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| GuatemalaHints & Tips for travelling by car...Travelling with Your own car in Guatemala is a great adventure. We enjoyed the ability to drive off the beaten track, find local guides in small villages close to the volcanos by our own, and we many times camped in the backyard of a farmer, in front of a church or at the so called "touricentros" (hot springs, animal parks) aso, which are guarded day&night. Here's some hints that might be handy if You plan to travel through Guatemala with Your own vehicle. 1. Crossing the border with Your vehicle / Permissions Crossing the border (temporarily importing Your vehicle) to Guatemala is no problem. The process at the border takes some time but is quite well organised and costs only a small fee. Important is that You can only get a maximum of 30 days permission to have Your vehicle in Guatemala at one time. In our case this was a problem and according to some information in our travelling books we tried to extend/renew our permission in Guatemala city. Despite different phonecalls to various governmental departements to make sure that this trip to Guatemala city would not be a lost day, we finally had to drive to a border crossing to do get a new temporary car document anyway. So our recommendation is: forget about an extension in Guatemala city. Drive to the closest border crossing and get a new permit there. 2. Roadconditions, Maps, Police & co. The Roads in Guatemala were the worst that we've encountered so far (definitely much worse than in El Salvador...). As soon as You leave the main "highways" You must be happy to find paved roads. You'll encountera hardly any signs that help You at the many crossings, but people are very friendly and always try to help You to find You're way around. Definitely don't drive at night, ....the many potholes might cost You the drive shaft or a couple of wheel bearings. At the same time road blocks and robbery mostly occurs at night. So, better find a safe place to stay during daylight hours. The street maps of Guatemala are bad and very unprecise. Local people can hardly help You or give You hints for longer stretches of roads as they mostly just know their local environment. When we crossed some mountains north of lake Itzabal it took us about 10 hours for 100 km's, mostly driving in the lower 4x4 gears. Many times we had to turn back and ask our way around again as we ended in dead ends. So frequently make sure that You're on the right road! Watch out for the sign "viraje obligado". You'll encounter this sign entering most of the cities when facing one-way lines. This sign is equal to the "wrong-way" sign and its direction-arrow points out which direction You must turn into. Many times it's so damned small or hidden that You will miss it.. - well, at least I missed it heaps of times. Sometimes it's also just written on a Coca Cola-like advertisment-sign (obviously a Coca Cola sponsored road-sign...) - no joke.... We never encountered any bad experience with local police or with the military in Guatemala. They were always friendly and very helpful. Sometimes they wanted to have a quick look inside our vehicle to make sure that we did not hide any people or carry loads of weapons. Maybe it was also just their private interest... - however, we never had happenings like in Mexico where "Municipales" tried to get some money for whatever delinquencies.
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Volcano Expeditions / Vulkan Expeditionen / Hints & Tips / Trails to
active volcanoes
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