Watch out for those crazy borders...

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As we prepared ourselves for our 3rd border crossing of the trip, we once again asked many questions but took many of the answers with a grain of salt.

It’s hard to believe, but just 3 months ago we were preparing ourselves to cross the Mexican border through Tijuana, and the advice that we got came in the form of strict warnings. Even the immigration guy who stamped our passports and issued our visas (who was Mexican by the way) told us that ¨the pavement gets so hot in Baja that bike tires just explode.¨ Needless to say, the guy wasn’t a cyclist. And definitely wasn’t getting a job working for the Mexican board of tourism any time soon. Others warned for us to proceed with extreme caution: ¨the roads in baja are shoulderless, and the drivers are brutal and dangerous,¨ ¨a poorer country means more crime so BE CAREFUL!!¨ And careful we were.. but paranoid we were not.

So once again as we prepared to cross another border from Mexico to Guatemala we got advice: “you need to be careful, there is more crime, more traffic, more cars¨, ¨it´s more dangerous over there!!” It was all so familiar that it almost eased our worries. There was something somewhat ironic about those ¨dangerous Mexicans¨ in the ¨dangerous Mexico¨ giving us warnings of the dangers of leaving Mexico.
Looking back, I’m sure if we’d asked enough Canadians about crossing over into the U.S. we probably would have heard similar warnings about gun toting Americans and their big SUVS.

So what is it? Do countries get more and more dangerous as we move south? Are we all slightly more scared of our southern neighbors? I doubt it. Then what? Well border crossing can be a clash of cultures and tensions, people immigrating both legally and illegally, and sometimes things other than people move across these borders... more specifically things like drugs and money and the darker forces that govern them. But border towns shouldn’t represent an entire country just as the few who smuggle things through them shouldn’t reflect upon a nation’s people.

And so, just as we crossed into a friendly welcoming Mexico, we cycled right on through into Guatemala- unscathed, still in possession of all our worldy goods. With big smiles on our faces, sweat dripping from our brow (from the sun, not from fear) we pedaled upward towards the looming mountains of the Guatemalan highlands. Can’t wait to see what G-mala has in store.

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