Hello to all!
We have had a very eventful trip from Guatemala City to Mexico City that is for sure. It all started with Friday morning, December 3rd as we were looking to pull out some money from the bank, as we were going to need it for travelling and were completely out of cash. Fortunately there was a ATM at the gas station across the street and so we weren’t to worried about getting money out before our bus was scheduled to leave at 11:30am.
So at around 10:30am, Nathan left to go and pull out some money from the ATM across the street and left Jon to watch the baggage and check out of our hostel. To his untermost surprise, when Nathan tried to pull money out of the ATM, the only thing it would give him as an option to pull out was the Guatemalan currency, where most ATM’s usually let us pull out US Dollars as well, which was what we were hoping for in order to make the purchases we needed to in Mexico…Guatemalan currency wouldn’t do us much good there. In a short state of panic, Nathan asked the men at the counter where another ATM was and they said that the only other one was 3 blocks down the road.
Bolting out of the gas station, Nathan ran the 3 blocks down to the other ATM, and to his dismay, found that it also, wouldn’t give out US Dollars. These dollars were a necessity as we needed them to purchase our tickets from the Mexican border to Mexico City and using credit card isn’t an option. However, now, with only 45 minutes until the bus was about to leave, we were facing the fact that getting those dollars was going to be a tough reality. Going to the counter of the place that had the ATM, Nathan asked if there was a local bank nearby and was pointed off in another direction, started to run quickly to see if he could do a currency exchange with the bank. Getting there, they said they would be able to trade currency for Nathan, no problem, (which was a good sign as we had done the same the day before at another bank), and so Nathan ran back to the ATM and pulled out 2000 Guatemalan dollars and ran back to the bank to make a switch for about $250 USD….however, the man at the counter just stared at him confused. “Sir”, the man replied, “you need to have an account with us to trade the money”…..ouch. Here Nathan was, sitting in the bank, with a handful of money Guatemalan currency that in 30 minutes would absolutely useless, a bus that left in 30 minutes, and no US Dollars for the trip.
Thanks fortunately to God’s wonderful provision, Nathan was able to get directions from an old lady that pointed him to another bank about 18 blocks away and so stopping back at the bus station quick to talk with Jon, Nathan grabbed a taxi and raced off for the other bank, waited in line for 20 minutes, and finally was able to trade out the money for US Dollars…and make it back for the bus!
Getting onto the non-airconditioned bus, we continued on our way to Tapachula, Mexico, where we were hoping to spend the night and then continue on our way to Mexico City the next day. Along the way, the border crossing went very smoothly, and God answered yet another prayer for us and allowed us not to pay the migration tax for Mexico of $262 per person as we were only going to be in Mexico for less than a week. Thus, continuing on our way, we arrived in Tapachula at around 7pm…where we were originally hoping to spend the night.
What we have come to find, however, is that things never go according to plan, especially on the trip that we are taking, and as Jon went out to check to see if there was room in the nearby hostel, we found out there was “no room in the inn” so to speak, and that the hostel was full. So, after being on an already long bus, we decided to book the next bus out for Mexico City, and left 1 1/2 hours later at 8:30pm for Mexico City, with the conclusion that this was going to be our very last bus of the trip…but at about 4am when we were told to get off of our bus and onto another at some random location, we found this to have been a preconceived fallacy.
We further found this to be a wrong notion, when the bus that we had be told to get onto at 4am brought us to the city of Oaxaca, where everything was unlaoded and all of the passengers disembarked….the problem was that we were not intending on going to Oaxaca and wanted instead to be arriving in Mexico City as planned at about 2:30pm. Again by God’s provision, there were 3 others that were facing the same problem and one lady out of those three that was continuing on to the same location as we were. With there help of better Spanish communication than our Portuguese is able to do, we were able to get everything figured out and were issued tickets to continue on the way to Mexico City, as the bus company apologized for the problem on their part.
5pm, we arrived here in Mexico City, to a great hostel (located right in the middle of the historical center of town), some great local food that we found on the street and nice beds to crash in after a total travel time of about 29 hours. We look at spending the next couple of days here and then fly out for the States on Thursday morning, 6:35am. Please continue to pray for us for safety in the city during our time here and thanks as well for your prayers as we have seen the hand of the Lord with us during our travels this far!
God bless!
Nathan and Jon
