Sleeping at the Border

One of the Mormons has a friend of a friend that works at a Guatemalan border. So today I drive north to where this hook up works. I was disappointed when I got there to see that he was just one of the “Border crossing experts” who hound tourists, and not actually a border official as I had been told. He took all my papers and went off to get me a permit. Which I knew was impossible from the last 3 days of trying.

By the time I had become completely fed up with everyone, those trying to help and those who didn’t give a damn. Everybody at 2 borders knows me now, the local people who live, and sell food and goods there felt bad for me, the border officials hated me for giving them so much trouble.

Had I driven up and given them my fake permit they probably would have let me right in. But I let somebody else help and now my cover is blown. Everybody is watching me now, but I am also a crazed lunatic and not thinking straight. So I drive up to the border guard and try the fake permit anyway. They see through it straight away and take the copy away from me, I have more but knowing I want to run they have the road blocked.

Before I get arrested in Guatemala I turn back for Salvador. But I have already cancelled my permit there, and they won’t let me pass. When I try to get a new one they tell me I can’t cancel 1 and get a new 1 in the same day. Which I know is a lie, because I had cancelled 1 and received a new 1 the same day at the first border I tried when all this trouble started. But I have stepped on enough toes for 1 day so I stay quiet.

I pull my motorcycle across a parking space to protect where I will set up my tent and sleep for the night. An older Salvadorian woman comes over to see what I’m doing; I explain the situation as best I can. As she wipes the mud from yesterday off my helmet with her fingers, she starts to cry while apologizing for all the problems I’m having with her country. She walks back to her shop and comes back with a large piece of black plastic and starts to spread it over my tent, to protect from the rain. I thank her and explain the tent doesn’t need it and she understands after awhile.

The night in the parking lot was uneventful. 18-wheeler trucks passing through all night with brakes hissing, and engines grumbling made sure I didn’t get much sleep. But nobody messed with me, and as promised I had my permit at 7:00am to go back to El Salvador.

--Ryan

Stuck in the Mud

On my way to the border with a plan on driving straight through the Guards I stopped to say goodbye to some of the Mormon’s who had been so nice to me. When I told them my plan they begged me not to do it, “First let us go to the border with you and try to talk with the Guatemalan’s.”

I rode the bike to the border and tried to walk across the bridge to talk to the Guards. But I was stopped by the Salvadorians and told I couldn’t leave the bike here, like I had done yesterday. The more I try to leave and get turned away the more suspicious I look. So my friends walked over and tried to talk with them.

They came back in a few hours frustrated and told me, “They think you stole the motorcycle.” Never mind that I have the original title and over 30 movies online following the trip from home to here, if that is what they think then nothing will change their minds. Now my idea of running the border doesn’t seem like a bad idea. My friends agree that it may be the only way.

I decide that if I am going to do it I had better go to a different crossing, there is 1 farther to the south. They won’t be expecting it there, so I said goodbye and headed south. The nice twisty road soon turned to mud with large ruts. I had made it pretty far into the mountains, when the bike started to head for a big rut on the side of the road. I watched it all happen in third person, unable to do anything about it. I had closed the throttle and remember wondering why the bike wasn’t stopping. After almost 9000 miles of riding grabbing the clutch and brake slipped my mind, and the bike went crashing into the rut.

I fought with the bike for hours, lifting it off its side and trying to drive it out of the rut only to have it fall more than 10 times. I had to unclip the luggage off the sides to shed weight, and use the fold up shovel (E-tool) I had “borrowed” from the Armory before I left. I turned the bike 180° as it lay on the ground and then had to drag over 500 pounds of motorcycle out of the ditch, something that I would have thought was impossible before. All this and I still had to lift the bike up 1 more time. Water was still running down the ditch, several times I almost had it up but my boots slipped out from under me, forcing me to start all over.

Covered in mud and exhausted I started to wonder if I should set up my tent and spend the night there. It was starting to get dark and I was running out of strength, it wasn’t likely anybody else would be foolish enough to use this road; help wasn’t coming. It took a lot of yelling and cursing to lift it that last time, I was surprised when I did lift it successfully. I rode back to the little town that had warned me not to go up the road. Stopped at small store for a something to drink, the owner looked a little frightened when the mud covered gringo walked in, and found a cold Gatorade for me to drink.

