Two big hills today.

Warm overnight in Zacapa and was happy to have air conditioning. I was on the road before seven AM. A slight hiccup finding my way out of town, but soon I was on the major road heading south. Relatively flat for 10km and then a 300m (1000ft) climb over the hill to Chiquimula. Reasonable amount of traffic, but most of the climb had an extra climbing lane.

Sign above is in focus. However, seems like when a client is done using a billboard, they sort of paint over the message. We’ve seen that more often here.

Chiquimula was a somewhat larger town and even had a McDonalds. I had left before David and this was our agreed upon rendezvous point so stopped in. Prices seem very similar to US prices.

After Chiquimula there was 10km of mostly level riding before we came to the road junction. The main road went straight to the Honduras border. We went left headed towards a smaller crossing. Almost immediately a lot less traffic and a lot more climbing. It was a hot climb so put in a low gear and slowly ride uphill.

Here was another photo of the junction.

I had to look this one up later…best I can tell “hundimientos” is sinking – so this is cautioning this is an area with landslides.

Close to the top it became very steep, I’m estimating 12%+ grade. I walked the last little bit. Photo above is David tacking back and forth the last bit of the hill.

After this a nice descent for a few hundred meters. We found a nice comedor to eat and as we passed the Jocotan turnoff asked about hotels. We were directed to a nice one that even has air conditioning.

Despensa Familiar is our neighborhood grocery store. Nice part of being in small town like this is having a grocery to get some breakfast items for the morning.

Otherwise we’re not far from the Honduras border now.