The Paddler ezine WW kayak collection 2013 | Page 178
ThePaddler 178
In October 2012
myself, James Fleming, Matthew Brook and Tony
Becker embarked on a 17- day trip to Guatemala in
Central America. Why Guatemala? Well I love
exploration and I wanted some Jungle boating in
South or Central America away from the norm, so
Guatemala came to my attention through a
website, www.mayanwhitewater.com. The author
of this website is Greg Schwendinger, an American
who has been living in Guatemala for 10 years and
who is responsible for many of the first descents in
the country. After numerous Email conversations
with him on logistics the trip was on.
The hardest part was getting there, as you can’t fly
into Guatemala city with boats and there are no
hire company’s or kayak suppliers anywhere in
Guatemala so that wasn’t an option either. We
eventually came up with the plan to fly into
Cancun in Mexico through Virgin Airlines with
our boats, hire a jeep and drive down into
Guatemala – over a day and half.
After spending a night in Cancun from our ninehour flight, the jeep was loaded and it was time to
hit the road. Unfortunately after about 12 hours
of driving the jeep got sick and was losing power,
so we forced to limp the car into Valamosa city in
Mexico and got a dodgy fuel pump replaced.
With a day lost the rest of the drive down went
according to plan until we hit the Guatemalan
border, which we were all dreading!
I think we had scared ourselves with the internet
before the trip on stories like people having been
shot at the border, you are going to get robbed,
never get out the car etc, etc. So when we arrived at
the Mexico/Guatemala border, a crowd of
Guatemalan men blocked the car and were
demanding money left right and centre from us.
These guys are the fixers who sort out your
paperwork to get you through the border quicker
and of course four gringos with kayaks in a hire
car are easy targets to squeeze as much money out
of you as they can.
Andy next to the death wall at Chichen itza
A crowd of Gu
blocked the car
dema