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Sunday, October 12, 2008

After breakfast at the Martinez house, our team assembled at Marcelo’s house. He let us borrow his Cherokee to spend the day in Antigua. After discussing dalmations with a lady who was walking hers, we headed to Posada la Merced to make arrangements for the end of our trip. We went next door to Fernando’s Kaffee. There we had some coffee, samples of his new chocolate, received a coffee bean sack for the Glass House, and took some pictures. We headed past La Merced and headed towards St. Catherine’s Arch. The plumbers are funny- they want to take pictures of every little thing. I can’t really say too much about that (I have several thousand Guatemala pictures myself), but it is cool to see their reactions. Everything on this trip is a new experience to them and they are amazed by it. Philip wants to stop in almost every store to shop and haggle. When he went into one store, we stayed outside and talked to the guard. He was a rather muscular guy that spent his first 23 years in a little town called Newark, Delaware. It’s a really small world. After that, we spent some time in Parque Central and then ate lunch at McDonald’s. You just have to see it to understand. It is NOT your McD’s from back home. From there we headed to the market to do some shopping and then some sight seeing. The next stop was a must for every trip to Antigua- Chimino’s.com. We had supper there and tiramisu (of course!). Now it’s time to head back.

I drove us back to Guatemala City. Philip videoed Cody and I (in night vision mode) jamming to one of my Christian music cds. Their favorite song was “Five Tweezey” by KJ-52. Maybe that video will turn up one of these days. Anyway- I got us back to town and even found the Martinez house. I said bye to Cody since he was leaving early the next morning and I would not see him again. Cody then drove the plumbers to Diez house. I hung out with the Martinez family. The Martinez’s know a little more English than I know Spanish. It is a good chance to practice what I do know. We watched part of a movie in Spanish and then I headed to bed. We head to camp tomorrow morning.

We’ve made it to Guatemala City and the Deiz house!! Feels almost like being at home. We unloaded out stuff and said hey to the family. After introductions, I found Michelle (aka Michi). I let her pick out a stuffed animal from the box of them that Alison sent with us. She picked out a white tiger. I also gave her a couple of pictures of us from earlier this year. We played together for a bit while the plumbers sent emails and Cody caught up with the Diez family. For supper, we had the standard dish that Gabi fixes for Cody every time- Melanasa. Michi sat beside me and let me fix her plate for her. We all talked for a while after eating. After about an hour and a half of playing with Michi, Rocky and Paris (the 2 dogs) Cody and I went to the houses where we were going to spend the night. I went to the Martinez house and Cody went to stay with his family, Rita and Oswald.

We’re stopped for lunch. Pizza Hut didn’t have a TV that had the Argentina soccer game on so Marcelo said we had to go elsewhere. We crossed the parking lot passed Pollo Campero (no TVs) to Burger King. They had the game on so we stopped there. Given the choice between BK and a new (to me) Campero, the choice was no contest. The other guys ate BK so I went to Campero alone. Of course I was rocking my Campero hat when I ordered. Though my Spanish is not that great, the only real problem I had was the fact that I just couldn’t hear the quiet cashier over the ambient noise. I told the lady working at the other end of the counter filling an order the store of how I came to have the hat. Together we had a few laughs, and she pointed out my hat to a few of the other workers. I got my order to go and took it to BK where they made me put it in BK boxes. I took off the Campero hat too. The boys went to look for a charger for Philip’s camera, which he had left in the hotel. Marcelo and I watched the end of the Argentina game (Argentina won). By the time we left our lunch stop, it was beginning to get dark and Marcelo told us that the Guatemala game would not be an option because it’d be too late when we got there. Oh well- time to roll again.

We woke up after a good night’s sleep. Cody, Marcelo and Oswald went back to the border to take care of business. Philip, Don and I wandered around town for a little while in search of breakfast and things unknown. The boys got distracted by the sight of a market. Philip loves to haggle prices with people and jumped at the opportunity to shop. He bought a… oh wait, it was a present for someone… Then Cody called and said that Oswald was coming to pick us up at the hotel. Time to head back to the hotel.

When we got to the hotel, Marcelo told us that Philip was the only one that needed to go to the border and that Marcelo would stay with us in town. Marcelo asked the front desk clerk at the hotel where a good place to eat was. We then proceeded around the corner to “Taco Queen”. It a pretty good meal. Our food came out and Don took a picture of his first Guatemalan breakfast. After about 15 minutes of talking after we’d finished our breakfast, the other half of our group showed up. They ordered and before Cody got done eating, they had to leave again. We started to go shopping again but were told to go make sure that everything was out of our rooms so that we could check out. We needed to be checked out in time so Oswald came back and picked us and our stuff up and we headed back to the border.

We’re stitting and waiting at the border again. All of our fees and such have been paid. Now we are just waiting for the paperwork to go through. Marcelo told us that Marcelito and some friends are going to the Guatemala national soccer team game. It is a World Cup qualifier game and asked if we wanted to go. That was not a long debate!! He said that the game was sold out but there would be plenty of scalpers to get tix from. SWEET!!! Now we just have to sit here for a little while longer and we’ll be done.

It’s been almost 24 hours exactly waiting to cross the border, but we’re finally across!!! Not to drive like Guatemalans all the way to Guatemala City. It should be about 2 hours or so to get there. Marcelo has called 4 times asking where we are. He is in Gabi’s Scion and we are in the vans. We told him that we are passing everyone that we can but we just can’t go as fast as he can. He asked if we wanted to stop at Pizza Hut for lunch in Mazatenango and we said sure. After all, it is almost 3pm.

