Quest to See the World

After a van ride, two super packed chicken buses, a walk across the border, a shared front seat of a car, another van ride and another car ride, i made it to San Cristobal de las Casas in Chiapas, Mexico after 9 hours. I don´t want to do that again anytime soon. I´m whooped!! I woke up at 6am to call the long distance bus company in Xela this morning, but they didn´t have any buses running to the border today. I packed up my stuff and was on my way. While making my way to catch the van, I had to call my mom at work to find out the exchange rate between Guatemalan quetzales and Mexican pesos because I forgot to look it up last night and I didn´t want to show up at the border and get ripped off. I was really confused when i got there because the two towns are 3 kilometers apart. I had to get my exit stamp from Guate, then walk to a car that drove me to get my Mexican entrance stamp. Before getting into the car I had to use the bathroom and it was posted that there was a charge of 3, but it didn´t say in which currency and at that point i didn´t even know what country I was in. The guy said that he´d take 3 of whichever, so I paid in pesos and saved a couple of cents. I´m still glad I did it because the whole trip was only $13 as opposed to $35 from Xela and $65 from Antigua on tourist transport.

I had to enter the chicken buses from the back today and when I got on the second one I hit my forehead soooooo hard on the top of the door frame and now have a lump. I don´t remember ever having to get in from the back when I used to ride them to school. At least everything else is feeling normal now.

the border crossing was really strange because i could´ve gotten here without ever seeing any immigration official. the offices are there, but it´s not like when crossing back into the u.s. from mexico and the only way in is through the immigration office. there´s a walkway to exit guate and enter mexico, but the immigration is on the opposite side of the street. i started crossing into mexico and asked someone if i needed to go to a guate office and he pointed to the place, so i had to turn around and go back. then, after getting my guate exit stamp and getting in the car to take me to the mexican immigration office we drove the 3 km and i was dropped in front of the vans that go to the next town. i could´ve just gotten into the van without ever getting the stamp. they are more serious than us with the down the road immigration and customs checkpoints. we got stopped 3 times after leaving the actual border area, but did not get asked any questions any of the 3 times-they only opened the door of the vehicle and looked in.

i didn´t know this, but central americans need visas to enter mexico. it´s because of the u.s. government. they don´t want a bunch of central americans going to mexico and then entering illegally into the states. that´s just crazy to me though that they can´t come here freely. they don´t even need a visa to got to europe!!!! that´s what one of the waiters told me anyway.

so far, in the 20 minutes it took me to walk from the van to the hostel, san cristobal looks so much like antigua, guatemala, but nicer. i like the streets here better because i won´t have to put an ace bandage on my ankle. i arrived just in time for the spring festival which started yesterday. not sure if i´ll stay 2 or 3 nights here. i´ll have to check out what there is to see around town before heading off to palenque. i need to pick up a zapatista doll for my ethnic doll collection too. i´ll just have to get a small one though since i´ll have to lug it around for 2 more months. i´ll be able to take pics of cars I like here since there are a ton of volkswagon busses and old bugs. i´m splurging at this place, a whole $10 for a private room instead of the $4 in xela. the bathrooms are inside of the house here though, so i won´t have walk out into the cold to use the bathroom at night.

well, i´m off to explore a bit and see if i can get a cheap meal in this town because i only have 7 pesos left until i can get to the bank tomorrow. oh, and thank you to those of you who have been writing comments, and myriam, i do plan on going to the falls near palenque. sounds beautiful.

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 9th, 2007 at 6:29 pm and is filed under Central America 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.