Our poor rental car is getting a lot more work, and depreciation, than its eight dollar a day rate could possibly cover. The nearest halfway decent grocery store to the marina is a ninety minute drive away in Puerto Barrios. We’ve made the trip a couple of times trying to get the boat at least partially stocked up for the coming cruising season. The upshot to the long drive is that we found a really great steakhouse in town. Guatemala has pleasantly surprised me with the wide variety of inexpensive grilled meats—at least in the larger towns. But I digress.

This trip we looked at Google maps for something a little more fun to do on our trip down to Puerto Barrios. Zooming in close along the coast we could just make out a dirt road in the jungle, at the end of which looked to be a nice beach. So off we went.

When the pavement ended there was a smattering of small homes, but eventually the road dissolved to the point that only a few very poor huts lined the road further on.

The beach turned out to be a great locals hangout, with a handful of small restaurants along the white sand. The only downside was the insane number of dogs. We don’t mind dogs, obviously, but these dogs were all starving, fighting, and in heat. All things I can deal with just fine after all these years, but things that give Ali a heart/anxiety attack. Regardless, we had a nice day in the hot tub temperature waters, and then I spent the drive back listening to stories about all the beach dogs.

These guys were busy tying this coconut truck up to another truck with some rope before tackling a long steep climb. Fortunately they waved us through before taking off themselves. It did not look like a promising contraption.

While we’re sort of on the subject of dogs, here is an update on our friendly Guatemalan, Chavo. He’s living the good life in Minnesota now, along with a couple of other dogs. Here he is hitching a ride home after a long day of running around the 40+ acre property he lives on. Word is that he remains just as sweet as ever.

A couple of days after the beach run we headed inland a little ways to the Acropolis of Quirigua. It’s a relatively small set of ruins surrounded on every side by banana plantation. The big deal here are the huge sculptures including, at least according to Wikipedia, the tallest stone monumental sculpture ever erected in the New World.

Looking at this picture now I think maybe walking into a huge dark Ceiba tree in Guatemala isn’t such a great idea. We’ve seen spiders the size of our hands, and there are plenty of snakes and scorpions around too. But our minds don’t work that way in real time.

“Papa, can we see what’s in here?”

“Of course! It looks cool!”

We had hoped that by the time we got back to the Rio Dulce from traveling inland the temps would have cooled just a tiny bit. They haven’t. It’s brutal out during the day. We hit the swimming holes as much as possible, but there is only so much relief to be found right now.

We are having the outside window trim stripped, four layers of epoxy laid on, three coats of paint, and three coats of poly put on. The trim looks like it has just been painted over twenty times in the past and is flaking all over the place with wood exposed in some areas. This should look good and protect the wood from rotting, and then leaking. We didn’t have anything to cover the inside of the windows with so we resorted to Lowe’s cereal boxes. Ouest, however, wanted to make it clear that she does not eat cereal. Lowe then had to write out a rebuttal.

We had already kept the car weeks longer than originally intended. There are no car rentals in the Rio Dulce area, so returning a car means taking it back seven hours away to Guatemala City. I was going to do this alone and then grab a bus back home, but because it was still so ridiculously hot we decided that we were all going to head back and hang out for another week.

Running away to cooler weather is a pretty simple decision to make when a nice two-bedroom condo rents for twenty-six dollars a day. That’s the weekly rate—by the month is even less.

Oh, and I should mention that upon returning our rental car they charged us $250 for the damage from the bus. The arguing could have gone on all day. I didn’t have insurance through them. Then why did you send out your insurance adjuster? To help you. You guys spent the entire day brokering a deal that the other side would pay, but now you say you won’t accept their payment? Well, they say they will pay, but usually they won’t. I could have just called my credit card company and had them deal with it, but you guys took over and specifically told me that we wouldn’t have to pay a thing. Straight face, shoulder shrug.

This is where I revisit my lesson about opportunity cost and what exactly my time is worth to me. Hell, even eating the $250, the rental car still only came out to $14/day. It’s hard to get too worked up over it. It was still way cheaper than buying the rental car company insurance.