Costa Rica Driving Adventure Day 7: Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico to Manzatenango, Guatemala

We started the day thinking we had about 2 more hours to get to the Guatemala border. It turned out to be about 3 hours.

We ran into several people along the way that loved the pugs. They had apparently never seen a Chinese Pug dog before. It was pretty funny. I had detailed instructions that I printed off of the internet to explain how to cross the border. The first step was to cancel the Mexico vehicle permit at the Banjercito just north of Tapachula. We soon discovered that the Banjecito no longer exists. So we picked up a "helper" to help us get to the new Banjercito.

He took us right there, the only problem is that it was 30 miles in the direction we just came from away from the border. After spending about 30 minutes at the Banjercito, we drove back to the border crossing. This was a delay of about 1 1/2 hours. It now took us 4 1/2 hours just to get to the border. We decided to take our "helper" all the way to the border to help us out. Midas did not like him at all and barked at him. It was very ominous. Later, Midas was worn out from all of the turmoil.

When we got to the border, it was at a crowded little street that was in total chaos.

People were running everywhere to "help" you get through or to beg for food. Ugh. I paid our helper $90 to get the pet immigration stamps, the vehicle import sticker and the Guatemala passport stamp. After a few minutes he came back with Bugsy's import papers with a stamp.

Good, but where were the dogs import papers with stamps?. He messed it up and had to go back to fix it. This took another 10 minutes. About 20 minutes later he returned with my stamped passport. Good so far. Then he told me the vehicle import papers would cost another $350. I knew this was  lie as I had read on the internet that it was 160 Quetzales (about $25). After arguing with me for 10 minutes, I told him to go away. So, he had my $90 but the job was only partially complete. Little did I know that I still needed an import affidavit, vehicle import sticker, fumigation, car inspection and needed to make copies of all of the documents. I was going to tip him more if he finished the job, but he was only interested in lying and stealing by false pretenses. Helpers everywhere were eager to assist and swarmed like Chinese Pugs after a piece of meat is dropped on the floor. Each step required a substantial wait in line. Once at the front of each line, the process was slow.

After a very frustrating 3:15 we were finally finished. We had now spent 8 hours today just to drive a short distance and cross the border. I then bought Quetzales but was only given an exchange rate of 6:1, lame ( the real rate is 7.75:1)!

I tipped each of the other 3 helpers and we were on our way. This border crossing was aggravating as hell. I also discovered that Guatemalans are allowed to cut in front of you in line but you can't do the same. We then drove slowly through winding roads in Guatemala before we reached our hotel in Manzatenango, Guatemala. The hotel was cheap at only $27 per night and is exactly what I wanted in a hotel, FINALLY! We didn't have to smuggle the pets in and were able to park 10 feet from the hotel room. There was only one problem at this hotel, it didn't have hot water. I tried to take some scenery pictures today as the scenery is different than in Mexico, see below.

Off to El Salvador tomorrow.

Costa Rica Driving Adventure Day 6: Puebla, Mexico to Tuxtla Gutierrez, Mexico

Our goal today was to drive all the way to Tapachula, Mexico, which is very near the Guatemala border. That plan was a bit too ambitious. We ended up stopping in Tuxtula Gutierez, Mexico, which is about 2 hours from the Guatemala border. It was very hot at times today, approximately 100 degrees. You could really feel a huge temperature increase when we came down from the central plateau area to around sea level near Veracruz. Much of the drive today was through winding mountain roads. There was some nice scenery.

At times, it reminded me of Costa Rica. At one of the toll booths today we saw the remains of the worst accident I have ever seen. You could barely tell that the remains were once a car. The dead driver's arm could be seen coming out of the metal. We suspect that he approached the toll booth going near 100 mph and couldn't stop and hit a large truck and went under it. It was pretty gruesome. If we would have left 15 minutes or so earlier we could have been involved in it or seen it happen live. Yikes! The pugs haven't been eating much so I decided to buy them some meat, which they can never resist. Before I could do so, Barney bought them some Mexican hot dogs. Yep, they scarfed them right down. Oscar then decided Bugsy's litter box looked comfortable.

I took this selfie showing my secret pouch to hide my $$$.

Not that I need it, LOL. I quit wearing the pouch today because it really is safe here. We got lucky with our hotel room today. The first hotel we tried was perfect for smuggling in pets. It's called the Palapa Palace. Bugsy seems to like it here.

We were all pretty tired so we just had dinner at the hotel. Barney got a girl at the hotel restaurant to take this picture of the three amigos.

