It is with a sigh of relief that I report we’re safe in Antigua, having arrived at midnight last night after a journey that consisted of the following modes of transportation, taking us from Mazunte, Mexico to Antigua, Guatemala in 31 hours (which should have been a 17-18 hour trip, tops):
o
5:00pm Monday: we depart
Mazunte to the nearest city of Potchutla via a 40 minute Camioneta ride (literally a pick-up truck, with the back
outfitted with wooden planks running parallel to the sides of the bed that
serve as benches for sitting and a tarp overhead to protect from ever-prevalent
sun. Often packed to the brim, 15-20 people deep, with locals hanging on the
rear bumper, one leg out and one leg in. Cost: $10M each (roughly eighty cents
US)
o
6:40pm: we board a 12
hour first-class (only available) overnight bus ride from Potchutla to border
city of Tapachula. Should have been 12 hours, but a three-hour traffic
standstill from 9pm-midnight, due to unknown circumstance (accident? Police
blockade?), had us arriving in Tapachula at 9:45am. At least it’s light outside
and we don’t have to worry about waiting in the bus station until the sunrise,
as we did in Oaxaca. Cost: $514M each (roughly $45 US)
o
10:20am Tuesday: we jump
on a 30 minute colectivo (mini-van
with four rows of seats meant for 3-4 people each, often packed yet again to
the brim with close to 15 adults and 6 children). We are lucky to have the back
row corner, Matt near a breezey window, with half a butt-cheek hanging off his
seat) to the border town of Talisman. According to our Lonely Planet, and two
locals in the bus station, this is the better border crossing for Antigua.
There was another border crossing, with more buses to Guatemala City, an hour
ride away, but our destination was Antigua, so we listened to the book and the
locals. Colectivo stops randomly to let people on and off as we drive through
small towns and on the highway to the border. Fun cultural experience and
proves beneficial for future border issues. Cost: $15M each (just over $1 US)
o
10:50am: after
disembarking from Colectivo, we walk 10 minutes down rubble-strewn street in
typical shanty border town. Men approach us constantly to change currency,
tricycle boys follow us asking if we want to a ride across the border, one
particular shoe-shine boy follows us the whole walk, really wanting to shine my
hiking boots. To be sure we’re walking in the right direction, we ask a local
woman in a bodega window which way the border was and she told us she didn’t
know. You don’t know where the border is? This is the border town! Thankfully a
nicer local woman kindly pointed in the direction. We had just under $500M
total, and changed them to Guatemalan Quetzals as soon as we got off the
colectivo, not wanting to be stuck with pesos on the other side of the border.
o
11:00am: after a bit of
confusion as to where the Mexico passport office actually was, to get stamped
out, we arrive at immigration, only to be told we need to pay a $295M “tax” to
leave (about $30 US). Huh? The immigration officer points to a very unofficial
looking computer print out taped on the window that says effective as of
November 9, 2012, we need to pay this D.N.I. tax. No one had informed us of
this, and we’ve changed what pesos we had to Quetzals. I ask Mr. Migracion if
he takes American dollars (which, thanks to my mom, I had about $140 tucked
away for emergency). No. Does he
take credit card? No. So where do
we get cash in this town? (sidenote: Lonely Planet Mexico 2010 states that
there are ATMs and banks on both sides of the border, which is why we didn’t
take out extra cash ahead of time in Potchutla, where the lovely Scotiabank is
linked to my bank and thus has no fees. No one wants to travel borders with
loads of cash, right?) Oh, he says
casually, just go to Clusco Chicle bank and you can pay it there. No problem. I ask him to repeat the name of the bank, and he
says it’s just 10 minutes away. Matt and I, annoyed at the tax but realizing we
have no option, go to the waiting area of the office and make our plan. The
debit and credit cards are in my name, we’ve moved most of our Aussie money to
an American account that doesn’t charge an international fee, so Matt can’t go
and use his card, as I would have liked. I did not want to walk that walk
again. Theoretically I should go to this Clusco Chicle bank, which I’m
forgetting how to pronounce by the minute, wherever it may be, and Matt should
wait in the office with our bags. I cringe at the idea of walking that rubble
street with all the currency men and tricycle and shoe-shine boys and whatnot.
