![The author’s airplane sits on the grass near the ancient temple site of Tikal in Guatemala. [Credit: Peter Garrison]](https://tbh.express/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/My-Own-Private-GPS-scaled.jpg "My Own Private GPS")
The runway at the ancient temple site of Tikal in Guatemala was no more than a wide place on a dirt road. My airplane, less than a year old, was an alien being beside it, glowing against the shades of the forest and the faces of the inhabitants like a marble statue freshly sunken to the bottom of the sea.
From Tikal it was to be an easy trip south to Guatemala City. But we needed fuel, and for that we stopped nearby at Flores. The airport, it turned out, was out of fuel. By the time we had arranged to buy some—just enough—from a private forestry firm it was midafternoon. Impatient, we took off without checking the weather, a cumbersome process those days.
