Day 27-28 – Crossing into Guatemala

Day 27 – Crossing into Guatemala

It was a couple hours drive to the Guatemalan border from the waterfall parking lot where we spent the night. I’ve had a big leak in the flooring for the past month with my condo back in Chicago and had to spend an hour while we still had phone service in Mexico trying to sort out a contractor coming. We had wanted to cross the border early in the morning, but it ended up being around noon by the time we arrived.

The process wasn’t too complicated. We first elected to stop at the Mexican emigration office (it’s easy to miss) and made the mistake of getting an exit stamp for Mexico. This means that our 90 day visa (that cost $25 each) expires and we’ll need to get a new one when we return. Upon passing through the border (basically a gate in a fence), we were stopped for step one – “fumigation” that all cars go through (pretty pointless – a man slightly hoses down our tires) and had to pay 17 quetzales (Guatemalan currency). To get the quetzals, we had to exchange pesos (at a terrible exchange rate) with a man standing there. Step two – we had to get our passports stamped to immigrate into Guatemala (no charge). Step three – we had to show all of our paperwork (Canadian insurance, Mexican vehicle importation papers, my drivers license and passport) and pay 160 quetzales ($20) to bring the van in. In order to get the quetzals at a better exchange rate, we left the car at the office and walked 500 meters up the street of Guatemala to an ATM.

After that, we were in! Viki was rather stressed about the whole border process, but she kept the 3 quetzeles change from fumigation (38 cents), went to a street man selling rambutans, and managed to exchange them for a bag full of rambutans, which left her feeling happy. It was then a three hour drive to the city of Huehuetanango “huehue” (very untouristy), where we found a hotel for 130 quetzales ($16). We had a moderately fancy dinner at Café Museo where we shared some local Guatemalan antojitos (tacos, chicken and mole sauce in corn dough, and plantain balls filled with sweet bean sauce to finish). We also had coffee from a V60 that was locally roasted.

Day 28 – Huehuetanango to Lake Atitlan

We woke up with surprise in store for us – a flat tire! I have zero experience with this (lots of experience fixing flat bike tires, but never a car tire). Fortunately we had loads of people who helped us. There was the other hotel guest who got under our car and explained the issue, there was the hotel worker who had stayed up all night and offered to help after his shift, and there was the other worker who used the jack to lift the car, remove the wheel and help carry/roll it the five minute walk to the local tire repair shop (15 quetzales to fix).

After a lovely local breakfast of eggs, beans, a massive stack of tortillas, plantains, and coffee (all for $2 a person), we were on our way to Lake Atitlan. Unfortunately, two minutes into the drive, we gently side-swiped a truck and spent the next hour with the other driver and a traffic policeman resolving the issue. We were fortunate to have a rather aggressive man walking by who spoke English and vehemently defended our cause saying that both cars had little scratches and that it was ludicrous that we should have to pay anything at all. In the end we offered the other driver 200 quetzales ($25) to settle the issue.

Resuming our drive, we went through beautiful mountain scenery, much different from the Mexican side. Huge jungly forest lined the mountainous road and we continued to have scary car-destroying speedbumps pop up at random, and unsigned. Fortunately our reflexes have been satisfactory to not yet have destroyed the car. The final stretch of road down to San Marcos was terrifyingly steep, with many, many switchbacks (Lake Atitlan is a huge lake, formed from the crater of a volcanic eruption that erupted 60,000 years ago and we’re essentially driving down the lip towards the crater). The very last two kilometers flattened but consisted of absolutely the worst road we have hitherto experienced. It was completely chewed up and the van tossed and turned at 5km per hour as we made our way into San Marcos.

We found a hotel for 100 quetzales ($12.50) and then headed up to the Yoga Forest (that we’d read about) to see the schedule for the next few days and to have dinner. We had to walk up through the slum housing going up the mountain at night and then the last 10 minutes towards yoga forest was pitch black through a jungly trail. Viki was terrified. Nearly having a mental breakdown half way through, we persevered, and eventually came upon a very inviting wooden treefort style structure with warm voices and tasty smells. The lead worker was rather startled to see us appear out of the darkness, but was kind and inviting and let us stay for dinner.