I’m wearing a v-neck spaghetti strap tank top I wear on overnight buses for
comfort, leggings and my hiking boots. Not exactly demure, but it’s hot as hell
out and I couldn’t be bothered changing. I leave Matt, with just my purse, carrying
my passport and cards. Nothing else. He has the Quetzals and the bags and the
water and the tissues. I show my passport twice to two more immigration
officials who let me back into Mexico. I ask one of them where I’m supposed to
go and she assures me it’s just 10 minutes, I’ll see the sign on the right. I
start walking toward where the Colectivo dropped us off, searching for this
tongue-twister of a bank. I keep repeating in my mind “Crossing Gum” (cruzce
chicle in Spanish), which seemed to work on the immigration woman. After I pass
the drop off point, I approach an area I recognize from the colectivo ride
down, lots of run-down cars, including a school bus, and then the highway. No
chewing gum bank in sight. I hesitate to go farther, sensing dodginess, and
turn back around to ask for directions again. The first person I see is a guy
on a tricycle and I begin to ask him where the bank is, and he makes the
universally sleazy kissy face at me. I grimace at him and turn away, making a
beeline for the closest bodega, where a friendly girl, maybe 19, is waiting for
customers. I ask her where the bank is. Oh, no, you can’t walk there! Muy
lejisimo. You have to take a
colectivo. It’s in another town. Are you sure I can’t walk? I have no money on
me. (Remember, we got rid of our pesos, and Matt has the Quetzals). No, it’s
very far, she’s very adamant. Out of nowhere, tears well up in my eyes.
Explaining I have no money, they’re forcing us to pay a tax at the border to
cross, and I just need a bank. She offers to give me 5 pesos to take the
Colectivo to Cluce Chicle. I ask her to repeat the name of the town again and
it still sounds like a mix between Cuzco and Cluce and Chicle. She offers to
catch a colectivo for me and tell them where I’m going. She goes to the register
and hands me a 10 peso coin. She instructs me to have them drop me off en
frente, and to get change. It should
only be five pesos, it’s just the next town over. I thank her profusely. She
gets me the colectivo, and I’m on my way back towards Tapachula, back on the
highway. I see a road sign for the town: Tuxtla Chico. No wonder I couldn’t
understand it! It’s some crazy pre-Hispanic name. The nice colectivo attendant
(the dude who sticks his head and hands out the window to attract more
passengers, opens the doors, loads the bags, takes the money, sits on top of
people when the van is full) explains to me where the bank is. He asks me which
bank I want (as if I care at this point) I ask if there’s a Scotiabank (no
fees!). Sure, sure, just go two blocks that way. I ask him where I get the van
back to the border and he points down the street, and he says the butcher. I go
two blocks to the bank, looking for a Scotiabank, not finding it. Ask a cop, he
says no, no Scotiabank, but not really caring either. I ask the pharmacy women,
they say no, there’s just the one bank next door, Nortebanco. I stand in line
(about six deep), and go to retrieve my bank card. And don’t see it. Where the
hell is my bank card? I look again. And then it hits me. Matt used it in Potchutla
to get out the extra $500pesos, the just in case money that we partially used
on the border tax. And I forgot to get it back. So here I am, in a tiny town at
midday, sweating under the noon sun, full blown sinus congestion rearing its
ugly head, no water, no tissues, no debit card. Five pesos to get back to the
border. I figure maybe I can use my credit card to withdraw money. I know they
always send me offers about that. I wait in line, get to the ATM, try various
pin numbers and realize, no, I never set up a PIN for this card. This certainly
won’t work. I decide to wait in line to talk to the teller, maybe I can use my
credit card to pay for the exit tax, as the immigration officer suggested.
Another six people ahead of me, since it’s now siesta time and everyone is off
work and at the bank, in the middle of a Wednesday. By the time I’m at the
front of the line, it is circling around the small waiting area, about 20-deep.
The teller kindly informs me I have to pay the tax in cash, and can’t use the
credit card. Can’t I get money out of the ATM with the credit card? she asks.
No, I tell her, it’s not set up like that. I ask her if she can call the bank
and have them wire the cash. She would, she said wistfully, but the girl who
has that line is conveniently not in the office. I thank her for her time and
sulk out of the bank, head down, tears streaming yet again, as I walk back the
two blocks through the plaza now ablaze with a random fiesta, back to the
corner where the vans pick up. Confused as to where I should be, I try asking a
traffic cop, but he ignores me, too busy signaling bike riders which way to
turn, so I wait on the side of the street with some local women. The other side
is full of guys staring leeringly at this gringa who is clearly out of sorts. I
see another woman line up next to the men, see a Colectivo bus sign, and see
the butcher. My head clears, I cross the street and five minutes later I’m back
on the van to the border. And a light bulb goes off. Doh! We could have just
used our American dollars (that we offered to the immigration officer) and
changed them right at the border. And not wasted two hours of frustration. Why
didn’t we think of that? I blame our congested heads. Why didn’t the officer
offer that? Who knows. At least I don’t have to send Matt all the way back to
Tuxtla Chico to do the whole thing again.
o
12:30pm: sweating
profusely in the midday heat, avoiding the shady tree-lined median and
sidewalks (because, I’ve so recently realized, shady people hang out in the
shade!), fighting more tears, ignoring the currency men and tricycle boys and
shoe-shiners, I’m on a mission in my scuffed hiking boots to get back to the
immigration office without breaking down.
