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  Panajachel, Guatemala
Monday, November 27, 2006

The drive down from Puerto Escondido was beautiful, with the exception of the wind through the Tuehauntepec area. A couple of times I thought it was going to blow me off the road completely. We had been warned about the state of Chiapas, that it might be a bit dangerous, but we didnŽt have any trouble, and I thought it was one of the cleanest areas we had been to in Mexico. The roads are generally better, and less garbage all around.

We stayed the night in a small town called Mapastapec, about 105 km from the border so we could hit it in early in the morning. The ride to the border in the morning was easy, but it started getting interesting about the time we hit the first section of Tapachula, the last big town on the Mexico side of the border. As we drove downt the road, these guys would jump out in front of you trying to waive you down. We shook our heads and manuevered around them. We had read that the border crossing at Talisman (close to Tapachula, Mexico) was a good crossing, but there would be plenty of people trying to get you to use them as your border crossing "guide", and they were right. As soon as we reached the border it got crazy. We were swarmed by all sorts of folks trying to get us to hire them, change money, or sell us something. We knew it wasnŽt required, or particularly difficult to get through the border, but we got tired of telling people no after awhile.

First, you have to get stamped out of Mexico, no problem. Second, you have to get stamped into Guatemala, not too big a problem, except for still being swarmed. Then we moved on to get our tires fumigated, easy enough, about 2 bucks. Finally on to get our temporary vehicle registration. This is not a fast process, and made the permit process in Mexico lookvlike a well oiled machine. You take your paperwork up to a desk, they look at it for awhile, eat some ice cream, talk to some other folks, then give you a piece of paper (a bill basically) that you have to walk about 50 feet away to another window and pay. Stand in line for 45 min, pay, then walk back to the first window and get back in line there. Once you give him the paid bill, he goes back to the computer, eats another ice cream, comes out looks at my bike and puts a sticker on it. Cool, but know I want my passport back. So go back to the first window, get told to go around to another window to pick up my paperwork, and get the same info written in to a huge book. 2 hours later we are back on the road.

The driving in Guatemala is a bit more crazy than Mexico, but we managed to make it to Panajachel, where Denise is taking spaninsh lessons. We got here on thursday (Thanksgiving) and will be hitting the road tomorrow early.

Panajachel is a crazy town on lake Atitlan. Surrounded by inactive volcanoes and small towns. We took a boat taxi to a couple of the towns and spent the day checking them out, and one day hiking a volcano. I will post some pics later on, as the upload speed here is pretty slow.

IŽll write more later and let everybody know what is up!
Cheers! Hope everybody had a great Thanksgiving!
Doug

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