Air France and Japan Airlines

I had a delightful four days in Guatemala for the annual Air France Agents’ Meeting. At the end of that conference, I flew on to Mexico City to spend a day at the regional offices of Japan Airlines to investigate becoming their agent for Belize.

Air France Agent’s Meeting

My departure was precipitous. Two days before my flight to Guatemala, I was told that I must leave the next day and spend the night in Guatemala because my TACA flight arrived too late for the bus taking the conferees to Lago Atitlán.

The Immigration officer in Guatemala City was delighted to be the first to stamp my new passport. Still, he sent me back to another office to get a tourist card for us$5.00 before he would enter me into the country. According to my official airlines manual, U.S. Citizens need only a valid passport not a visa or tourist card. So much for that. It’s a good source of painless revenue for Guatemala.

Javier from the Guatemala office of Air France met me and delivered me to the Princess Hotel. It is a delightful small hotel just off La Reforma on the edge of the Zona Rosa tourist district.

I looked forward to most of the next day by myself, either to shop for gifts or to lounge in my room. At 9:30 am, Rosario from the Honduras Air France office called to say that she was in the lobby and to ask if she might bring her luggage to my room for safety. Rosario has been a special friend since we bunked together, under unspoken protest, the first night of the Costa Rico conference a couple of years ago when the hotel was short a room. Our only problem is that Rosario speaks no English and my Spanish is not fluent.

Rosario arrived exhausted, so we stretched out on my two beds and caught up with each other in reasonably comfortable conversation. An hour later another call. The mother-daughter managers of the Nicaraguan Air France arrived to take advantage of the security of my hotel room. They, too, spoke no English.

We had a pleasant lunch together, then all retired to my small room to wait for time to go back to the airport to meet the Air France bus to Lago Atitlán. I knew Rosario was tired so suggested she stretch out on one of the beds and take a nap. We ended with four females stretched out on two double beds. The three slept; I continued with the excellent book I had planned to spend the entire day reading.

 

The contingent from Mexico arrived on flights thirty minutes apart. We waited. Finally boarding the bus, I took the vacant front seat on the left with its broad view straight ahead over the bus driver’s shoulder as well as from the window alongside me. Gabriela Anaya, the delightful young woman from the Mexico City office with whom I have constant fax contact about reservations and fares, joined me.

The drive up into the mountains to Lago Atitlán was more thrilling than scenic. As we set out, guard vehicles fell into place, one behind, one in front of the bus. They were small pick-ups with two men inside and two guards with automatic weapons perched in the back. I was by no means the only one slightly unnerved by this verification of danger on Guatemalan highways. For some reason I never understood, the driver pulled off the road periodically and let the guard trucks swap stations.

The first part of the trip was beautiful. As dusk came, so did the clouds. We wound our way up into the mountains and the clouds came down to meet us. Soon nothing was visible but the white lines scoring the center and outer limits of the highway. The bus slowed to a speed of about one kilometer per hour. When thicker cloud obscured all but fleeting glimpses of the life-saving white lines on center and outer limits of the highway, the driver slowed to one inch per hour. Fortunately, these moments were few. Dips into valleys brought brief relief.

I considered moving to the back of the bus, where I would be free of my self-assumed obligation to drive the bus from behind the driver’s back. Meanwhile, my colleagues were enjoying the drinks and sandwiches thoughtfully provided for the trip. Before I could make a decision, we were in Sololá and turned toward the lake. Our driver received enthusiastic applause as we emerged from the fog and he maneuvered his long vehicle through turns that threatened to take corner buildings with us.

We twisted our way down through the little village of Panajachel to our pleasant hotel. My balcony overlooked a broad terrace and the swimming pool. I was disappointed not to see the lake. Next morning when I opened the curtains, I gasped at the glorious view beyond the hotel grounds that I had been unable to see in the dark. Across Lago Atitlán stood a picture-perfect volcano, its cone touched by clouds golden in the early light. To each side were mountains and more volcanoes. I hastily made my coffee and returned to my balcony, drinking in the panorama as I sipped the hot beverage.

 

What do you say about a sales meeting? First, these always are conducted in Spanish. I follow fairly easily because I know the subject matter. By tradition I am seated next to the agent from Panama, Tom Kenna, one of my favorite young friends. He explains anything I miss.

Again, there was spontaneous applause when the bar graph of Belize sales went up on the screen. For the second year in a row, we doubled our sales.

The first day’s meeting ended in time for a 2 o’clock lunch buffet. We dashed to our rooms to change into casual clothes and regathered to board a large two-deck boat for a tour of Lago Atitlán. Several of us were worried about getting back to the hotel in time to change for the cocktail party scheduled at the home of the Guatemalan agent. No one had bothered to explain that the boat ride would end at Pepe’s house for the party, so slacks and sweaters were the order of the day.

Afternoons at Atitlán always were dark and threatening, though it did not rain. The clouds were settling down over the mountains as we passed them in the boat, but the view still was gorgeous. Two guitarists played and sang as we cruised. Suddenly, a splendid tenor voice burst forth accompanying them. Our finance manager, Raúl Soto, is a serious voice student. Judging by the arias he sang, he could have a second career if he wanted one.

 

The boat pulled up at Pepe’s dock. A sheer, jagged rock wall rose some fifty feet above us on a point of land jutting into the lake. Gray stone steps carved irregularly into the rock led us in an unsteady, winding way up and up and up to the broad terrace of a spectacular weekend home. I was reminded of the handsome lodge on the rim of Ngorongoro.

The house is built around and amid the rocks. A massive outcrop forms the fireplace and centerpiece of the large living room. To one side, stone steps lead upstairs alongside a rough rock wall with plants growing from crevices. At the head of the stairs, a huge tree twists out of the rock, leafs out into the passageway, and disappears through the roof.

