(updated)

The original plan, in order to get us to Guatemala by the cheapest route possible, was to get a connecting flight from LA to North Carolina, and then onwards to Guatemala. This should only have taken around 8 hours and saved us over 200 dollars, so we thought the inconvenience was worth it.

However.... owing to another rude hostel owner who couldnt be bothered to inform us on the best way to get to a major airport we rode the buses around the fun parts of LA (Inglewood anyone?!) to make what should have been a pretty short journey. It took 2 and half hours, meaning we had 55 minutes to board our flight. No big deal. Upon approaching the woman behind the US airways desk (Never, ever use them!) we had to stand and wait for at least 20 minutes whilst she silently tapped away with a concerned look on her face; very reminiscent of the "computer says no" little britain character. She asked whether perhaps her fantastic company had informed us that they no longer flew to Guatemala. No they had not. It seems that US airways operate an "ignorance is bliss" policy when it comes to cancelled or discontinued flights, a concept that didnt make us all too happy. But we had both watched our fair sharee of student daytime television, and if airport teaches you one thing its that shouting at bimbo stewardesses only results in getting tackled to the ground by men with handlebar moustaches. So we politely asked ´what the **** are we supposed to do now then?!´ - her answer being that we had to fly to North Carolina as planned (4 hour flight, plus 2 hr time diff = arrive at 6am local time). Then get a plane to Dallas, texas (7.30am, three hour flight, minus one hour time difference). Then WAIT FOR NINE HOURS IN TEXAS, and finally proceed with a different airline to Guatemala City, arriving in the dead of night - and when the lonely planet strongly advises against this when usually it downplays any danger we felt rather worried.

Suffice it to say that the wait wasnt fun. We stupidly beleived that when a person writes 20 dollars per person on three separate meal vouchers that it means twenty dollars per person for three meals. we found out the hard way after ordering the most expensive breakfast we could find that it in fact did not mean that, but meant something entirely different, something that wasnt mentioned to us at all, that in fact we only had five dollars a person. Thanks again US airways.

Anyway, after the longest clockwatch in history it did finally become time to go to Guatemala, we made it unscathed, and although after almost 24 hours of travelling we both felt pretty unprepared and nervous about entering a country at polar opposites to the one we had just flown out of, it all went ok. We found a shuttle and made it to El Hostal literally just as they were about to close the doors for the night. Its bloody lovely.

- by the way, in LA we just checked out Hollywood for a day, its rather less exciting than the television has you believe, but we did watch a film in the Chinese Theatre that all the Hollywood premieres takes place in so that was rather exciting. The second day we went to Universal Studios, we wanted our last day in America to go out with a bang and be as touristy as possible. It was definetely worth the (very-expensive-but-less-so-than-disneyland) ticket price, and we had a fun filled day meeting shrek, going on a studio tour to film and tv sets, getting scared witless on the rides, meeting shrek, and generally pretending to be ten years old