Jan. 12 – Mexico/Guatemala
Day 164 – We roll up to the border with everything ready. Copies of all our documents for the car permit, cancellation document of our Mexico permit (that must be cancelled in town, not at the border), and our basic Spanish. A group of men approaches our car, all very enthusiastic, with badges around their necks, making them look quasi-official. My first reaction is “whoah…..back off”. They swarm the van and are pushy, with no sense of personal space, and as we know, we North Americans tend to like our bubble. They offer their services; helping us complete the paperwork in order to get across the border, along with offering Guatemala currency exchange. We choose one guy to help us, this way the rest leave us alone. It is only $2 USD for a bit of help – sure, why not?
Why not. Jorge, our ‘helper’, takes me to get our passport stamped for exiting Mexico, nothing I couldn’t do by myself. Jason stays in the car to keep Henry safe, and is constantly badgered by Jorge’s cronies. We then drive over a bridge, and a guy comes up saying we need to pay a toll for the bridge. He looks nothing close to official, nor does the ‘toll booth’ he points when we question him. But since there was not much we could do, and with our five ‘helpers’ explaining, in Spanish, why we need to pay the man, we decided it wasn’t much anyway, so we paid. Jorge and his gang then follow our van. They start herding us to the side of road as a group of other guys step in front of the van, telling us to pull in line with all the other cars waiting to proceed through customs. Our ‘helper’ explains that this is where we get our passports stamped for entering Guatemala (again could have accomplished this myself) and obtain our car permit. Now he tells us we need two extra photocopies of these papers to obtain our car permit. Jorge is going through his ritual, telling us the procedure in Spanish, and there are two other guys helping him out with the explanations and being generally pushy; sometimes all talking on top of each other.
Uhmmmm, I think he’s pulling my leg. But it’s only two copies; fine, if it will move us along. One United States dollar later, Jason is being hassled by the cronies, and I have the two documents copied. Next we have to get our temporary car permit and the bottom of the van fumigated. While I am running around with Jorge (for I dare not let him have any of my paperwork), Jason is getting pestered, in Spanish, to park in a parking lot. This will cost $10 an hour, plus a few extra dollars for a boy to watch the car. Due to the heat Jason can’t roll up the windows, and we are noticing how nobody in our line is moving forward.
So, on to the car permit. As we walk across the main road towards some shops, I notice no one in line is going through the fumigation station (which is empty), and in fact there is no line after the fumigation station either. Ok, I now know that there is no true line here. I say nothing because we’d like to get our paperwork all settled before we move on. I am careful not to go anywhere out of public view as we are walking around. We stop at a space that is occupied by a few desks with computers. Some words are painted on the wall, one of them being ‘agencia’. Are you thinking what I am thinking?…. yes, muy caro – “very expensive” crosses my mind. Okay, what do they have to say now? Jorge tells me that I need to give this gentlemen my paperwork, and he will get it ready for a visa. “How much?” I ask in Spanish. “98 Questzal” he says. “Esta es muy caro” I reply. They tell me it’s because it includes the fumigation, and other some stuff that I don’t understand. “No, no I want to go to the official office, it is only 41 Questzal.” I explain this in my broken Spanish. At first Jorge acts as if he doesn’t understand me. I repeat myself and the agency gentleman nods his head. Then he explains to Jorge what I am saying. Jorge looks dumbstruck and can’t speak. He tries one more time to convince me that I need to do it this way. I say “No, just a moment” and we walk back to the van while I explain to him that I want him to take me to the official office. Keep in mind this whole morning for us is spoken only in broken Spanish.
I approach our van and notice Jason with two other guys who are trying to convince him of something. I tell Jason my take on the situation as the men huddle around us, watching us. They decide to get another man to come over, who can speak some English. I hop back in the van once I realize Jorge is not going to take me to the official office anytime soon. I say to Jason “We should go and do it ourselves.” “Where?” he replies. I didn’t know, but I had an idea that it was past the fumigation station. The guy who speaks some English comes over with Jorge and starts talking to Jason. I realize this is the same conversation I had with the agency man, and we aren’t getting anywhere. I tell Jason that I will go investigate more. I notice there is a couple with a big RV and trailer in front of us, from the States. They look quite tired, and I ask them how much the guys are asking them for. They tell me $200, and I mention that it shouldn’t be so expensive. These Americans don’t really help me at all. When I return to the van our ‘helpers’ are all still there, still talking to Jason. We are both getting frustrated with how little is being accomplished, and Jason is consistently being harassed by these men. Jason asks them that if we pay $3usd, could we get our permit right now? I see them perk up and their eyes start to shine. “Oh, $100 USD, we’ll get you through right now” one guy says. Jason starts to laugh and says “F@*% you, forget it.” They start badgering him to get him to agree. Still not knowing exactly where to go for the car permit, and not wanting to just drive through the border and get into trouble, I tell Jason I am going to see if anyone at the passport office can help us.
