After making this decision we discovered that the Guatemalan/Mexican border was closed and had been for a few days. Apparently there were protests on the Guatemalan side that meant there were road blocks. People from our hostel hadn't been able to get through so they were stuck in San Cristobal for a couple of extra nights. We asked the hostel about extending by a night or two just in case but the whole place was going to be booked out due to two big groups coming to stay. Friday morning, the day before we were hoping to leave, we got the news that our fellow hostel loggers had left for the border, good news! We were hopeful then that we would also get through, until the massive protests started that night. Friday night there were big protests all over Mexico in relation to the 43 missing students so no one seemed hopeful of getting out. Luckily there were free cocktails at the hostel that night to take everyone's mind off things. Definitely a good idea before having to get up at 6am the next day for a border crossing. In the end I maybe got about 3 hours sleep.
Saturday morning we were up at 6am for our 6:30am shuttle, feeling a little rough. The shuttle didn't arrive until 7:30am. We were so close to getting our awesome free breakfast that everyone was a little disappointed when the shuttle turned up. We walk around the corner to get to the mini van and hit the first snag of the day: two of the girl's names aren't on the list. There's a lot of umming and ahhing, phone calls and running around until finally the guy says they can come on the bus. The bus then drives us a block or two over and we are told we have to get out. That's the end of Bus #1. We walk around the corner to a fully sized bus that's going to take us to the border. We pile into the bus with some other travelers who turn out to all be part of one organised group with an annoying guide. We get out onto the highway on this bus and for some reason the the highway has speed bumps all along it, making for a painful slow drive. After a little while the bus pulls over and there's smoke everywhere. We don't know what was wrong with the bus the driver got back on and just told us all to open the windows. This meant the next part of the journey was pretty damn cold. About 10:30am we pull into a restaurant for breakfast and are told to only take half an hour. This stop takes about 1 hour and is a horrible restaurant. We had to force people to take our orders, they wrote the orders down on napkins and the food took forever to come. Eventually our food came out. We ordered Tortas (toasted sandwiches) and what came out was not a toasted sandwich, but still a sandwich of some kind. I was so hungry that I just started plowing in. After a little while the waiter comes over and says it's not our food, that's the club sandwich. It was almost like he wanted to take it away even though we'd started eating it. We knew that when it came time to pay the bill that was going to be a battle, but for the moment I enjoyed a pretty delicious club sandwich. As we got up to pay we noticed our bus driver just sitting down to his breakfast, so were weren't going anywhere fast. The waiters tried to charge us for the club sandwich and not the tortas that we orders. After a lot of back and forth of saying the same thing the others we were sitting with came over to weigh in as well so eventually the waiters gave up and let us just pay for the tortas. Score.
Back on the cold bus. Some of the girls had managed to get most of the windows shut so the drive was a little more comfortable. After a few more hours we got to the border. The bus driver took everyone's passport and $206MXN (maybe $306MXN, I can't remember) and took them all to the office to get stamped. I didn't really want to hand it over but I don't think I had much choice in the matter. While we were waiting for the bus driver to come back we had a toilet/snack break. Eventually the bus driver came back, handed out the passports and we were back in the bus for 5 minutes. Then it was get out, pick your bag up from the dirt and walk another 5 minutes to the next office. The end of Bus #2. The office was so small, nothing like what we were picturing. It was just walk in, get stamped, pay $20MXN and then keep going. On the other side of the office we had no idea what was going on. Lots of mini vans and people shouting. Eventually we got shepherded onto a bus that was going to Xela and San Pedro with the other people we'd been on the journey with so far and a new Swiss girl who was also trying to get to Xela.
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| The Border on the Mexican Side |
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| Snack Break |
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| Walking to the Guatemalan Side with all our Stuff |
Away we go in the mini van, The scenery is awesome but the van is squishy, the driver is blasting Saturday night music and insistent on hitting every pot hole at a high speed. Eventually the van pulls over and the driver gets out to have a look. We know something didn't feel right but we weren't sure what. The Swiss girl is worried it's a flat tire as so far the other bus she's been on today has had two. The other van we're travelling with pulls in behind us. Not sure what gets fixed but the driver decides it's ok to go again. So we're off, but at a much slower speed. After what feels like forever we finally pull up at a service station for a break and more horrible snacks. The people from the other bus are asking why we are going so slow, apparently we've only been going about 30km/h. After a while the other buses take off but we're still at the service station. Two people from our group with better Spanish go ask the driver what's going on. Turns out the breaks on our bus have been broken the whole time and now they're waiting for another bus to turn up. Amazing. We wait a while for the other bus to turn up, start doing a bit of a group yoga session. Our bus is loaded with bags from the other buses so we find it pretty funny that sure, they'll get to their destination hours before we do, but we've still go all their stuff! Eventually the new bus turns up, we swap everything over and pile in. Amazingly it's even squishier than the last bus. The end of Bus #3.
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| Some of the Initial Scenery |
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| Waiting for a new bus because this one is broke |
We manage to drive for a few more hours without any hiccups to another service station. This is the swap over for Xela. The three of us going to Xela swap our stuff over, say good-bye to the others and end get in the new van. The end of Bus #4. The new van is actually really nice, proper seats, it's the comfiest we've been all day. It's now only a short drive into Xela. We pass two McDonalds on our way in. We get dropped off at the Swiss Girl's hostel since we haven't booked anything because we had no idea if we were going to make it. The end of Bus #5.
It's maybe about 7pm now. We get a room and a really nice feed. Turns out the hostel is really nice. Now we are comfortable and showered we can laugh about it. We're still alive and we're in Guatemala!
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