Guatemala to El Salvador

Debra, Gary, and choosing caravan partners ---

Due to the chaos surrounding the vehicle exit requirements, and the ensuing wild goose chase through Tapachula, we quickly found ourselves in this border town at dusk (which I have coined the "witching hour") and ducked into a legitimate, incognito hotel with secure parking before the vampires came out to suck gringo blood.


The next morning we pulled up to the Banjercito office (see previous blog) behind a black 2004 Mustang with Nevada plates. What a couple of tools, right?

Enter Debra and Gary, whose names and vehicle descriptions have been changed to protect their conspicuously fugitive identites.

Gary: Hey there! Where you headed to? Costa Rica? Let me guess, English teachers, right?

Brad: Uh, no, just travelling.

Gary: Yeah, I'm headed down to teach English with my wife, we're totally sick of the states. Yeah, she just couldn't live without her Mustang.

Debra: She's my high maintenance girlfriend. The roads have been a real bitch on her though... They're going to get better in Costa Rica, though.

At this point I'm thinking, what planet is this woman from, has she never seen the Volkswagon bug size potholes seeping throughout the Costa Rican roadways? And a Mustang? Please. We've designed our vehicle and packing job to be as low profile as possible which makes what is about to happen next all the more asinine.

Gary: So, you want to caravan down?

Brad: Uh, yeah, that'd be great.

I agreed as well and in hindsight I think I did so just to see what would happen next.

We later learned that the Mustang was recently purchased, that Gary was making payments on it and it didn't even have plates yet. Debra just had that Nevada plate on hand and threw it on so the federalis wouldn't think it was so bizarre that she's driving a $40,000 car without plates in southern Mexico... because that's totally normal, right? I mean I've got plates in the back of our truck from 5 states and 2 South American countries...


This sort of behavior appeared to be totally normal to Debra and Gary. In fact, Gary heartily informed us that he wasn't planning on actually paying for the car anyway. These sort of bizarre comments arose virtually every time we stopped the vehicles.

At one point, Gary asked if we wanted to share a hotel room with him because he was just too cheap to pair for one on their own. Then he did the unthinkable and actually stopped a ¨police officer¨for directions.



When we got to the El Salvador border at dusk. I was pissed. If I hadn´t been on the fence about sticking with these two, we would have been in a hotel by now safely watching telenovelas. When he said he didn´t want to pay for a border guide to get him into Nicaragua, we split, we were through the border as night fell and onto our next problem of finding a safe place to stay pronto. For all I know, Debra and Gary could still be at the Nicaraguan border.



The lesson here is to choose your caravan partners wisely. Just because someone speaks the same native language as you and is also driving south does not mean that you will be safer driving with them. Safety in numbers only applies to intelligent people.



The upside of Debra and Gary is that I might actually get to call someone in on America´s Most Wanted one day.

Barra de la cruz to the Guatemalan Border

From Barra de la Cruz we continued south towards Guatemala, spending a night in Tanola, Chiapas and unother unfortunate night in Tapachula at the Mexican-Guatamlan border.

Remember that vehicle permit sticker that we told you about back at the U.S.-Mexico border? It's the sticker you must have if you travel more than 22 miles into Mexico in every state other than Baja California... well, if you don't have this sticker removed by a Mexican offical and recieve vehicle exit paperwork, you run the risk of finding yourself in a world of hurt the next time you travel through Mexico with or without said vehicle.

One would think that this vehicle exit process could be handled at the border. It can't. So all of you travellers driving vehicles thorugh the Tapachula, Guatemalan border, I urge you to make the following mental notes.

A. Your vehicle permit must be removed at the Banjercito office located at the Mexican Immigration and Customs office on Mex Hwy 1. This office will be on the left hand side of the hwy as you enter Tapachula.

B. You must pay an exit tax before reaching the border. This can be done at almost any bank. The accepted banks are listed on the back of your aduanas form issued at point of entry. This fee can not be paid legally at the border. It can be paid illegally at the border through the use of a "guia."

We learned all of this over a 10 hour period after reaching the border, being turned around by a hoard of guias, and racing through Tapachula at 3 in the afternoon trying to get to a mystery office by 4pm. As anyone who had driven in Mexico or Central America already knows, there are next to no road signs or addresses. On top of that no one we spoke to, store owners, teachers, policia, etc. had ever heard of the office we were looking for.

And so our stay in Tapachula began...