The epic Benjamin induced bike ride

Yesterday, Ben( tallest kid in our program) from san Francisco suggested that this morning we go for a bike ride. I was all about it. There were 3 of us in total who went. Ben, Ryan, and myself. The bikes we rented from vrisa were pretty shitty, but they worked and only cost Q40 for a days use. Even though I inspected mine and tried out the brakes, I should have tried them out on a hill ahah because they were terrible. This made the ride in Xela that much more exciting.....
So we set out around 8 am this morning and after some hilarious troubles with directions that led us in a gigantic circle we were off onto a trail that spanned through the mountains. The scenery was spectacular and the air was so nice in comparison to the city...ahhh fresh air haha. The air pollution in Xela is crazy. The roads up through the mtns were pretty tough... or atleast a little harder than I expected and were covered with alot of mud which forced up to step off the bikes and walk...my white shoes are now brown ahah. It was completely worth it though. The trip was great. It was initially supposed to take 3-4 hours round trip....total understatement...We rode into two towns on the outskirts of Xela. The first I forget the name of, but the second was Zunil. In the first town we had to navigate through a gigantic market with our bikes, which was a pretty funny sight since we were the only gringos in the town at the time. We then saw a main attraction of a huge pile of garbage at the bottom of the hill, which made me think what a shame the natural beauty of the area was being trashed.
In Zunill, we checked out the main attraction of a church that was first built in 1529. It is so crazy to see such building since they have stood and been around longer than the entire history of the US.
After checking out Zunil, we rode a little further and came upon hot spring. There we chilled in a sauna for about an hour and they were rediculously hot! It was awesome though and a great experience. After a king's lunch for 8 us dollars we grabbed a bus back to Xela. The overall trip took around 8 hours haha.....5 more hours than we had expected, but totally enjoyed every moment.