Back at the border, I find a VERY distraught Matt. Having been gone over
an hour and a half, instead of the “10 minutes” to the bank and back, he was
having visions of the worst kind. I look at him, again through tears (at this
point they are of relief, of frustration, helplessness, tiredness, thirst, not
having tissues to wipe away all of this sinus mucus AND him having the debit
card) and tell him he has the card. Shit. He hadn’t realized, he was concerned
as to why on earth I was gone so long for what seemed a simple errand. The look
on his face was that of 1,000 regrets. He apologized to me profusely for
letting me go, felt terrible, knew as soon as I left that he should have gone
anyway. I agree, but how would he know what that “ten minutes” really meant. I
explained the whole thing, as well as the situation with the sweet bodega woman
who comped me the 10 pesos. I asked him if he could go and pay her back, once
he’s exchanged the dollars. He takes off, but for some reason the Mexican
immigration woman won’t let him leave the border area and tells him he must exchange
the dollars right there at the border, where there are still a few exchange
guys. He does, we pay our tax grudgingly, sign some paperwork that verifies our
payment, and walk across the Usumacinta River,
which separates Mexico from Guatemala. I silently promise to pay my debit
forward when the time comes.
o
1:00pm: On the other
side, we struggle again to find the stamping office, not wanting to cross
illegally and get harassed or pay more ridiculous fines on our way out of the
country. Convinced by now that Lonely Planet has never visited this border
crossing, it can’t possibly be where gringos cross, we’re the only ones around.
(Which, typically is great, just not when you need to find a trustworthy source
to ask directions). We ask a traffic cop and he sends a boy to help us. Boy
leads us 100m up the road, through vendors and hawkers and hustlers and
tricycles and motos and every kind of border shanty town character you can
imagine, to the Guatemalan immigration, a sketchy concrete building you stand
outside of, talk to the officials within and use all senses to protect your
bags. Teen boys up to no good block our way to the window, telling us to give
them our passports; they’ll help us, no problem. We push past them to the
window and wait for the official to take his time coming to the window. He
charges us 10 Quetzal each to enter the country (not legally, but again what
can we do?) and we hurry off to find a bus, any bus, to get us out of there.
There are colectivos on the left and one decent looking bus station on the
right. We go to the decent bus station (which is actually a table in a café),
not wanting to ride the five hours to Antigua squished against the window in a
crowded colectivo, only to find there are NO buses to Antigua from this border.
At all. We have to go to Escuintla, an hour and a half from Antigua. And it’s a
four hour, $34 US ride. Expensive by Guatemala standards. He tells us the bus
is leaving immediately, to hurriedly decide or leave. We weigh our options,
which aren’t many, suck it up and pay in a mixture of Quetzals and US dollars,
thankful again to my mom for her emergency money. Dude tries scamming me
telling me the Quetzal to dollar exchange is 4, I argue it’s 6, he shrugs and
takes it. (Now I know it’s closer to 8). We quickly buy two waters as I’m dying
of thirst by this point, and get on the deluxe Argentine-style bus.
o
1:30pm: The bus that was
supposedly taking off 30 minutes ago finally leaves. What is supposed to be a
four hour ride turns into a ten hour journey, once again stuck for three hours
in non-moving traffic. At least we were on the deluxe bus, which provided us
with much needed snacks as we hadn’t eaten all day, and movies galore. The
Boxer, Little Manhattan and Changeling, all dubbed over in Spanish. A ham and cheese
sandwich on Wonder Bread, Strawberry Soda, three little cookies. Deluxe. Moving
on up to the east side. Total cost: $68 US
Funny
things that happened on this bus ride:
§
We’re in the second row
of the top tier of the bus. If you know Argentine buses or any plush two-level
buses, you know the first row, with the full length window and no seat ahead of
you, is THE row to be in, if possible. The father and daughter who had occupied
the two seats on the right side of the first row left right before departure and
I tell Matt to make the move. We start moving our stuff over and the guy in the
seat on the left side stops him. A business man, polo tee snugly stretched
across his belly, gold watch, Swiss-made travel bag, loafers, blackberry AND
cell phone, tells Matt he better ask if we can sit there. Matt answers, but
there are no seat numbers on the ticket, why do we need to ask? The man assures
him it’s not a good idea. Matt comes back to the second row, defeated, confused
and fed up with Guatemalans giving us shit, so I ask the bus attendant
downstairs if it’s okay if we move to the front. Sure, she says, as long as
you’re okay with the safety. Huh? Oh, the seatbelts and the big windows. We
move, give the business guy a smug look and settle in for the good view. We try
the seatbelts but they are just the fabric belt part, no actual metal clasp.
