At the Guatemala Border.

(This is a continuation of previous blog....please read it first.)

... let me describe this by first saying in this description there will be window '1', window '2', window '3', the bank window, and the inspection table.

So I was at window '1' and the lady was very nice and asked for Tim's passport and car papers. We gave them to her, and she started shuffling papers and typing stuff, etc, then she got up and said she wanted to see the car. We had to go get it. However, it was parked a long ways away. But before we could drive the car to her station, we had to stop and get the car fumigated for 18 quetzales. Then on up to the lady's area. We went back in, found her, and told her we were here now with the car. Bueno. she came out, looked at the car, looked in it, and said she needed another person to look at the stuff. We waited, and a few minutes later, another pleasant women showed up, and now the inspection of Tim's ¨STUFF" really began.

She was pointing, Tim was telling me what she was pointing to, and I was trying to tell her what it was. I felt we may in trouble. But then she said 'okay', and went back into the office, and we went to her window, window number '3'. There we waited for 5 or so minutes, then she gave us our duty due papers, how much we owed... $40.00 or so, and we then had to go to the Bank window, wait in line, pay our duty, and go back to window '3'. There she sent us to window '2', she did something to our papers, then back to widow '3', and we waited several miutes there. Then that woman, still very nice, told us to go to window '1'. So back we went..... back where we had started. She took what papers we had, did some stamping and initialing, then gave us some papers, and told us to go to the bank window to pay. We did, and returned to window '1'. She then - finally - gave us our car permit and all Tim's papers back, but told us to go to the inspection desk. We did, got inspected, then instructed on where to put our car permit decal on the wind shield. Then - okay - that's all --... sort of. As we pulled out, the man at the inspection desk that had helped us put the decal on - he had to inspect all our papers. THEN -- we were ready to go ... and we WENT! Thank you, Lord, for nice people!

Next blog, I´ll tell you about the drive thru Guatemala.

later

Johnny