Mexico and back again

Tourist visas here in Guatemala last 90 days, after which you have a couple of options. Continue staying here and pay a large per diem fine when you leave, or leave the country and return. Officially you must leave the country for 3 days, but there are a couple of ways around that. Steve, Kyle and I needed to renew our visas within the next days to weeks, so we figured we'd all go together to Tapachula, Mexico for tasty tortas and a visa renewal.

We left together early-ish in the morning. I jumped back on the coffee train, which I've been trying to stay away from, due to my hangover from the XelaTeco party the night before. Normally drinking with Guatemalans leaves me muy crudo (very raw or hungover) the next mornings. The coffee made the long chickenbus and microbus/collectivo ride much more endurable.

There are a couple of vital pieces of information we picked up about renewing visas in a day. Here are the most common methods:

• Check in with a parking lot in El Carmen (a small Guatemalan border town), who offer hourly, daily, monthly parking services, and visa rewals starting at 700Q, and working their way down quickly with minimal bargaining.
• Leave out of Tecun Uman (a larger Guatemalan border town) and enter back in El Carmen, where the officials are more susceptible to cheaper bribes.
• Stay out of the country for the official 3 days.

We figured the second option was superior. Tecun Uman was really sketchy, and there were lots of groups of tough sketchy looking people armed with large guns staring us down as we walked through the streets towards the border crossing. I'm going to try to never go through that town again. The immigration officials were professional and actually nice, and there were no problems getting out of Tecun Uman. It rained, which really sucked. And we saw the river that significant numbers of Central Americans cross illegally to smuggle themselves into Mexico, final destination USA. I can understand why there are hundreds of deaths, because it was flowing pretty fast. Apparently during dry season you can simply wade across. Read Enrique's Journey for a more gripping journalist's tale of this illegal journey to the states.

We entered Mexico without problems either, and bussed to Tapachula for tasty tortas. Mexico, even supposedly much poorer Chiapas, was noticeably richer than Guatemala, and the food is much better too, even just crossing the border. We ended up at this cantina where they didn't cook food, but were happy to oblige us gringos with our hungry demands for tasty tortas, which were so good we each ordered another. In the cantina, there were two prostitutes who were extremely friendly. And then fucking Steve started winking at them! So one of them came over and displayed her hideous gummy pointed toothy mouth which scared us into leaving. Well, after 3 L of beer... They served Coronas in 1L bottles, called "Familiar". Our waitress explained they were family-sized. One for papa, one for mama, and one for each child.

We returned back through El Carmen with no troubles. When confronted with officials who don't speak Spanish, you have two options as a foreigner:

• Pay a bribe. 50-100Q usually seems to work.
• Play the "no entiendo" (I don't understand) card.

We played the "no entiendo" card and it worked like a charm. I cracked up laughing when I heard Kyle speaking Spanish with an American accent (he normally speaks fluently with a slight Argentinian accent). It nearly cost us our guise. But we got through without needing to pay any bribes or "service fees" and all we got was a verbal reprimand for not staying out for 3 days.

When we got let off the microbus in Coatepeque, we'd missed the last chickenbus to Xela, so we negociated with taxis until we got a crazy cab driver to drive 80 km/h through mountain switchbacks in the dark, cutting oncoming lanes at each blind switchback (there's no other way to take them at that speed). Steve and I figured we'd probably die, but miraculously we didn't.

We ended up checking out a beauty pagent, which was what you might expect. A theatre full of Guatemalans whistling like crazy at the scantily clad women on stage. We missed the Ms. Indigenous (where the girls are dressed in traditional clothes). Then I returned home and some girls we met at a bar last week came to our house and cooked us a big tasty Tex-Mex feast. A good conclusion to our Mexican trip.

Dan.