Cartel, Church Bells, & a Border Crossing

Days 22 updated and day 23 Pines 2 Patagonia log

San Cristobal de las Casas, MX 🇲🇽 To Huehuetenango, Guatemala 🇬🇹

What a difference 24 hours makes… We originally extended our stay in S.C. because we heard from a fellow traveler that we could not cross into Guatemala on the weekend. This didn’t break our hearts as the city is amazing and we had a great room with secure parking for our motos.

Then Central Mexico became a Hot Spot in a matter of a few hours as a high ranking Cartel boss was taken out and the Cartel decided to set parts of Central Mexico on fire. This generated a “Shelter in place” directive for most travelers, but where we were in the “Deep South” of Mexico, it was different. As the news spread the town began to celebrate. Fireworks and mortars rang in the afternoon sky and continued for hours. Church bells rang and people gathered in the streets to celebrate one less NARCO.

We continued to explore the city, mingle with the locals and watch the show until it was time to go pack our bags and prep for our boarder crossing into Guatemala.

We woke up early Monday excited to add another stamp to our passport and had the bikes loaded and running by 7:30. Funny part was, we couldn’t find anyone to open the electric gate until about 7:55.

Even with our minor delay we departed S.C. with steady rain in our faces and 99.5% of Mexico at our backs. We climbed even higher into the hills and enjoyed the winding roads of Mexico for the last time.

Although it takes 4 stops at 4 separate agencies to depart Mexico and enter Guatemala, we found it to be smooth and completed the transfer in about an hour.

After a small celebration that we have successfully traversed Mexico on our Motorcycles, we headed through the mess of people and questionably acquired goods for sale found in most boarder towns on the hunt for food and fuel.

We all were immediately taken by the beautiful forests and steep lush canyons Guatemala promptly showed us. It was quite a change from the deserts and pine forests we had seen in days prior and awe inspiring to say the least.

We concluded our day 23 ride in Guatemala’s capital city Huehuetenango and had a fantastic Italian dinner across town. The weirdest part… there were 4 license plates hanging up in this restaurant, all from Oregon 😳