Drive from Hell

The initial plan was quite simple. Tristan would fly into Guatemala, stay a few days in Antigua and then we would drive to Cancun over a couple of days, seeing some sites along the way, then fly to Cuba. After that we would reverse the procedure but drive directly home. Part one went okay. We had Thanksgiving with the Mishaans, then  headed outside of Guatemala City around ten or so, to avoid missing the construction closure on CA9, that our friend Paola told us about. By starting on the other side of the city we would avoid the daily Guatemala City traffic jam. We found a hotel room in Guaystatoya and made our way down the banana/pineapple truck filled Ruta Atlantico and onward to Mexico. All went according plan and we left the Conklin family to drive the 45 minutes to Cancun from Playa del Carmen and park the car in airport parking lot. All went according to plan.

Nine or ten days later we are ready to return. We return to Havana from Vinales, find a casa particular, arrange for a taxi for 7 the next morning for our ten AM return flight to Cancun. The flight to Cancun should arrive at 11 and we should be on the road no later then 12, allowing a six-hour return to trip ending the day at either the Belize Guatemala border or just into Guate itself. The next day would be the long drag back home, retracing our steps from Flores to Rio Dulce and then back, passing banana and pineapple trucks until we make it back home. Even with a twelve-hour trip, we miss the road closure and travel in the daylight.

Yep, didn't happen.

At 7 we are outside of our casa particular waiting for our taxi. The taxis have been prompt, expensive and of questionable quality. At seven fifteen we start to walk to the Malecon to seek another. As we are walking away we see the blue car pull up. It was a rally neat car and we got in. We have ridden in many of these during our time in Cuba, in varying states of condition. This one was nice both inside and out. I chatted with the driver who told me it had Isuzu engine with a Hyundai transmission to go with the Landcruiser steering wheel and gauges from some car that fit into the original holes in the dash and didn't work. But it looked good. We arrived at the airport in plenty of time.

We get to the pride of Cuba, Jose Marti International Airport and promptly ask where the check in window is for our flight on Interjet as we cannot see one. We go over and look and there is nothing opened. So Tristan checks his phone and there is an email from Interjet telling him that our flight will leave at noon instead. This is Cuba, between the three of us we used maybe 45 minutes of WiFi time in the total time we were in Cuba, so we are resigned to our fate and meet a couple of other people who did not get any email in a country with limited internet. So there is plenty of time to get breakfast and wait for the counter to open in an hour or so.

Nope.

The choice for breakfast was three items of packaged food, the best of which might have been wafer cookies, a mystery ham (we are still not sure what goes into Cuban ham or how word ham could mean so many different things to people) and maybe coffee. All at a price that would make you think Starbucks was cheap. Okay, admittedly I am a tad bit miffed, no coffee, not willing to eat any of the packaged food, but they tell me there is a restaurant beyond immigration. So we will wait.

At nine, three hours before the flight an attendant comes to the counter and begins to set it up. Twenty minutes it is ready to go and she walks away. Some other colleagues arrive, and they all look for chairs. They get behind the counter and of the 5 people there, they open one window. The other workers apparently have pressing airline business on their phones. We get our boarding passes, check our luggage and head into the departure hall to have breakfast. Not only do they have a 'fast food' area, there is a coffee shop below. We opt for the coffee shop.Yep, not even a ham sandwich and perhaps questionable coffee in a four walled dungeon. Back to the other location and we buy, you guessed it, a ham and cheese sandwiches with two coffees and a water. Only $25. We take our miserable fare and laughingly joke about the number of ham sandwiches that we have eaten on this trip. Beef is pretty rare and it is essentially illegal to kill a cow without government permission. We board the flight and head back to Cancun. Now we are arriving at 1, out of airport by 2, gives us four hours of daylight We should be able to get to the border, this time it is Belize/Mexico border. With an early start we should make it home by 8 or so. I give Tristan the parking the ticket and we load up the car, turn the AC on high and wait for Tristan to return. He does, but there is a problem with the machine. We walk back to the machine and try to get it to use the credit card, not happening Off to the ATM get plenty of dinero and pay off the parking ticket. We are off and it is still just 2 PM. We travel at a high rate of speed in our little Nissan March and indeed reach the border around dark. We are then extorted, once again, by the government of Belize for our less than one day stay in their country. We stop in a town that Diane and I had been in on a previous motorcycle trip to Mexico. The place we stayed is out of business and a fancy hotel was a tad high priced for our 9 hours in the room, so we found another place. It was good enough. We go to the only restaurant in town and head back to the room to get up at 5 and leave at 6, giving us plenty of time to get back to Antigua.

