Guatemala hell!

We made it to the boarder of Guatemala after a serious detour, because of another down Puente (bridge). A sweet kid on a motorcycle took us as far as he could and then drew us a map. We pulled into the boarder and all the hounds, guys telling you where to go for some money, came charging. Nolan was very adamant on not taking their help, and we didn’t need it in Mexico. Everything was easy except for the unexpected exit fee of $25 pp. As we loaded into the car to cross the bridge into Guatemala we saw 50 plus guys waiting for us. It was insane!!! We had our car swarmed. Everyone telling us to stop here, go there, don’t go there. I was driving and starting to freak out and Nolan’s yelling at me to keep going. We see the official boarder and a guy says that we can’t go through until we have the sticker, we ask where to go and he stares blankly at us then looks at one of the hounds trying to tell us directions. Finally Nolan looks at me and says, “ I am going to just pay this guy a few bucks to help us, to get us out of here.” So we follow this guy into a parking lot, immigration and to get copies. 5 other guys are following us as well and Nolan and I are telling them to stop, we don’t have money for them. From the copy place he leads us to this office across the street from the actual boarder place and he tells us to give some new guy all the copies and our docs. He will process it and then we can get in our car and leave. So we do it, and we f-ed up big time right there. Now he has our docs and is telling us it is going to be $180 to cross. We are freaking out saying no, give us our papers back where the hell is the official office!?

He keeps saying this is the office and that price includes fumigation of the car, tourist cards, and parking.

No, no, no! Where is the official office! He keeps saying this is it, and we have to pay.  I think it was $30Q for the car and 10Q pp for tourist cards, but we got all confused and ended up paying $100 US. We don’t sort that out in our heads for another ten minutes and by that time the guy is gone.

Nolan looks at me and says he’s going to go look for him.

I have no clue what to think right now. Stella and I are in this crappy office surrounded by men just staring at us. Stella is busy working on a bag of Cheetos, and I am trying not to cry.

 Nolan goes looking for him, and when he finds him starts yelling at him to give it all back, and the guy lowers his voice and says, “Hey man chill out, your in Guatemala.”

 So Nolan is totally freaked out. I am losing it in the office just getting the stare down from these other guys. And we finally just say screw it, lets get out of here. Which is exactly what they wanted. We get to our car and are charged more for the parking. And to top it off the hound wants us to tip him for allowing him to totally rip us off. So to make sure we don’t get stabbed or shot at on our way out of this hellhole, we give him five bucks and drive away feeling totally shamed and raped.

Guatemala is different; instantly different. The roads are terrible, there are people every 5 blocks trying to sell you watered down gas, there was a search party on the side of the road looking for something in the grass and the whole town came to see blocking the road. People selling stuff on the roads are aggressive and trying to make you pull over by standing in your way. You just have to not make eye contact and play chicken. At least we know we aren’t going to lose.

The gas is way more expensive here and we are on empty so we stop at the nearest station and tell the kid to fill it. He pumps 207q and stops (thankfully Nolan saw how much). We say keep going and fill it, so he pumps another 309q and charges us 760q. Nolan says, I don’t think so and grabs the calculator, showing them how much it cost. The kids knew they where ripping us off and said they would give us back what they owed in cash. He hands us the cash and we drive away, and as I am telling Nolan how proud I am of him for catching it, he realizes they shorted us change. Aggressive little shit heads!!!! I can’t help but to take it personally cause they are taking money that is allowing us to keep going, and we are on such a tight budget that we can’t afford to be the stupid gringos. Not to mention that it is hard on the ego to be such a stupid gringo.

Another Puente down and another detour, a policeman tells us what detour to take and that it should take us 2-3 hours. Wrong.

5 hours later, suns going down, we are starving and stressed and thoroughly bitchy. It is pissing rain and sections of the single lane, two-way road have failed, falling down the mountain that we are switch backing. I am maneuvering around landslides and boulders that have blocked half the road crying and cussing loudly in my head, having total panic attacks and hating all of Central America, while Nolan is trying to distract Stella with photos on the Iphone. Lake Atitlan, our destination, is at 3,500 ft. elevation and is in the running to be on the new 7 wonders of the world list. What a fucking wonder that people would ever want to come here!

We pull into Panajachel in the pitch black and manage to find a Hotel. Went downstairs and got some delicious micro waved food and some drinks, and we were ALIVE. We were alive and we were gitty.

The next morning we awoke to pure magnificence. The clouds cleared enough to see the massive lake, surrounded by three enormous volcanoes, waterfalls and cascading cliffs. The women are short and covered in the most amazing textiles. We were later told that they wear different colors depending on the tribe and the area on the lake they come from. Later we went to find the water taxi that would take us to Santa Cruz, where we had read there was a hippie style hostel. Life was looking good again and we were excited to see the lake from a boat. Asking where anything is the number one way to get ripped off here. Everyone is looking to take your money. We walked back and forth for hours trying to figure out where the boat was. The boat drivers tell you to you have to take a separate boat, and everyone tells you a different price. We were so fed up that when we finally found the boat we walked right past this local that was telling us we had to pay 20q pp for a private boat cause the public boats were for the locals only. We got on the public boat and he followed me to the window telling me I was to pay him now. No we got it, thanks! We never know what is right, or real here. No one will tell you the truth, except for the occasional sweet old man or the foreigners who live here. So not knowing if we were in the wrong we held our ground. The boat left and we made it to Santa Cruz, paying the local rate.

We stayed at La Iguana. It is pricey for us, but cute, and the family who owns the place has been there since the 90’s helping the community build houses, stoves and biodegrading toilettes. They are also helping the villages carbon foot print. Really good people doing good things for this world. 

I think the woman couldn’t take to us, cause we were pouring out our horror stories of Guatemala to them, and I'm sure she thought we were ridiculous. She told us that it was crazy that we were driving, and we should stay put until the rain passes, because a lot of the main roads and puente’s were washed away. Just so happens that the next morning the sun came out, and we were ready to be back in Mexico, and then the States. Feeling totally venerable and fearing the road conditions south we talked ourselves into going north again. Sorry Martin and Sarah, we can’t do this anymore, and we’re ready for the comforts of home.

Besides al of our mishaps and BS Guatemala is absolutely stunning, and if the senery wasn't enough the people are straight from the Maya and the textiles are unbelievable! Shopping system overload.

 This woman, Maria has two gold stars on her teeth. She was so sweeeeet!

 Sorry Sailor, Stella has a new man, and he is Italian.

Thank you, Lucas.

 Cheese nuggets

 La Iguana, Santa Cruz

 Car shot of Lago de Atitlan.

 Across the boarder, back in Mexico.