Leaving Guatemala & into Mexico

Yesterday we left Antiqua, in the process of doing so we bumped into Julio, a well known Austrian who has lived in Guatemala for a long time, it was a fortuitous meeting as he was able to give us loads of advice on Mexico and in doing so saved us a laborious 1000 mile detour to see some Mayan ruins, there are better ones closer so thanks for all the tips Julio. I mentioned Johnny Walker on the last blog, you will all be glad to know that the two bottles came in tins which are the perfect size for my Panama Hat & Fiona's new shoes!

 

Perfect!



It was around 180 miles to the border town of La Democracia and found an excellent hotel for under £30 for the night (and that was the expensive room!) The main meal was £3 and excellent, if you are passing try Occiental Valley hotel if you need to stop near the border. The ride was good in bits and quite tiring in others, hairpins galore and of course trucks & cars galore spewing out fumes & smoke.

One of the crowded towns we went through!

 And another

 Fi Takes the lead

 80% of the vehicles smoke like this!!

 Diet Pepsi break!

 Glad to be washed and out of the bike gear at the Hotel

 

This morning (Friday) we headed the 10 miles to the border, it was an easy one, out of Guatemala in 10 minutes, money changed at a bad rate! Then the import to Mexico, all in all probably an hour which wasn't bad at all, we got confused as the time has changed again, now back to 6 hours behind home. The costs for Mexico were $48.85 US for producing the import paper $295 Mex Pesos for immigration (we think) about £15 and a $400 US deposit against ensuring we take the bikes out again, we get this back when we cancel the import papers.

Into Mexico and two Army stops, pretty sure they are just bored and want to look at the bikes, the other thing we have endured since yesterday is the dreaded topes (speed bumps) every village and town you go through we think has a competition to see who can build the biggest and most, the sections of clear road though has been excellent. We are now in the old Colonial town of San Cristobel de las Casas (now both bored with colonial!) which seems to be a magnet for hippies and wierdos, also seems to have a ridiculous amount of pubs (mostly empty) and more shops selling home made knick knaks than seems sensible!

Tomorrow we head to see the Mayan ruins West of here in Palenque.

 Money changer "This is a very good rate for you" Aye right!!

 Wooden Bus

 Colonial Church

 Getting a bit boring now

 Lunch on the bandstand

 The Bandstand

 Yip, another church

 Protestors have taken over a part of the square and are squatting here

 Cool VW Beetle, they are everywhere here

Church on a hill, quite cool!