I get up and look at my phone it is 5 AM, we shower and dress. Tristan's phone says 4 AM, now we are at the border so it is sort of understandable as Mexico is a different time zone. But hell we are up, showered and ready to go at 5 AM. Off into the darkness we go. The GPS program proudly barks directions through the Bluetooth connection as we listen to podcasts on the way. We take a turn and enter a dirt road, It is dark and in the past we have traveled on a dirt road in Belize. We are slowly tooling along wondering if this is indeed the correct way to go. It matches perfectly with the GPS so we continue on. The going is slow as it is dark and the tinted windows on the March might good for security, but they make it hard to see. Suddenly we are airborne. I am talking 4 wheels off the ground, Dukes of Hazzard style. Tristan is shaken awake. We land and believe it or not, the March withstood the jump. We weren't going that fast, but apparently we were going fast enough.

 Meanwhile, dawn is breaking and we see we are in the middle of nowhere, farmland all around us and the main source of transport is a horse and buggy. We have discovered a lost Amish or Mennonite settlement in the middle of nowhere, Belize. Turns out they are Hutterites, but the road is now getting ridiculous, but we are so deep into it we figure it has to come out on a paved road soon. We see boys with straw boaters, blue shirts and dark pants, girls in bonnets and dresses, moms with bonnets and headscarves... We stop one buggy and ask the guy in English, Belize is an English speaking country, how far it is to the paved road. Nope, doesn't understand English, he tells me to ask Spanish, he still has no clue. We continue and see another gasoline powered vehicle. Hopefully someone who has been outside of the lost settlement of the Hutterites. He speaks English and understands, thank heavens. He tells us the road continues in the direction that we want to go in and in 50 or so miles we will hit the pavement. He also tells us that the road get much worse. Egads, the road is terrible now and it gets worse. He says we can turn around and go back to some town that is near the highway. Turning around is not my thing, but even I understand the choices and we have to double back 30 km or so. Finally we hit the pavement and we are on a road I am familiar with. We have lost some more time, probably two hours.

We are able to make good time,while  slamming on the brakes for the unmarked tumulos, topes, speedbumbs. We are following the Garmin, turning off the maps.me app that sent us into the wilds of Belize. We continue, having to stop and pay  a toll at a toll booth that I had never seen open in the three previous trips across it. One Belizean dollar, or fifty US cents. We have no Belizean dollars, ask if he would take Quetzales. Nope but he will take Mexican pesos that we don't have. We manage to find a US dollar and pay the toll. We continue on making good time and arrive onto the peninsular of Belize City. Belize city is not where we want to go. We adjust the Garmin, tour the peninsula and have the honor of paying the 50% more for the Belizean gas. We had filled up in Mexico and had plenty of gas to make it through to the Guate border, another mistaken thought,with our detour through the land of the Hutterites. We get back on our route, now more than two or so hours behind schedule. Okay a little bit of night driving on the familiar roads to Antigua not a problem. We had just had to beat the construction delay at 8 PM. We could still make it home by nine.

All is fine as we gas up in Rio Dulce and head towards Ruta Atlantico. The torrential downpour that occurred during the ascent out of the Rio did not help much, but with some judicious passing (Diane might disagree) we come to the intersection with CA9. The amount of passing that is required on this road, due to the number of trucks going too slow is incredible. On the motorcycle it is fun, the March proved itself on the trip. We get into a a routine, travel quickly, get behind a line of cars and truck, pass judiciously, listen to Diane scream, well actually drum her fingers to the front dash very loudly and travel quickly until the next line. This is how it goes for hundreds of kilometers. But then you have to take a pee and watch as the lines of cars trucks that your fought so hard to get past, slowly pass you. Back on the road, you get to pass the same trucks and cars again. Nonetheless, it appears that we are going to make it to the construction zone well before the eight o'clock deadline. It is dark now, so driving with the tinted windows really requires the use of the high beam. We finally reach the construction zone at around 7 and we follow a gruesomely slow line of trucks and cars crawl over the mountain. I know the road opens up soon and though it is late I realize we will make it home tonight.

Finally we get over the top, the road opens up and we are rolling back to Antigua at high rate of speed on a pretty empty road that has more then one lane. Until in front of me traffic is stalled, no stopped. I see an ominous sign, vendors walking up the road selling all manner of drink and food. They know something that I do not. I get out and chat with one of the truckers. Is there an accident? How long do you think we will be stuck here. It can be a long time in Guatemala as people will not move vehciles out of the road until the police and insurance company come. He says, no the road is closed from 8 to 10, it is now eight fifteen and the road construction Paola told me about was not the actual road construction, but the area by the bridge. I had missed getting over the road by 30 meters. No more then five minutes. We take out our phones, try to nap and just after I fall dead asleep Diane tells me they are moving. From a dead sleep, I had been driving since 5 in the morning, to full awake in ten seconds was not a great experience. But the road is empty and we hurtle to Guatemala City and then Antigua. It is now almost 11 o'clock at night and we hit traffic.Why? Two times it was because tractor trailers were just stopped in the middle of the road. Then the  road to Antigua is clogged with traffic, a sobriety check. Completely ridiculous, but it is Guatemala. The traffic clears and we make it home at 11:30 PM.

After we make it home, we all come to the same decision, no more long car trips.