Norm's ford had a flat battery this morning, and it took a little while to charge it using the Tiger and our jump leads. However, even with that hiccup we were on the road by 6:30 am.

The first leg of the days journey was across the isthmus to the Pacific Coast at the town of Ventosa. This area is renowned (apparently) for very high winds and has a number of wind farms close to the road. There after we roughly paralleled the Pacific Coast through to the town of Tapanatepec where we picked up highway 200. A long run along this decent four lane road brought us finally to Tapachula and the border. We had the first hint of what lay ahead at the exit from Mexico. We were missing a document for our Tiger. We should have had a list of contents from the entry border post so that the exit post could check that we had not left anything behind. Norm and Nina - that's because Nina's name is on the title of the Tiger as the owner - spent a good long time at the customs office while I stood guard on the vehicles and learned ten thousand ways to say NO to kids trying to hit me up for money. Eventually we decided not to check the Tiger out but rather make use of out 10 year re-entry permit.

The Guatemalan border is some miles from the Mexican customs house. Immediately we approached the border we were besieged by men both young and old offering to help us fill in the Guatemalan papers. More practice in saying NO. We arrived at maybe 2:00pm and within an hour Nina and I had both our personal and vehicle passes but Norm ran into a problem related to a vehicle he had brought down 5 years previously.

As the wait for Norm's papers stretched on we turned off the Tiger and relinquished the pampering of A/C and waited in the border post, watching the goings on.

The upshot of this is that Norm's papers were not done by the end of the day so we spent the night parked in the line for the border gate at the border post. Dinner was a local restaurant.

We did not get any photos at the border for, as you can imaging, photos are not authorized; but the border was an amazing scene. Vehicle after vehicle crossed from Mexico to Guatemala, almost all where towing a second vehicle - many US registered insurance write offs - and all were packed with second hand goods bought in the US. These were nothing more than modern day trading caravans.