Thursday, October 20, 2011

Guatemala day 1

The border crossing was nice and quick, it took me about 1/2 hour or so.
I had 100 dollars worth of quetzal so I didn't have to deal with the guys at the border, I spend all my pessos night before.
The crossing process is simple, first you pay 11.75Q for bike fumigation (basically the guy sprays some crap on your wheels) and than off to the immigration office, they do their own copies and after that you pay another 160Q for 90 days of bike registration and you are done.
The rains really did the number on this country, the roads are muddy and tons of fallen rock everywhere.
At one point I was stock for 3 hours waiting for the crew to clean up the road so people can go through, There was a guy that spoke English so the time went bye quick. I meet a fellow adventurer traveling from Israel on KLR but he just passed and it was my turn to go so we had a fast chat, nice guy and he is coming to Mexico and US next so if you see him say hello for me please.
I want it to get to Panajachel that day but the road conditions set me back allot and someone mentioned to me that the roads around the lake are mostly closed anyway so I got a cheap hotel about 30 miles before that, it was after 4pm anyway.

ok few pictures

Rivers running high  
First pics in Guatemala

People selling cheap Mexican gasoline
more views
 And this is were the roads starting to get interesting



Try to breath that for 10 min
some nice views along the way

and the hotel, Oh boy it was cold at night...
Armed guard was watching my bike all night

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