Lost in Guatemala

We left from Arriaga around 5am. We got to the border around 9am and proceeded with caution. As soon as we got to the little border town out of Mexico and into Guatemala, the car was swamped with young men trying to help us. From what I had read, it was fairly easy to get in to the country so I didn´t understand why we would need their help. We kept refusing until we realized the hoops you have to jump through just to get out of Mexico. We agreed to let one boy help us and he took us through all the steps out of Mexico and getting us and the car into Guatemala. It was a complete nightmare! We couldn´t believe anyone would consider this any EASY thing to do. It took several hours, but we continued on our way. We drove through the lush landscape and were making good time. We had hoped to get all the way to El Salvador that day. We drove for a couple hours and came to a dead stop in the road. The road was stopped for a couple miles. We followed another car and bus and went around all the traffic only to come to a dead end a ways up the road and had to turn around. We later found out it was Earth Day and the road had been blocked due to a big rally in a nearby town. This info would have been very helpful at the time.

We had found a very bad map, which was the best they had in a local town. Liliana was getting upset and we were all grumpy and frustrated. I saw on the map another way to go around, though it would be longer. We wanted to just get a hotel, but there was nothing suitable in the couple hours we had driven. I just drove on to see where the road would take us. Well it took us up, up, up and away. I have been to Colorado, Canada and even Alaska in my life and have driven up mountains, but this topped them all! It was a very windy road that never seemed to end. Liliana finally fell asleep and Eduardo was getting nervous as to where we were going. I knew it was long, but also knew we were headed the right direction. It started getting darker the higher we went and very foggy. It was a little scary at times, but I drove as well as I could. The view in every direction was stunny, absolutely picturesque. I can officially say I have been in the mountainous jungles of Guatemala.

After several hours of intense mountainous driving, we got to San Marcos. This was the destination and we made it! This was my 3rd favorite place we encountered. It was actually quite a large mountain city, but had very few hotels. We found a very fancy one and we were so excited to stay somewhere nice. We went in and were told there was a carnival in town and they didn´t have any rooms! So sad. It must have been carnival season. They pointed us in the direction of the only other hotel and we went. We settled for the lesser place, but it was somewhere to sleep nonetheless. We walked around the carnival, ate some Chinese food for dinner and went to bed.

I must add this is the day I started to lose my cool. My enthusiasm was way down and I really started to lose my mind. We just wanted to be home so bad I could hardly take it any longer. I mustered up any strength left in me, mostly for Liliana´s sake and carried on.