The Hilarious Trip to Guatemala

The rolling hills of Guatemala

We had a chance to go to Guatemala last week with our neighbor and some of her friends. I was excited to see what it would be like there because our neighbor had so many nice things to say about it. That it was less expensive, the roads were good, the people were so friendly, and since it is bigger there are more shops with the things we can’t get here.  Everyone has been telling us that if we want this or that, we should go across the border to Melchor to get it.  The only catch was that everyone speaks Spanish, no English so it would be harder to communicate. I wasn’t worried about that because I knew a little Spanish from my lessons and Brad knew a bit from working in Cuba.

So we decided to go for a few days. The border is only about 1/2 hour away from where we are. It was a good thing we had some veterans with us because there are lots of little rules that you need to follow to keep from making mistakes and spending more money and time at the border. As it was, it took an hour to get out of there.

So first off we drove, rather than taking the bus and walking across the border, which adds some complications. We had to park the truck on the Belize side of the border and go in to get our passports stamped. We also had to pay $37.50/ea to leave the country. Then Brad had to go get the truck and drive through the gate, I was not allowed to be in the truck with him, I had to walk through and wait on the other side. One of the bonuses of leaving the country is that sometimes when you come back, they will give you a 30 day extension on your passport visitor visa. This is good for us because we have to pay a renewal fee every month to be able to stay here. We will have to pay that until our residency application is approved. The first 6 months is $50BZ/ea and every month after that is $100BZ/ea until you are a resident. So you can see how a break at the border is nice once in a while.

Over the border

Then on the Guatemala side, all the money changers approached us and at the border is the best place to exchange money so that was fine, except that they only spoke Spanish. So right away we had to switch our thinking modes to communicate with them. The usual exchange rate for quetzales (Guatemalan currency) to Belize dollars is 3.5:1 but since the US dollar is devalued lately, we were able to get an exchange rate of 3.8:1, which was pretty good! For those of you who are interested in doing the math, the Belize dollar is 2:1 with USD.

Once we were finished with the money, we went into the Guatemalan customs area. We had to get our passports stamped there too. The fellow at the desk didn’t even ask us how long we were staying, he just charged us $40q and gave us a 90 day stamp. For any of you who are thinking of going to Guatemala, make sure that you don’t get charged a fee to ENTER their country. We were only staying for 3 days, and any amount of time up to 30 days is free, so if you are staying less than 30 days you should not be paying. But of course by the time we figured out what had happened it was too late to get our money back.

Then because Brad was bringing the truck he had to get temporary insurance and a permit to drive in Guatemala. For that he needed 2 copies of his drivers license, the receipt to prove he had insurance in Belize, a copy of his passport and 2 copies plus the original title for the truck. He had to fill in some forms and pay another $40q. Then he got a sticker to put on the windshield, that we had to give back when we came back over the border.

the border town of Melchor

While all this was going on I had to use the washroom, but that is not something to take for granted in these countries. My advice is to make sure you have your own toilet paper where ever you go – having a toilet seat is also useful as most places don’t have them. And learn how to ask “donde esta il banos”. Finally the custom guy let me into the locked bathroom for tourists. It was cleanish at least, and there was no one else in there. But I was glad I brought my toilet paper. We never leave home without it.

Main Street Melchor

Once we had that all done I was allowed to get into the truck to drive through the gate into Guatemala, we first had to pass under some type of car wash that sprayed the truck with a chemical. I don’t know what it was for or if it would be very effective the way it was applied to the truck – but there’s no point asking questions about it.

We were on our way through Melchor. Mostly it was little shops with a lot of things hanging out of the shop windows. We didn’t stop so I don’t know for sure what was available there. It reminded me of the little rural towns in Canada where there is a main street where all the shops are located and the houses are in the streets further back.

excellent roads

The landscape seemed to change immediately. There were more jagged hills and trees along the road, and the road itself improved greatly. Instead of the rough and crumbling pavement we are used to in Belize, the roads were smooth wide asphalt, with lines painted down the middle and shoulders. Of course we did run into some shockingly rough spots where they seemed to have forgotten to pave the roads, there was even a washout, I assume from one of the big rainfalls. We had to go around a detour in that spot. Those parts of the road were in the first 20 minutes of crossing the border and the other 4 hours were smooth sailing.

town "taxis"

We noticed that there were a lot of semi trucks, probably 7:1 semis to cars. The other thing we noticed is that there were no people standing on the side of the road wanting to hitchhike. They have developed a great system where there are “taxis” guys driving around minivans who will stop and pick up people and drop them where they want. It only costs a few quetzales for a ride. In the towns they have cute little mini cars that holds about 4 people and they will also take you around short distances in and around the town. They are sort of like motorized rickshaws. I noticed lots of young ladies carrying big plastic tubs of dough using them to get into town where they made fresh tortillas to sell on the street corners. By the way, most people in Guatemala are descended from Mayans, so the average height of the men is 5′ 6″ and women are 5″ 2 or less.

Modern conveniences

The gas stations were pretty modern, there were even Shell and Texaco stations. They had all the usual junk food for sale in the stores and gas was much less expensive there than here. We pay about $9.60/gal, there it was around $8/gal and the prices ranged widely across the parts of the country we saw.

Our destination was a town called Rio Dulce, which is about 4 hours south of the border, on the shores of a large lake that empties into the Carribean ocean. Lots of big ships are moored in the marinas along the shore and it is supposed to be a safe harbor during big storms at sea. This is one of the bigger towns, and they have a big market in town.

