08/27 Decided not to stay in Gracias even though I’m going to miss that shower at Hotel Guancascos. I met the owner when I was leaving (the motel; not the shower). I forget her name but she was from the Netherlands and was really nice. Lonely Planet kind of ripped the service at the restaurant and the management a little but I didn’t see anything wrong with either.

After an uneventful ride yesterday I spent the night in the village of San Juan. The motel was recommended by Karen and Martin who are a few days ahead of me riding the same route I’ll be taking. Each night Karen emails a summary of the days ride so I know what to expect. I never would have found the place in San Juan without the email. It’s called La Posada de Rosario. There’s no sign and nothing in front to indicate it’s a motel. It’s about 300m south of the Texaco to the left of a white building with the word “agroveterinatio” or something like that.

This rain is driving me nuts. Every day at 1pm it starts and usually doesn’t stop completely until well after I’m in bed for the night. It’s nice in the morning though. Usually the sun is out and it’s nice and hot. I grossed out some guy when I wrung out my sweat-soaked shirt at a rest stop. That was at the top of a hill that I’d been riding up for about half an hour.

I’m going to start a rating system for stares. Level 3 is when someone stares at me so hard I have to look down to make sure I remembered to wear my bike shorts. I’ve been getting quite a bit of that and it’s making me paranoid.

Staying at newer place in La Esperanza called the Hotel Margarita (or close to it). It’s not too bad but there’s no mirror in the bathroom. Kind of weird. At 5600 feet, this is the highest town in Honduras. The climb to get here was kind of brutal just because it was basically riding up a mountain for 20 miles. There were no steep sections which was nice because the last 10 miles was on dirt. Lots of muddy spots. In one place I was riding really slow down a hill to avoid a mud-filled pothole when my bike started sliding sideways. That was kind of exciting.

Walked around town for a while checking out the sites. Up on the side of a hill is an old cave called La Gruta which has been turned into a chapel. There is a noticeable lack of stray dogs here which has me wondering if some sort of “program” is in place.

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