Day of Drama

After spending a few days relaxing in Antigua, we packed-up our bikes, said good-bye to the hosts of the hotel and a couple we met from Costa Rica, Corne & Gabriela who then walked us out to our bikes to say farewell and take photo's of us riding off, Marco & Stan left, I got caught in traffic, lots of one way roads, so I took the one we used on a number of times to leave Antigua, stopped to fill up the bike, moved off to were I thought the guys were, only to find nobody waiting. Well my first mistake. "Golden Rule " of biking if lost close to starting point return to it, which I didn't. Not thinking, I rode further out, to the start of the double high-way, waited again, then went still further out, to no avails, then thought maybe I should ride still further out to the start of the high-way which I thought was the way to Mexico, arrived at turn-off, took it with-out looking to closely, called "Mixco" only to find I had ridden into a  very doggy area, well with-in no time at all I had a police escort, which showed me the way out.Returned again to start of double high-way and waited again. After a few hours wasted waiting, I think I panicked, and decided to ride on on my own "Wrong Decision " Stan & Marco  had return to the hotel and waited, waited & waited, then   found Corne & Gabriela, who then took the photo of me to the local police station and reported me missing.
Meanwhile I rode on towards Guatemala  City, asked a guy in a car the way out and he said follow me, which I did, found road out and rode on it for about 30km's,  came down a hill to find a traffic jam of trucks and buses, did the normal story of zig-zigging between them and worked my way to the front, only to find a huge protest in progress, burning tyres and hundreds of police & army guys moving the protesters away, got through and carried on towards the Mexican border, when I arrived I was able to contact Stan and heard what a huge mistake I had made. They had waited until 1pm and then also decide to move on to the border. While I was riding, to think of it now I recall a few police officers giving me a second look but nobody stopped me.