Sun on the beach

First things first! Congratulations Dr. Micah Childress!!! Way to go, man! You are a superstar!

Our second day in Monterrico, Sondro and I kinda relaxed for awhile. We chilled (literally and figuratively) en la piscina (in the pool) and laid in hammocks and read. Pretty relaxing.

In the afternoon, we ventured into town to explore Monterrico. Not much to see, really. Mostly just a few restaurants and tiendas. At one tienda, Sondro bought some lentes (sunglasses). Check out this hat I found in the tienda! Hahaha! "Sample Text" must be some new cutting edge brand ... either that or the meaning of "sample text" was lost on whomever was printing these hats :)

The husband of the proprietor took us to the house of a guy in town who rents out his 4-wheelers and we arranged to rent one later in the evening. Around 5:30, he rode it down the beach to us and we took off! I was really surprised to find that he had a 400cc Yamaha - really a nice machine! We zipped around the beach for an hour jumping dunes and playing chicken with dogs before we had to return it. That was a lot of fun.

For dinner we went into town and found some unbelievably cheap food. It was good too! We had been eating at the hotel. The food was good, but caro (expensive). The hotel is owned by a Swiss guy and his Guatemalan wife. Pretty sure that's why we stayed there - Sondro being Swiss and all :) Sondro and I were both surprised to find a few Swiss dishes on the hotel menu!

Our first night there we had Rösti, which is basically hash browns made with onions and a creamy pale cheese with a fried egg on top. Really quite good! For breakfast, I had Birchermüesli which is kinda hard to explain ... It was a big cup of yogurt with chunks of fresh fruit and some kind of granola/müesli mixed in. It was good!

Before bed, we wandered the beach a bit, hoping to see some of the tortugas (turtles) that this part of Guatemala's coast is known for. I guess they breed there. No luck.

Our room was attached to the restaurant and was literally on the beach, but the first night, the electricity went out in our building ... which means that our fan didn't work ... I spent the night turning my pillow over and over - not to find the cooler side, but to find the side that wasn't soaked with sweat :( Reminded me of a few nights Simon and I endured on the Mississippi!

When the fan died in the night, Sondro woke up and saw that it was pointed at me and not oscillating. He assumed at first that I had fixed it on myself! Fortunately, he investigated the situation before he broke out one of his crazy martial arts moves on me! Haha!

Anyway, they moved us to a nicer room for the second night - one that had electricity and running water. It even had AC! There was no way to turn it on, but Sondro used to be an electrician and was able to fiddle with it till it came to life! Unfortunately, the management found out that our AC was on and shut it off with their remote! They said it would be $20 to use the AC! We only paid $35 for the room! Ridiculous.

We opted not to use the AC on principle ... and the happy coincidence that a rain storm rolled through the second night and made the temperature bearable.