New Adventures

I've always had this ambition to travel to Central America and so the last year we deliberated as a "group" over this plan. As a group it would be perfect, there's something for everyone and its a budget place so it wouldn't be too expensive?! Right? Wrong...

Lest we came to January and were searching flights...well I was. And a deal struck me. £469 return to Guatemala City. STA travel. You won't get it cheaper than that.
I was on the phone to Andy in an instant. He didn't have the money, but wanted to go.

In the end, I booked these flights and he would pay me back - it would be the two of us (for the time being). We later learned that some friends of his from school were also going around the same time, and had booked flights a couple of weeks later, only to pay £150 more. Funny things airlines.

I did all the planning, I was the one with the basic Spanish...I had a sneaky suspicion that Andy was kinda coming for the ride - he hardly seemed to care about this holiday and was getting anxious when certain things were left unbooked. I was trying to explain that you can't tick every box when travelling, but he comes from an unadventourous family and so that goes in one ear and out the other.

The weeks running up to Central America and the itenary seemed finalised, but a few triggers all went off at once. There were four brutal murders in Guatemala city, there was a double volcanic eruption and tropical storms in Guatemala (Ecuador was the second eruption) and Andy misread the Guatemalan embassy thinking his passport required 6 months already on his passport..something I'd never heard of in my life.
It was slightly bemusing why all these were happening at once, was it another sign that I shouldn't go; afterall the closure of Tegus airport would have prevented me from travelling there before. Did someone not want me to go? I was really worried.

Needless to say on June 14th 2010 we set off on this new journey...