Bundles of beetles

We arrived late in Xela last night, and unfortunately missed a soccer game where Xelaju ended up beating their competitor 2-0. It was an early start this morning, we paid a ridiculous amount of money (nevertheless, not more than what it costs from Skien to Oslo) to get a shuttle from Xela to San Cristobal De Las Casas in Mexico. Some people had been up all night checking out the night life at Kokolokos, and it was a tired bunch of people boarding the minibus at 7am. It was a fairly long drive to Mexico, took nearly 7 hours, but a lot better than on a chicken bus.

And it's good to be in Mexico! I was supposed to go to Tijuana more than three years ago with Astrid, but she'd left her green card at the hotel in Los Angeles, so we ended up in San Diego Zoo instead. Everything seems to work slightly better here than in Guatemala. First of all there are road signs. There are lots of speed bumps and areas where you are prohibited to overtake, and on the three hour trip from the border I only saw one chicken-bus-style overtaking, and it was not even our car doing it. The ATMs are open 24-hours, an issue which is absolutely hopeless in Guatemala. I don't know any other place it is so hard to get money outside normal business hours. And it is clean here. In Guatemala everyone uses the bus-window as a rubbish bin. It's a big no-no here, so don't even think about it. Now we've found ourselves a lovely little hotel right smack in the city centre, we know a bar where the coctails are free tonight, and I think we'll have a few good days here!

Ohh, and yeah! Mexico is one of the last places where they produced the old VW Beetle (or "boble" as it's called in Norwegian), meaning there are loads of them bumming around on the roads here. They are so adorable and if I ever get my license (which I will this summer, and now it's official, so you can all make fun of me if I don't get around and do it) I want such a little car!

Anyway, take care and enjoy!