Route of the Maya Day 14
Route of the Maya
DAY 14 - 12/07/05 - Transfer to Belize Airport/Houston/Denver/Home
Our alarm went off at 4:15 and we got up quickly to take a shower only to find we had no water. I went the office at the restaurant and no one was there. I then tried reception and again, no one was there. As I started looking around, a night watchman came out of the dark with his automatic weapon in his hands. In English I asked him who I could contact to get water. He did not speak English, so I tried it in Spanish and he responded quickly by going to the manager's cabin, waking him up and we were able to get someone to solve our problem. By 4:35 we had water and began our shower and final packing.
At 5 we met Ralph and Betty in the restaurant to try to get a little breakfast - small plate of fruit and instant coffee. The staff was not ready so Judith helped to move things along.
By 5:30, Shaun loaded our luggage in the 5 Sisters Toyota van and along with three other staff members we were on our way out over the very bumpy roads. The A/C was running full blast and that caused condensation on the outside of the windshield that required the wiper blades to be put on periodically.
As we retraced our route over the washboard roads, we passed school buses and people going to work. School is mandatory for all children so all rural schools have very long routes to pick-up the children. We got back to San Ignacio and picked up the macadam road across the country on our way to Belize City. On the way we passed Belmopan, the new capital since the 1981 Hurricane Hattie hit the coast.
At 8:30 we arrived at the airport that services Belize City. We had our luggage opened and had them hand checked. We were then moved to the ticketing agent and went through that process. We were given our boarding passes, went through security and arrived at Gate 3 for our flight. There were no restaurants open, only small shops where we bought a Fanta Orange and a bag of chips for our breakfast.
At 10, all seven waiting passengers boarded the aircraft. The flight originated in San Salvador with its final destination being Houston. As the craft had so many empty seats, many of us took empty rows for ourselves.
A few minutes before takeoff, my name was called over the plane's PA system. As I got to the front, a representative from TACA Airlines asked me for my passport. After some time, he told me that I was on the TSA watch-fly list and he took my middle name, passport number and a lot of other data. I told him that I had filed papers with TSA to forego these problems and he asked me for any other identification. I gave him my driver's license and he took it to the terminal. Fortunately, about 10 minutes later, he returned them to me and the aircraft was cleared to fly.
After the 2.5 hour flight we arrived in Houston and went through Immigration where my name again raised the red flag. The Immigration official suggested I change or hyphenate my name to avoid these problems. GREAT! We processed through customs quickly and tried to get our luggage re-checked.
Continental Airlines would not accept any other airlines bags even though ours were tagged all the way to Denver. Ralph, Betty, Gennie and I had to take all our luggage to Terminal A - all the way across the airport. United representatives told us that was unacceptable by Continental and took care of us.
We went through security again, found a Pizzeria Uno, had lunch and then walked to Gate A10. The aircraft to Denver had no open seats but we were fine on the two hour flight. When we arrived in Denver we were told that the outside temperature was -2 degrees. After we got our luggage we went to get the shuttle bus to Mt. Elbert.
Fortunately we did not stand outside too long and we were taken right to our vehicle. It had snow all around it and ice on the windshield that Gennie took care of while I loaded our luggage. After sitting out in the artic cold for so long, it started with little trouble and we were off. We stopped at a Safeway to buy a few necessities on the way home and arrived at our house at 7 PM finding that our friend Tim had cleaned off our driveway.
Home - - - Meals: B
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A CD OF EACH TRIP IS AVAILABLE.
These CDs are compilations of slide presentations of each day (pictures of the events during the day) accompanied by music reflective of the nation and day.
On most CDs there are presentations on the people of the country, people traveling with the group, flowers, and panoramas.
On more recent trips, short videos have been included on the web pages and these videos are also available in the CD.
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