A Trip to Chiapas

Transcript

Last week I took a trip down to Chiapas. Living here in Mexico still here on a tourist card. Trying to get my documents together to get a temporary residency. So I decided to head down to renew my tourist card and cross down into Guatemala.

I remember before I arrived and I was on the plane I started to pray that everything would go alright.

And actually I thought what if I don’t just say everything is gonna be alright, because you know the rule. Stretch the imagination. Ask for something a little bigger, a little better. That’s the rule – don’t put limits on what you ask for.

So why not ask for not just that the trip is successful, that would be wonderful but also that it’s gonna be sublime? That somehow having this journey is going to introduce some lesson into my life or that I’m gonna see a different aspect of reality that is empowering for me, that feels good and brings me elation.

Now what about that, what if I ask for that?

That’s what I asked for so I was imagining getting back home and sitting on my bed and kissing the tourist card that I renewed to make sure I can stay here in Mexico legally.

As some of you know I was once deported from Mexico for overstaying a tourist card so I don’t want to do that. And just having that feeling of elation and enjoying it and thinking “what an amazing time.” Also remembering in this vision or in this daydream that I’m having, I am remembering the time when I am imagining this daydream.

So it’s this technique mentioned by Noah Lampert on the synchronicity podcast. He talks about that a lot and it seems to serve as a sort of bridge between the vision that you are having of the future and the present.

Somehow that seems to tie everything together.

So there on the plane what happened? Actually I forgot about this until I reviewed my photos yesterday. Looking out the window close to arriving to Chiapas. I’m not sure which mountains they were. I was flying out of Mexico City and I look out the window and there are these mountains and they have this mist around them.

Some of them are snow capped mountains and I remember this is a scene that has great personal significance to me because this is actually the vision I had of Latin America before I ever arrived.

This is what I suspected or thought or knew somehow that Latin America was going to look like so when people would mention words like Teotihuacan or Machu Picchu I would stare off into the distance and imagine these mountains with this mist swirling around them and that’s exactly what I saw that day on the plane.

Surely if there’s a good omen this must be a good omen.

So I arrived in Tapachula and I knew I had to get to the border. I took a colectivo or van with a bunch of people and head towards the border, towards Talismán.

I brought my umbrella all the way to Tapachula but when I got there I forgot to bring it with me because I didn’t think it would rain for some reason.

Of course its this thick tropical rain the kind of rain that makes Chiapas look beautiful and green from the air.

I got to Talismán and its just raining and raining. I try to take shelter in this little…well its like a roof with corrugated iron on it.

I don’t know what the people were doing there but they seemed to be waiting out the rain like I was.

And I started talking to this fellow who was like a union representative. Its kind of funny because he starts telling me how serious it is.

It’s kind of strange he tells me “so you want to cross over to Guatemala and renew your tourist card?” and I’m like yep that’s what I’m trying to do

And he said “Listen you’ve got a problem because they’re going to charge you a lot. The Mexican officials are going to ask you for a huge bribe of 250 dollars so you can do that.”

And I was like I don’t really wanna pay that, I don’t have that on me anyway.

And he was like that’s how it is here. In a not so nice way saying that in Chiapas many people are corrupt. I said “thanks for your advice” then I was a little panicked thinking whats going to happen? These officials at the border are going to try to rip me off.

What’s going to a happen?

And I get into the office on the Mexican side and hand over my passport and tourist card.

And they said listen the card expired a few weeks ago and I was like “yeah they cancelled my flight to Guatemala.”

He said “This is a problem.” I’m like urgh. “And were going to have to do a lot more paperwork because of this.”

And I’m like ok is this guy trying to rip me off or something? Whats happening?

I Asked for my passport back and he was like “Ok sure, but are you coming back tomorrow or what?”

I’m like well how long will the process take? “It’s just an hour.”

I said “Alright well lets do that then.”

I’m sitting there waiting for an hour and the fellow Jose comes out after about 30 minutes and keeps me in the loop which is something a lot of people in customer service wouldn’t do

This bureaucrat or this official was a little more thorough than most people.

He says to me “I gave your passport to my boss, its coming along. I’m just going to go get lunch”

So I said “Cool thanks for keeping me in the loop Jose” and then, we get it done, get it processed and I’m like “listen what I really want to do is just head over to Guatemala and just come straight into Mexico, can I do that?” And they were like “Yeah, you can do that.”

Anyway I’m on the Guatemalan side and this is not a nice vision of Guatemala. I’m sure there are great places in Guatemala, people talk about Antigua and other nice places there… but this is like a little shantytown.

All these stores are crushed and cramped in the 200 meters between the bridge and the customs office where people are getting their vehicles checked. I’m going to the immigration office and wondering “Is this even legal?”

“Is this even real?” because it has cling wrap all over it to supposedly protect from COVID.

Its like limiting the amount of space that you can hand things through the window, just a 2 inch gap to hand my passport through so I don{t spit on the fellow I guess. So all of these… There’s about 5 Guatemalan fellows following me and being very insistent saying “hey, what can I help you with, what do you need?”

Possibly they were offering to smuggle me into Mexico illegally and get me false documents. Not going to go into detail about that but I was quite stressed about the whole thing?

But what happened in the end I got my exit and entry stamp to Guatemala and headed back to Mexico and everything was fine.

In fact I even had a chat with Jose afterwards and he was like “Oh you live in Guadalajara, you know my colleague here, shes from Guadalajara.:

You have to go somewhere towards Mazatlan and I start singing “Mazatlan, ay mi Mazatlan,” that song

I guess a lot of places in mexico have their own song.

Anyway I just chilled there and shot the breeze with Jose for awhile.

And I just realized wow I was so worried about this whole thing, so suspicious, so paranoid thinking things were gonna turn out so badly.

But as it happened people were good. As they say here in Latin American “somos más los buenos”. There are more of us good folks.

That was my trip to Guatemala I guess, not so much my trip to Chiapas. But that was the message that I got from it and yes, I got home to Guadalajara, I sat on my bed, and I kissed that tourist card to represent my stay here in Mexico free from persecution and free to pursue a visa.

Thanks for listening. I will talk to you soon.