I really enjoyed my trip to Guatemala but was disappointed by the cache situation in Guatemala City. There was only one cache in the most sprawling city in all of Central America. The cache record showed a number of smileys for those who have looked for the cache, including the most recent cachers to visit. Since I had to overnight in the city on my way back to Quito, Ecuador I decided to get up the next morning and take a taxi downtown. Downtown Guatemala City reminds me of parts of Quito. It is an urban center and somewhat dirty. Short of finding this cache there wasn't much to draw me to this area. I arrived at the GC to find that the office staff of the Art Exhibit/Furniture Company were coming in later. I went to the central plaza and took a picture of the main cathedral and messed around the souvenir stands for a while. When I returned the secretary who was managing the cache told me that someone on staff had removed the cache. Oh no, removed but not temporarily archived. The cache had been on a terrace open to the sun. Normally there are many tall potted plans arranged around the terrace and the cache was apparently in one of these. Because of the upcoming holiday season the cache maintainers had closed the exhibition and moved the plants inside. The secretary had no idea where the workers had stored the cache. She allowed me to look through the potted plants, now lined up inside in the hallway, but there was no cache. She was almost certain that someone had stored it somewhere. After several phone calls she had to give up and so did I. Disappointed, I returned to my hotel and soon left for the airport to catch my flight home. Thankfully the cache was archived after my post. I wish this had been done earlier. It could have saved the waste of time, taxi money and energy. This is a good lesson for me too. I own a few caches. Sometimes the tendency when you've had several DNFs in a row is to leave the cache up and see if you get a few more DNFs before checking it out or archiving it. Maybe the time to archive is sooner than later in order to help out the next guy. TFTC and the lesson.
1 comment:
That stinks. Especially being it was the only one around. But, at least they archived it finally.
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