December
23 / 24, 2000
Longest
Travel Time Ever
I
thought our trip from Bangkok to London was our longest
trip, but it has now been far outclassed. The trip back
to Los Angeles was our longest time in transit, ever. We
left AKR at 8 AM 12/23, and arrived home in Los Angeles
2:30 PM 12/24.
We flew from Roatan to La Cieba, at 9 AM, which was delayed
at departure due to bad weather. The flight was a comedy
of errors. As we were walking out on the tarmac to the plane,
David thought he saw our bags still outside on on luggage
cart. He called over to an official who told us it couldn't
possibly be so. David insisted, and when we went over to
look at the bags we discovered that they were indeed not
ours. The official, was to say the least, a bit perturbed,
and we were almost the last people on the plane. This was
not one of Atlantic Airlines new planes, this was on another
airline all together, called SOSA, and it was an old plane.
To top it off, just when you thought they couldn't stuff
anyone else on the plane, two rather large gentleman got
on and tried to squeeze into the two seats facing us at
the front of the plane. There was luggage crammed into the
bathroom, luggage in the aisles, and the door to the luggage
compartment swung open with every shift in the plane. And
there was plenty of shifting because we flew through a storm
to get to La Cieba.
Later, David told me he could see water seeping in through
cracks in the ceiling during the flight, but didn't want
to tell me at the time. Our connecting flight from La Ceiba
to San Pedro Sula, left on time, but still arrived later
than scheduled.
Because we had almost six hours to kill at the airport before
our flight home, we had booked a trip into the city to see
the market with Maya Tours, the company who had met us on
our arrival and given us our plane tickets. Unfortunately,
there was no sign of them. We waited, walked around, had
lunch, called home, checked in our bags, and got our seats.
At 12 PM we called Maya tours, and they said they had been
there much earlier in the morning. Finally, they arrived
at 1:30, and took us on ok tour.
Guamalito Market is very touristy, but has interesting food
market section which was mostly closed by the time we arrived.
We purchased last minute gifts, were able to bargain, bet
prices still seemed high. As part of the tour we stopped
at a nice cafe across the street from the market, and had
a snack which was included. On the premises was a cigar
shop with prices much better than we found in Copan.
Arrived back at the airport at 4 PM, and waited for our
flight. The flight was supposed to leave at 5:40 PM but
was delayed again due to weather. We had a connection to
make in Guatemala City at 7:40 PM. We were then told both
airports were closed due to bad weather and rain clouds.
They told us that our Guatemala flight was delayed as well
but we might still make it. It was not to be....
Part 13:
Longest Travel Time Ever... continued