08/18 I’m happy to report that nothing bad happened today. 
It wasn’t for a lack of trying though. This guy pulled up on a motorcycle and we started talking about yours truly. He was nice enough–he’s a teacher and was proud to show off pictures and videos of his students that he had on his cell phone. He warned me that the road ahead was dangerous (people variety) so he offered to ride in front for a while. Had he not shown up I doubt I would have noticed anything different about the people along this stretch of road. Everyone waved/honked just like they always do. I think he was blowing things out of proportion a little but the company was nice.
Dirt roads again but thankfully only one crazy hill that I had to walk up. It was rideable in a past life but water erosion had done a number on it. It’s amazing to me how many kids there are in what I thought would be small villages. Riding by the schools is fun because 50 kids come running up to the road to watch me go by. On the ride up a small hill one brave little boy ran up behind me and started to give me a push.
I jumped off the dirt road a few miles out of town which I celebrated by getting my bike washed at a car wash (for free.) I need to make up some time to get to Costa Rica so I’m hoping the road stays paved from here on in. The last thing I want to be is an illegal alien.
Monjas is a nice city. Not too many touristy things (OK none) but it’s very clean and there are lots of services. Great pizza restaurant too. The hotel even has wifi. The owner also let me wash my sleeping bag. Some moisture must have been trapped in the waterproof bag because it was smelling a little moldy.
The family I stayed with in Ayarza isn’t on the internet so I’m not sure if we’ll stay in touch (I’m bad for phone calls) but I’ll always remember how generous they were. Not only did they take a complete stranger into their house for 5 nights, one of them even drove me to Guatemala City twice. Even though I could only carry on a conversation with Tony everyone else was friendly and made me feel welcome there. Even their psychotic dog stopped trying to kill me toward the end. One of their chickens owes me its life for saving it from the dog too.
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I am glad you got your bike all fixed up, I hope things go better from now on. How come you don’t have your little map thing anymore so I can see where you are ?
There´s a little problem with the plugin that manages this. Next time I have wifi and some time I´ll see if I can get it going again. You can always google the name of the town in the meantime.