Since we got such a late start yesterday and it burned us getting into Palenque late, we decided to leave early today. I was up well before the sun, showered and packed up as quick as I could. I figured if I could get everything on the bike before the sun came up, I wouldn’t get so hot. I was wrong. It was incredibly hot, even in the early morning hours.
We had a little less than 400 km to travel and that included a border crossing into Guatemala that is known to be a little difficult. We had an early morning buffet before any of the rest of the hotel was stirring. It felt good to know we were going to get on the road at a decent hour instead of continually racing the sunlight all day.
The night before in the wee-hours I did a little chain maintenance but scrubbing, tightening and lubing the chain. This morning the smell of chemicals was still sweetly surrounding my bike. It made me feel better knowing I was taking care of the small things I had learned about. I also am really keen on the idea of understanding and mastering my own equipment. I was happy to start the day feeling tip top.
We have had days, on the way down here, where there isn’t much to look at as we are riding or the roads are particularly flat and straight. That was not today. Every turn revealed new terrain and vistas. It was like riding deeper and deeper into an oil painting. Each tree passed revealed a mountain, each mountain passed revealed a lake and each lake passed revealed another little village tucked away amongst it all. It was some of the most picturesque riding I have ever done and that includes a couple of US National Parks earlier this year.
As we pulled up to the border crossing at El Ceibo there is a single large building just off the left side of the road surrounded by fencing and several different lanes for various traffic patterns. The good news was that on this day, there was no traffic. We pulled up to a building which looked all but abandoned with one man sitting outside in a uniform not made for the heat with a table hung with a curtain full of vegetable images on it. We figured he had to be the agricultural guy and we were thankful we weren’t smuggling oranges because he did not seem in the mood for laughs.
We stepped inside the building which was very pleasantly air-conditioned and again, found no one. It was almost eerie as we made our way through the hollowed out hallways. We found our guy stuffed in a little office with thick glass separating us. He asked to see our papers and we began digging through our tank bags to pull out everything we had from entry just a few days prior. When he saw all our papers and passports he sent us back out of the building and along the fence line to our left. There we would find another small office but this one had bars on the windows and we were stuck standing outside. It was covered but the sauna-like heat was ever present. The people inside the little office took our passports and starting asking some questions in Spanish that we couldn’t answer. They called us into the office one at a time and sat us on a ratty couch opposite the desks. They went through the passports and all our other paperwork before loudly stamping our passports and sending us back to the man to release our bikes.
We headed back inside with our freshly stamped paperwork to see the man about returning our deposit and letting our bikes leave the country. He asked us for copies of a few of the pages and we, of course, didn’t have everything he needed. We were told to leave the bikes and walk the quarter mile to Guatemala where there was a little store where we could purchase copies. We gathered ourselves after what seemed like an international episode of Punk’d and set out on our mini journey. We crossed the DMZ-like distance between the two countries trying to conserve any sweat that might still be present in our bodies. We passed the incoming customs agent and said, “Copias” to which he just nodded and waved us through. This apparently was not an uncommon sight at this particular border. When we finally made it to the store there was just inside to our right a man at a register who knew right away why we were there. He took our paperwork and handed it to a little boy, no more than 8, who took it to the back for copies. While we waiting Joe found some Fanta in the cooler and we figured it was already well earned though our day wasn’t yet half over. We sipped the drinks and melted away all stresses of the previous hour. It felt good to know we were getting closer to finished with this border mess. We took our copies, three away our bottles and trudged back to the Mexican side of things.
The gentleman behind the heavy glass processed our bikes, took some pictures and handed me back $400 dollars. I handed the money over to Joe, thanking him for the help and apologizing again for coming to Mexico with only one card, which isn’t even accepted in most of Mexico.
We suited up and headed just a quarter of a mile down the road to officially enter Guatemala for the first time on our bikes.
One of the most obvious changes from Mexico to Guatemala is the difference in their border set up. Mexico has a big beautiful (albeit completely empty) building with glass doors and air conditioning and Guatemala is just a series of ramshackle buildings on a small hill surrounded by trailers containing banking (bike registration) and decontamination spray. We took the first set of steps which brought us in between two trailers and into a back building which was the most official looking structure there. Inside we found three guys sweating and typing on keyboards that looked too small for their enormous hands. We waited patiently until a few minutes later one looked up and began his slow walk to the counter. From there we started pulling out every scrap of paper we had, hoping we could head off any questions we probably wouldn’t understand with the proper documents.
It appeared to be going very well as very little was being said as he slowly dug into the mess we had presented and just worked his way through our respective passports. Eventually, he pointed to a piece of paper we had and asked each of us for, “Copias?” Our hearts sank a little but we knew right away what we were going to have to do. We quickly collected everything we had spread out, stuffed it into our tank bags and headed to the little store for copies. Now I know what you might be thinking…this wasn’t your standard customs office, sure, but they must have had a copy machine in there, right? Oh, they absolutely did but for some reason, that copy machine wasn’t for making copies, at least not our copies so off we went to source them ourselves.
