We left the Marina and went to a nearby gas station, I asked them if there was anywhere we could dump our black tanks and the guy said sure and showed me a ditch in the corner of the lot. I made sure he understood it was black water I was talking about and he pointed out that the bathrooms drained into the ditch and still said it was all good so we dumped our tanks, a little difficult for us but we did it.

We were heading west across Guatemala now near the southern border. The area was still gorgeous, really clean and good roads and incredibly lush and green. It was like driving through a park, I can't get over the difference between this part of Guatemala and most of Mexico - no trash anywhere and the sides of the roads were trimmed and looked like someone had manicured them. About an hour later we went over some hills and the land became really dry and the vegetation sparse. There were small brown hills backed by larger mountains and it started looking a lot like the hills in southern California where I grew up. Low brown hills and rolling foothills with dry grass and occasional scrub trees. We lost the rain and cloud cover too and it began to get warmer.

We followed the map and turned south towards the Honduras border arriving at the border town of El Florido around 4pm.

It wasn't really much of a town, about a block's worth. There was a police station and I asked the cop standing there if there was a safe place to park on this side of the border. He told me to go down and pull in across from the border, that it was very safe. So, we pulled into a big truck parking lot at the border and parked.

Several money changers came up immediately and I liked one of them named Luis and got out to talk to him some more. In the end, we arranged for him to return for us with a car and take us into Honduras to the town of Copan Ruinas that night so we could look around and have dinner, bring us back and come back the next morning and take us over to the ruins. He showed up an hour later with a nice car and we had a good time with him in town. He didn't speak english but he was knowledgeable about the area and interesting to talk to. He had dinner with us but bought his own dinner and turned down the beer we offered him. His fee for all this was $300 Quetzales, about $40 US. Probably more than we could have paid taking a cab or bus on our own but it was easy and we enjoyed him.

Here we are heading across the Honduran border. It's about 12 km to the town of Copan Ruinas over a pretty steep grade. When you drop down the other side you are in a river valley with a lot more greenery and cultivated fields. Luis said that they grow tomatos and bell peppers mainly for export.

The town of Copan Ruinas is a total tourist town. Prices are high and we were low on money. Bobby and Patti's ATM card had gotten demagnetized because Bobby didn't realize his new money clip had a magnet in it and he was carrying the card in it. They can't get to their money and I can only draw a small amount out at the banks in Guatemala so we are pretty short on cash. We walked through all the shops and some of the stuff was nice but all of it was overpriced and most of it is from somewhere else. It was interesting people watching though and the restaurant we went to had a great view out over the valley. The tourist trick there was that the waitresses carried your food or beer in on their heads. It is common to see mayan women carrying great loads on their heads and they all seem to have good posture.

We got back to our dirt lot with the trucks about 9pm. Mimi and I slept well but the trucks coming and going kept Bobby and Patti awake.