Tomorrow the plan is to cross into Guatemala and drive through it and cross into El Salvador to spend the night. We'll see if we can accomplish that much. Guatemala is known for having corrupt cops. I may be writing about bribes tomorrow. Only 1200 miles to go, but 5 border crossings are left. I wrote this post last night but had to wait to post it until this morning because it appears the hotel turns the internet off at night. LOL

Costa Rica Driving Adventure Day 5: San Luis Potosi, Mexico to Puebla, Mexico

I barely got any sleep last night. While the Westin is really nice, the rooms are loud.

Throughout the night, the pugs barked at every noise and woke me up constantly, ugh.

I felt pretty terrible in the morning as I have not had a good night sleep since I left Michigan. We decided to relax a bit and enjoy the Westin and left San Luis Potosi around lunch time. We were headed toward Mexico City. Barney drove to give me a break to rest my eyes a bit. After a couple hours of Barney driving, I was feeling better and we switched places. Mexico City is one of the largest cities in the world. I was constantly waned about it. I heard how the traffic was horrible, I would get shot, carjacked, kidnapped, killed by drug lords, etc. That talk was all ridiculous. You don't even have to go near Mexico City. There is a bypass that is about 20 miles north and you take that around Mexico City. The bypass is one of the nicest roads I have ever been on. It is newly paved, has light traffic and high speed limits. It does go through the mountains though so it is a bit windy and up and down. By evening we were in Puebla, Mexico. I called Lori and she found a pet friendly hotel at the Intercontinental Presidente Puebla.

It is in an upscale business hotel. It was not really what we needed, but after our run around on hotels yesterday we weren't going to do that again. Lori said the website said 2 pets per room were allowed. That would work as I have 4 pets and we need 2 rooms. When I checked in though, the pet policy was different. I was told that only 6 rooms were pet rooms and 5 were rented. Further, only 1 pet up to 17lbs per room was allowed and all the pet rooms were at the back of the hotel and the only way to get to the rooms was through the font door. Lastly, the hotel added a $120 pet charge to my bill. Ugh. Commence pet smuggling operation. I put Gretel under a blanket and smuggled her in. As she was the only one in the room, she got nervous and started whining. Dean went in and sat with her. I went back and got Bugsy and put him under a blanket and smuggled him in. Two down, two to go. Barney offered to walk Oscar but I still had to deal with Midas. I put Midas under a blanket but it didn't work. He wiggles too much. I then emptied a large yellow duffle bag and put him in it. He fought me the whole way and kept unzipping it. So Barney and I switched and he walked Midas in on a leash as our one "legitimate" pet and I threw a blanket over Oscar and smuggled him in. We got them all in the room undetected. The room was 81 degrees at check in. All 4 pets were panting for about an hour. The pets are becoming pros at travel. They are very good in the car, especially if they get to sit on dad's lap. Oscar's heaving panting from earlier in the trip has mostly gone away.We hit a local Mexican restaurant and the food was good. Off to Tapachula tomorrow where we will spend our last night in Mexico.

Cota Rica Driving Adventure Day 4: Laredo, Texas to San Luis Potosi, Mexico

We got up at 9:00 to spend my final morning in the U.S. in Laredo. It was pretty hot out for a morning being in the 80's already. On the way to the elevator, a guy was passed out on the floor of the hotel.

I guess he had too much fun on Saturday night in Laredo. As I was walking the pugs out of the elevator, the door opened and a little girl screamed at the pugs. Her mother explained to her that they were just "perritos", or little dogs. Laredo is kind of strange in that most everything is in Spanish, including gas stations that quote prices in Mexican pesos. Also, I never saw any caucasian people in Laedo at all. The border was only 3 miles from our room at the Red Roof Inn. On the way to the border, I stopped at a "cambio" money exchange office and an insurance agency to buy Mexico car insurance.

It was Sunday morning and they were open. When we got to the border, Barney took a picture. This resulted in us getting pulled over, questioned and Barney having to delete his picture. Oops. We crossed the International Bridge from Laredo to Nuevo Laredo, Mexico. You pay a fee and then you are in Mexico. However, we never had to show the car paperwork or the pet paperwork. I asked a guy at customs about this and he pointed me to a "helper". There were no signs at all. The helper got us to the Aduana building which required a drive of about a mile.

At this building the procedure is as follows: (1) Stop at first window and get a card, (2) Fill out the card, (3) Get back in line and receive paperwork to pay your entry fee, (4) Go to next line and submit car paperwork and pay the car fees, (5) Go to next line and pay your entry fee. The helper saved us a great deal of time as none of this is explained or obvious anywhere.

