Just 5 more minutes

This morning at 5:00am when the Bishop went to teach seminary I left on my motorcycle to try the border 1 more time. Being Monday I thought, maybe there will be a manager there who can do more to help me. I waited until 6:00am for him to show up, but I was already out of patience. So I asked 1 of the other Guards to write down the address where I needed to go in Guatemala City. After he gave me the address and phone number, I walked back to Salvador and rode my bike to town. I parked my bike back in the garage, and packed a bag with a change of clothes.

Before getting on the bus I called the number I had been given at the frontier. No one answered, so I took the bus back to the frontier and asked again where I needed to go. This time the manager was there; he looked at the address and told me it was wrong. Through a translator he told me that maybe he could help me, and I should stay there while he made some calls.

As I wondered around the frontier the “Expert” from yesterday shouted “Mister Mister Mister! You give me $5.” “Why would I give you $5?” I asked. “Because I help you yesterday, cross border very fast.” “Really? Then way am I still here?” He had a disappointed look on his face as he realized this was an argument he could not win. I laid down on a bench with my backpack on my chest, and fell asleep for a while, once startling myself awake with my own snoring. I was still so tried from trying to sort all this out. The Manager wanted to see the stamp in my passport from when I left Guatemala the 1st time. I told him that where I crossed there was no building giving out stamps. Then he wanted to see the stamp from Honduras, I searched through my passport a dozen times but couldn’t find it. Maybe they didn’t give me 1, maybe Mitch has 2 in his I don’t know what happened. Now after 10 hours of listening to this guy tell me “Just wait a little bit longer, I will help you.” The solution is for me to go back the 600 miles to Corinto in Northern Guatemala. Since I can enter Guatemala, and my bike can’t I asked if I could take a bus to Corinto, it is only about 100 miles from here. “No they will want to see the bike.”

After 10 hours of listening to them say, “Just 5 more minutes.” I walked back to El Salvador to get a bus to town, the Guards there wanted to know why I was being turned away from Guatemala. So I was taken to an office and asked questions I didn’t understand for 30 minutes. After I said “tourist” enough times they let me go.

I honestly can’t remember anything being on the Guatemalan side of the border, and feel that if I drive all that way I will be stuck with the same problem even father from home. The people here tell me that the form they need to cancel my permit is in Corinto. The guards in Corinto just need to push the “send” button and email it down, but they won’t do it.

I have one last hope; the sister who is letting me store her bike at her house has a friend of a friend who works at a Guatemalan Border. She doesn’t speak English so she called her sister in Calgary, Canada where I served my mission. We passed the phone back and forth as her sister translated the conversation. She is going to call him to see if he can do something to help me.

While she is checking on her connection, I went to an internet café scanned the expired driving permit, and emailed it to JaggiLines. In his control room he will be able to change the date on the document no problem. I have driven to the edge of insanity, and it is Guatemala.

--Ryan