That which does not kill you will make you stronger...yeah, I'm a drama Queen.

Note: I am sending this on the morning of Day 9 – Found a lovely restaurant/resort just on the outskirts of town, Carolina’s Resort – GORGEOUS!  Our $50.00 breakfast was just $19.00 more or less.  Beautiful and delicious.  A room here on the grounds is less than $27.00 and we are going out now to look at their gardens and little zoo.  They kindly are allowing me to hook up to Internet, so thought I’d send this.  No pictures right now - but will have some later.

 Day  Ocho (8)

WOW!  What a day!  I sit here in our ($19.00) hotel room in  Mazetenango, Guatemala (fun name, eh?) – which, if you look at the map, you will know we didn’t make it far today – a grand whopping  70 miles from the border and only 80 from the town we stayed in last night.  I guess this plan of a country a day isn’t going to work.

God must be teaching us patience  - I don’t recall asking for any lately, but I guess He thinks we need it. Oh, the adventures!

We had read (from people who had gone all the way to the border before they found out) that we were going to have to backtrack a bit to go turn in our car permits for Mexico, so we thought we were a step ahead of the game and headed to where we understood this little place to be.  Well, it wasn’t at all where we thought it was (really, it was me – since I’m the navigator), so we back-tracked again – all the way back to our Hotel and beyond until we found the place – took care of our paperwork and headed back towards the border.

NOTICE: For those of you reading this that are planning a trip down here – here’s the scoop.  We planned to cross into Guatemala at Hidalgo – spent the night in Tapachula.  We actually stayed at a nice little motor hotel – 500 pesos – nice, big rooms, clean and comfy – Hotel Costa Azul on the south side of town.  If you’re just heading to Guatemala,  it has secured parking garages and it’s a really nice place.  It is on the Libramento Tapachula.  If you turn right out of their driveway, you take the highway just a few miles and right where it turns left to Carretera Arriaga Tapachula, there is a little town called Viva Mexico.  It’s on your GPS.  RIGHT there is the Aduana, an easily missed building.  Stop there and turn in your paperwork and your sticker before you head down to the border. You can do that as you are coming IN to Tapachula

So we did that – got to the town by the border and were immediately met by a bunch of people wanting to help us cross.  We thought it was too early to get them, but we were wrong.  It’s not that far away, and the maps are confusing.  Fortunately, our guys rode ahead of us on their moto  and we crossed into no man’s land.  Nice buildings, not that bad of an area.  But once you got in, you were stuck. 

10:00 a.m.  Bob goes and gets our passports stamped and then is told we have to pay an exit fee to get out of Mexico and into Guatemala – I think they are both in on it.  The kicker is, you have to go back across the border to the bank in Mexico to do this.  One guy said Bob could walk over, No big deal.  But when he tried to – they said no.  So he asked about our car – asked if we would be inspected – jut crossed Into this area – he was told no.  So we head through – get a green light, and the guy stops us and says he wants to inspect our car.  We argued about it – didn’t help.  “Take your animals and get out of the car and stand over there,” he pointed. 

So I leashed the dogs and got the cat (he stays leashed), my purse and got out of the car.  Bob is still arguing with the guy about why we have to have it inspected.  (BTW – we have NEVER had any problem at the Nogales border!).  Right about then, Bandido slipped his harness/holster and I started freaking out/screaming at Bob that the cat got away.  I immediately started crying my eyes out because Bandido had gone into the street on the other side.  Fortunately, Bob and one of the guys helping us cornered him under a parked car and were able to get him.  (Breathe)  I think I scared the Border guards, because the Jefe (Boss) came out and tried to calm me down – I.Was.So.Shook.Up.  Couldn’t stop crying.  We told him the story, and he told us to go on. (I think they didn’t want to deal with wild woman…) Crisis Averted….

 After I fastened Bandido in so tightly he could barely breathe …. We headed for the bank.  Got parked, and our friend – now my new BEST friend – took Bob to the bank.  Wowza!  300 pesos each to leave the country!  I don’t think people have to do that in the north – what’s up with that?  Bob didn’t have enough $$ so came back to get a credit card and US Dollars.  Nope – Couldn’t use either.  The ATM machine had a long line, so our new friend had Bob hop on the back of his moto to go get change.  NOT!!  Change guy wanted to give him 8 pesos to the dollar – which is currently at close to 13 to the dollar, so Bob came back, waited in that long line, and got it done.   By that time, we were in love with our new friends, so asked them how much to help with the entire thing.  200 Pesos.  Agreed.  That whole thing took us an hour.

