12th December – Antigua - Flores, Guatemala

The bus ride from Antigua to Flores in northern Guatemala was around 10 – 12 hours long. We blew $US90 each and caught the plane. Being fresh is more important to us than sitting on a bus. Up at 3.30am and in the shuttle to the Guatemala City airport at 4am. We arrived at the domestic airport (which looked nothing like an airport). To our surprise we were greeted with a solid white wall and two large solid black gates. The driver tooted his horn and a security guard comes out. “Sorry, the airport doesn’t open until 5am.” We had never heard of such a thing and at 5am the gates opened and we were in. In the terminal, I tried the most awful coffee and we waited. It was like waiting for a plane in Roxby Downs or even Points North. The terminal was small and the plane was a SAAB 340, the same plane we used to take from Roxby Downs to Adelaide. Eventually, after a delay we took off. There was too much fog in Flores for us to land so the hour delay allowed for some of the fog to clear. A quick 45 minute flight and we flew over a cloud covered Flores. We descended and eventually got through the cloud to find us very close to the ground. We flew just below cloud level with variable lateral visibility depending on the fog patches. We landed (thank God) to find the ceiling was less than 1000 feet and locally the fog patches under the cloud intense.

This man had a hard time pushing the luggage up the hill. Nothing technologically advanced at this airport. Note that he was missing about 60kg of luggage as our backpacks were following on a bus.

Flores is a small town perched on an island and joined to the land mass by a 500m causeway. We arrived at Hotel Sabana to be greeted with great views of the lake. Breakfast with Ania and Sandia on a deck over the water was filling and was such an idyllic setting. The fish ended up been well fed with the occasional piece of fruit and tortilla. The town was small but still picturesque and there was a nice kitten..
We had a sleep in after our early morning and ended up going for a snack. Bad move as about 5 hours later I got the major stomach cramps and other stuff. Cast iron gut Kitchen remained unscathed (again).

The rest of the group made it in late that afternoon and I got a hair cut in the beauty salon. Always an interesting experience communicating in my poor Spanish and his non-existent English. The hair cut turned out well but the huge blob of gel was a bit dubious.

We had some pizza with Claudio and Sara, the Italian couple were keen to have pine-apple free pizza and happy hour martinis. Happy birthday mum – was good to chat with you.
The night wasn’t fun for me as the stomach bug kicked in!!!