Driving

Sometime around 1450, the Chajoma Maya moved their capital to Jilotepeque Viejo in order to make it inaccessible to their hostile neighbors. The city itself had been built a few hundred years earlier and they hoped moving their capital here would help them keep their warring neighbors out. It didn’t work. They were captured and ruled by the Kaqchikel Maya and eventually removed from the site shortly after the Spanish conquest of 1524. The site was never used again. ...

We got up and ate breakfast earlier than usual this morning. It’s Friday, which means we’re not working – just trying to get our adventure on. Some of our previous attempts haven’t worked out exactly the way we hoped, but nothing stands in our way today. We’re headed to Lanquí­n to see Semuc Champey Natural Monument. It’s about 200 miles each way, but it usually takes 8+ hours due to traffic, construction, narrow winding roads, slow trucks, etc. Our driver pulled his van up to the house at 8:00 and we headed out. ...

We went to bed around 9 pm last night. We must be crazy gringo party animals. We invited Nate to sleep on the pull-out bed below our bunkbeds last night because he didn’t sleep very well on the couch in the family room the night before. There are no window coverings in there and the lights from outside were shining right on him. He fell asleep almost immediately, but he didn’t last very long. There was thumping music and fireworks keeping the rest of us awake until about midnight. And that’s about the time Nate decided he would rather sleep on the couch than in our room. I guess we are too noisy with our random coughs and snoring. I woke Charmaine up a few times to get her to stop snoring, but I think I slept pretty well overall. ...

Car marketing teams try to come up with model names that make people think the best things about their cars. They don’t want you to think they are just good; they want you to think they are the best. It’s always about the superlatives and being superior. As I ride my bicycle around town, I’ve started noticing these feelings of superiority migrating from the cars to the drivers of the cars, or at least there are drivers out there that believe they are superior, simply based on the car they are driving. ...