A morning visit to San Cristobal followed by a short and easy ride today.

San Cristobal is back in region where hotels have blankets on the beds and no air conditioning. This morning was even some haze/fog that then burned off. We decided to make a quick visit to see the downtown area and otherwise make a shorter ride. Around this area are many indigenous villages and also peoples who don’t speak Spanish.

We passed through some narrow streets and found the main downtown square as well as several of the churches.

Shoe shine guys were not getting much work yet. One was sitting in his own chair waiting for clients.

There was a nice pedestrian street as well as interesting architecture.

On way out of town, we passed this statue of a peasant woman. Not much longer we had a bite or two to eat and then set off for the ride.

The first 5km were a slow ride up a hill but after that it was more downhill than up. As shown in photo, we’re back in area with pine trees.

Local villagers taking care of sheep.

This farm had a nice long fence that could be used for the laundry.

The last third was a steady downhill losing ~600m (2000ft).

We had seen several fire engines pass as well as two ambulances. When we got to this village we saw the cause. A truck appears to have overturned within the village. We suspect coming down the hill and then losing control. There was a crowd watching the aftermath unfold. I got off my bike and was able to carefully walk past, but the other traffic was pretty much stopped.

At bottom of the hill was Teopisca. We found the main square and not much further a nice small hotel. Overall an easier day to stop and now good chance to get out the maps for Guatemala as well as read some of the previous trip journals. It will likely still take us two days riding to the border.