back again

I’m jumping around a bit in time for this post, dear readers, so please forgive this lapse in chronology. I still haven’t written about my last trip in December before heading home for the holidays, nor have I updated you on my adventures over the break. But since it’s fresh in my head I thought I would give you all a quick post about my trip back to Guatemala.

So here is how things stand. I flew into Guatemala Sunday after a little less than a month in the States. As most of you know, I decided to move everything I own out of my apartment and into a storage unit so I could travel for the better part of this next year without worrying about rent payments etc. Let’s just say that the move was interesting. Actually, setting aside that the fact that the move itself caused a few minor tiffs among my family over logistics and that moving day brought with it more than a few inches of snowfall, things went pretty well. My friends in town stepped up to my desperate call for help and fate arranged it so that I could guilt my sister into staying a few extra days (yes, Jenn, I know you didn’t really help out of guilt). Continuing this streak of generosity on the part of my friends, another friend put me up Friday night (we emptied my apartment on Thursday) and I took advantage of the commuter train into Chicago Saturday afternoon. My flight was scheduled to leave O’Hare at 6 am, which meant that I had to be at the airport somewhere between 3 and 4 (given that international flyers are encouraged to get to the airport 3 hours in advance and that security has been even more tight since the bombings on that flight from Amsterdam to Detroit around Christmas). So I checked into a hotel near the airport on Saturday night after the 2.5 hour train ride to downtown Chicago and the 1 hour ride on the “L” to the airport itself.

Things started getting interesting once I made it to the airport. I hauled myself out of bed at 2:30 am to catch the shuttle to the airport and put myself at the end of the reasonably short line in front of the Spirit Air counter just after 3:30. Once I got to the front of the line, the airline representative cheerily informed me that I was lucky, since I would most likely make my connecting flight despite the delay. Delay? What delay? Sunday was one of the best days we’ve had in the middle and eastern parts of the country in weeks. Clear sky for most of the country east of the Mississippi and the temperatures were rising. This lovely weather, however, didn’t stop one of the flight attendants to call in sick that morning, and, apparently, the flight cannot take off without the minimum number of flight attendants. So we were stuck waiting to hear whether or not they would be able to fly a substitute flight attendant in from Detroit. To make a long story a bit shorter, after several contradictory assessments of my ability to make my connection in Fort Lauderdale and two trips through security I actually made my flight and the connection despite the two-hour delay. Plus I had a lengthy conversation with a very nervous woman on her way to a cruise she didn’t really want to go on, shared a copy of the New York Times with a friendly older gentleman who regaled me with his opinions of Fox News, had difficulty not laughing at my neighbor as he tried to hide the fact that he was talking on the phone with his girlfriend while the plane was getting ready to take-off even though the flight attendant stood right in front of him to give the safety demonstration (he ended up putting a sweatshirt over his head and told his girlfriend she could talk to him but he couldn’t answer her for a few minutes), and had to fend off numerous taxi drivers when exiting the airport in Guatemala City who just couldn’t seem to understand that no, even though I look like a backpacker, I don’t need a taxi to Antigua (my big backpack must have been misleading…plus being a blond gringa doesn’t help either).

Somehow my friends found me in the crowd outside the door at the airport (apparently some famous singer on a reality show was flying in that day and people where waiting for a glimpse). But of course, as things go here, we didn’t actually head straight towards our destination. We walked upstairs to the departures area so that one of my friends could buy a plane ticket to Chicago (ironic, no, since I had just come from there?) for the next day and ran in to some acquaintances of my chauffeurs. Which led to a quick meal at one of the restaurants in the airport and an hour or so of chatting. The rest of the evening consisted of breaking into the trunk of my friends car (the key had been broken off in the lock by a would-be thief) so that he could give the suitcase inside to his friend who had been basically clothes-less for a week while his worldly possessions were stuck in the trunk, a tour of my friend’s office (he is a professional photographer), changing a flat tire (in record time, I might add…I think they’ve had lots of practice), a trip to drop off the previously stuck suitcase, a stop at my other friends house to pick up a few things, another stop for food, and then, finally, the drive up to Antigua. Truthfully, it was a great way to be welcomed back to Guatemala. It reminded me why I love this place. Nothing is ever simple or straightforward and even a quick trip to pick someone up at the airport can turn into a journey of epic proportions.