There were two options to renew our soon to expire Guatemalan visas. Apply for quick and easy visa extension in Guatemala city Make a border run to Belize or Mexico Guatemala City is located an easy one hour’s drive from where we were staying in Antigua. Option one. Clearly too simple. A cross-country, multi-day road trip to Belize sounded like more fun. A lot more fun. Option two it is!
Border crossings in Central America are famous for being chaotic and stressful. We had heard stories of ‘border helpers’ swarming vehicles on arrival, everyone trying to get their cut, bribes, fees, corrupt bureaucrats, confusing paperwork, people stuck camping on borders for days because of technicalities outside their control. It was with some trepidation that we rolled up to the border with Guatemala.
The air was thick with humidity, it was like breathing tepid soup. The roads glistened with moisture in the last of the fading light that was filtering between the rolling banks thunderclouds.
Our holiday from our trip hadn’t gone exactly to plan. But here we were, back in Mexico and ready to give the Yucatan another go. It might just be a mosquito infested swamp, but we knew there were still some hidden gems out there for us to discover. Including a grand monument to one of the most dramatic events in the history of our planet.
As we’ve mentioned, we quite enjoyed Alaska, we didn’t want to miss our last opportunity for a visit, so we made the detour to Stewart and Hyder.
The wildlife of Alaska. In contrast to New Zealand where the native wildlife consists almost entirely of birds, it is a bit of a change to spend some time in a part of the world where the wildlife is large enough to trample and/or eat you.
The town of Homer describes itself as the ‘quaint little drinking village with a fishing problem’. Or at least that is what the bumper stickers at the brewery said. There is indeed a lot of fishing going on in the area. Everywhere you look someone is offering Halibut Charters. But we weren’t there to fish.
It is not every day when you find yourselves locked out of your vehicle in the middle of bear country, surrounded by hungry mosquitos, rain clouds threatening and several miles from civilization. At least we hope it’s not. We’ve learned our lesson… we hope.
The USA—it’s like New Zealand, only the junk food is cheaper and they drive on the right (wrong) side of the road. Also, for some reason they have these crazy four way stops where a roundabout would have been a good option. Although Ben seems to be warming to these after a few weeks of driving.