We arrived back at the store after leaving our bikes parked in front of the rows of trailers and men sitting outside in chairs. I can’t say for sure but I felt like the attendant couldn’t hold in a wry little smile as we rounded his corner again. Maybe that was just the heat exhaustion talking but I was certain I saw it. With the Fanta still sugaring my blood from the previous visit, we sacrificed another treat to move quickly.
We returned to the office, handed him our copies, he stamped them and sent us on our way to the next trailer. Luckily, this trailer was relatively new and perfectly air-conditioned so I didn’t mind staying for a moment or two. There was also a sticker wall in here and I politely asked to post up my BGFG sticker which I had gleefully brought down here expecting to give to children and gorgeous women on the street as they fawned over my rugged bike and Indiana-Jones-like stature. For some reason that didn’t happen exactly like that so I welcomed the chance to leave my mark.
We got our bikes registered for a small fee and went to the bikes ready to take off. We were stopped by one of the guys sitting outside telling us he wanted to spray the bikes. It seemed a little like a scam but there was also a shotgun sitting in the doorway so we obliged. He doused the bottom edges of the bikes and soaked the wheels and tires before taking a small fee. he returned with an official looking form so we felt better about not being taken for gringo fools. Whatever, it was about 5 bucks so I wasn’t going to let it ruin my day now that we were finally in Guatemala and moving on.
We rode through the town and tipped our helmets to the shopkeeper who I am pretty sure was kept in business by making copies. We were immediately plunged into a very different environment with a town at the border that looked worse than any we had seen in Mexico. I didn’t want to believe that a make-believe line across the land could bring such a large disparity in populations but it seemed stark. The children were dressed differently, I would argue more shabbily, like cast members from Oliver Twist. I swear you could almost see the soot on their cheeks from the chimney sweeping they had been doing that morning. The roads seemed dirtier and covered with litter. The other bikes on the road were smaller and in worse shape than where we had spent the previous few days. It made the fact that we were on big bikes making a lot of noise seem to stick out even more so than our brightly colored jackets and leather boots.
It wasn’t long before we were back in exciting riding through jungles, mountains, and backroads. We were having a ton of fun and making reasonably good time. If we kept it up we wouldn’t have to pull into Tikal in the dark as we had with our previous destinations.
If there is one thing I could give you if you have never ridden into the heart of this jungle area is the feeling of claustrophobia that hits you as you realize the trees are closing in around you. It isn’t a shocking moment but there is a point that you see the jungle would swallow you whole if you just stood still for a moment. You can feel the ever-present creeping of the vegetation and it is humbling.
We pulled into Tikal with a slight mistiness in the air. We dismounted and took care of park entry fees because our hotel was inside the confines. The sun didn’t seem to be allowed inside this gate because it was blotted out shortly after we proceeded inside. Shortly after we lost the sun, the rains opened up and they were unrelenting. In mere minutes we were soaked completely through. We saw warning signs through the blur of the rain warning us of the wildlife nearby. Apprehension seeped into my helmet and into my brain as I thought about the night ahead.
We made it to the Jungle Lodge while the squall raged on. Quick point of warning, if it is raining when you arrive at the Jungle Lodge, please, please, please be careful on the flagstone driveway because it is practically an ice rink. I wasn’t prepared and even though I didn’t dump the bike, I certainly shimmied around a little bit.
Unpacking when you are completely drenched sucks. Actually, doing anything completely drenched sucks and we were definitely heavy with wet. I don’t know that I would have been wetter if I have walked into the pool. We got our keys, headed to the room and got into the warmest and driest clothes we had in our bags. It was good to be at our destination but this rain was a big drag. Apparently, this is what the jungle is all about. How the hell were we ever going to be dry again?
Dinner service was going to have to be quick because the power went out at 8 pm when the generators were shut off to give the jungle a chance to sleep/hunt in peace. We powered through with no difficulty until the ladies a couple of tables away started making a bit of a commotion. We inquired and they informed us of the pair of scorpions that had made their way under their feet. I immediately became completely aware of where all my limbs were while simultaneously wishing I could balance atop my chair. I, of course, kept my cool because I arrived here on a motorcycle and wasn’t about to waste that inherent coolness even though I was sure I wouldn’t survive a scorpion sting. I saw the little guys shuttle out from under the table and thought about that old saying, “They are more scared of you then you are of them…” and thought, that might just be true.
We retired to our room and I was relying on my Garmin InReach to text with my wife back home so I could tell her all about our crossing. The only problem was the significant cloud cover made messages sporadic at best. Eventually, I just had to give up and give in to the jungle.
I was in it now and there was no better way to be sure of that than the howling monkeys screaming and growling from the trees as my exhausted eyes finally shut for the night.