Didn't think there would be much to write about today, we were booked on a 9 hour bus ride from San Cristobal to Panajachel, Guatemala. This should have consisted of sitting in a bus from early morning to late afternoon with a few refreshment stops along the way as well as the border crossing.

All was going well in Mexico apart from being a little behind schedule. At the Mexican border our passports were stamped for leaving and we even managed to avoid paying out 300 pesos each for the 'departure tax'. We had now officially left Mexico.

If you have never crossed a land border before, you have probably never considered that there is sometimes a bit of distance between the immigration office and the actual border. At this frontier crossing, we had to travel another 3km by road and navigate about 1km through a huge market before reaching the border. The van parked up as we couldn't drive further into the market area, and our luggage was unloaded so we could walk across the border to meet out our Guatemalan van for the remainder of the journey.

The Guatemalan town of La Mesilla has been built right to the border and the market in Mexico seems to just extend into the Guatemalan streets. In fact, people can freely move backwards and forwards within the market area without bothering about immigration...apart from today, that is.

The barriers to control vehicle traffic on the border had been lowered and a large group of people seemed to be demonstrating about something. Turns out the locals had the price of their electricity doubled overnight, they refused to pay (although still used) and were finally cut off. We are not talking about a few people here either, we are talking about entire towns and villages. They had been without power for the last 8 days and finally they decided on some direct action which was closing the border - no one would pass in either direction.

After a half hour wait in front of the gates, there was an announcement that they would open the border for 3 minutes. The next 3 minutes was a bit surreal...the barriers stayed down and the demonstrators didn't really move aside, a couple of gaps opened up where people came from the opposite direction. Forty of us, with backpacks on backs (and the Australians with surfboards under their arms) pushed our way to the barrier and crawled under it, on our hands and knees.

We all made it through and just needed our passports stamped before getting on the next van. This was the start of next delay, it seemed that the immigration office was symphathising with demonstrators - they shut their office saying they had no electricity even though it had been open the day before when there had been no power. Without an entry stamp in the passport, even though we were already in the country, we couldn't really go further than the border market.
Next we heard, that the Guatemalan vans were delayed because about 8 roadblocks had been set up to prevent traffic getting to the border. Our van had made it through most of them but was stuck in the town. We were now in a position where we couldn't cross back into Mexico and return to San Cristobal to try again another day (or way) or leave the Guatemalan border without an entry stamp or transport. We were officially nowhere.

Bags (and surfboards) were piled in the middle of the normally busy street carrying foot and vehicle traffic backwards and forwards. Time dragged on and the bag pile started migrating to the shade at the side of the street. Word came through after 2 hours of waiting that everything would open as soon as the electricity came back on or at 5pm, another 2 hours away.

5pm came and went without electricity coming on or the border opening, they were waiting until 6pm now. There was still no news about the roadblocks though and whether our van would get to meet us. There was even word about the immigration office not opening today or even the following day because the demonstration would continue again from early next morning. Everyone was discussing options on whether to risk it without a stamp, wait it out in a hotel in La Mesilla or go back to San Cristobal.

At 6pm the crowds dispersed to get some rest to continue even earlier the next day, and the immigration office opened for us. All 40 of us passed through without too many questions asked and on parting with an 'entry tax' of 20 pesos (the Guatemalans preferred payment in Mexican currency instead of their own Quetsals) were given an entry stamp.

The street started to get busy - people on foot, trolleys, scooters, tuk-tuks, cars and vans were all jostling for the limited space by the border gates. Our vans turned up, one for each of the destinations, and our luggage was stowed on the roof ready for departure.

The sun sets around 6:30pm and by the time we were ready to go it was dark, this caused our next delay. Advice for travellers in Guatemala is NOT to travel by bus at night because of the risk of highjack/robbery etc. Everyone in the bus was probably thinking about this but holding their tongue because they just wanted to get to where they were going. The drivers on the other hand were so concerned about this (especially with roadblocks earlier in the day) that they would travel in convoy WITH a police escort. No one was going to object to that and were happy to sit and wait a bit longer for a police car to join us.

By 7:30pm, we were on our way. In daylight the drive to Panajachel is usually about 4 hours, in the dark it was expected to take 5 hours. Being dark we saw nothing en-route and just tried to get a bit of sleep.

We hadn't booked any accommodation in Panajachel because we assumed that with a scheduled 4:30pm arrival we could just get something when we arrived. Others travelling with us had bookings in other villages which needed a boat trip so they too were without accommodation. As luck would have it, a local Guatemalan family were travelling with us and by talking to them through the day Maria discovered they owned a 'Hospedaje', a family home with extra rooms for renting out.

As it was past midnight and everyone else was looking a bit lost, we asked if she had any more rooms and she reckoned she would. So everyone from the van walked back to her 'hospedaje' and got a much needed bed for the night. We'll put that down as 'our' good deed of the day instead of letting them all fend for themselves.

We had finally arrived.