November 6th.

We’ve made it to Guatemala, finally. We arrived on November 4th at around 6pm, and went straight to the school “La Democracia” to get set up with our family and have a well-needed rest. If you’re the perceptive type, you may be wondering why we arrived in Guatemala on November 4th when the last message was on November 2nd saying goodbye to Mexico. Well let me explain.

We left Arrigia fairly early in the morning, not having to repack the van was quite helpful in speeding up the morning rituals, and after a couple showers (cold) and dressing the babies we were off. We stopped to get gas, a couple tacos from a roadside stand and we hit the road towards Tapachula, where we planned to do our border crossing into Guatemala. It was a fairly simple drive, some good roads, and some bad, still a lot of speed bumps. As we were approaching Tapachula, around 70km outside of the town, about 5 guys wearing very unofficial badges waved us down. In broken English they tried to explain that we needed to take one of them to the border in Guatemala to help with our crossing. We were warned about these helpers in a few of our books, which said to pick one and let them guide you through the border crossing process. We had planned on picking one, but there was know way we were going to cram him into the van for 70km, when we were quite certain there would be plenty more at the border. We weren’t disappointed, well actually we were but more on that in a bit.

So we pull into Tapachula where we had decided to do a few last minute things before crossing into Guatemala. We needed to stop at a bank to take out some cash for the border crossing and hopefully get some Quetzales (Guatemalan currency). We got lost in the city, and decided to just get some money when we entered Guatemala. Our first bad idea. So we filled up with gas and headed toward the small border town of Talisman, about 11km’s away. As we approached the border there were more kids with badges telling us to stop, we had learned our lesson and kept on driving. Finally one guy approached the van and looked fairly honest, so I told him to hop on the back and we’d go to the border. We had our helper, sort of. Anyways, we pulled up to the border and the van was surrounded by at least 15 guys, all trying to help in some way. There were guys trying to sell us Quetzales, guys trying to tell us where to go, it was extremely confusing. Especially between the broken English and Spanish. I finally got out of the van and went to the “Aduana” (immigration) with our passports, the temporary vehicle permit and our Mexican tourist visas. First stop was to hand in our tourist visas and get the Mexican Exit stamp. The guy doing that job only took my passport and visa and gave the passport a stamp and on I went. Now to try and find where I could cancel our vehicle permit, necessary to do if you want to enter Mexico with any vehicle ever again. No one seemed to know what to do with it. Until finally I talked to one lady and she said that I needed to back into town and find the Banjercito to cancel it. She explained the directions in Spanish and drew me a very basic map. Keep track everyone, this is map #1. So after shooing everyone away from the van we headed back to Tapachula to find the Banjercito. Within 30 minutes we were lost and stopped at a little convenience store to get our bearing and ask for more directions. The girls were also starving at this point; stupid us spent all our Pesos because we thought we wouldn’t need them. We scrounged up enough for a bag of chips and Shona went to talk to one of the cab drivers for directions. This is where we secured Map # 2.

After about 10 minutes of map drawing and conversation we were on our way once again. Six sets of lights, a right turn at an Italian coffee house, two more sets of lights and we were there. After about the 7th set of lights and no coffee house, we were lost in the midst of downtown Tapachula again. It was getting later in the afternoon, the sun was beating down and I was nearing the end of my Mexican driving rope. We took a few more turns and found a bank by chance, yes. Parking in the lot of an OXXO (Mexican equivalent of 7 Eleven, I got out of the van, ran into the OXXO tried to buy something to validate my parking in their lot, they didn’t take cards and I said I’d go to the bank and come back. With my parking space justified with a valid excuse, I ran across the busy narrow street to Bank # 1. Now I’ve spent many an hour of my life waiting in line-ups, but upon entering this bank I soon realized what it was like for my Mum to camp overnight for Rod Stewart tickets in the 80’s. Wow. My patience lasted all of 10 minutes without moving and I was running across the street to another bank. This one was a little more promising, no line-ups, friendly looking tellers; we may make it to Guatemala after all. I waited my turn, got called up to the teller and proudly held my vehicle import papers aloft. This gesture was greeted by one similar to that which I’m certain future inhabitants of this planet will have when they come across an automatic paper towel dispenser, I hope for their sake they don’t try and change the roll as it may decrease evolution 10 fold. Anyways I was in the wrong bank, it was specifically a Banjercito that needed to cancel these papers. Great. By this point it was 2:30pm and looking very doubtful that we would make it across the border. But for some reason, out of some deep-seated need for more humiliation and frustration, I asked for Map #3.

