Early this morning the temperature dropped to around 60 – thank god – and subsequently deposited a load of dewey moisture on all our stuff. Jim had a surprise visit from the duende (i.e. Vince, Julie, and me) who hid his climbing gear 15 feet up a tree. Jim relieved his frustration by borrowing Walfre’s machete and hacking his way through the jungle back to Tintal.

Hack it, Jim, hack it!

Jim gave us his life story on the hike back, which I found fascinating. At Deer Crossing Camp we would only get it in snippits. He lived out of his car, or in a tent, or out of a trailer for many years before starting his current, stable life.

Ticks jumped all over our pants as we hiked through dense undergrowth on the way back. Permethrin is supposed to kill ticks, too, but it didn’t. Back at Tintal we caught up on our reading. I read two and a half books (1984, Fault Line, and Narziss and Goldmund) during this trip.

We ran into one small group of tourists headed for Mirador. Two were dentists from Slovenia. They said that we had very nice teeth. We stayed up late talking about pornography, technology, and Jim’s parenting concerns.