The past six days have been a whirlwind of activity and change in our life. We cruised into Abbeville on Thursday night and barely stopped to breathe between then and when we left for Atlanta on Sunday morning. The wedding weekend was a blessing for us… we were overjoyed to celebrate in the marriage of two wonderful people while getting to spend quality time with family and old friends. We also got to (mostly) watch our first football game this fall—Auburn vs. Florida. War Eagle! We packed up and tied up other loose ends while cheering on the Tigers.
On Sunday, Sarah and Patrick drove us to Atlanta to our friend Scott’s house, where we would spend two nights and loads of time cleaning and packing down our bikes. It seems that process does not get faster with practice. Scott and his girlfriend Kristen were so good to us, making sure we had everything we needed and even running us around to do errands since we didn’t have a car. We finally made it in bed Monday night around midnight, only to wake up at 4 a.m. for our 7 a.m. flight… again, props to Scott, as he unselfishly woke up and drove us to the airport at this ridiculous hour!
We got completely ripped off on baggage fees, as we knew we would. Our bikes cost $75 each (which actually isn’t ridiculous), but our (HUGE) duffel bag cost $93! Yikes! We thought it would be $50, but it turns out the $50 oversize charge was in addition to the $43 it cost to even check a bag on an international flight. So, after $243 at the check-in counter, we were feeling a little less awesome about how cheap the actual plane tickets were to get us to Guatemala. But it’s not like we could leave our bikes or gear at home… we’re gonna need those!
The reality of this next leg of our journey hit me when we were sitting in the Ft. Lauderdale airport and I called to cancel our cell phone. After hanging up with the Verizon representative, I almost shed a tear realizing that my last “simple” connection to family and friends had been cut off. No more quick “catch up” phone conversations or text messages. Sure, we’re going to get a phone to use here for emergencies, but canceling a cell phone number I’d had for eight years was significant.
All our flights were on time and we were picked up in the Guatemala City airport by a representative of Guatemalensis Spanish School. Raquel strapped our bikes on top of her car. (This made me very nervous with the small rope, the rain on the cardboard, and the unknown traffic conditions in Guatemala City, but we didn’t have any options!) She also helped us purchase our bus tickets and get situated for our trip to Xela (pronounced Shay-lah). After about a 3.5 hour bus drive, we arrived in Xela, where the school’s director picked us up with all our gear. We came to our host home and settled in with a wonderful family—Jorge, Rosa, Jorge Jr., Andre and Dani. We started class this morning! We’ll give you more details soon on our life here in Xela with this family and how school is going and what we’re doing in our free time. But for now, we’ve arrived safely after a crazy few days and are excited about this new season in our journey!

Here is the view from right outside our room at our host family's house! So far so good!