MALACATAN

We traveled to a mountain city named Malacatan. We took the office four door Toyota truck. This model is not available in the US. Very powerful pickup. It is more than a two hour trip on two lane roads. Elder Flores is our pilot. He always has two hands own the wheel and never takes his eyes off the road. Lot of big trucks on the road and every other conceivable kind of transportations: walkers, bicycles, carts, scooters, motor cycles, cars and trucks. We are always passing something. The trip is terrifying as usual, and, the back seat belts has never been used and are under seat somewhere. We passed a scooter so close that Gary could have put his arm out and drove the thing, A whole family on the scooter, dad driving with a kid on his lap, mom behind with a kid on her lap a nursing another. A five pension family on one little scooter.
There a lots of animals roaming around beside the road. We wondered why no "road kill" like we see in the US. Well we found out: Ahead of us were about a hundred big black birds all gathered around something. They were really big vultures finishing off a road kill! No doubt finishing it off completely! I guess I was wrong, there is garbage collection here.
Traveling along further, a great big pink pig came out of the bushes on one side, crossed in front of us, and into the bushes on the other side!? Aaa we don't know what to say about this. For some reason, it seemed perfectly normal here.
We were looking for a hotel for kathy and I, and, we drove into a beautiful place. The elders went in to check it out. They came out and said it is too expensive and too dangerous. Why is it dangerous? Malacatan is a clean very nice city, but, it is nice because of drug runners. It is very close to the Mexican boarder and drug runners bring in a lot of money!
So we ended up in a little hotel in the middle of the city. As the picture shows, it is just beautiful outside the rooms. Lots of plants, colorful walls, and clean. And a great little restaurant that we had breakfast in. However, not so great on the inside! Small room, one little rickety chair. Kathy's sheets were ok but not Gary's He slept on top off the sheets covered with Kathy's night gown. Well, all in all, it was the best $13 a night hotel we have ever been in!