We slept poorly, as Alli started to get bad stomach cramps in the middle of the night. Also, I kept waking up in a panic because right as I was about to fall asleep, a spider had fallen into the bed. I was on guard all night long against bug paratroopers.
The next morning, we missed the sunrise at Temple IV. I was awake, but Alli was too sick to move and I was afraid to walk there on my own. However, I did hear the famous call of the howler monkeys and set out that morning to capture them on film. I followed the sounds to their source, a tall tree near the swimming pool. The most I could see of the monkeys was the shaking of tree branches.
Later that day, we did get our park fees refunded due to our vouchers, so we visited the Temple of the Inscriptions, revisited the necropolis, and shop at the marketplace. I ended up with a very cool statue of a nursing Mayan woman and a coatamundi t-shirt. Alli bargains for a table runner and a mask.
Then we settled in with our books in the hotel lobby for a Really Long Wait. We waited. And waited. And waited. Our driver was supposed to come at 2pm, and didn't show up til 4pm to pick us up. When he does finally arrive, he has to track down two other people he is supposed to pick up.
We found them wandering the markets, nowhere near the pickup point. They seem drunk already, or perhaps just stupid. These two other people are like two biggest rednecks I've seen in real life. Bad teeth, shaggy hair, plaid shirts. Of course, they were American. The real thing--the reason why people look down on Americans. In their midwestern accents, they sat at the back of the van talking about the country, the people, the pyramids. They didn't know anything that they were talking about. They were condescending to and about the locals. And of course, they didn't bother to talk to us.
When we got back to the border, it was already dark. We had to cross it on our own, and we were supposed to meet the driver on the other side, just as we had done the day before. Again, we wait and we wait, all the while surrounded by people offering us rides and moneychanging. The sun has gone down; some of the men we pass think that means it's time to start hitting on us.
It had been quite some time that we were standing on the Belizean side of the border. No sign yet of our driver or the two rednecks. We start to wonder if the idiots have messed up their documentation. Eventually our driver comes through and says "I found them. They were in a bar over on the Guatemalan side. They asked if I would wait an hour for them. I told them no way, because I was paid to drive you two to San Ignacio as well--it's unfair to let you wait."
Would you believe they never mentioned it to us? They never said that they were going to attempt to abandon us in a border town in a third-world country while they put back some beers. Well, we left them there in Guatemala and our driver took us back to our hotel. We were exhausted, dirty, and Alli's sick, but we've seen the best Mayan pyramids in the world.