The Final Challenge

Well Night One of sleeping in the van did NOT work out so great. We started by trying to find a safe and quiet street to park on. In our past four days in Antigua we agreed this is a nice, family community town and we would have no problems sleeping on the street. We draped up sheets around all the windows, gather clothes for pillows and settled in. Well not sooo much. The problems came when Ryan and Craig tried to fit laying down on the bench seats to sleep. Neither of them fit since they are both 6 ft tall. I was laughing cause I fit, 5’ 1” tall. So the guys decided to take out the middle bench, lean it up against the second bench and we could all sleep on the floor. That was a good idea until they couldn’t fit between the front seats and the back bench either. LOL again!! By this time sleeping in the van didn’t sound like a very good idea to them and we were all cracking up. We ended up driving around to three hostels before we found one with vacant beds. Grabbed our bags and to bed.

NOW day five, the final day of buying a car in Guatemala. We took the documents we had back to the Antigua transportation office only to find out we had a few more forms to fill out and fees to pay. Back to the lawyer and the bank. Needless to say this took most of the morning since the lawyer was out to a long morning brunch and the bank’s computer system failed in the middle of our processing. Finally by noon we got all the paperwork we needed and headed down to Guatemala City to do the title transfer ourselves. In the end this proved to be the second easiest part after buying the car.

Busy Guatemala City

We navigated through the crazy New York City / Beirut / Tijuana-like streets to the municipal center easily and again through the DMV lines.

Guatemal City building and Flag

Within an hour Ryan had an original title to the van in his name and in his hands!!!! (This is necessary to cross boarders). So after all that we now own a car and can go where we want, when we want. And on our way to Lake Atitlán.

Guatemala City

The Final Challenge

Guatemala, Guatemala