We've Arrived

What a day! After traveling for over 14 hours we are exhausted and very happy to have a roof over our head, even of it isn't the roof we expected! Of course traveling never goes exactly as planned;) I had arranged for a shuttle to pick us up at 5pm, when our flight landed. We were told the driver would be waiting with a sign with our names..perfect:) Well, we walked out of the airport to see about 20 drivers with signs, but none for us. I figured he was just running late, nothing to worry about. 10, 15, 20 minutes went by, but no sign of the driver. I decided to ask a fellow standing by us if he knew where we could find a phone. He graciously lends us his and calls the lodge on our behalf. " The driver is running late" he tells us "but he'll be here soon". We thank him and he leaves, while we continue to wait another 15, 20 minutes...and we're starting to worry. After all, it's getting dark and we were told that traveling after dark in Guatemala city is not a good situation for a tourist to be in. Just as we're discussing our precarious situation, David ( the gentleman who lent us his phone) runs up to us and says " the shuttle's not coming, the driver can't make it before dark so he's turned around". Now we're feeling some panic. David says "you do not want to be in Guatemala city for any amount of time, so you're gonna need to get to Antigua tonight. Luckily David spoke perfect English and Spanish and was able to get a taxi driver to drive us to Antigua, he then called our lodge and told them to meet us at a cafe in Antigua. (And if you're wondering why David was still at the airport to be able to communicate this pertinent information to us it's because he was having car trouble (so lucky for us!!) ). He wished us well, gave us his phone number and asked us to call him when we arrived to ensure we reached our destination safely. So we embarked on our almost 2 hour taxi ride, where we sat in complete silence just praying that this driver would bring us to where we expected ( I think we'd read too many traveling horror stories!) but, as promised, the driver brought us to the cafe in Antigua and we were thanking God for getting us there safely. We look around the cafe for the driver who was arranged to bring us to the lodge, but there are only two people in the cafe.. and no driver. This time we wait for about half an hour, get some much needed food, and decide that we should just find a hostel in the city of Antigua as we are clearly not going to make it to the lodge tonight. So we are safe in Antigua and will be heading to the lodge tomorrow:) Ps. David called the lodge to check on us when he hadn't heard back from us! It was amazing to meet such a caring and considerate person right at the start! Such a blessing!!