Good news! We didn’t have to sleep on the border. We just had to leave our vehicles there. We rode in Marcelo’s car to the nearest town and got a hotel. Cody and Oswald rode on the back of motorcycles. It was a really cool looking hotel. The first one we went to was full. Now we are off to find something to eat and then to shower and get some shut eye.

We’re sitting here in the vans waiting for Marcelo to get here. It seems that the guys that showed us where to go are being less than honest with us. They’ve told us that we told the border agents to send our paperwork to the wrong town and it’ll be like $300 to get it here. Cody said no more talking about it till Marcelo gets here to set things straight. For now, we sit, being watched, and letting some people sign the vans.

Familiar faces!! Marcelo and Oswald have finally made it. Marcelo is not happy. After a few minutes of greetings and introductions, Marcelo and Cody went to talk to the Mireyna reps. It seems that now we are at the "wrong" border crossing and have to drive about 30 clicks south. I’m going to drive and for some reason, Marcelo and Cody are sharing the front seat of the van instead of one of them riding in the back.

(Marcelo seems to think they thought up a scheme to get a few bucks from the Americans. Thankfully Marcelo taught us better)

After going from the border to the Mireyna reps office and back to the border, it looked like we would be able to cross the border. We arrived around 230, which was when we’d hoped to arrive at the beginning of the trip. We should be able to reach Guate City by suppertime. Well, that depends on how this inspection goes. We’ve got to have the vans examined by the Mexican customs officials before we can cross.

We passed the inspection and now we just have to make it through this line of trucks and across the border. When Philip backed the other van out of the inspection place, he hit a covered walkway with it! Marcelo told him that he was going to have to go to prison, but nobody seemed to care, other than to laugh. It seems that the computer systems are down so we are just sitting here in line. Ah!! Movement at last!

We’ve gotten our passports stamped and are on the bridge that separates Guatemala and Mexico!! We’re almost there! Now all that we have to do is pull over into this parking lot to have our paperwork checked by the Guatemalan officials, “sell” the vans to Oswald, and pay all the taxes. Then we’ll be free to go.

It seems that we had to wait in the line to cross too long and that we are stuck here, in a parking lot, between the borders, for the night. This really stinks. We slept in the vans last night. It looks clear and we could sleep under the stars. We even have a grill and charcoal. We could cook out except for one minor detail- we never bought anything to put ON the grill. D-oh!! Good thing we have a bunch of snack stuff. It looks like we’ll need it. At least my Guatemala phone still has minutes on it from July and I got to call Alison.

It’s still been raining off and on. For the most part, the roads have been pretty decent once we got past Matias Romero. We just came around a curve in the road and off in the valley is Los Ventanas. It is a huge windmill farm. There are probably around 100 of them but only a few of them are turning. They look to be around 50-60 feet tall with three 20-30 foot long propellers. It is really cool. On our trips we’ve seen where they make rocks, sand, dirt, and now, wind!!

Ok- so this is the worst road of all time, or at least that we’ve been on. Wait until you see pictures. It is dirt/gravel and has about 2 potholes in about every square yard. It is really slow going. On the bright side, it has been raining all day and all the potholes are full of water and easy to see. Not that you could drive a motorcycle down the road without hitting any… The other van just flew past us like crazy men. Well, time to go- a piece of copper pipe just fell off the top of the van, bounced off the road and hit the side view mirror of the van. Now that we’ve stopped, a 20 foot piece of ¾ PVC pipe has slid forward enough to touch the ground. We’ve got to fix and secure our pipe on top of the van.

This road is not very good and it seems that sleeping in the vans was a good idea. There is not much traffic now and it is not really raining anymore. It is still foggy and drizzly. We’re almost to Matias Romero and it’s about time for a break. I thought it was just a restroom stop, but it seems we’re eating breakfast. Oh well, at least now it is mostly daylight. Off again- we’ve got to make it to the Mexico/Guatemala border today.

(John, writing in retrospect, trying to fill in the missing blogs to get things current.)
After it got dark and started raining, we stopped at a Pemex (the only brand of gas station in Mexico -nationalized gas). There Cody started talking to another “transmigrante” aka someone taking supplies from the States to destinations south. He advised us to not try to go any further tonight because of the bad traffic and road. We ate a little supper (it was around 11pm) and decided to stay the night at the gas station. No worries- we paid the friendly gas station armed guard to watch over us and he was even gracious enough to wake up at 4am per our request. Cody slept in the back of the van(see picture), I started out in the drivers seat so that Philip could sleep in the passengers seat. He never showed so I moved over because the seat reclined more. It started to rain more and the sleep was not of the best quality…

The security guard woke us up around 4am. Philip slept in the other truck with his feet hanging out of the window, in the rain. He said that he missed the memo that we were saving a seat for him. We thought that he didn’t want to leave Don in a truck by himself, and Don assumed he didn’t hear us say we were saving him a seat. Philip said he had “zoned out” and missed the conversation about who wanted to sleep where. Oh well. It’s time to get moving again.

Once in Mexico, things got a little hairy... Not so much dangerous or out of control, just no real way to communicate effectively. With the exception of the night in Tampico Alto, there was not internet or phone communication at all until we reached Guatemala. Sooooo.... over the next few days, this blog will be updated (likely 2x a day) with the progression of our trip through Mexico.) We would LOVE it if you would take the time to read it!

As of right now (Friday afternoon) here is where we stand
Cody is in Burlington, came home on Monday night
John, Don, and Philip are back in the city (San Cristobal) and are headed to Antigua in the AM. I'll let the future posts tell you what they've been up to.
Check out some of the pics from Cody's Camera... more to come when the other guys upload.



As for now... here is the rest of our story

Pay attention to the speed at the beginning. You are seeing perfectly!




*No one was hurt during the filming of this video except for spotted monkey snails!