Notice for travelers:  There is no way this can be avoided.  You cannot pay for your exit papers until you get a little paper from the people at Guatemala immigration in no man’s land.  Just be prepared with the pesos you need.  That will help you some.

11:00 a.m.  We  drove over a little bridge, for which there was a toll (19 pesos) had a little ways to drive before reaching the next area to stop at – maybe ½ mile.  On that road were guys flashing wads of money, so we just changed all of our pesos into Quetzals – the Guatemalan form of money.  I have an exchange rate app on my phone – they took a little, but not much, so it was worth it.

Next stop – a little building and some little guys come out and start spraying the underside of your car – they didn’t charge us – though we’d heard it would be Q18. (That’s their dollar sign – a “Q”).  This is good – going pretty quickly.  FOOL!

Next stop – Bob got his papers out – our papers out – pets papers out and headed in with our helper.  The “kids” and I waited in the car (which, by the way, is doing great).  First he had to go get copies of the pets papers and of the papers Mexico gave us to release our car.  We had copies of everything else.  Wait.

12:00 noon A little problem with not having the originals of our titles…so she would have to call her boss.  Wait. 

12:30 p.m. System went down. Wait

1:30 p.m.….wait…listening to book on tape

2:30 p.m…. wait….. falling asleep .  Guy comes to get us – need to go get lawyer to say that our permission letter from Leinholder on our  car is OK.  REALLY?

3:00 p.m.  Come check our car….Girl has cockers of her own – that’s gotta earn points. Wait. 

3:30 p.m.  Cleared to go – now drive through, check car – again.

NBF’s (New Best Friends) lead us through town and on to highway then stop to settle up.  The 200 pesos (less than 20 bucks) with all the other charges is now 140 USD  We’re just happy to be out of there.  Bob gives them an extra 40 bucks and we head out.  It’s about 4 p.m. now.

Start to head down the highway – gorgeous – and it begins to rain…and thunder…and lightning.  Then it begins to pour so hard we can barely see the road – so actually pull off for a bit.  It rains like this, off and on for the next 2 hours, water gushing down the sides of the 2 lane road, (you saw the distance we traveled!!), so we go to get a hotel, but don’t have enough Q’s.  Oh, and they don’t take credit cards. Stop for breakfast/lunch/dinner b/c we haven’t eaten anything but junk today – and Bob goes to the ATM and none of the cards would work. Don’tcha just love it? 

We keep driving to the next town – and thankfully, this time, our Kansas Bank ATM worked!  We need to remind the others that we’re traveling and kinda need them!

 Things that got my attention today:

Lots and lots of bicycles, mopeds , motorcycles .

Bicycles have pegs sticking out of the back axles for a second rider.  Saw one girl standing on the pegs and talking on her cell phone as they rode down the street.

Bicycle taxis – a large square area on the front of the bicycle (In Mexico, they sell stuff from them) with a padded seat taking riders to their destination or delivering product.

Saw lots of women carrying baskets full of produce on their heads.  Amazing balance.

Brand name gas stations in Guatemala – Shell, Texaco, Esso, Mobil – kind of odd after everything being a Pemex in Mexico.

Armed (w/ Machine guns) guards at gas stations, restaurants, parking areas. Actually made me feel safer.

Rows and rows of red ginger plants growing everywhere – like bushes.

Very tall trees growing in perfect rows like they are planted for a crop? (Just found out they make plastic out of them??)

Corn crops planted right up next to the road – this was in So. Mexico as well.

Friendly people.  Got pulled over by a cop on the side of the road.  We just sat there and visited with him.  He teased us that we were on our honeymoon…and asked if I would give him one of our dogs.  Then he sent us on our way.

I found that if I sang worship songs while we couldn’t see the road as we were driving, that it calmed me/us down.  Think I’ll try that again!

Kinda glad we won’t cross into El Salvador tomorrow – not really looking forward to doing this again.