Fifthly de Mayo

Southwards we went (otherwise this blog would be falsely titled), travelling on the toll roads to cover maximum distance and beat the coastal heat. The driving is pretty uneventful and the roads very quiet. We rocked up onto a deserted plot of land, didn’t get stuck again, and decided to brave the waves. The water was actually refreshing at this, our second and last night for a while on the beach and we even had sea views! It was still f’in hot. Drip. Drip. Drip.

Finally, inland we travelled and mountains we climbed. Given how much desert we’ve seen further north, inland Mexico has proven to be incredibly green and lush. We’ve been told that the winter is very dry and the green turns to brown, but we’re mid rainy season which explains the frequent storms.

Oh and the rain.

The toll (quota) road and the free (libre) road intertwined the whole way while we stuck to the more interesting libre road with only those in a hurry hustling along beside us on the fancy smooth tarmac. We’re quite happy slamming through potholes, some of which you can see go down through 3 or 4 layers of bad repair after bad repair. Just after crossing the Tropico de Cancer (whatever that translates to) we found our very own camp spot at 9000ft, up in the clouds and blissfully cold.

This camp spot was our first contribution to our cheatsheet, the 1 and 0s that have come to be our tourguide and bible. “ioverlander” is an app that allows fellow travellers to bookmark locations against a map, detailing safe spots, hidden gems, dangerous roads and any other useful information to benefit those unwise enough to bumble through a country without having first been smart enough to make a proper plan. Like us.

As it is the rainy season, we’re finding plenty of bodies of water, it is unfortunate they’re normally dirty from all number of sources so taking a dip seems to be a no-no. We carried on inland coming out of the mountains to rolling hills, but still at a cool 7000ft and camped at the back of a waterfall car park. I know you’re less impressed at the spots we’re finding now you know we’re cheating, but meh.

We met a great local family here with perfect English, they gave us advice, invited us to dinner with them and were just as unimpressed with the amount of litter as we were. The girls complimented our bonita cocina (beautiful kitchen).

More exploring, more traffic problems.

Much of the nice places in Mexico haven’t been developed into the kind of tourist areas we found in the States, and of course Canada too. But we found one, a lovely semi desert place with stunning rock formations, soaring eagles, scampering lizards and toilets that aren’t a hole dug freshly in the ground… A man on the gate charges us 100 pesos ($7,£4) for a night and we make ourselves at home as the only campers in a facility for 50.

Lizards were hassled

Shower bags refilled

Suspension checked

And rocks admired

And then we went here. And then here. And then here. Switch it up would you guys.

Fine.

A donkey rolled about in the dirt. Then got creepy.

Another night, another storm and another rude awakening.

Eventually we stopped driving from hidden campspot to hidden campspot and actually tried to take in some culture. We stopped in Aguascalientes and visited the National Museum of Death, which seems to be a big deal in Mexico, which we remember from the opening of a James Bond film. Who says we’re not well learned. Our other cheat is Google Translate with the ability to offline augment English-ish words over the camera view of Spanish gibberish.

More driving. Such a chore in these conditions.

Now, in contrast to the original beach photos whereby we told you how nice it looked, how terrible it was, here is the opposite. A murky looking overgrown shallow river, but what the camera doesn’t tell you is that it’s cold outside, but the water is from a thermal spring!! Mmmmm toasty water, cold beer and fireflies buzzing around. Later on the owner came to talk to us, he was pretty keen for us to understand but we managed to completely fail to grasp his simple Spanish sentence. I think we were meant to move, we didn’t, we all smiled and he left.

Because we couldn’t help but wish for English conversations, we set the satnav for Lake Chapala, a favourite retirement destination for Canadians and Americans. Aka Gringos. We briefly swung by to get a feel for one of the towns and managed to find a statue even more bizarre than CowBearPaddleboarder. Behold, BigfootFIshforpantsStarfishhead. Does he need to unzip? Why does the fish have that look on his face? So many questions… Probably don’t want to know the answers.

But otherwise it’s a pretty area and we start to spot retired gringos in every café, shop and pharmacy. We head up the hills to make camp and attempt to catch some rainwater to top up our drinking supplies, and power the solar panel with pure rainbow.

This part of Mexico has a much better feel to the coastal areas, still plenty of stares but people overall seem more content and better off than their sandy relatives melting on the coast. Our next couple of weeks will be spent visiting the pretty mountain towns we’ve been recommended, assuming we don’t decide to retire early and stay at Lake Chapala with the weird Pervmaid statue.  

Some Stats

Totals:

35 days on the road

8200km driven (20% of estimated total, minimum distance so far could have been 4700km)

1066 litres of fuel consumed at an average of 22.2mpg

Daily:

232km driven average (estimated average expected to be 130km, need to slow down!)

10L of water per day consumed, around 7 drunk, 3 washing dishes/teeth/face/misc

30.5L of fuel per day

Map of places what we've been visiting

Westy Rick, the making of

Warning, contains entirely boring mechanical themes which will not be interesting for most readers.

Here we briefly detail how Westy Rick, our 1987 VW Vanagon Westfalia came to be the man that he is today. