103km – 2923m up – 2664m down – 5823 kcal – 8:59h
It wasn’t the longest day (time wise) but definitely the one with the most accumulated 
climbs (almost 3000m) and for sure the muddiest and dirtiest of all stages. At arrival at the Park Hotel in Santa Cruz Verapaz, we first had to get a bike wash, before we were allowed to store them away in the marble tiled reception area. Body wash came later and the shower looked thereafter more like a sandbox then a bathroom.
The night at the steel bridge was noisy. Not only the cars running over the lousy steel panels made noise, but also the rain, which was pondering on our roof. During the night I made the decision to ride the truck, if it wouldn’t stop raining until we leave. Riding for hours in wet cloths would have killed me in my current condition. To our surprise roads were already dry when we got up.
The day started early. At 4:15am the first alarm clocks went off. Bags loaded on the van was at 4:40am. Breakfast to start at 5am. All to get an early start to make it to Santa Cruz before sunset. However the sun didn’t play our game and it was pitch dark, so we couldn’t leave until shortly before 6am. Everyone was more or less patently waiting until it was halfway safe to get on the road.
If you camp at a river you know that you are deep in a valley. In other words the only way out is to climb up immediately. So we gained 900m already on the first 12km. Needless to say that these few kilometers took us almost 2 hours. Thereafter it was easy rolling and a quick downhill just followed by another 500m climb.
Lunch at 50km was a surprise, as we expected it 
to be at 60km. We all stocked up some calories for what has to follow in the second part of the stage. A 1000m drop after lunch brought us down to 650m Rio Pasaul which we had to pass on a fragile looking steel bridge. Thereafter the pavement ended and we found ourselves on a muddy, sandy, corrugated and worn out gravel road on which we had to regain the 1000m drop over the next 18km as today’s destination is located at 1480m. At km 78 Luke was waiting with pops, cookies, potatoes and encouraging words to prepare us for the remaining 26km. After almost 30km on gravel and mud we finally hit tarmac again. After a final coke stop at a gas station we happily cruised the remaining 7km to the Park Hotel in Santa Cruz Verapaz where we spent the second to last rest day before we hit doomsday.
I’ll use the rest day to continue to cure my cold. Today I was asked, if I forgot to shave and I replied ‘I have a habit to not shave, if I am
not feeling good’. The photo may give you an idea, for how long I wasn’t feeling 100% good. I am constantly wearing 4 layers of cloth and still freezing like in deepest winter. One reason is the cold that caught me a few days ago, the second is the loss of natural insulation. I have lost a remarkable amount of kgs – a goal of this trip – however my body fat reserves are gone, too, thus not much protection for the cooler temperatures in the regions above 2000m. Luckily the day after tomorrow we will drop back to 300m above sea level, thus temperatures will be hopefully in favor of me again.
and so we had to climb out of the kettle again into the Guatemalan highlands. It was a long, but not too steep climb into the chilling morning. However it still took us almost 3 hours to make the first 20km. Thereafter it was rolling down and up all day. The usual ‘river crossing’ scenario: ‘Down in a valley, over the river and up, out of the valley’ and so on. And so the climbs added up to another 2200m this day. The final descent into Sacapulas was a gift and required to save enough energy for the following day – the one with the biggest accumulated climbs on a single day. You can see from our current destination where Cristiano is going to drive us up tomorrow morning 
