BootsnAll Travel Network



Flores to Guatemala City

We aimed for our final day in Flores to be fairly chilled out. We just needed to sort out some transport from Guat City to Copan in Honduras if possible. Eug had sent off various emails to different companies the day before but we’d only had one response from ‘Ariel’ [whiter than white?] who was quoting around US$150 – daylight robbery.

Our only option now, we thought, was to call one of the bus companies to book some seats on one of the first class buses that left Guatemala City at around 5am in the morning. Our command of Spanish is still poor so we thought we’d try Roberta at La Luna. It was still too early and she wasn’t in. Damn! We were just going to have to sort it out when we got there. We’d been in worse situations than this before. Then, a miracle happened as Elysabeth whizzed past us on her way to pick up laundry. Of course she’d help. Phew!

After a few attempts, she got through on the payphone to the bus company who reserved us some seats. But we’d have to get to the bus station at 4.15am to pay for and pick up the tickets. Job done – what a star! We quickly said goodbye to Elysabeth who was leaving shortly with Dan for Coban (yes, that’s CoBan in Guatemala, not CoPan in Honduras where we were heading. Confusing or what??). We had half an hour to pack and check out of the hotel – which we managed with 5 minutes to spare!

We had lunch at the hotel on the patio. Black bean soup is an interesting looking, although tasty, starter. It looked like a good sort of roughage that the body would have no trouble in processing!

Spot on 4pm our taxi arrived to take us to Flores airport. Everything beeped as I walked though the scanner. The woman deduced it was probably the wire in my bra that was making the machine beep wildly. How sensitive? And our hand luggage got checked too which was fine except Eugene’s lighter and one pack of matches were confiscated – yet we went through Gatwick and the USA with all these things in the hand luggage!?! Two packets of matches remained in the hand luggage – the check wasn’t that thorough!

And so we sat on the plastic chairs of the departure “lounge”. One guy sat there knitting with METAL KNITTING NEEDLES – surely they should have been confiscated? The girl who injected herself at check-in – I’m assuming a diabetic – and put her needle back into her hand luggage – went though with no baggage check. Diabetics must be allowed to take their medicine on aircraft though.

And the enterainment throughout this waiting time was the large lady in yellow trying to sell the Tikal and Flores DVD – buy one, get one free, special price. They were playing the DVD on the small TV and it looked very amateur! This didn’t stop one family from picking up their whole row of plastic chairs and turning them round to watch the blurry screen!

The flight was called and as usual, people stood up to start queuing minutes before the doors opened. And as usual, we hung around until last! A group of blokes in front of us were told to finish their ice creams before leaving the lounge so the space cadets lurked in the doorway idling licking, unaware of the people waiting behind them.

Being some of the last people on the flight meant that we saw the flight wasn’t full, so we treated ourselves to a bit of space at the back. The flight itself was all of half an hour. But in this time we got a drink and biscuits. And the cockpit door remained open throughout the flight, which provided a different perspective on the direction we were travelling, let alone a questionable aspect of security.

The Tikal jet “docked” in its own hangar at the airport which felt a bit strange.

We got a taxi back to the Radisson in the hope they’d have a room. We’d sent them some emails but they’d all bounced back. They had room but it would have to be one of the deluxe suites on floor 14 at a low rate. What a shame! What a treat! The rooms were actually just a little bit bigger than the one we’d had before. This one had windows on two sides of the building though, a bath and a fully stocked kitchen. A different world!

The guide books had warned of the dangers of street crime in Guatemala City so we were slightly wary as we stepped out to look for the Italian mentioned in the guide book. We couldn’t find this place so ended up in TGI Fridays – not very Guatemalan but a bizarre experience in itself. They seemed shocked when we asked for a bottle of wine. The service was a bit hit-and-miss. And the waiter wanted to know what percentage tip to take when we paid. Cheeky!

We decided to skip the first class bus in the morning and get the chicken buses across to Copan in Honduras. This would mean a little longer in our luxury suite and we would also got our “free” breakfast there!



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