Where we ate most meals

After driving for about 4 hours we reached the place we were staying – arranged by our neighbor as we had no idea about accommodations in Guatemala. It was right beside the highway (and I mean 20 feet from the road to our table), about 5 minutes from town. Our mealtimes were frequently punctuated by semis passing by using their jake breaks to slow down as they approached the town limits. Many times we had to stop and wait for them to pass to finish our sentences. Regardless of the location, we were treated to a warm welcome and a delicious meal prepared by our hostess. There was salad, fresh tortillas, beans, rice, and stewed chicken. This seems to be the traditional meal in Guatemala, as it is in Belize.

One side of the street

After lunch our friends took us for a tour of the town and pointed out the good places to eat (Pollo Express), and places to get certain items like underwear and sandals.

There was a big fruit and vegetable market, but I was concerned about how clean the food was considering that ALL the traffic (including semis, livestock trailers and garbage trucks) passed right by them all hours of the day and night.

Despite the closeness of the roads, it was very festive and colorful, it reminded me of walking around the midway at Klondike Days (Capital X for all you youngsters).

Notice how short the mirror is for Brad?

When we got back, we were shown to our “room”. The facility is set up with small cabanas and one “apartment” style building for accommodation. The rooms were full so one of the cook ladies said we could stay in her room for the night. It is usual for the staff of places to live on site where they work. Her 1 room house was quite small, about 15′ x 20′, with a small bathroom. It was sparsely furnished, with a bed and headboard that she used as a shelf, a small kitchen table with 1 chair, some tables and shelves covered with sheets along the walls that held all her cooking supplies, food, linens and clothes. She had 1 small sink with only cold water and a cement floored shower stall with a 40 gallon tank of water in it. The toilet had no seat? I wonder if she took it with her or she just uses it that way all the time? The walls around the place were covered with pictures and stuffed animals, and she had a couple of stereo systems on the shelves, but I’m not sure if they worked. The windows had wooden doors that pulled shut and screens that seemed to be made from old shade cloth (sort of like loosely woven plastic potato sacks). You could see daylight through all the walls and ceiling, and there was another “suite” above us too. The place smelled of perfume or maybe it was an air freshener. Whatever it was, it made me sneeze a lot. There was no lock on the door except a slide bolt on the inside. We found out later that she used a padlock to lock the door from the outside (when we came back from town and found the door locked) Luckily we didn’t leave any of our things in the room. I really wish I would have taken more photos of the room but I never got a chance. A lot of times I found myself wondering if I could live in such a small place – which indeed is the norm for the locals in Guatemala and Belize.

Our first night

That night we didn’t sleep much, it was quite noisy from the traffic, and the roosters crowing. Did you know that roosters crow all night? Neither did I. Maybe he was confused by the bright yard light, which shone directly in the window across from our bed. I also couldn’t breathe, either because of allergies to the perfume or the tremendous amounts of smog. So another note to those of you with allergies – bring some type of anti-histamine with you!

other side of the street

We decided to explore town the next day and see what we could find in the shops. Mostly it was plastic junk, and piles of clothes that could not be sold in the states. I was trying to find a pair of pants that were made out a natural fiber like cotton, linen or hemp, but most things are rayon, polyester or spandex – not so good for hot, humid weather. I tried on a few things – literally in the back corner of the stall under a pile of clothes – they didn’t have change rooms. I did find 1 shop that had some natural fiber clothes and they were even styled with a bit of a Guatemalan look so I got a pair of wrap around pants and an embroidered long sleeve top, good for the cooler fall weather here. We saw some cell phones shops, the fish market and marina and went and had fried chicken at Pollo Express for lunch. It was about 7 pieces of chicken, fries and coleslaw for 75q which is about $11 CAD, better than KFC!

All my cameras have malfunctioned down here so I wanted to get a waterproof one. Everyone said the best place for that type of thing was “the Mall” in Puerto Barrios, another big town 1 hour away so that’s where we went after lunch.

We knew we were in the right place when we started seeing all the McDonalds signs. The mall was about equivalent to Westmount – for all you Edmontonians you’ll know what I mean. Vacant stores, and a few small shops among the big department stores. There were also kiosks and a food court. One of the stores what sortof like Sportchek, one was sortof like Kmart and one was sortof like the Brick. I say this based on what was for sale in each of these stores. It was in the “Brick” that I found my camera. It wasn’t exactly the one I wanted, but last year’s model of the Olympus Stylus Tough. I was actually quite impressed with the selection of cameras they had, they had 2 waterproof cameras. The one I got was $1299.00q and a Sony for $5000.00q! We were doing our best to communicate with the sales person, but I must have done alright because I jokingly asked if I could have a discount in my broken Spanish and he said, “Si!”  It turned out I got the camera for only $900.00q after the discount, which is about $130 CAD. That’s not too far off what I would have paid back home so I’m happy with that. Now I can take pictures when we go swimming in the creek or if we go sailing again. We also looked in one of the clothing stores and Brad got a pair of work pants and I got a long sleeve cotton work shirt, because my other one is flannel and way too hot.

We got back to our room and found the door locked, so we asked our hostess what was happening. She said the cook needed her room back but we could stay in another cabana. I won’t say much about it because a picture is worth a thousand words.

nice scenery

exterior of Cabana

looking in from the door

looking out from bathroom

the no frills bed

Lysol please

More Lysol!!

Good enough for Brad

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The next day we came back to Belize.  All I can say is that Guatemala was quite an eye-opening experience.

If you go there, I would recommend you bring some key items – toilet paper, a toilet seat, hand sanitizer, a flashlight, mirror, washcloth & towel, soap and anti-histamine.

A sense of humor would help too.

Advertisement