I’m on my way to Guatemala. By plane! Violating my self-set goal of not using airplanes to advance my itenerary. But well, I had to. Already a month ago, I had decided to not cross the Mexican border by bus for safety concerns. To be able to re-enter the US a second time in April, I had bought a one-way ticket from Los Angeles to Mexico city. But as always my plans changed again and I stayed in San Francisco for a little longer. Eventually I had to fly from there directly to Guatemala skipping Mexico altogether to meet Marissa, my long-term couchsurfing friend (she surfed mine, I surfed her’s). Marissa is going to accompany me for the next three weeks in Guatemala. Finally, I got a temporary travel companion again. She also a Spanish teacher. So, there is a slight chance that poco a poco I might pick up a bit of Spanish along the way…

Finally… Guatemala!

I hope I won’t have to take more flights along the way. Somehow I always seem to run into complications. While I made it to the San Francisco International Airport in time, I did run into a major problem during check-in. The Delta employee at the counter realized that I have a one-way ticket to Guatemala (that’s right, I am not returning to the U.S.A.) and told me she had to check if that’s okay. I tried to explain to her that I had flown one-way into Central America before and I am sure the Guatemalan immigration will give me no headaches for the fact that I don’t have a ticket out of Guatemala. But she mumbled something about new airline regulations, took my passport and disappeared for a good 30 min. She then came back and said that she made a few phone calls and that I do need either a return ticket to the U.S. or to my home country Germany. And that she can’t let me on that flight. I could not believe that this could possibly necessary to have and asked her to check again. She disappeared with my passport again for another 15 min. The boarding of my flight was just about to begin and I hadn’t even passed security. When she finally returned it turned out that she had misinterpreted one of the regulations. All the fuss was baseless. I was more relieved than annoyed and moved onto the security check. I had to pass one of those new porno scanners that I am not very fond of. While TSA got to see what’s underneath my clothes they did fail to identify those nail scissors that I accidentally left in my hand luggage. The whole thing is just a farce…