“Derecho, Derecho, Derecho!” Said the woman behind the counter while pointing her hand right. Now the funny thing about Spanish is that “Derecho” not only means straight, but right as well. I got from the hand gestures that she meant straight and off we went again, to first try and back out of our space onto a busy street, and then find this Banjercito that seemed more elusive than the Quetzal itself. We went straight, and straight and straight and we were about to throw in the towel when alas on our right a sign... BANJERCITO! Our hearts leapt with joy, our tired eyes awoke and we jumped out of the van, unpacked the girls and started to lock up when were approached by a security guard...

“Ustedes Usar Cajero Automatico?”

No we need to go into the bank and cancel this, and once again I held the stupid piece of paper up. The guard then proceeded to tell us that this branch closes at 3:00pm; it was now about 5 minutes after three. Here’s where I lost the plot. One more time, is there anywhere to get rid of this damn piece of paper. He gave us directions to one more bank and we started driving to it when we passed a Comfort Inn. It was about 3 minutes away from the bank; if I kept driving I don’t necessarily think that I would be here to write this. We pulled a U-Turn and checked in for the night. Internet, Pizza for dinner, a good rest followed by a continental breakfast then the Bank in the morning. If all went according to planned we could be in Xela by noon.

Which brings me to Map # 4. I left Shona and Eir at breakfast and took Freja for a walk to the Banjercito to finally cancel this stupid vehicle permit. I walked into the bank, there was no line-up and I went straight to the teller and handed over the blue piece of paper that has been the thorn in our side for the last 24 hours. You can imagine how much my heart sank when the lady behind the till said I needed to go to the Aduana Banjercito, just outside of town. Seriously, I think we had wasted a tank of gas by this point, both Shona and I had increased the amount of grey hairs on our head by 100% and we’d spent the last evening sleeping in a hotel across from the wrong bank. So Map #4 comes out. I brought the offending hand drawn illustration of Tapachula back to Shona and we packed up the van in a hurry, anticipating that we’d get lost again and headed off. I dropped the keys of and for one more clarification asked the hotel desk clerk where the Banjercito was. AHA! A real map with a highlighted route was handed to me. Yes! There was no way to fail this time. Full of confidence and zeal we headed towards the outskirts of town. A few wrong turns, and a couple close calls and we made it. It pains me to mention that we passed it the day before on our way into Tapachula. But water under the bridge I guess, or the many bridges that were scribbled onto scrap pieces of paper for us.

So it was one quick swoop, the permit was canceled, the agent took the sticker off our car and we were free from Mexico’s grasp. Almost. We hightailed it to a bank to change some money and headed for the border once again. Not ready to deal with the onslaught of “Helpers” that were about to bombard our vehicle; I took the first guy that approached the vehicle. Mistake. He jumped on the back and we were ready to cross the border.