Back at Juan and Raddis’s house they washed my clothes and let me take a shower. I was exhausted my arms still shaking from all the lifting and pulling I had done on the mountain. Finding the edge of sanity is what I had come on this trip for. Getting stuck in the mud and having to fight my way out is why I bought a GS. I had every right to be angry, frustrated and disappointed. But I couldn’t stop laughing.

--Ryan

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

Border Crossing Bureaucracy

“Mister Mister Mister!” The Guatemalan border-crossing “expert” shouted as I pulled up to the Frontier. Another know-it-all to help me through the process of getting my passport stamped, and a driving permit for the motorcycle. I ignore him, but he stays with me shouting “Mister Mister Mister!” Pointing in the direction of the next office that I am already walking to. After a while he gives up, and leaves me to figure it out by myself.

7 hours later I left the Guatemalan border and headed back to El Salvador a broken man. On my way south we passed through northern Guatemala, but Mitch and I left the country through a seldom used border crossing. There was a building on the Honduran side but nothing in Guatemala. There was no obvious place to cancel my motorcycle permit. I found it in my mess of papers while I was at this border, but it had expired 2 days ago.

The 1st person who helped me told me I would have to go back to were I left Guatemala the first time. That means back through El Salvador, and Honduras nearly 600 miles out of my way. I was polite at first, but it didn’t last long. Our conversation ended after I pounded my fist on the Lonely Planet book several times, crumpled up the expired permit, and threw it on the ground. The guard with the 9mm picked it up, straightened it out and gave it back to me. I noticed he kept the hammer on his pistol was cocked, anybody who carries their gun that way means business, so I walked away to cool off.

I went and sat by my bike, and thought about how far I needed to back track for 1 stupid paper. Some middle aged men driving 2 white vans from California showed up and asked what the problem was. 3 of them were from Poland, 1 Costa Rican, and 1 American. They had loaded their vans with toys to give out to children while on their roadtrip. Some very cool, very helpful dudes, the Tri-lingual (Polish, Spanish, English) Costa Rican took me back to the office and helped plead my case. During the arguing in Spanish he turned to me and whispered “Go outside and put $50 in your passport.” Which I did, but the Guard would not take the bribe. He said he wanted to help if he could but the computer would not let him make a new permit. I would have to leave the motorcycle here at the border and go to a government office in Guatemala City to take care of the expired permit. But wait, the 1st guy I talked to tried to send me 600 miles back to where I crossed the 1st time. My new friends reached into their bag of toys and gave me a yo-yo shaped like baseball. “Looks like you might be here for a while, you could probably use this.”

So after 7 hours I turned back for Salvador. Unfortunately I had cancelled my driving permit there, so I was stuck trying to explain why I cancelled 1 permit and needed a new 1 the same day. Quickly I am being strangled to death by all the red tape, and being polite to the border officials is becoming more and more difficult.

On my way out of town to the border I passed a Mormon Church. Since it was Sunday I stopped and caught the last part of Sacrament meeting before heading to Guatemala. But after being stopped at the border, I would need somewhere to store my bike while I took the bus ride to Guatemala City. When I got back to Ahuachapan the Bishop was still at the chapel, and helped me to find a member with a garage where I could keep the bike. Then he took me back to his house and gave me some food. During dinner the Bishop told me there had been an assault on the road to Guatemala City today, and it could have been me. He thought it was a blessing I was stuck in El Salvador with them. I probably deserve a punishment more than a blessing, but as a Bishop he is the expert. I asked if they knew an Elder Dunn 1 of my best friends from home who severed his mission in El Salvador. The name sounded familiar to them so I pulled out my laptop and brought up some pictures I have of him. They recognized him right away, and said, “Elder Dunn needs to come back to El Salvador to loose some weight.”

I would have happily stayed in a hotel, but they insisted I stay with them. The Bishop pulled a mattress into the small front room of their house for me to sleep on, and asked if I would need anything else. I was exhausted from all the craziness of the day and just wanted to sleep. So he said goodnight and walked into his room. The 1 bedroom in the house had 2 queen size beds, 1 of those I was sleeping now. Which meant that he and his wife were sleeping on the box springs, or sharing the other bed with their 2 small children. So much kindness from these strangers made me uncomfortable.

--Ryan