WHAT NOT TO DO IN GUATEMALA
Don't tell the borderguards and customs officers you once worked in a goldmine. It can cost you more. The handful of official looking receipts for taxes, fees and permits failed to show why it cost me $20 more than anyone else to get myself and a tired XL 600 Honda through the border with Belize.
Asphalt turned to rough potholed gravel and the main street of the chicken strewn bordertown was coated with a layer of slippery mud, splashed from the numerous brown puddles. A Shell petrol station, a promising sign of modernity amongst the squalor, in a town soaked by the afternoon tropical drenching, was the first stop. An old singlet stuck to the attendants sweaty body, complementing his shorts and odd jandals. He offered some helpful advice, "stop for no-one, especially the gorgeous ones, they're baited hooks man". Sounded like good advice, as I headed west across the notorious, swampy and bandit filled El Paten region of northern Guatemala. Aiming towards Flores and the magnificent Mayan ruins of Tikal. I dodged steel grey, thunderous rain storms, on empty roads, surrounded by thick jungle , not a gorgeous person in sight.
