Return to the Rio
The nights were drawing in back home in Anglesey and the heating was back on, a sure sign that it was time to learn from the geese and fly south - or in our case Southwest. Our experience with Iberia Airlines was not good last spring with the need to deplane in El Salvador with all our onboard stuff, go through security only to get straight back on board - then they left one of our bags in Madrid which BA got back for is 3 days later. This time we put AirTags in the bags and sure enough I was sat on the plane seeing 3 bags loaded and the other going round on the terminal carousel instead of being transferred. Of course it was the one that contained our essential propellor, Its a fairly complex 4 blade feathering prop and we took it home for servicing by the manufacturer. We then got the inevitable text telling us that the bag was still in Madrid and would be on the plane the following day. An hour in the line of other passengers one bag down and filling of forms and we were told it would be couriered to us inside 48 hours. the following day (Friday they tell us by WhatsApp that the couriers don’t pick up at weekend (er! its Friday folks) that there is a holiday next week and so it will be at least 4 days so they are putting it on a plane to Puerto Barrios for us to collect. PB is slightly better than Guatemala City (5-6 hour drive) but nonetheless is a 4 hour round trip in a $70 taxi or all day on a local bus.. with no alternative 3 days after we should have fitted the prop and the day we were due to launch we set up. Now I don’t know what we expected but Puerto Barrios airport is like a scene from a Vietnam movie. Its basically a military jungle strip with a few private planes and a daily flight from the city. The gate is manned by a dozen heavily armed marines and the access road is otherwise known as the runway. Eventually they decided we weren’t a threat and let us in only to find the TAG airline office closed for the day.. I could see the bag but the airport manager (the only person there other than armed security said to come back tomorrow. I drew myself up to my full 5”10” puffed out my chest and explained that wasn’t going to happen so he called someone at TAG and aftercare form filling photos of passports, missing case form and luggage TAGS they finally relented and an hour later we went back down the runway and through the “security” for the 2 hour drive back to the Rio.
It took less than an hour the following day to fit the prop and we were ready to launch - except it was a holiday and the rainy season decided on one last hurrah! Torrential tropical rain that has been with us for a week now raising the lake level by 3 feet and flooding parts of the town. So finally, 3 days late we saw Seminole Wind gently lowered into the water and we headed across the lake to our second home in Guatemala - Tijax Marina.
Iberia Airlines are no longer on our Christmas Card list.