Pin Alert.... A new pin to Ant - Gill's already got this on!
A seven o’clock start saw us clamber into our rather small mini van for our 10 hour run across the border from Guatemala to Mexico. Our “hostel to hostel” van was a tight fit we thought, till it got even worse as we collected a few more passengers along the way. The bags all piled on the roof. The trip was made longer than normal by various diversions due to landslides, road works and power cables down. For most of the journey we followed the Trans – American highway that runs from Alaska to Ushuia in Argentina. Ant had been to the extreme southernmost point, The Guatemalan part of the trip was all maize fields, green hills, terraced cultivation and avocadoes, the Mexican side, better roads, larger fields and then the mountains – pine forests and deep ravines. As usual we were well prepared. We had nothing…. The drivers just want to get there and back – they don’t stop for anyone, lunch or toilets. One driver took us to the border where we disgorged into the frantic border town of La Mesilla – a real frontier town with a rough market selling all sorts of tat and money changers everywhere. Gill’s expectation of a Heathrow style duty free were not realised – it was mayhem. Favourite sight was a mangy looking dog wandering around with half a fish in its mouth, given we were as far from the sea as it’s probably possible to be in Mexico it was an odd sight indeed! We had to walk the 500 metres or so across no man’s land (think of the view – Gill like a big red tortoise (see pic). We then get into the Mexican bus and there is an unsightly scramble for the best seats….. We managed reasonable ones we couldn’t face a few more hours on a jump seat – so we forgot all our British reserve and went for it. Our travelling companions were an eclectic mix. They included three very loud Americans who had come from San Pedro (the Lake’s druggie village) – think they were still on something from the night before. Poor Ant was next to 2 Portenos from Argentina – but the were in the hippy uniform and had obviously decided not to wash their hair for the last few months…. Interestingly, we saw them when we arrived playing a guitar in a bar and flogging their home made jewellery – one way to pay for the trip…. The one nice couple were two from New Zealand who are staying in the same hostel as us… We were still starving at the Mexican border – we had eschewed the money changers as “robbers” and fully expected an ATM at Mexico immigration. But we were disappointed. Not a peso to our name we continued staving and dehydrating all the way to San Cristobel de las Casas, high in the Mexican mountains. First port of call the ATM and a drink! It tasted good.
