Driving through Honduras. Two days of cool weather and winding mountain roads in a pine forest landscape. We stopped at a hotel, seeking secure parking for the night and bought a room. Shale barked at 2 am. I tried to silence her, worried about waking the other guests. I heard a noise and looked outside. Two men were prying open the van door. I opened the hotel door and Shale let loose, running them off. One was the security guard. We didn’t sleep.

We left just before first light, winding down the mountain, past villages and metal huts. Slowly losing elevation until the road leveled at the mountain base. The highway split, unlabeled for either fork. Google maps guessed and routed me in a senseless direction. The map was lost. Thank god.

I found myself in a small village. Driving narrow, cobbled roads no bigger than a single lane alleyway. Wedged between adobe houses and brick walls painted with colorful murals and political slogans. The streets were nearly empty. The tiendas closed and gated.

Sunday morning and the entire town was out for church. I passed trucks, beds loaded with people standing against upright rails in their best outfits. White fabric fighting off clouds of dust on the only road out of town, leading to a perfect white adobe chapel, lonesome in a dry field.

A few teenagers gave puzzled looks when I dropped off the cobble and headed down the only dirt road out of town. The rutted out track passed through a big ranch. Hollow fields for several miles on one side. A trickle of water in the creek on the other.

A Seco pasture with hundreds of white Burma steers jostling for prime positions beneath the one big shade tree. Rib bones showing the effects of dry season. Another month and the rains will come to replenish the grass.

An old cowboy smiled and waved from the back of an older mule. He looked like a good man for campfire conversation. Relaxed and gentle despite being hardened by the landscape. I waved back.

Another town.

This one smaller. Oversize speed bumps spaced every 20 feet. Roads barely wide enough for the van and not one other vehicle in sight on the rough cobble lane. A lone donkey tied to a post on the street. Maybe a half dozen streets in all. A younger cowboy rushed down the cobble lane, not holding the reigns. He wore the look of a young man who spent all night with a woman. Tired but not tired. Still floating on endorphins. Nothing else in the world mattered at that moment. He stopped at a gate. The horse nudged it open and walked into a stall where he dismounted. Late for church?

Another rutted out dirt lane made for horses. Three miles to a new highway. Alternating between pavement and dirt every 10 miles until the road dropped from the mountains with new waves of palpable heat at every switchback to Choluteca.

A girl on tinder called it the Devil’s Fan. She lived an hour away and couldn’t come to my hotel. This was the fourth hotel I visited before I found a dog friendly room. Shale sprawled out next to the air conditioner. We slept.

We set out early for the Nicaragua border, trying to beat the heat. It was already 90-degrees and thick at sunrise. We slowly rolled between semi trucks into the unmarked chaos of the border crossing. An official immediately spotted Shale and refused to let us cancel our vehicle import permit for Honduras. I hadn’t registered her with the agriculture department at the northern border. Was he an official? He wore a polo shirt and a name badge hung from his neck.

A “helper” offered to bribe the office on my behalf for the exit stamp. I was already on the hook by one of the many hustlers riding the line between scammers and unofficial border assistants. He was a necessary evil.

I complied. Forty dollars later and we crossed to the Nicaragua entry. Two more helpers led me across on bicycles. They wore sandals with socks. One was friendly and mellow. The other had several gold teeth and the feeling of a shady past. We hit it off anyways. Three more bribes for passport stamps and a workaround to the giant car scanner. Shale tied beneath the only shade tree, holding her ground against several stray dogs stalking for a closer position. Four hours in the heat.

We drove.

Flat country covered with trees and farms in the shadow of a great volcano. Cowboys and farm workers about their business along the roadsides. Donkeys pulling overloaded carts. One crooked cop. I refused to pay another bribe. He threw my papers in the van in disgust. Fuck you dirty cop.

A row of men sitting on a fence line. A cowboy on a horse, wearing a worn flat brimmed baseball cap with a cigarette burning off the corner of his mouth. The horse danced on his command. He stared down the men on the fence, taunting them for a fight. I’ve never seen a horse dance to such perfection. He won every dressage competition that ever was while holding a murderous stare on the group of men. A decade ago I’d have taken that fight for myself. Not today.

We drove. Through Leon. A fair sized city. Too hot to stop for groceries or gas.

Off the highway and down another dried out dirt road.

20 children in uniforms waiting on a school bus. They laughed, smiling and pointing at Shale dog hanging out the passenger window, hot drool pouring off her tongue. I waved. Shale grinned. She has a soft spot for children.

Oh Perdito! Que Hermosa!

We passed the bus.

To a short paved highway before dumping down another unpaved backroad.

Left at the Playa sign. Down a narrow one track dirt lane. Soft dirt. Better than the ruts and rocks. Over a bridge and pools of dirty water where teenagers scraped salt beneath the brutal sun.

Winding farther down the lane, through the trees and shrubs.

Past the estuary, lined with mangroves. I laughed, relieved to see the fishy habitat. There must be a few snook to catch around here.

Another 6 kilometers and the road ended. We stopped.