I leave the babble and noise behind and walk towards the passport office. Again, in my broken Spanish, I ask a lady (a very nice lady) where the car permit office is (aka SAT). She tells me where the office is located, with a nice smile. I then ask her about the proper process. “Do we get fumigated first and then get the visa?” “Yes.” “And there is no line for the fumigation?” “No” – she confirms my suspicions. I give her a very big “thanks”, which she returns with another smile, and I return to the van.
Back at the van the guys are still trying to hustle a very stubborn, patient Jason. As I jump back in I tell Jason “Okay, babe, let’s go, I know what to do. Move up to the fumigation station, there is no line.” Jason puts the van in gear and extricates us from the group of men. We move on without their help. I ask Jason to stop so I that I can share my information with the other couple in the RV. I wanted to be nice by sharing my info. I start to explain the real process to the Americans. The guy from the States, who looks tired & frustrated, says “I can’t go now, they have my passport.” “Who has your passport?” I ask, not really wanting to hear the answer. “Him, the guy helping us with the paper work.” I wanted to slap the guy twice for being so naive as to give his passport and all of his paperwork to the ‘helpers’. Realizing I can not help them, but hating to leave them in such horrible circumstances, I start back to the van to tell Jason. I hear some yelling and notice a lot of men standing around. As I get closer I hear Jason saying something. I hurry up to see what is going on and Jason yells “April, get back in the car now!” I jump in quickly and we drive off towards the fumigation station. The men were yelling at Jason to move because he was in someone’s parking spot, but he sensed something else was going on. Later, Jason found out that this con is a serious business for these men, and I was meddling in it, so they started to make threats. We now know not to mess with other people’s business, in places like this. Once we realized how much they make doing this, we understood why.
So we finally drive up to the fumigation station. A very polite man sprays the underneath of our van thoroughly. I go pay for it,$42.75 Questzal. Moving on to the SAT office to obtain our car permit, we have to wait 20 minutes because they are on lunch break. After lunch (which Jason and I never took) I hand over my papers and started the process for the permit. I have to go and pay at the bank, just a few doors down. Then we are set to pick up Henry’s vehicle permit, which cost $41 Questzal. A total of $103.75 Questzal for the border crossing: $10 for each tourist visa, $42.75 for large vehicle fumigation, and $41 for a temporary car permit.
While I was waiting for the paper work to be processed, Jason sat patiently with Henry and befriended one of the con-men. He ended up learning about their whole game. As a group they keep you from seeing the simplicity of the border crossing. They use lack of knowledge and impatience to their advantage by having travelers wait ‘in line’ until they agree to pay more to get through faster. They even do this to locals who are trying to cross the border. They make a killing on this, anywhere from $100 USD to $800 USD (which is what the guy said he made off one RV last month).
One last problem occurs when we are set and ready to get out of there. Our van overheats and doesn’t want to start (we later found out that during fumigation a wire came loose from the start, which Jason quickly fixed, costing only ten cents). Positive note: we are on a hill. Negative note: there is a car directly behind us. A gentleman that I made aquaintance with, who is from Guatemala but lives in Chicago, comes over and explains the situation to the man parked behind us. He gladly moves his car and we roll backwards, Jason pops the clutch, and Henry starts right up 🙂 Yay! We finally take off! What should have been a 45 minute, stress free border crossing took us three hours and ended up causing more than a few grey hairs! A wave of relief washes through me as we drive away from the border, along with an adrenaline rush from the lack of lunch and the pure happiness of surviving! My body starts to slowly relax as a sense of accomplishment echoes in my now brain-dead head. We both gained some confidence for the bordering crossings to come, but by no means are we excited to go through them!
Tags: 08 - Mexico, 09 - Guatemala, driving
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WOW!!!!! What an exciting event to read. It had me on the edge of my chair. I am sooo glad I have a daughter with a good inner gut about things (always follow that gut feeling). I always check the car blog before going to your blog and when I saw #4 I was like oh no! I am glad it was only 10 cents. Love Mom XXXOOO…………….
Good job.
Caught onto your blog through BootsnAll. Enjoyed just now reading about your trip through Mexico, a place I love. Well done at the border. A pain, I’m sure, but lessons learned.
Cheers and safe travels.
Travis