With only Frenchie and Dude, I made my way out of Cotoxa as Bruiser called out from the pasture behind us. Dude did not want to go anywhere. He would stop every 3 steps, look back at me and call out at the top of his lungs as if letting me know we were leaving our brother behind. I reassured him we would see our friend again soon and used my spurs as encouragement.

After about 2 hours, Dude finally stopped calling out. The hot sun burned our bodies as we made our way to a Finca called EL Paraiso. After climbing and climbing for the past two days there was only one direction to go – down. All day we rode down steep roads as cars and trucks zoomed by.

In the early afternoon we arrived in a beautiful Finca just outside of the pueblo of Los Angeles. The cowboys gave me a warm welcome and showed me where to put my tack and tent. After getting everything ready, I got to take an amazing shower in a refreshing river which cuts the Finca in half. The water was freezing but after a long hot day, it was perfect.

Close to sunset, Pedro Garcia, the owner of the Finca arrived to greet me. He made me feel right at home and took me to Rio Dulce to see the route I would be traveling the next two days.

“My father comes from a place in Guatemala that is very dry so when he saw all of the water on the Finca, he named it Paraiso,” he told me as we drove south.

Pedro comes from a long line of ranchers. His grandfather and father both worked with cattle and now he is carrying on the legacy.

“I studied food science in Honduras but when it came time to work this is what I really wanted to do,” Pedro told me.

On our way back we passed a small town called La Estor. When he told me the story of why it was called this, I almost chocked on the water I was drinking it is so funny.

“There used to be a nickel mine here long ago and Gringos worked on it. There was a tienda right here where the town is and they called it the store. The name stuck,” he told me.