ANTIGUA, GUATEMALA

It turned out the plane landed at some tiny auxiliary airport in Guatemala City so my transportation options to my intended stop in Antigua were limited. I found a shuttle van driver who offered a reasonable price of $10 (compared to $25 for the taxis) and he said, “Let’s go, okay, let’s go” and led me a hundred yards or so over to his van and loaded me in. I was happy to be underway so quickly, then he closed the van door with me inside and walked back over to the terminal door in search of more passengers.

It was almost an hour later when he was satisfied with the 7 passengers he had rounded up. By this time, I had already vomited in a drain about 30 yards away from the van. I felt like it was over and I was on the mend, but when we finally started driving I knew it was far from over. Luckily, two other passengers were a multi-lingual couple from Newport Beach who practically saved my life. I got a large ziplock bag out of my backpack just in time and for the rest of the hour-long journey I was in hell. Getting out of the van in a strange neighborhood in a strange country was not appealing at all, but the bumpy ride along the smoggy road was no better.

My new friends helped me check into the 3-star hotel they had booked and I had never been happier to get into a room and close the door behind me. I got into the room a little after 6 p.m. and it was only about 8 hours later when I finally ended the constant cycles of vomiting, fainting, chills, overheating and whatnot.

I didn’t emerge from the room for about 20 hours, and then I had the strangest realization that I had no idea even the name of the hotel I was in, much less where it was located. It turned out it was a very nice place with a few U.S TV channels on the ultra-static filled “cable TV”. It was also a little over a block from the gorgeous Parque Central right in the middle of the small colonial town of Antigua.

The whole next day or two was mostly about regaining strength, but I found that Antigua lived up to its hype. The town reminds me of Solvang, California, if it were 400 years older and run by Spaniards instead of Danes, and had been ravaged by many, many earthquakes instead of being pristine. Seriously though, it’s a beautiful old town right in the middle of one of the coffee growing regions of Guatemala, and a world away from the two million residents of nearby Guatemala City.

The main downtown part of Antigua consists of seven blocks by seven blocks, but then it slowly evolves into similar looking suburbs. It didn’t occur to me right away, but there are no windows on the exteriors of any of the buildings. Instead, they are all solid on the outside, but have doors that swing open to an interior courtyard which very often contain many small businesses. It’s also interesting that since they all look nearly identical from the outside, you have no idea what business you are passing until you are past it. Some courtyards reveal a fancy restaurant with a fountain, lined by clothes stores, while others reveal a Burger King or souvenir shop.

I took the opportunity to rest up, catch up on some in-flight magazine movie writing, and even take a tour of a nearby coffee farm.

So far, Central America has been a very interesting place to visit, but I am quickly getting my fill of it. The big cities and the rural areas of this region are both great, but in different ways. The big cities are great if you like the constant and choking smell of diesel fumes and the rural areas are great if you prefer the constant, unholy smell of burning garbage. Guatemala is like Mexico, only more so.

My plan to take buses through the region all the way down to Panama City was no longer a feasible option. I flew from Flores to Guatemala City because the flight was relatively cheap and I knew that “luxury bus service” connects the rest of the way down. I assume these luxury busses are actually comfortable and somewhat organized, but after a week in the region, there is really nothing this side of Granada, Nicaragua that particularly interests me, and I think Granada is somewhat similar to Antigua anyway. Granada would be about 3 long bus rides and 3 confusing border crossings away, so on a lark I decided to stop into the STA Travel (a highly reputable international student travel agency) and enquire about flights.

I asked the young girl (who actually spoke a bit of English) working in the 10’ by 10’ office on a side street to price flights from Guatemala City and Panama City to various locations in South America. To make a long story short, I found that I could get a one-way ticket from Guatemala City to Buenos Aires on a student/teacher fare for about $500. I thought that was pretty reasonable already and I quickly thought about the possibility of skipping some of my planned interim stops to get right to my next big highlight in Argentina. However, she explained that the flight would make stopovers in San Jose, Costa Rica and Lima, Peru and that I could stay up to 21 days in each of those cities if I wanted for the same price. I would have to lock in the dates, but I could change them for $25 each if I needed to. I again reminder her that I am neither a teacher nor a student and she casually told me that she would make me an official teacher ID card if I wanted to buy the ticket. I was suddenly very happy. Not only could I skip over the long hauls through El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua that I was already dreading, but I was getting a great fare as well as a way to continue to get such deals for the rest of my trip. It was a serendipitous stop into the travel agency for sure.

Needless to say, I bought the ticket and the dates worked out great. I would leave Antigua a day later than planned, but I was really enjoying it there anyway, then spend five days in Costa Rica, then six days in Peru, then arrive in the steak capital of the world — Buenos Aires!

Also, according to the laminated and official photo ID in my wallet, I am now a teacher at the Buckley School (as in William F. Buckley Jr.). I think I will try to undermine the Teacher’s Union when I get back to the States.

I had a very nice rest in Antigua, but the day came when I had to get to the airport for my flight to Costa Rica. I bought a ticket for a door-to-door airport shuttle the day before I left for six dollars. Most of the shuttles were charging $10, so this seemed like a pretty good deal for the 45-minute ride back to the Guatemala City International Airport, but when it finally arrived in front of my hotel it was 30 minutes late. I had enough time, but a few others on board would cut it close so our driver maniacally tried to shave a few minutes off the journey.

We made it in one piece to a shockingly small airport. I had flown into a much smaller annex when I arrived and I assumed the main terminal would be huge. I guess most of the locals don’t earn enough to fly around much. When I got past security the airport was actually quite fancy and “upscale”, and I’m pretty sure that this section of the airport is the most posh place in the entire country. My flight would leave in around two hours and it was almost an hour after that before the following one would leave. It seemed like there were maybe twenty total departures for the whole day, but still it was quite nice and very professionally run, unlike the small airport in Flores.

My flight actually left about 10 minutes early and I was in a good mood since I expected Costa Rica to be less bewildering than Guatemala.