Sweet Home Guatemala.

While in San Cristobal, I had spoken to my host family in Xela, who invited me to come visit for the Independence Day celebrations. Although I had originally planned to be in Mexico for the bicentennial (which happens, as I was told somewhat incorrectly, only once every two hundred years), but because I was too far to make it to Mexico City in time, I decided to spend a week with my host family instead. I booked a shuttle from San Cristobal to Xela, just because it's always that much easier with border crossings than trying to find onwards transportation by chicken bus in the middle of nowhere.


The driver had told us that there was an exit fee to pay at migration for any foreigners who had been in the country longer than 7 days. When I asked him whether this was an official fee or a gringo tax, he was very adamant that it was official. I wasn't surprised that I would have to pay to get out of the country, as I had been warned by another traveller that upon crossing into Belize he was asked for 100 pesos once the official had his passport in hand - at that point there isn't all that much you can do. However, we were travelling with a group of Israelis who were a little upset at this notice (I was doing the translation from spanish for them) as they had been told by the agency that we wouldn't have to pay anything to cross. The driver acted dumb and told them they would have to ask the immigration official. We stopped at the immigration office and, upon entering, the driver stated the fee as 260 pesos (just over $20), pointing to a sketchy-looking sign printed on the wall that simply read "260 pesos" (Derek misses big clue #1). That amount of money can get you pretty far in Mexico, but apparently not very far out of it. The driver said to just put the money in the passport and hand it to the official (Derek misses big clue #2). The Israelis were kicking up a fuss, but I figured that my options were pay and leave the country or not pay and stay there, so I begrudgingly handed over my money and got my passport stamped. I then took a closer look at the fee sign, and realized there were no details of anything else printed on it, and of course I hadn't gotten a receipt for my payment (Derek catches big clue #3, but there isn't much he can do at this point).

Within a few minutes we were all boarding the shuttle again rather quickly, which surprised me because there were so many of us. As I was about to get in, I asked one of the Israelis if they had all gotten their stamps, to which they said they had. I then asked if they had paid the exit fee, to which they laughed and said no. They were surprised to hear that I had - apparently they had just acted stupid, and said they weren't paying anything when pressed by the official. I wasn't happy. The driver once again acted dumb, so I stormed into the office and, in my best spanish, demanded an explanation. The official told me that the group had been in the country for less than 7 days, which I knew for a fact was false and therefore called him out on. He scrambled through the exit papers until he found mine, and started to get creative. "It's because you came into the country by boat from Belize," he told me. This was true, but I knew he was just trying to come up with an excuse. "So did all of them," I said, pointing to the Israelis. That was a blatant lie, but I wasn't taking this guy's crap anymore. After a few more minutes of arguing, I straight-up told him that I wanted my money back, and he reluctantly handed over my 260 pesos and told me to get out of the office. Derek: 1 , Immigration Scam: 0. Thank you Israelis.



We finally made it to Xela after some serious setbacks due to the road conditions, as Guatemala had just been hit by another tropical storm that covered the highways in mudslides and basically undid all of the work done and money spent by the country to get back on its feet after Agatha. I rolled in shortly after 7pm (instead of around 2pm when I was supposed to), settled into my home-away-from-home, and spent the night catching up with Gloria and the kids.

The main attraction to the Xela Independence Day festivities is the fair, so the next night I headed there with a group of students from the La Democracia spanish school and a few of the teachers. It had been awhile since I had last been to a fair (Brome Fair 2007 maybe?), so it was quite a reminiscent experience. Flashing lights, rides built to make you puke, and deep-fried food that could even make an American cringe.

I rode a couple of rides, but the most fun was watching one particular ride called the Drive In. Essentially it consisted of a spinning circular platform with a bench running along the inside, and bars to hold onto behind the bench. There were no belts or harnesses, so the riders were at the mercy of the ride, and perhaps more realistically, the rider operator. A crowd of about a hundred people stood there for most of the night, watching the ride go, because every time the combination of spinning and bouncing would send people flying out of the bench and into the middle of the circle where the ride operator would then go nuts and bounce the ride around, sending the victim flying around, desperately trying to grab onto someone's leg (or even funnier, lower torso while they were still on their knees). The ride would then slow down and the unsuspecting individual would stop flopping around and crawl towards the bench again, only to be tossed violently back into the center of the ring as the rider operator started bouncing it around right before they reached safety. It was quite the show, and I imagine more fun to watch than to actually participate in.

We then indulged in some really greasy fair food, topped off with liter-beers for good measure, at one of the booths in the middle of the fairgrounds. There was live music performed by a guy with slicked-back hair and a blazer with shimmering black sequins on it, and an overweight woman dressed as a cowgirl with short-shorts and high-heeled leather boots. At the table behind us sat a middle-aged guy with two potbellied young-women, who we quickly deemed to be ladies of the night, and about 30 empty Corona bottles. Whenever he whispered sweet nothings into the ear of one of the women, the other tried her hardest not to look utterly disgusted, lest he catch her doing so. Classy.

The next day there was a fight-band parade down the center of town, so I headed there with my host family to check things out. For those who are unfamiliar with fight-bands (ie. any Canadian university student), they are awesome. This wasn't quite at par with the USC Trojans' fight-band that we saw when I visited Los Angeles, but it was pretty close considering that I was sitting in the middle of a street in Guatemala.

The parade brought everyone out into the streets: young and old, businessmen and women in indigenous garb, and even a handful of foreigners like myself. I scurried around trying to capture some good photo opportunities.

Globalization.

After a few hours the parade finally began to wind down, and we headed off for lunch. After 3 months, I had a perfect record of avoiding North American food joints while on my trip, even after severe temptation by the low prices at Subways in San Cristobal. However, when my host family decided to have lunch at Wendy's, I caved in, and decided to go all out with a triple cheeseburger combo, supersized. Sometimes you just have to go with the flow...