Last night we spent the night in San Cristobal de las Casas. Duke found the place we stayed on Air B&B. Their primary advantage is that they will lock our car up for 9 days while we are in Guatemala. The accommodations were quite rustic and damp and we had to lug our bags up a gigantic hill but they worked and we had no problem being up and waiting for our van at 7:15 am this morning.
The van had a broken window and no air conditioning. After picking us up it picked up about 10 other people. The last lady was from Ireland and they had her sitting in the middle in front on a kind of jump seat with no seat belt. It didn’t look at all safe to me and I was glad when before we were out of town she said I paid for a safe trip to Guatemala and I won’t sit in this seat. There was an argument between the driver and the Chilean woman sitting next to her who spoke for the irish young woman and finally the driver put some luggage on top of the van and the irish lady had a seat in back with a seat belt.
It took us about three hours to get to the Guatemala / Mexico border. The formalities were pretty simple although they made us pay an exit tax, something Duke has never had to do leaving Mexico before.
The Mexican driver waited with us until the Guatemalan driver and van showed up. It was much nicer, good windows, comfortable seats, and air conditioning!
We drove for about two more hours.
Tonight we are in Huehuetenando. We got to listen to a wonderful marimba band in the square as we walked to dinner and then had a great dinner overlooking the square and people watching.
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