Bogus Border Business

I'm actually surprised we haven't had more trouble. We crossed two borders in one day, four in less than a week, and up until our border experiences have been tame. We usually manage to get to them in the morning, sometimes right when they open, and we usually have no trouble getting by with our good old American passports. I suppose we were on a high from all the other splendid border experiences we've had because we finally got had crossing from Guatemala into Honduras.


I must explain that our day started at 6 am in a sleepy Belize town, Punta Gorda, that just didn't have it going on, so we decided to leave one day early. The day started with snatching our dirty laundry back from the laundry place, buying a boat ticket, and waiting around at Belize's slow as molasses customs office. A one hour boat that left 30 minutes late got us to Puerto Barrios, Guatemala (the former heart of United Fruit Company's aka Chiquita's banana operation). Walked a mile to the bus station, and waited until our bus left.


This bus was bogus though, and added to the waiting around time of the day that we blame for the shady border business later. Basically, the bus dudes operate like dazed and confused people: we wander all over the place  picking up anything that will pay and the driver gets out and seems to forget how to drive. We passed through multiple bus stations, and the drivers would get off and be no where to found for 15 minutes. In one town it was a 1 hour detour down the side streets for them to leave the bus for 45 minutes. All the while we're sweating getting to the next town for the last bus to the border before it closes.

Lucky for us (I say this sarcastically) all the bus dilly-dallying gets made up for because the driver starts driving like he's on a motorcycle in this 40 year old bus. Awesome. We take on an aggressive mission of passing every truck, bike car, or petrol tanker that we come to, only to stop and get passed as we drop people on the side of the road. Lather, rinse, repeat. Brilliant.

What should have been a 4-4.5 hour ride takes nearly 5.5, but we make the last 4:30 pm bus to the border. We're probably less than 15 miles from the border, so it should be a quick jaunt, but we turn circles, pass the same intersection 3 times, and whoila, one hour passes, one and a half hours (the border just closed), and nearly two hours by the time we get to the border. Oh yeah, this was a "direct bus".


So after this circle turning business gets us to the border, with assurances that even though the border is closed, they can get us across, we realize they didn't mention the fine print though. We figure out the $2 bus ride to get us across will soon be $32. We're there too late. Clever ninjas. After much complaining and bartering, the bus guys assure us the only way across is for us to pay $30, the fee for the bus to take us 6 miles.

We know better than this, but they've got us stuck here and know we don't want to take the circling bus back to town and out again the next day, so of course we'll pull out the money from the depths of our money hiding places and produce the cash. I hem and haw with my disgruntled customer spanish, but alas, it's the only was across. As the bus crosses into Honduras in the darkness, our driver proudly shouts to the customs guys, "I'm taking the gringos across" and the border guards laugh and wave them way with a "bring us cigarettes on your way back."