Advertisement
So away we go chasing Quetzals.
Quetzals while being the basic unit of money in Guatemala are also large trogons of Central America and South America having golden-green and scarlet plumage and long tails. The latter are beautiful birds virtually impossible to find the former are common gold coins which are virtually worthless.
So far we have merely managed to get our hands on a few of the coins.
We arrived in Xela (Shay-La) yesterday pretty shattered. The twelve hour flight from NZ to LA went without hitch. I (Jamie) was stoked with the new Air NZ entertainment system, plenty of games including who wants to be a millionaire...
We also got to watch the Southern Traverse 2005 for the humour value.
Arriving in LA we decided to visit Santa Monica beach, much to our surprise the buses out of the Airport were very cheap and the trip would be fully worth it even for 3hours let alone most of the day like we had. Visited Santa Monica pier above the famous Muscle Beach and even had a ride on a ferris wheel, some photos below.
To get out of the airport catch the free
Baywatch....
Not quite David Hasselhoff but....airport shuttle bus to the bus terminal, then catch bus 3 to Santa Monica. Total cost US $1.50 pp.
LA Airport was fine, the queues were reasonable and customs people pretty nice even though we were both randomly picked for a free personal rub down and pack swabbing....presumably looking for traces of the anthrax we had just dropped off.
The flight to Guatemala was sweet as, the check in counter girl must have thought I was cute (or maybe tall) as we got upgraded to premium economy and had acres of leg room. Then all of a sudden we were dropped off in Guatemala city, after managing to change some US Dollars we found a taxi which dropped us at the Galgos bus terminal. Penny did some great work improvising with her Spanish and making conversation with the driver while I was limited to ...wow muy interesante...
Driving in Guatemala must be a blast, kind of like truck racing I guess but with two way traffic and lots of dogs and people all over the road. Buses going hard. I am glad Penny slept most of it as their were some line breaking moves that belonged more
on a rugby field than a road.
Nevertheless we arrived safe and sound and much to the dismay of the local taxi drivers decided to navigate our own way to Casa Argentina using a map I had found on the net, sweet as. This place is pretty wicked narrow cobbled streets with lots of people doing lots of different stuff. There was a room available for us..see photos, and it is pretty sweet.
Now its the next morning, Penny has gone to work and I am sifting around amusing myself, its going to be a great few months...
Advertisement
Tot: 0.074s; Tpl: 0.01s; cc: 9; qc: 58; dbt: 0.0459s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
CJS
non-member comment
Sweet
Sweet as