Adiós Mexico! Welcome Guatemala! - Crossing the border with a car | The Family Without Borders

The Family Without Borders

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Adiós Mexico!

Comitan (Mexico, Panamericana): People sitting on a jeep

Comitan (Mexico, Panamericana): People sitting on a jeep
Of course not visiting all the places we planned, and of course much later than we planned – we are leaving Mexico. Surprisingly, without any problem on the Guatemalan border!! 

In Chiapas we could have spend probably all our 6 months but taking into account that there are  still 7 more countries waiting for us, one morning we took the decision: moving forward (not only around). Without finding Marcus, without visiting another different dozens of Maya houses, without other points from the to-do-list – we passed Comitan and hit the border.

We had our hearts in our boots, because the most important paper for our car (tarjeta de circulacion) is not on our name! The notary refused to sign our contract with the previous owner, so… what to do, if we don’t cross? We stay in Chiapas. Also good.

So we hit the border (Ciudad Cuauhtemoc/La Mesilla) quite early (we heard that the border is open not for long, FALSE: open until 10pm). The first person who stopped us – was a guy with a funny pipe, who wanted to disinfect our car (which is obligatory when entering Guatemala). Then, in the first office he sent us to, they asked us where is our exit stamp from Mexico. Upppps, that was already Guatemala! We left Mexico without even noticing it!

The proper way is to stop 4km before, in Ciudad Cuauhtemocs immigration office. Funny, that was our first border (and we have crossed few already), where it was possible to miss so important procedure like showing your passport on the border!

So we are going back those 4km. Smile, stamp, no problem. Behind the doors we met another travelling family, from Belgium, in exactly same situation: they bought a car in Mexico, couldn’t register it on their name and are trying to cross the border. Nope. Guatemala didn’t let them in without a paper from notary. And we all know that they won’t get such a paper.

So what to do?Even wider smile and let’s try. Again those 4km, smile, stamp, no problem! Ok, that was only about the passports. Now – the car window. Hanna: “Hola!”, Mila: kind of smile. The guy asked to move our car in front of his window. I (with both girls on my hands) decided to use this few seconds for politics (“So, mr official, is your window the last one? Ufff, good, and how long can it still take? Kids are hungry and tired, we have to find some place to stay asap, etc etc”). Tom came back, papers, papers, smile, papers, smile, stamp, have a nice trip!

After few kilometres driving already in Guatemala, we stopped, looked at each other and still couldn’t believe it: we heard so many stories how difficult it is on this border, how many people can try to cheat you, how many photo copies of how many documents do you need… and we made it. Guatemala, 28th country visited together, here we are!


Our first book is out!

We have published our first book (for now just in Polish:) about our Central America Trip.
See, read and order here »

One Comment

  • Posted January 6, 2012 at 12:28 | Permalink

    WOOOOWWWW!!! Guys!!!!
    So you made it to cross the whole Mehiko! Seeing the photo of Guatemala just after crossing the border I could feel the feeling of entering the unknown which you must be enjoying so much there!!! :))

    Good luck always with the Big smiles!!!

    Reply

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