I tipped him $20 and we were off. As for the pets, the helper explained to us that their paperwork would be submitted at the next checkpoint about 20 miles into Mexico. The whole process took about an hour and a half. We headed down highway 85 toward Monterrey. We kept having to stop to: (1) pay tolls, (2) go though a police checkpoint, or (3) go through a military checkpoint. It was annoying as each stop woke up the dogs. At one of the military checkpoints we were told to go to the side of the road to be searched. They did a quick search of the car that took about 2 minutes and we were off. After about 25 minutes we hit the 2nd bode checkpoint. Here we had to show our passports. The border agent looked at the pugs and waved us through. No pet paperwork was shown again. The Mexico terrain reminds me of the area around Las Vegas, NV. It is mostly desert.

It does have a lot more mountains than I thought though.

The highways are in better shape than those in the U.S. However, they have a lot of toll roads that are somewhat expensive. Just today we spent $50-$60 in tolls. By early evening we made it to San Luis Potosi. This is a large town of over 1 million people. We had a heck of a time finding a hotel that accepted dogs. We went to a few hotels to find one that accepted pets and were denied. At one, Dean and I got out of the car and talked to the office manager about getting a room. I spoke to him in Spanish and told him the 3 of us needed 2 rooms. He looked at me with a blank stare. I was confused as I know my Spanish is decent. I looked at Dean in confusion who also explained that we had 3 dogs. The office worker explained to us that they only rent rooms in 6 hour time blocks. It suddenly dawned on us that it was one of "those" hotels. The office worker thought we wanted to have a gay orgy with dogs. Hahahahaha. It was like a scene from a movie. We quickly left and looked for another hotel. Finally, Dean went into one and asked if they took pets and was told yes. After I bought Gretel and Midas into the room, I was summoned to the front desk and told that they don't accept pets. I guess Dean's Spanish is not that good. I was given a refund and we had to leave. That hotel did let Barney use their wifi to look up a hotel that accepted pets. After finding one, we put it into our gps. We could not find it. We drove around and around. Basically, my Mexico gps sucks. Then I called Lori to find a pet friendly hotel. She found the Westin and we headed there. The Westin was not in the gps at all. So we had to get directions. We got close and then two Mexican teens told us we could follow them to the Westin. We would have never found it. After 4+ hours we finally found a hotel that took the pets. There was a wedding party ahead of us checking in and one front desk person working. It then took 30 minutes to check in. Ugh. The Westin is a very nice hotel.

We got a bit to eat and headed to bed. After driving through northern Mexico that is supposedly inhabited by dangerous drug cartels, I just have to laugh. There was nothing even remotely scary about today. Maybe the U.S. Government is spreading propaganda about Mexico being unsafe? Nah. I am now having a great deal of problems with charging my phone. Not only is it becoming hard to take picture, but to download them to my computer is nearly impossible. I will add pictures when possible.

Costa Rica Driving Adventure Day 3: McAlester, Oklahoma to Laredo, Texas

Today was a really long day. The long days are hard on Oscar as he gets stressed out after being in the car for a long time. For this reason, we are going to keep the days shorter the rest of the way. We now have 1500 miles down and 2500 miles to go.

Midas is getting very used to the car.

Bugsy is so good you don't even notice he is there. For the first 3 hours this morning from McAlester, OK to Dallas, all 4 of the pets slept.

It was very nice. I didn't realize that any state had speed limits over 70 mph. I snapped a picture when I saw one. I didn't realize that later I would see one for 80 mph and then 85 mph. Very cool! Texas also has signs that tell people the left lane is only for passing. These are sorely needed in Ohio. In Dallas, I stopped to pick up Barney Cox at the DFW airport.

He is a facebook friend of mine from Florida. We then drove to Austin to pick up Dean Ryan who I know from my appearances on the Alex Jones Show. Dean used to work for Alex. A little past San Antonio, TX I took the pugs for a walk.

I noticed Midas was limping badly. I wondered what was wrong so I picked him up. I noticed he had burrs all over his paws. Poor guy. So dad had to spend a few minuted picking them off. We then headed for Laredo, TX to spend my last night as a U.S. resident in the Laredo Red Roof Inn.

We were given a room on the 3rd floor at the end of a long hallway. Ugh. That is not what you want when you are traveling with three pugs. Bugsy found a spot he likes here.

Tomorrow morning we will cross the Mexico border and spend a couple hours driving through the territory of the Mexican drug lords. Sounds like fun! Hopefully we will not have any issues crossing the border. I think all of my papers are in order.