First stop, getting our passports stamped. He whisked me out of the van and went to immigration. 30 Quetzales and we were all stamped and allowed to be in Guatemala for 90 days. Next stop, getting photocopies of our documents. I tried to tell him that I already had photocopies but he insisted to go over to this little shop and get it done. That is when alarm bells started going off. By this point I had an entourage of at least 9 guys following me around and I must say it was a little worrying. One person was trying to sell me Quetzales (the local currency), one was just asking for money and the others were just watching and occasionally laughing. My guard was up at this point and I just wanted to our documents back, get back to the van and continue the process. Our “Helper” told me that we would need to give him 650 Quetzales to import the vehicle in Guatemala. I insisted on going up to the office with him and getting receipts for all transactions. You could tell he was getting a little upset about this and would leave and come back 5 or 6 times while we were waiting in line to get our car fumigated, every time with a different friend wearing a fake uniform and insisting that we pay the 650 Quetzales. We had looked in a few of our books and in all of them it said that we should only have to pay 40 Quetzales for importing the vehicle. Then we saw a sign, which read something like... “All Immigration processes are free, don’t promote corruption”. Then I started to get really pissed off. It’s extremely hot in the van, the girls are sitting in a pool of sweat, we’re all hungry and this guy is trying to rip me off. I got out of the car myself, paid for the fumigation and went to the tourist information followed by 2 different helpers. The first guy had obviously realized I was pissed and pawned his friend off on me. Got the receipt to pay the bank for our permit, went to the bank and paid for the permit, all the while still being followed around. I gave the two guys 5 Quetzales each ($0.15) and basically told them to get lost. The one whose friend was initially helping us was demanding the $5 originally promised to his buddy. I basically told him to screw off and he listened.

We got our permit, sticker on the window and drove into Guatemala. It was about 2:30pm by this point and I was a little worried about driving at night. First stop we made was a gas station, filled up and went off. Now, if I thought Mexican roads were bad, I was wrong. Not only were there tons of potholes strewn about the road, the highway from the border to Xela must climb at least 4000 meters into the mountains. When I say climb I mean climb. We were basically stuck in 1st gear the whole way. I stalled once and got stuck in a pothole right after a blind corner. Scary. I don’t know if you’ve ever had the pleasure of rolling backwards in a stalled VW down a blind corner with no guardrails and a 2500m-drop, but I wouldn’t recommend it. We got the van going and continued on. The first big town we would drive through was called San Marcos. It was here that we would notice something funny with the van. Upon coming to our first stop in the city, the van stalled. And every subsequent time we would rev low or I would be in Neutral the van would stall. Basically it was acting as if it was out of gas. Bad news. That usually means you got some bad gas in their, and their isn’t much unleaded gas in Guatemala. So we deduced that it must of been the gas we got near the Guatemalan border. Not only that but we were lost in San Marcos, having missed a turn for Xela somewhere along the way. I unknowingly made a wrong turn down a one-way street and we found ourselves, stalled parked halfway into the road on a one-way street. Yikes. We asked someone where the road to Xela was and got haphazard directions. A friendly passerby helped us back out of the one way into a busy intersection and after a few stalls, we were going blindly down a narrow street, trying desperately to keep the van revved high so we wouldn’t stall. Not an easy task when there are pedestrians jumping in front of you and cars blaring horns everywhere down a street obviously built for horses and pedestrians and not VW vans. So we went with our gut instincts and finally found the road to Xela. It was getting late and I definitely didn’t want to get stuck on these roads at night. More crazy roads, an hour and a half later and we made it to our home for a month. We were warmly greeted by our host at the school Flory, had some food and were taken to meet our host family. We are staying with a lovely Woman named Barbera, her mother and her daughter. We have 2 rooms at our disposal and the house is great. The school is great, I am in fact writing this from the downstairs lobby of the school while Shona is in class number three. The way it’s going to work for us here is that Shona is in class from 8am - 1pm and I watch the girls. My classes are from 2pm - 7pm and then I go home for dinner. So far so good. It’s nice to be able to spend some time with the girls and this is day #3 of Spanish school for both of us. It’s tough, but really nice to get the brain going. I should be off; the girls are terrorizing the place and are most likely needing a nap. We should be getting wireless in our home stay house in the next few days, so keeping in contact should be easier for the month or so that we’re here.

I finished this blog a day after I started it, so as it stands, it’s now November 7th. hope you’re all well, wherever you are. Much love from all of us.