One of Pepe’s three delightful almost-grown children led me to a bedroom to leave my coat. To my surprise, the long room with its rock wall at one end held five beds. Later when Irena, Pepe’s beautiful wife, led me on a tour of the house, I found a similar room above it on the second floor. When I questioned her about the dormitories, she laughed that their children liked to invite friends to spend weekends with them. The “cottage” was approximately three times the size of my house.

Every hallway ended in large glass doors leading out to a small rock garden or to stone steps to another level. The promontory itself, seen from the wide veranda across the front of the house, was a two-level lawn contained by hedges and set here and there with rocks from under which wild flowers sprouted.

The party was lavish but relaxed. Near the end, a sing-along developed with the guitarists playing well-known Spanish songs and Raúl leading the group with his magnificent voice.

The moment I dreaded arrived. We had to go back down those tricky, steep rock steps in the dark. The lights along the way were too few and incapable of lighting the stairs adequately. Fortunately, “My Protector” Tom took me in hand. He stood on the step below me, put one hand behind his back and commanded that I grasp it while my other hand rested on his shoulder. Step by slow step we made our way down. Pepe said next morning that he had told Irena that he was sure Tom was going to kill me because he had enjoyed the flow of drinks with notable gusto. The thought crossed my mind, too, but Tom was perfectly steady throughout the scary descent.

 

Things ran very late the second day of the conference. Half of the meetings with the individual agents had to be postponed until after lunch. I had time to dash out for some brief shopping before my own session, the last of the day.

I returned to my room, tired from two days of Spanish, and brewed a cup of coffee. Without thinking, I took off my suit and hung it in the closet. I considered putting on my robe, but realized that my balcony was very exposed. Instead, I pulled a soft multicolor skirt on over my blouse, added a dollop of revivifying Scotch to my steaming coffee, and settled myself on my balcony looking out over the mountains and lake.

Moments later, I heard my name called. Looking upward, I found several of my young friends grinning down at me from the rooftop terrace above me. Tom commented on how glamorous I looked. We chatted for a few moments, while I thanked my stars at having dressed appropriately.

As I sat there, the mountains receded, one behind the other, in increasingly grayed deep greens. It was impossible to tell whether the faint shapes on the far side of the lake were low clouds or remembered volcanoes.

 

At the end of our 2-1/2 day conference, everyone agreed it was the best meeting ever. We enjoyed having the Mexican agents invited along with the Central American agents for the first time. The hotel was lovely; food and service, exceptional. We all were sorry to hear that our regional director of the past four years is being transferred to Spain.

 

The final morning, about half of the delegates returned to their countries and the rest of us went on to Antigua for a last night. The bus ride out of the mountains was glorious in bright sunshine. We had at least thirty minutes of one spectacular view of the lake after another as we wound up the mountains surrounding it.

We drove through typical small mountain towns where dirt roads descended sharply from brick-paved main streets. Low buildings had stained tile or rusting galvanized roofs. In the higher elevations, each little adobe house had its small neat plot of corn alongside it. A village church even had a corn field for its front yard. In a cemetery on a hill across a valley, the white of the crypts was relieved by surprising large splashes of blue and green and aqua.

Terraces as narrow as steps rose steeply up mountainsides. New- growth woods were small or large patches through the hills where lumbering or milpa farming had destroyed forests through the centuries.

We passed a steady succession of women with babies on their backs and toddlers in tow, all dressed in traditional multicolor fabrics that the women probably had woven themselves at home. Indians walked on the narrow paths alongside the highway, bowed down with heavy loads, or rested, displaying handcrafts in the futile hope that a passing car of tourists would stop to buy.

In Guatemala, unlike Puerto Rico, the varied greens were unbroken by flowering trees. The only color was the sudden lavish magenta of bougainvillea in an occasional tiny walled yard.

The Hotel Santo Domingo in Antigua is a converted former monastery. The well-traveled Guatemalan Air France agent, Pepe, told me he considered it one of the most attractive hotels in the world. It is a great, sprawling maze of courts, passageways, patios, grottoes. At 5:00 pm, small courtesy offerings of coffee and cookies appeared in nooks at the ends of corridors. At night, long lines of candles outlined stone passageways.

Our group sought out what were said to be the finest restaurants for lunch and dinner. I am willing to believe we were successful.

Discussions with Japan Airlines

Next morning, I had to leave for Mexico City while the rest of the group took a tour to Chichicastenango to see the market and the pagan/Christian church services. I was sorry to miss the tour, but ready to be alone and to shift gears from French to Japanese.

On the Monday morning, I was at Japan Airlines just before my designated hour of 9:00 am. Manuel Hernández, who had been in Belize for two days the week before, met me. The general manager, Mr. Shimizu, was gracious and easy to talk with. We had perhaps fifteen minutes together so that he could look me over. From then on, it was a succession of delightful people who were warmly welcoming as they explained the Japan Airlines system for accounts, reservations, ticketing, etc.

Manuel took me to a charming nearby Japanese restaurant for lunch. When I asked him to order for me, he suggested four different things for us to share. I don’t know what they were, but hope I can find them again. Although I asked for a fork in case I needed to revert to Occidental type, I found I could manage quite adequately with my chopsticks. Manuel was delighted.

Manuel insisted on walking me back to my hotel at the end of a long, stimulating day. He invited me to have dinner with him, but accepted my regretful explanation that I had a long week and a strenuous day and thought it was time to retire to my hotel room.

The wheels are turning in their methodical Japanese way to have us appointed as GSA (General Sales Agent) for Japan Airlines. I can tell that working with the Japanese will be far different from working with the French. Still, this is a fine step forward for our little business and I am excited about it.

What’s that silly word “retire” that friends keep tossing at me?