So far, a bad omen hangs over us. After another forced break, we decided to resume our journey through Mexico. We headed for the border with Guatemala. It was quite a long way to cover in one day, 800 km / 500 miles in 12 hours. We spent the night in the border town of Tapachula in Chiapas. The next morning at 9 am we arrived at the border crossing. Mexican paperwork went relatively quickly. Next, we drove over the bridge leading to Guatemala. It was strange to see rafts carrying on the river. Haitians are easily recognizable by their skin color. Pushing themselves from the bottom with a long stick, they were illegally crossing the border in broad daylight. Earlier, a guy at the gas pump told us that there are already ten thousand refugees from Haiti in Tapachula. Most likely they want to go to the US.

While on the Guatemalan side, it is necessary to obtain a vehicle permit. That was a nightmare. We waited in line for almost 6 hours. An absolute record of all our border crossings. There were people from two buses in front of us. Each passenger reported all receipts for products bought abroad. It was a never-ending process. We had to wait patiently, watching the same exact soccer match three times in a row. FC Barcelona vs Real Madrid, the score 1:2 for Real. Exhausted and furious, we left the border crossing at 3 pm. We were officially in Guatemala.

It was too late to stop and see some of the interesting places along the way. At this latitude it gets dark around 6 pm, but we had to continue our journey. Around 8 o'clock we managed to find a safe place to stay. This time we were invited by local Guatemalans to camp on their property. Standard of living is very low there. There were lots of abandoned or put off for later items around. We parked next to an uninhabited house with several old tires, three rusting refrigerators, a sink on the ground and many other items around. It was a quiet night. In the morning the owner showed up to say hello. He made it clear that no payment was needed. We gave him two T-shirts which made him smile broadly.