I made it to my first World Race location! We're in Puerto Barrios, Guatemala. Here's how we got here:
Last Thursday evening D Squad made the journey from Fort Lauderdale, FL to Guatemala. In true World Race fashion, this trip took over 27 hours, five modes of transportation, and 200 reps of “pack lifting”.
Here is the breakdown of my first travel day as a World Racer
Thursday, January 12
7:30p.m. hike 1½ miles from the church to the bus stop. At this point I’m already considering tossing stuff out to lighten my load. My team leader Mark offers to trade daypacks. Mine weighs 30 lbs, and his a mere 10 lbs. Praise God for a little relief. Last time we ate was at noon. While we wait for the bus I scrounge around my bag for the granola bars my mom insisted I bring. Thanks mom.
8:12p.m. Load onto the city bus. “Packed like sardines” would be an understatement.
8:17p.m. Ride the bus to the train station.
8:48p.m. Arrive at the train station, and having missed the train by a minute, we wait an hour for the next train. I call my parents and some friends to pass the time and catch up.
9:50p.m. Take the train from Fort Lauderdale to Miami.
10:25p.m. Arrive in Miami and take the last shuttle of the night to the airport.
11:00p.m. Arrive at the airport and unload all our packs from the shuttle. Settle in at the airport- locate a corner to make a colony of packs and sleeping bags, Subway for dinner, use the internet, calls to family, team feedback.
Friday, January 13
1:35 a.m. finally pass out under the bright fluorescents and attempt to tune out the blaring time announcement every fifteen minutes. Glad I brought an eye mask and ear plugs.
5:15 a.m. wake up and pack up our stuff.
5:45 a.m. walk to baggage check. Stand in line. (They made a line just for our squad. So thankful.)
6:45 a.m. check bag and make it through security.
6:55 a.m. settled at our gate, a few of us go get breakfast and then wait for our flight.
9:30 a.m. board plane for Guatemala.
12:09 p.m./11:09 a.m. (CST) Arrive in Guatemala City, Guatemala.
11:15 a.m. Baggage claim
11:30 a.m. walk through customs. I hand a man the forms we filled out on the flight, and he waves me on. Except for the natural light streaming in, it’s unusually dark in the airport. We realize later it’s because electricity is so expensive here. We are the only people besides the airport employees anywhere in sight.
11:35 a.m. we make a pile of packs near the exit and wait while our treasurers and team leaders go find ATMs and sim cards for the team phones.
1:30 p.m. Still waiting for the leaders to return. so ready to find food. It’s been eight hours since breakfast.
1:40 p.m. We say our goodbyes to the teams headed to Antigua. Our team leaders look for the bus our ministry contacts told us to take to Puerto Barrios. A man tells us the bus we need is a thirty-minute drive from the airport, and he agrees to take us there.
2:00 p.m. 13 of us pile into this van.
2:40 p.m. We arrive at the bus station and our team leaders pay the driver. The van ride only cost us $4 per person!
2:43 p.m. We immediately start searching for food, but to no avail-unless we want parasites. So we lift our packs and start walking to the bus station, which is 3 blocks from where the driver dropped us.
2:54 p.m. At the bus station, we purchase tickets for the 3:30p.m. bus to Puerto Barrios. It’s a five hour bus ride, so we grab some snacks (cookies, chips, and waters is all they had).
3:40 p.m. we put our bags under the bus and hop on. Let’s just say that I knew we were in the third world when we got on this bus. It felt good to be out of the U.S. Over the next several hours the bus stops and people get on and off every ten minutes.
7:15 p.m. The bus makes a “fifteen minute” stop for food and we get off to use the bathroom.
7:45 p.m. still waiting for the bus driver, Hayden has the inclination that we should pray for a young woman on the bus who is missing a leg. We go over to her and after a little broken Spanish, she lets us pray. We load up the bus again and hit the road.
10:00 p.m. Finally we arrive in Puerto Barrios! Paul, our ministry host, meets us at McDonalds and we load our bags into an SUV, then the 13 of us hop in the back of a panel van and drive a few blocks to Casa Verde.
10:10 p.m. We made it! Paul’s wife Hilda is waiting for us with a savory dinner of spaghetti and corn tortillas.
