Crossing from Mexico to Guatemala

crossing over to continue into Guatemala in El Naranjo.


Road to El Ceibal Ruins, smooth part

Thursday the 16th our 10th day. 8 hour day -with two meals as usual, oil chain and a long internet break to "order" a new back tire.
Lacanja to El Naranjo Guatemala. Through El Ceibo.
Tenosique is a pretty big town, hotels although i only saw signs for them. internet, Pharmacies to buy Chloroquine malaria treatment for $3.50, Banks. No reason to stay there unless you have to.
From there it is about 1 - 1.5 hours, count on wrong turns, to El Ceibo. The Mexico side of the border is all official looking. Guatemala's side was manned by 7 year old with the attitude of a 20 year old, pulling the rope up off the two 55gallon drums that make the gate. I went inside to deal with the passports and papers for the bike. This is a small crossing. Senor immigration man got up off the sidewalk where he was hanging with his pals and attended to me. I handed over both passports, Steve came in for a second to sign his tourist card. Immigration man asked if it was our honeymoon, if we were going to visit Tikal. I told him it wasn't and that we had been there before. It was slowly filled out. He searched for the last space or two for my stamp to go, and said 10 pesos each. It should have been free, but i was so happy it was that easy that I payed him the $1.40. oops. I asked about the bike and where we should stop to fill out paperwork and said there is not Aduanas there so nothing had to be done. The Central America 4 - CA4, is a very important thing that you should read up on. I asked him what we should do at the next border and he said " nothing, you dont have to stop. you dont need another stamp. Just go through" remember that.
About 20 minutes into Guatemala is El Naranjo. It's a small but busy town with few restaurant options. We stayed on the river at a hot hotel with a tiny window. The whole town loses power at midnight until 7am. So you will sweat. We did however happily swing in hammocks on the covered dock for hours. And we ate great Pupusas, an El Salvadoran food, cooked at a womans stand. There are nicer hotels in El Naranjo and I would reccomend them, but boy those hammocks on the river were nice, it was so hot there.
The next day as we continued the way we needed to go, there is a hotel in the following small towns you would come to, very basic I imagine, but there isn't much more around there. There was a bank in El naranjo but it, and the machines were closed when we left, we traded $40US at the boarder and made it last a while. There are also pharmacies. and clothing stores. Steve had to buy a bathing suit. it's hip yo.
the road from the crossing has been open less than a year. We could only find one reference to it in a blog. The road is in great condition, newly paved. Don't go there for the fact that it says it is in the middle of a preserve. There is no jungle to be seen, just roaling hills and cattle It's the season for burning so there is alot of smoke in the air.

Frontera Corazal is an option from Bonampack, and closer, but we thought the boat crossing would be too expensive and a hassle.