Jan. 17 – El Cruce to La Ruidosa

Woke to rain, again!  Made a bad choice on where to go to breakfast, and wasted a bunch of time.  Gassed up at Flores, then off to the south.  Good road, bad weather.

Somewhere between Modesto Mendosa and Castillo de San Fellipe, I lost control on a wet curve, and went off the road, into a concrete drainage ditch, and ended up against a large bolder on the side of the road.  By some miracle, I was not badly hurt, and the bike sustained no damage.  Out of nowhere, a truckload of Guatemalans appeared to help me get the bike back up out of the ditch.  After a quick field-dressing for the small hole in my right calf, we continued south to an ugly cross-roads town called La Ruidosa.

There we hit a new low, as far as bad hotels go.  Cigarette butts on the floor, broken out windows, and huge lizards living in the bathroom widow.  No hot water, bad beds… this place had it all.  But I had the shakes bad, and was cold and wet and sore and tired, so we had to stop.  Lots of pain meds, and I was able to sleep.

The leg injury really was not too bad;  my right shoulder and ribs are bruised and very sore.  But it was really amazing that I was not more badly injured here.  “Que milagro” is the first thing I said when I got up off the ground!