hasta luego, mexico.

travel friends in guatemala
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leaving mexico was hard to do. san cristobol is so friendly, cute, and clean, that it takes some effort to really go. it does help to make the journey with some friends, and i was lucky enough to run into three friends from my hostel, and together we made the reservations to cross the border. we chose to go via a tour agent, rather than doing on our own via buses, because the tour guide helps you through immigrations issues and transfers, and because in this case the trip was cheaper by the tour than by individual buses.

the road to guatemala
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the trip to the border was uneventful, if only because it left at 6 am and we were dead tired. i love the southern chiapan countryside, trees and hills very similar in some ways to the pacific coast of my own region. our driver spoke little english and my spanish was still pretty bad, but we did talk some about his life in town.

the boarder was pretty tame compared to the usa-mexican border. the border here is a wooden gate across a two-lane mountain road lined with wooden shacks and ramshackle concrete shacks. the gate is operated by hand by a guy with a gun. that's about it for security. transferring between countries was pretty easy as well, a simple matter of two stops and some stamps, and a few pesos exchanged. the worst problem was using the toilet below the immigration office. that toilet certainly wins hands-down for the worst toilet i have found in central america. the look of horror from my travel friend's face as she exited was my first clue, but even that did not prepare me for the internal reality. "gate to hell" is a phrase that comes to mind, and frankly i tried as best as possible to stand outside the door and aim in the general direction of what must be the toilet.