MUNGO EATS Latin America

We left San Cristobal yesterday and headed for the last National Park in Mexico before the Guatemalan border, Las Lagunas de Montebello.  As the crow flies it is only 10 km or so from the border, but to get to an actual border crossing, we had to head south about 60 or so kilometers.  More on that later.  The park contains a series of lakes, I truly am not sure which lake we were camped at, signage is always an issue.   I can tell you that it was not a campground.  You could free camp anywhere you could get to.  We went as far up the lake as the water level  would allow before stopping.  Nice and far from the crowds.  I think there was only one other group that was actually camping on the lake, the rest of the folks were just vendors and day use people.  The lake was nice…I think when it comes to beautiful lakes we are spoiled with the Rocky Mountain lakes, so it was a bit of a let down.  Still nice, just not  spectacular.    The weather was nice, although a bit breezy, so we enjoyed nature for the afternoon.  There was also garbage present on the shores of the lake, which I was a bit disappointed in, given the number of trash barrels strategically placed around the lake.  I must say, the southern bit of Mexico has been a LOT less littered than the north part.  It may have to do with the fact that there is a bit more prosperity down south, or we actually saw signs that said the minimum fine for littering was 90 salaries.  That is a literal translation, I am not sure if it means 90 days pay…in any case, at least there were fines.  In the north, the strongest sign we saw dissuading littering was one that said, “Show some class, don’t litter!” 

There was a small creek close to where we camped that ran into the lake and was full of minnows, so the kids spent some time trying to catch minnows with entirely the wrong equipment.  They did not succeed, but had some fun trying!

It was strange sleeping on the shores of a lake, pretty quiet, I missed the barking dogs and the firework-like bangs that we heard in every town!!  I did hear a rooster crow, which surprised me, not sure where he was.

This morning it was off to Guatemala.  This was the first border crossing in more than a month and the first border we had NEVER been across.  Before you can enter Guatemala, you need to “check out” of Mexico.  We have pretty much decided that we will not be driving all the way back to Canada.  Although we did enjoy Mexico, we have decided that we will likely ship our van back from South America all the way to Canada on the way back.  There are a number of reasons for doing this.  Firstly, if we are only driving “one way”, then we have more time to enjoy each country (1/2 the number of miles to drive).  Secondly, Mexico and the States are HUGE and it takes a long time to drive through them, especially Mexico, where we averaged only about 60km an hour for most of our driving.  If we did drive back through on our way back, we would hit Mexico at basically the same time of year again, which means it would be too hot on the beaches again and we would have to more or less retrace our steps through the highlands.  All these factors influenced our decision to not re-drive North and Central America.  Anyway, what this means is that when we “checked out” of Mexico, we had to surrender our vehicle permit that would of allowed re-entry within the next 10 years and get our passports re-stamped.

We then had to drive to the Guatemala side of the border ( a few kilometers away) and “check in” here.  This amounted to getting new stamps in the passports at one office, getting the tires of the vehicles sprayed with a fumigating agent and surrendering copies of Mungo’s vaccine certificates at another office, getting the necessary paperwork to import the vehicle at a fourth office and paying for the whole lot at the last office.  Sounds complicated, but it actually went very smoothly and took less than an hour, so we were very happy!  We were soon on our way.  This is the first street we traveled along in the border town, lots of shops and stalls trying to get business, although I must say, much more subtly than the Mexicans.   

And within 5 minutes of being in Guatemala, we saw our first Chicken Bus. 

     This one was trying to complete a 7 or 8 point turn.  Chicken buses are mass transportation in Guatemala that I’m sure includes more than one chicken.  They are all dilapidated old school buses and they are all painted very brightly although no two are likely the same. 

The scenery was different almost immediately after the border crossing as well.  The hills are steeper and more close together.  The road we followed today was traveling through a pretty narrow gorge the whole time.

We have stopped for the night in Huehuetenango in a hotel.  We figured we would take it easy for the first night in a new country, and we all needed a shower.  Amazingly, there were absolutely no issues with Mungo at the hotel.  No problems, no extra charge.  That is a relief.  There are a couple of caged monkeys in the yard of the hotel.  They are cute, although I’m sure they would rather not be in the cage.  Tomorrow we will head toward Lake Atitlan which is supposed to be an absolutely gorgeous lake.  We are hoping to stay in the Lake area for at least a couple of  weeks, and hopefully take some more Spanish lessons at a school there.  All of us this time!!  I am looking forward to this.