Hmm. They’ll hang halfway out of moving trucks but are concerned with safety
belts on a coach bus?
§
Matt had smuggled some
Oaxacan cheese across the border from Potchutla the night before. We break into
it halfway through the traffic jam, but we can’t tell if it’s good or not
because of our congested sinuses. We sniff and sniff, taste, sniff and sense a
bit of an off-ness. But we can’t be sure. We eat a bit and then decide against
it. Bad time to get sick. Shame.
§
We didn’t prepare for
the long ride and ran out of spare toilet paper and tissues. All emergency
stashes had been long gone. We began rationing the napkins that came with our
sodas and the random tissue we found here and there in our bags. Tore them
apart, handed them to each other. When your nose is running bright green mucus,
you got to do what you got to do.
o
10:30pm: The sweet bus
attendant was informed by the ticket man at the border that we were trying to
get to Antigua via Escuintla. She comes over and tells us it’s too late to go
to Escuintla, it’s a very dangerous city at night and they’re not dropping any
passengers off there. Because of the traffic delays, they’re skipping Escuintla
and taking us to Guatemala City (which is safer?). We can find a hostel there
and take a bus in the morning to Antigua. Is that okay with us? As Lonely
Planet’s description of Escuintla was less than ideal, (“if you find yourself
stranded here, there is one hotel
you can stay at”), we were more than happy with the new arrangement. What’s
traveling in Latin America if you’re not flexible?
o
11:10pm: Arrive in
Guatemala City, rapidly searching Lonely Planet for a hostel near the bus
station that is reasonably safe and cheap. Find a few, accept the first decent
looking official cab driver that approaches us at the bus, try haggling a price
with him to no avail. He wants 50 Q to take us a few blocks. Dude knows we
don’t want to walk the streets of GC at night. We sigh, and agree, knowing once
again how we’re getting ripped off. Again, what can we do? Cabbie drives us
(and two other Guatemalans) to the hostels we had picked out, and they’re all
full. Of course! The world is ending in two days and everyone’s in town for it
to happen (12/21/12). We try one more hotel on his recommendation, which is
also booked. He offers to take us to Antigua that night, for 200Q. Sounds like
a good deal to us, considering he was charging 50 for a few blocks and Antigua
is a whole other city. We accept, but let him know we’ll have to go to an ATM
as the Mexican border pretty much robbed us of all our cash. No problemo. We
drop off two other friendly Guatemalans first, in a fancy gated suburb in the
hills outside the city. We chat with them a bit, one guy was about my age, a
real estate agent and super friendly. We breathe a bit, warm up to the ride.
After we drop off the fancy Guatemalans, the cabbie asks us again what he
charged us. We answer 200. He asks, but you have to go to the ATM, right? Yes,
I warily answer. 200 each! he
exclaims. It’s night time, he lamely explains, it’s late, it’s an hour and a
quarter drive. At this point, we’re in the middle of nowhere outside of
Guatemala City. We really have no bargaining power. I try to get him down to
300, explaining we really have no money. He sees through us, having heard our
tales of the Mexican border. We ride in silence to Antigua, on remote back
roads at first, hoping to god he’s not taking us somewhere to rob us
blind. We each begin to question
our mission. Why the hell are we here? Are we really helping these guys? He
gets back to the highway, gets us to Antigua in 30 minutes flat (1 hour and a
quarter, eh, señor?), to an ATM and to a friendly sounding hostel from our book
that thankfully has availability. We get our stuff out of the car and I once
again try pleading with the man. You promised us 200 total. No, no, 200 each. No, señor, we asked you specifically. It’s not
right. Please. Can we meet halfway and give you 300? He shrugs, fine. Total
cost: 300Q, or just under $40.
o
12:00am: After 31 hours
of traveling, we finally get to a quaint little B&B hostel, well priced,
clean, hot water and breakfast included. We pass out immediately and wake to a
friendly new day. Antigua is another charming colonial city, and we’re excited
to finally get our volunteering started. We’ve met Jason and the gang at As
Green As It Gets, ten minutes outside Antigua in a tiny town called San Miguel,
where we plan on staying for the next four months or so, and have had a great
day, getting treated much better by the locals, and getting our brains back
around our mission. We’re here to help, to try to make their lives a bit easier
and more productive. We’ll encounter some shit along the way, but it’s all part
of the game.
Lessons learned:
1 . Research border crossings in advance, don’t rely on
two –year old Lonely Planet guide book and the advice of two locals
2 . Carry extra cash when crossing borders – in various currencies
3 .
Everything put aside, we’re still
us, just a little more broke
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