As the driver takes us to the hotel, Arty warns us that it is far from Puerto Barrios and would take at least half an hour to get there. My heart sinks because I am waiting to hear from my son if the money has been sent. Chicago has had a major snowstorm and he is having trouble going outside his house. Just our luck. This means if we do not hear from him we might have to wait till we get to El Peten where Tikal is . That would be the final place, otherwise we have to ask someone in our group to lend us money. We walk into the hotel which is very beautiful; each separate cottage will be a room for each of us.( We do not take any pictures because we are fretting about not hearing from our son.) We check in and wait;no calls. I want to go for dinner, when suddenly Arty calls and says that my son called his number and I have to go into the city to pick up the money in 1 hour! I get one of our friends from the bus to come with me in the taxi that takes me to a mall in Puerto Barrios. Talk about a swanky mall in a dodgy city. We walk from bank to bank till we find the right one ( I feel like I’m in a Woody Allen movie) and get in by 6:15, only 45 mins to get it all to work. I am the first one in line but the nasty woman recognizes a friend in the line and takes him in first. I want to scream but I do not want to alienate her. She is flirting with the guy! He finishes his business with her, giving her a lovely smile and takes his own sweet time to leave the chair. I walk in , start talking in spanish and give her my name and my son’s name. She gives me a paper with the amount in quetzales and says I have to now stand in line at another place there! Luckily there is only one person ahead and now the time is 6:55. Why do I need so much drama in my life? I get the money and we leave, oh that was close!
It takes another 45 mins to get back. It is 8pm in the night and I am glad we resolved this problem and glad that I had someone else in the taxi with me. We eat at the restaurant and I plan to go bird-watching the next morning to give me something special to do.”Yeah, only you would think of getting up early as a gift” is my husband’s retort. Before going to bed, I send a thank you note to my darling son who saved us.
The next morning, I really get to appreciate the beauty of our resort. And the gentleman who takes me ( the other 3 individuals were too chicken to get up at 6am) is a sweet, well-mannered young man who talks about the beauty of nature and you can see he loves his country. We spend an hour looking at the different flora in the wild and come back to learn the names of certain birds I had seen in my travels so far in Guatemala. ” That is a Moctezuma, a black bird with a yellow fork-like tail, this one is of course a macaw, you must have seen it in Copan” he says as we go through the list of some birds I remember seeing. We share coffee and I depart for breakfast. I have an Amatique Sunrise for breakfast. It is actually very good, reminding me of the food at Wishbone Restaurant in Chicago( a flour tortilla, wrapped in black beans, spice, tomatoes and onions and drizzled with sauce and cheese). Arty hustles us all to leave and we put all our bags in the van and follow him to take the boat to Rio Dulce.
Tags: guatemala, nature, transportation
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