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.