Friday, May 24, 2013

Tenosique & Villahermosa

We left Rio Dulce at around 9am, and it took us six hours to navigate the ridiculously subpar road to the Mexican border at El Ceibo. Leaving Guatemala was no problem, their technology is slow and inefficient, but capable enough. Mexico on the other hand was a little problematic.

Getting our passports stamped was no problem. However the truck was an issue. One of Mexico's little quirks is that anyone who brings a car into the country has to have it registered in the country. Presumably this is to make sure that the vehicles are legitimate, but I don't know for sure. Anyway, the guy in charge of registries decided to leave early, and so we were told to go to the nearest town, and come back tomorrow. With no choice in the matter, we left the border and headed to the Mexican town of Tenosique.

At Tenosique, we navigated the poorly laid out streets. There are no streets and avenues here, there are only numbered streets. After some difficulty, we found hotel La Roca, an old hotel which spends their entire budget on advertising and little else. When we approached the owner, we explained to him that we wanted two rooms, but we needed to have the dogs with us. He didn't seem to keen on that, but the notion of having $100 American was too good to pass up and he allowed us in.

I won't look a gift horse in the mouth, but I will say that they should change their name to La Roacha. The place was underwhelming, but they let us stay there, so I can give them a break.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

To the End

Tonight is my last night in Guatemala. Tomorrow morning I'm loading my things into the truck and setting off on a hellish journey back to Canada. You may remember that I wrote about Mexico (and C.A. in general) not being to friendly to dog owners. Well, that of course is still the case, so you can imagine that I am not looking forward to that.

Anyway, I want to thank all of you have and continue to read this blog. I admit, that eventually content dried up when the renovations kicked into high gear. For that I apologize. On the positive side, I intend to do some exploring in America when we get there, so look forward to that!

Sunday, May 5, 2013

A Nasty One

A few nights ago, a sudden storm swept through eastern Guatemala. We had been having incredibly hot weather for the past month, with the temperature hitting 40+ on a daily basis. Believe me when I say that the storm was a blessing in disguise.

Now, back to the storm. At around 10:30 pm, the power had gone out as it often does. Ok, no big deal I just turned on the battery powered lights and went about my business. Soon after the down pour began, and it was chaos.

The wind was moving at such ferocious speed, I found it difficult to walk inside! I heard a loud bang from the living room and went up to investigate the disturbance. The living room was like a wind tunnel and the rear doors had been blown open. I made my way to the doors, and closed them, but the wind blew them open again in a matter of seconds. I tried to shut them again, but the wind would not have it and I finally gave up. I closed a heavy metal door in a different area, and while I was successful the wind and rain made it feel like I was being pelted with hail.

Fortunately the rain was gone after a few hours. However it would take over fifteen for power to be restored.