Last Stop, This Town....
Trip Start
Unknown
1
67
Trip End
Ongoing
Antigua Guatemala, Sacatepéquez, Guatemala
Wednesday, January 6, 2010
Rudely barging the Polish cheese heads out of the way who were having troubles with their Spanish prenunciations at the passport window, Nicki waltzed on in, proclaimed she wasn't paying the entrance fee as this was the 3rd time we'd entered and we jumped back in the van, stamped passport in hand. Hahahaha. Justice! who's got the good seats now? Sometimes journeys get like this. It's a dog eat dog world of comfort in South and Central America and you've gotta be willing to squeeze yourself to where you wanna be, even if it does mean incapacitating the opponent sometimes. It sounds childish almost, but when ur cramped in with a walking stick up your ass and someone's weekly shopping taking up prime position in your midriff for 4 hours, you'll do anything for a moment of pain relief.
The plan was simple. Check into the nice hotel we stayed at before, stock up on a nice bottle of rum, book the taxi for the next day and head out for dinner. Like f**k was it ever gonna be that simple. It never is. The bus dropped us off in the middle of Antigua in the late afternoon heat, so we made a beeline for the guest house we'd previously spent a couple of nights in. It had a nice roof terrace and the rooms were big and comfy, and done out in strange Spanish swirly metal featured furniture, and oh hang on a minute, No! it was f***g full! We're stuck with a buggery heavy rucksack and no-where to stay on your last night of travels. Great!
We'd also forgotten to reconfirm our flights and were praying to God we didn't have to bother or we were kissing goodbye to our living money for the next month in the dark ages, back in England. We had no transport to get us to the airport either. And just to make things even more interesting the supermarket had stopped selling the national rum of Guatemala since we last came. Karma was definitely taking a turn for the worst. The finding of a neat little pine tweaked room at a knock of price had softened the blow slightly, but the lack of alcohol in my blood stream and combined tiredness of the foetal bus curl and slogging the rucksack around for a brutal hour in the heat was getting the better of me. My liver was screaming for a rum to take the edge off.
An hour later we'd secured the dark and inky liquor, a fine bottle of 12 year old Botran.We decided to leave booking a taxi to the airport till the next morning and when we finally managed to get through to try and re-confirm our flights, the offices were closed for the night. So we did what any self-respecting traveller would do in a situation like this. Rome wasn't built in a day, and I'm damn sure wasn't built without liquid aid. We gave up, grabbed a can of chicken beer and went to spend our last few pennies on a decent feed and some Guatemalan wine. Feed a fever, not be cold and starve.
I've seen a lot of strange and wonderful things in my life and met an awful lot of strange and wonderful people. Not just through travelling but from all walks of life, wherever I've been. Sometimes it's easy to get bogged down with things that aren't really that important like money and vanity, and paranoia. But one thing I've learnt from travelling though is that you don't need all that to make you truly happy. There is a light that shines from poverty that is far brighter than the power hungry greed that twinkles in the eyes of the investment bankers and work driven keyboard crunchers of the western world. I've seen a million times more people in South and Central America smiling in 3 months than I have in the last 10 years in England. And it's such a simple thing to do. So next time you pass someone in the street, smile, cause you just never know if they'll smile back.
All good things must come to an end, but the memories will live for ever....
