The day we left Guatemala I almost slept late. Instead of waking up at 4:00-something their time, I woke up at 5:30ish. Then I went back to sleep and got up at about 6:30 (I think).
After I finished getting ready, Jillian and I went in search of Heather (who'd left the room earlier). We found her in the breakfast room having ordered breakfast already. We joined her and not long after, Hugh joined us as well. We got to talking about the trip and the conversations from the previous night.
Eventually it was time to head back to the rooms and finishing getting ready to go. We gathered all of our stuff together and headed out to the front of the hotel. The guys loaded up all the bags. While they did that I took some photos for people. Once all of the luggage was loaded we had to go in search of a good place to take a group photo cause we couldn't leave until we had.
We finally found a nice spot in the under a trellis that had leafy vines growing over it, so I turned my camera to full auto and handed it to Daniel so he could get the photo. He, being him, got a little camera happy and took a bunch of photos of us getting into position for the official photo. He also decided to pretend to be a paparazzo and took funny-angled pictures of Stacy. Eventually we did get a decent picture.
Once the pictures were taken it was time to drive to the airport.
The drive was subdued. We all talked and joked, but I think everyone was tired and a little sad to be leaving. It had been a great week and it's always hard to leave those behind.
We pulled up to the airport and Daniel and Hugh quickly pulled all our bags down. Then it was time for the goodbyes. After saying goodbye to Brandi, Daniel, Nancy, and the kids, (which wasn't fun at all), we all headed into the airport to check in for our flight.
Check in took a while since there was this big group in front of us and at first only one person was checking people in at the United counter. Eventually we got through the line, but we also found out that our flight had been delayed (deja vu anyone?). We weren't thrilled about this, but since our layover in Houston was supposed to be longer, we thought we'd be okay.
After check in, we headed through several security checkpoints before finally getting to our gate and sat there for a while. Eventually a woman started speaking over the PA and announced that our flight had been delayed again. At this point, we all knew we'd be in trouble and were probably going to miss our connection. No one was particularly happy, but we chose to hope that we might make it again.
Finally, an hour and 45 minutes after we were supposed to leave, we flew out of Guatemala City. The flight itself, like all the others, was uneventful. The same cannot be said about the trip through Houston.
After taking 20 minutes to get off the plane, we hurried to immigration/customs and had to get into a huge line to get our passports scanned. After getting that done we all ran down to baggage claim so we could get our bags and go through customs. John and Will were ahead of us at this point, so they got there first and Will wound up talking to a United person. He found out that all of us had already been bumped to new flights since there was no way to make our original flight. Hugh and Alex had been put on one that was leaving at 7:00 p.m. while everyone else had been bumped to one that didn't leave until the next morning. We really weren't happy about this, but we weren't sure anything could be done. John and Will decided to grab their bags and try to get through the last customs cehckpoint and security as fast as possible and see if they could get anything done for us.
The rest of us followed a few minutes later (maybe 10 or 20). After we got our bags checked again, we wound up having to stand in one line to wait to get moved to another line to go through security. We stood there for a at least ten minutes before going up the stairs and standing in the security line for another 20 minutes. When we got to the second line, we could still see Will, John, and Hugh in line ahead of us.
They eventually got through and so did we about 20 minutes behind them. We hoped they were on their way to the gate to see what they could do to get us on a plane that night. After we got through security, we hopped on the train to get to the other terminal (it was back in the same terminal we'd flown into when coming from St. Louis a week earlier).
We finally made it to our gate about an hour and 40 minutes after we deplaned. Our original flight had long since left, but we found out that all the other flights had been delayed, so there was a chance of some of us still getting home that night.
We got to the gate to find John and Will talking to a United person about what our options were. She did some computer magic and said she would help us as much as possible. Hugh decided to keep his flight, as did Alex. Thanks to some work by the United person, Dominic and Stacy also got on the flight with Alex, in the same row even. We all cheered for that because we all wanted them to be able to get home together.
After that, the United person managed to find another seat and Jillian received that ticket. That was good because her parents were leaving the next day and if she didn't get home that night, she'd miss seeing them.
There weren't any seats left, so the rest of us were put on standby for the flight that everyone else was on. We had Heather go first, then me, then Will, then John. Once that was done, we just had to wait and see.
We all took seats at the gate and sort of relaxed. Will and John came up with a plan for the evening for those, if any, who did not make the flight that night. Whomever didn't make it on the plane would go out to dinner at a Mexican restaurant John and Will knew and then go to the hotel. Then they'd wake up super early so they could get to the airport in time to successfully navigate the security. Heather and I agreed to the plan.
Finally it was time to board. We all said goodbye to everyone who was on the flight as they boarded. Then we waited. After everyone was boarded there was a final boarding call. Then it was time for standby passengers. There were three seats open. So Heather, me, and Will had seats. But Will decided that he wanted to stay with his dad instead. So Heather and I boarded the plane and John and Will stayed behind to come home the next morning.
The rest of the trip wasn't too spectacular or interesting. Although, we did get stuck on the tarmac for a bit because we somehow got in early and there were a lot of flights for some reason. Eventually we deplaned, met up with family, and grabbed our bags.
Finally, at 10:15 that night, we all said our goodbyes and headed to our own homes. Our mission trip to Guatemala was finally over.
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