Chiquimula – fin de Guatemala

We needed a place to stay one last time before we entered Honduras.  Dmitri had Googled about our transmission temperature light coming on during the long hog up the mountain pass between Semuc Champey and Rio Dulce.  The forums recommended changing the transmission fluid, so we planned a day for him to deal with that while Nina and I hung out by a pool.  We found a working horse farm with expensive rooms that allows people to camp in the field on the other side of their fancy pool for a little over $1. The place was super nice and it seemed totally empty – we didn’t see another guest at all.  For the pool day-use fee of $5 we could access the WiFi and use the restrooms and cold water showers.

 

Sadly, on our “pool day” clouds and wind rolled in and it was way too cold to be in the pool longer than a few minutes.  A local family with 2 young kids joined us at the pool for a short while but they quickly froze and left.

While Nina and I literally chilled at the pool, Dmitri took the truck to go browse a couple of mechanics.  When he went to turn into one of the mechanics, turn signal on, a motorcycle came flying up behind him and laid the bike down, claiming that Dmitri caused the accident because he wasn’t supposed to make the left turn like he did.  Not sure if we’ve mentioned this before but Guatemala is the land of lawless driving.  People do all manner of nonsensical things behind the wheels of their cars.  It was clear to Dmitri that he’d been targeted for obvious reasons, but technically he supposes, he shouldn’t have been making the turn like that.  Dmitri gritted his teeth and gave the motorcyclist some money to avoid getting the police involved on our last day in Guatemala.

Honda has their own proprietary transmission fluid you can only get at the dealership.  There is heated debate online about whether or not an acceptable substitute is in production.  While Dmitri was out he finally just called our Honda service center in San Francisco and asked if we could use the substitute.  They said they don’t recommend it (of course), and that it would be better to just wait until we got to a dealership.  So he got the oil changed and returned to the pool for a cold dip to freeze off the frustration, and we got prepped to enter Honduras the next morning.