Harrisons in Panajachel: Visa run!

What is a visa run you may ask? Well once you enter Guatemala, your passport stamp is good for 90 days. When it is about to expire you have two choices, (1)leave the country for 72 hours or (2)go to Guatemala City to get your passport(visa) stamped for another 90 days. You can choose which one you want to do but you have to alternate your destination each time. For our first time we decided to go to Tapachula Mexico for a few reasons. Walmart, Sams Club and the ocean. Good reasons huh? Well we thought so! Time to stock up on some things that you either can't get here or the prices are cheaper in Mexico. The exchange rate for Guatemalan quetzals to US dollars is 7.6 to $1. Mexican pesos to US dollars is 13 to 1. So Tapachula here we come!!! Our collectiva driver picked us up on Wed. Sept 10th at 8:00am for our about 5 hour drive to Mexico. We crossed the border in Talisman. Never again!! Horrible border crossing! When you arrive you are practically mobbed by guys trying to get you to exchange your money with them! Two guys got into a fist fight over trying to get the Welkers business. One of the two guys is known for taking your money and running and the other knew that, so that was the reason for the boxing match! Scarry!!! Once that was over we made it to the immigration window to have your passport stamped to exit Guatemala. Once you have done that and paid 10Q, you walk over the bridge to cross over into Mexico where you have to go to another immigration office, fill out a piece of paper stating who you are, where you are going and for how long. After you fill that out, you take your passport and the piece of paper back to the window where they are stamped for your entry into Mexico. When you are done with that your driver picks you up but not before you have your suitcases checked. Ok so after all that you get back into the van and off to the hotel. Whew glad that part is over!! We booked our rooms at Hotel Cervantino. A small but clean hotel without hot showers. Why is that? Well it's hot and humid in Tapachula, so when you get back from wherever you have been you don't mind the cool shower! Beds are not quite so comfy but for $25 a night we survived! After checking in, we decided we wanted to find out where Walmart and Sams Club was for our designated shopping day on Friday. So we got a map and figured we are used to walking, that we will walk there since it didn't look that far on the map! So off we went and we walked and we walked and we walked until we finally reached Walmart. It is inside a small shopping mall with a food court, so by the time we got there we were hungry and the food court was where we ate dinner. Between all of us, we either got tacos, Chinese food or Domino's pizza. We were happy and full! Once we got done at the mall we took taxi's back to the hotel since it was getting dark. Much shorter trip!! Thursday was our day for the beach. By the time everyone got ready and we got to Playa Linda beach it was probably around 1:00pm. We hung out there and ate at a restaurant until 6:00pm when our taxi drivers were picking us back up. As I mentioned Friday was our shopping day so we spent the day doing that! We didn't find everything that we were looking for(Walmart and Sams are not the same there as in the States) but we got a lot of stuff! The Welkers decided to move to the Holiday Inn Express right next to Walmart on Friday, so once we were done with our shopping, we put all our stuff in there room so our driver on Saturday could pick it up at one place. Mike, Morgan and I, along with Ashlie & Austin headed back to our hotel. We played some cards until about 11:30 and then went to bed. On Sat. morning we checked out of our hotel and headed over to the Holiday Inn so that our driver could pick us all up in one place instead of two, which he thanked us for, and help load our stuff! Once we all got loaded, we were off back to Pana. This time we went through a different border crossing! This one was at Ciudad Tecun Uman. SOOO much better! This time we had no mobs, we just walked up to this window had our passports stamped to leave Mexico, get back in the van, drive to a spot where they fumigate the underside of the van, pull up, go in this little office have our passports stamped to enter Guatemala and pay 10Q each again. It is actually illegal for them to require money but you can't really do anything about it because they won't give you your passports back until you pay! Crooks!!! The last thing you do is drive up to a border guard for him to check what you are bringing back into the country. We were just hoping he wasn't going to make us unload the van with all of our stuff! He said something in Spanish to our driver, he responded back with something and the guard walked around the van and then let us go on! Yay!! We got to the Welkers to drop them and Ashlie & Austin off with there stuff and then we were dropped off at our place around 6:30pm. Nice few days away but we were glad to be back! In December we have to do it again but at that time we can take a day and go to Guatemala City to renew. The only thing about going to Guatemala City is that it takes two trips. One to drop off paperwork and your passports and then about 8 days later returning to pick them up! So that was our first visa run! Below are some pics of our trip!