My travel journal opens with this on April 1, 2017,

Amazing drive from Sayaxché to Cobán. Through so many towns, past so many scenes. Past women in long, beautiful dresses. Some carry water, food, children. Men following a burro, weighted down with a huge bag on each side. People on porches, escaping the heat of the house. People hiding under bus stops, umbrellas - a red one lights up a woman like a beautiful fire… White cliffs, orchards, ranches. Rolling hills, steep passes. Glorious.

    Scenes new and old, days, weeks, and months began to blur and swirl together.  I had explored the Barton Creek Cave outside of San Ignacio with David, who also lined me up with a kayak for a few hours alone on the Mopan River before leaving western Belize.  I had begun Guatemala at what would be one of my favorite ruins (Tikal), where I befriended Paul and Sonia (Quebec), followed by Rudy and Elvira (Switzerland) in Flores.

    I penned these words after a few nights in El Rosario National Park, where I swam in a pond that had a crocodile and made fast friends with five park employees.  My time spent laughing and getting to know Fernando, Lázaro, Reginaldo, Mynor and Rogelio was precious.  They were good, kind, helpful men.  I left them with one of four extra license plates I had brought from Montana.

    I spent three nights in Cobán, mostly working on vehicle insurance for the rest of Central America, La Bestia parked outside of some education center at Parque Las Victorias.  Sunday morning, I had privacy, but the weekdays brought a bunch of firefighters who got to watch me make coffee, eat breakfast, etc.

    The town had a great plaza on the hill.  I waded through the madness of vendors and their crowds on a Saturday night.

    Paul and Sonia had spoken highly of Semuc Champey, so I headed west out of Cobán.  I missed a turn, and continued down a terrible road for 10km where I stopped and asked if this village was Lanquín.  It was not.  I backtracked down that terrible road, took the correct turn, and instantly longed for what only moments before I had perceived as a terrible road.  Comparatively, it was a paved highway.  I cursed Paul for casually asking if my van had four-wheel drive.  I cursed all people who’d said nothing when I mentioned my plans to go to Lanquín.  I cursed Guatemala.  Sometimes, there was a lot of cursing.

    The kilometers were slow, jarring, and painful, but I finally made it to the Grutas (Caves) de Lanquín and pitched my tent on a cement pad beneath a canopy.  San Agustín Lanquín was 5-10 minutes away by tuk tuk – a three-wheeled motorized taxi.  Such a splendid little town nestled in the hills of central Guatemala.  Beautiful, rough cobblestone streets wound in circles to a plateau on a hill, a plaza at its center.  Time and space seemed to bend and warp around it.  There was a lazy, hazy buzz about the place, and it seemed more isolated than it really was.

    A few Spaniards and I made a deal with Filoberto and Marcelo, tour guides/colectivo (canopied truck that serves as an informal bus) drivers.  I was looking forward to the ride from Lanquín up to Semuc Champey.  As epic and beautiful a journey as this all was, I was in a self-contained bubble while traveling in the van.  It would be nice to be a passenger, not concentrated on the road, missing the beauty on either side, vigilant against what might cross my path or what gaping hole or unseen speed bump might inflict damage to the Bestia.

    The Spaniards bailed, so we headed off for Lanquín, picking up a few people along the way, then headed up further into the hills to Semuc Champey, on a predictably worse road than had brought me there.  We stopped off for a while at the Cahabón River.  Some took a tour of the caves, while I opted to walk along the riverbank.

    And then it was on to Semuc Champey, where sunbeams sliced through the wood smoke haze of locals’ fires heating their food offerings at the entrance – just past, a labyrinth of stairs down to the water, back up through the jungle, and down to the water again.  I poured sweat, then cooled off in pools filled by waterfalls.  Hours later, I climbed back to the top, and looked down upon it.

Clear green, turquoise, cerulean blue water. Golden sand at the floor.  Golden rocks to lounge on.  Words are insufficient again, especially in the context of the walls of jungle and rock on either side. Again, I sat and embraced the great joy of my life, this journey, the sum of my days leading me here. Everything counts, counted. I lose myself, find myself. This journey...

…I am so grateful. Small fish pick at me, cleaning me. The whole place is cleaning me. I never want to leave. I want to die here, in this jungle, in these pools, underneath this sun, the sounds of beasts large and small, flowing water, the last sounds I hear as I join everything in its chorus and procession.

…On the way back, I decide to stand up in the back. It is the perfect end to a perfect day in the mountains. The scenery is vast, hilly, lush, gorgeous. I am in awe. This place. Glorious. Descending these hills in the back of this pickup is one of the great joys of my life. I am alive, my wet shirt cooling in the air we cut through. I see everything again from a different perspective, in a literal different light - now fading, lush, saturated in amber and smoke. I impossibly try to remember everything. I can still feel my cool shirt.

    As I wrote these words soon after my return, shaken and forever altered, it occurred to me that the worst roads sometimes lead to the best places.