Arrival in Guatemala! (July 24, 2008)

(reposted from email earlier this year)

Hi friends and family!

Some of you know I was heading off to Guatemala for my 30th birthday with my cousin Lacey. Some of you didn't know, but I thought I'd put you on the list anyway. :) We arrived tonight about 45 minutes late, expecting to be able to both get money out of an ATM, and be picked up by the hostel we were staying at. Well, the one ATM in the international arrivals terminal was out of order, there seemed to be no sign of the folks supposed to be picking us up, and of *course* there was no working phone in sight. So much for that easy-going plan. :P

A very nice taxi-organizing man allowed us to use his cell phone to call the hostel, where they assured us there was someone waiting for us at the airport. But after 40 minutes of looking-and-not-finding, we took his offer of a taxi and made it to the hostel. Fortunately, many places in Guatemala will also take American dollars in addition to the local Quetzals, and even more fortunately we had American dollars on us, so we were able to pay for both the taxi and the hostel tonight. Already an adventure!

It was beautiful flying in, looking at the blue(!) traffic lights arranged in curves and amongst a lot of black. I'm very curious to see what it looks like when I fly out during the day. Tomorrow we are hoping to get out of Guatemala City and take a bus up to Flores and thence to Tikal. If we can manage to get tickets, we'll be going on the $25 "luxury'' bus. :)

It was nice to find internet so easy our first night, but I have no idea how likely that will continue. Hopefully you'll all hear from me a few more times on this trip!

In the meantime, happy July! :)