes under a bar that was supporting the structure, but the local kids were happy to help us. Pack up the bikes again and off we go threw the thick jungle and high mountain pass, it was only 120kms, 5 hours later we pulled into the deep valley village of Languin. It was time to get some food in our tired bodies and find camp. It got dark fast and rain started to come down ( lucky we never seem to get the rain while riding!) so we found a nice Posada (room) for less the $3.00. You can find cheap rooms in Guatemala, which sometimes its nice so we can lock our gear, not worry about it and walk around to check things out.
