Adventure While Entering Tapachula
Deservedly or not (I don't know enough to know), the southernmost Mexican state of Chiapas is known for some degree of lawlessness. Just before crossing into Chiapas, we saw a few military checkpoints, guys in uniform with machine guns atop military Hummers, that kind of thing. But we crossed into Chiapas and went through most of it without anything troublesome, finally arriving in Tapachula maybe 45 minutes after dark, just short of the Guatemalan border.
As this late model Honda Pilot and nice new trailer entered the outskirts of town, a band of about 7 men jumped out in the road, motioning us to the side, next to some buildings I never could quite identify. David pulled the car over and stopped, and lowered the window just enough for conversation. Although I understood very little at the moment, they were telling David that they wanted to help us, and that they work for the government. They were not in uniform, but did have similar shirts, though I don't think they were identical. I saw them displaying what they claimed to be official credentials, laminated and hanging from a lanyard on one of the men; at the same time, they were saying that we can trust them because they have these credentials -- and the laminated credentials did appear to be official. They asked whether we were going to Guatemala, and when David confirmed that we were, one of them said, “I'm Guatemalan too, you can trust me.” By this time, one of them had taken up a position standing directly in front of the car.
I told David to fill me in on what they were saying. He started to talk to me, but was immediately interrupted by the guys outside, so David raised the window completely and told me about their badges and their claims to help us. He then spoke with them some more, and they asked to see the transit papers for David's car, given to us at the northern border, to take it through Mexico. I emphatically told David not to hand it out the window, but only to let them see it through the glass. David showed it, and asked them why they need it. They offered a lot of explanation, but David only understood some of it, and even that didn't make sense to him. David raised the window and filled me in again, and asked my thoughts about it. My counsel to him was, “I´d put it in gear, and hit the gas.” David put it in gear, and as he hit the gas, he said through the window “Goodbye!” I liked that little touch. We heard several of them hitting/slapping the car and trailer as we pulled quickly away, and then checked to see if anyone followed us. For a while that evening, that event colored our whole perception about the town we were entering, and where we needed to find a place to sleep and store the car and trailer. It was a dismal looking town as we searched for the city center, but finally getting there, things began looking up, and then in the gridlock Fiesta/celebration traffic, as I got out to run ahead to inquire at a hotel half a block up, interacting with the locals, I began to feel more at ease. The hotel had no vacancies, so David got out and checked another -- it turned out to be where we stayed. Good hotel, secure parking, and we all felt better, and got out and enjoyed walking through the crowded town square (see pics in earlier entry).
Pics of the hotel in Tapachula, the first three leading successively in further toward our room:
Crossing the Border From Mexico Into Guatemala
When we first entered Mexico, it was with the understanding that there would be a careful checking of us on the way out at the southern border. And then there was the “tax” when we discovered that our documents were incorrect, and who knew what troubles that might lead to at the southern border? David made a couple calls as we neared the border region, and we were told to stop just before the border at a government office, “Viva Mexico,” where some things might be put in order for the crossing.
Well, we never saw Viva Mexico, and suddenly there we were at the border. There was a long, I mean long, line of cars (parked really, drivers not even present in many cases) in the Transmigrante line, which we had been incorrectly labeled as; we bypassed that lane and went on in our unoccupied lane. Guys began running up to the car, then alongside the car, offering their services and telling us to stop, showing (of all things) credentials hanging from lanyards. We ignored some of them and told others a firmly blunt “No.” We spotted a guy in uniform, and he told us to proceed, kind of shooing away the running guys.
Then we crossed a small bridge over a mountain stream (in which Guatemalan women were washing clothes) suggesting we were no longer in Mexico. Sure enough, there was the Guatemalan border control just ahead. Well, any concern for what the Mexican government might demand of us (more “taxes”?) quickly dissipated. By this time another group of guys had locked in on us, guiding us up to the obvious stop point for the Guatemalan side. And all of this amidst a kind of festival or state fair kind of atmosphere that I've never seen at any border anywhere. People walking in every direction -- I'm quite confident a person could simply walk through this border without ever being questioned at all; we walked around with complete freedom, and never saw any uniformed men stopping anyone. With a car, you might get stopped, but I have my doubts (at least in the direction from Mex. to Guat.).
As we came to a stop, these guys wanted to take charge of David's affairs, and David had to actually seek out the official guy there on the scene. Turns out David already knew about the young guys who assist travelers by taking them through the whole process, in expectation of a tip, but neither Amy nor I did. Anyway, we were told to back up about 30 feet, and enter a parking area back behind the buildings, and then walk back across to the Mexican side to get our passports stamped -- this was in a building off to the side. That done, there were a few other affairs on the Guatemalan side (passport control, changing money, making a list for customs of all the electronics we had, etc.). The guys that led us in walked us through all of this, which really, we could have done by ourselves. Their high-fiving each other behind us, when it became clear we were going to use their assistance, was disconcerting for a moment, but nothing really threatening.
Also, the whole time there are people offering to polish shoes, attempting to wash the car (one guy, the same guy, started washing it at least three separate times, always being told “no”), and boys age 11/12 or so begging for money. Also in this no-man's land between checkpoints, or rather between the Guatemalan checkpoint and where a Mexican checkpoint might be expected, were street vendors with food, clothing, etc. for sale, permanent stalls for the same, and even (I think) a hotel and restaurant. It was just craziness. Amy summed it all up later, in one of the videos below. About halfway through all of this, David ran into three of the Christians who had come to the border to meet us: Jeronimo, Elder, and Farinez (questionable spelling on that last one, though I can say that the n would have the tilda thing over it). Elder in particular was truly helpful. Pictures of the guys leading us into the initial stop on the Guatemalan side:
And here's a couple videos I made as we made our way through the western Guatemalan highlands:
OKAY, VIDEOS WILL HAVE TO WAIT UNTIL TOMORROW -- THIS INTERNET CONNECTION AT THE HOTEL IS ENTIRELY TOO SLOW FOR THAT. I'LL GET TO AN INTERNET CAFE TOMORROW, SO CHECK BACK IN THIS SAME SPACE
This next video begins as a Spanish dissertation on coffee, to the best of my knowledge, but then includes a cool view and some coffee plants:
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(If for some reason you would like to see where this post was originally published, and the comments left there, it is viewable here:
http://pleonast.com/users/dbsmelser/entries/299976-catching-up
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