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Published: March 26th 2015
After San Cristobal we headed for our first border crossing in Central America. We'd heard some daunting things about going through the Guatemalan border and opted to take the shuttle service for MXN350 for door to door service. The shuttle picked us up at 0630hrs from the Iguana Hostel and drove around town picking up others for at least an hour before we got on the road. Stopping for breakfast at 0930hrs.
We'd been reading a lot about the Mexican Tourism Tax and spent a lot of time trying to figure out if we'd paid it, and how to avoid paying it again. When we reached the Mexican immigration office one official came to our bus and told us that since it was busy in there (many shuttles were out front) to give all our papers and money for the fee to our driver who would take care of the rest. Many people were caught unaware by the tax, while others had friends go the day before and not have to pay anything. We were able to go on our airlines website (not the booking site we used) and got an itemized receipt that cost us MXN1/page to print off in San Cristobal showing we'd already paid the Tourism Tax. They accepted this when they wouldn't accept others' boarding passes, stating that if you booked after November 2014, you wouldn't have been charged the tax as part of your airfare. However, we were talking to other travelers that evening who happened to be on our shuttle from the border to Xela, who said they went into the immigration office to have their passports stamped and they didn't have to pay the tax or show evidence of having paid it previously.
Thankfully we had our ducks in a row, but if I had to do it again, I probably would go in myself to talk to the officials. Never a good idea to part with your passport.
Since it's a pain to get vehicles into Guatemala we had to offload and walk across the boarder to catch the shuttles bringing people the other way. It was another fun bit where the officials took our passports and then told us that it was out first time coming into Guatemala and would have to pay MXN20. No one we were traveling with had heard of anything like this, so we all milled about stupidly not paying until one official with good English explained we had to pay to get in, or we'd have to pay when we left. When Ashley asked if we'd get a receipt but she was dismissed with a wave of a hand as he spoke to an Irish traveler, and ended up never answering her. We decided without a receipt we'd rather pay it upon exit, especially since we saw some other people pay after they got their stamp and no extra notation was made in their passport, and the money simply when under the counter and nothing seemed to be done in the computer.
We reached our hostel in the old part of Quetzalenango (Xela) by about 1700hrs after a long winding drive through Guatemala's mountain passes.
See More Photos of our Trip (hopefully)
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John Lipski
non-member comment
Hey Dan and Ashley
Great work on the regularity of your blogs and content! Love the humor and comments that you are throwing in! Really really making me want to hit the road again but for the moment it seems that life and work are still getting in the way of that! I hope to go to the Nakusp Hot Springs tonight and will be thinking of you down there at the hot springs in Gwatay! Smooth travels!