Getting to Mexico

So the trip into Mexico turned out to be yet another doodle. Our comfortable minibus picked us up on time, and after just a bit of messing about at the tour agency office we heading straight to the border. Booking through an agency does have it's advantages alright, in this case having a direct, non-stop bus journey and a waiting bus on the far side of the border, but I still much prefer getting the local transport in general. It's invariably much less expensive, but also has a lot more character and just feels so much more 'real' when you're the only Westerner on the whole big crowded bus, as opposed to being in a minibus surrounded by German and French backpackers.

Anyway, our bus brought us as far as a river and after about 10 minutes we all boarded a longboat for the very nice 45 minute river trip to the border post itself. It was here that we met Sarah, an Irish teacher on a six month trip around Central and South America.

At the Guatemalan immigration desk the official asked for what I thought was a sizeable fee (in fact it was only a small fee, but I still hadn't gotten used to the currency). I knew this was just them being cheeky, as a few officials at other borders had also asked for fees that other tourists had told me they just refused to pay. The other times though, the fee was very small (only a couple of US dollars each or whatever), so although I knew that they were being cheeky I just paid, as not having proper Spanish makes any discussion pretty much impossible.

This time though I thought the fee was high, and I had no local currency left anyway, and no small denomination US dollars either (and if I paid using a high denomination note they'd screw me by giving me change in local currency at a ridiculous exchange rate). But luckily the other Sarah had very good Spanish. She'd also been in and out of Mexico 3 times already, and so she knew that officially you don't need to pay any fee. Strangely though she seemed prepared to pay this fee, asking the rest of us in the group (6 of us in total) what we thought. I told her pretty clearly that I had no intention of paying a cent, and asked her to simply use her good Spanish to explain that to the official. Without any fuss at all the guy just simply nodded, stamped our passports, gave them back to us and said 'gracias'. It still seems strange to me now that these guys could so casually try to rip people off, but that's travel I guess...

Mexican immigration was quick and painless, and involved no direct fee (we do have to pay an immigration fee at a bank, but we can do that at any time before we leave Mexico). Then it was on another bus direct to the town of Palenque, only about 3 hours away. This minibus did take on local people along the route though, and so was practically the same as the usual public transport, as opposed to a dedicated tour agency bus.

So all-in-all the trip was quick and painless, and we arrived in Palenque nice and early in the afternoon. Sarah traipsed off to find a hostel and again found a great deal in a place not mentioned in the guidebooks (all the other 5 backpackers on our bus paid at least twice what we paid because all of them choose guidebook places - strange...).