6th April 2015 – Copan Ruinas to Tikal

Today we have a half hour drive to the Guatemala border, we leave at our normal time being escorted out of town by our guide Rambo. The border crossing takes all 7 cars just under 2 hours to complete. It’s been much easier having Rambo & Mario with us especially for us. Our temporary passports only have 6 pages and the US Visa takes up 1 page so we are starting to get short on space, especially Michael as he has a couple of large stamps in his for the car. So Rambo asks them if we can tell them where the stamps are put and they oblige, so we’re cramming them in and even using the contacts page. We’ve tried to do this at previous orders but they haven’t always understood us, so it’s been really good to have someone with us who speaks Spanish.ÿ This border crossing is full of trucks piled high with bananas etc. and it can take them 2 days to get through. The drive to Guatemala City is through a green hilly area that has 37 volcanoes and it’s not too hot, which makes the journey more enjoyable. We stop for morning tea at a cafe and as we leave Kay is driving and as we pull out and turn left, neither of us see a car coming down the road towards us and he hits our front passenger front mudguard, just behind the headlight, which shakes us both up. No one is hurt and the damage to the other car is minimal, a bit of Shiraz’s paint on the bumper and a cracked light. The driver calls his mechanic to come & look at his car, meanwhile, Pete, Ken, Ross & Michael look at our car & discover that the steering is out of alignment. The guys do a quick front end alignment using a steel tape measure and adjust the left hand side. the car went for a test drive and it’s driving beautifully and braking straight. When the mechanic arrives he and Rambo negotiate a repair cost of US$100 which we pay and we’re good to go. This incident cost us 1 hour and we are now running tight for time as RIP & Shiraz are being left at the airport in Guatemala City as we have a plane to catch at 5pm and we need to be there at 4pm. Dave & Laurel and the 2 of us are going to spend the next 2 nights at Tikal so we can visit the Mayan ruins in that area, while the rest of the team go onto Antigua. As we continue the drive through the countryside we make good time until we come to the outskirts of Guatemala City and we hit heavy traffic with 31 kilometers to the airport and the GPS tells us we’ll arrive at 3:45pm, so we’re on time. We then come to bumper the bumper traffic and we’re moving very slowly. With 15 kilometers to go our arrival time has gone to after 4 pm, so Rambo calls the airline to let them know we’re caught in heavy traffic but we’re coming. There is an accident going the other way to us and as soon as we pass it the traffic starts to move quicker, just like in Oz the rubberneckers cause the traffic to slow. We arrive at the domestic airport, park in our reserved parking places right in front of the terminal, quickly throw things into the foot wells so nothing is visible in the back, grab our bags and walk into the terminal at 4:15. It was a tense drive for us as we were thinking that we wouldn’t catch our flight. When we land the sun is setting and it it’s bright Crimson, just gorgeous. The hotel we are staying at is right on lake Petenitza and is out of town in the quiet of the bush.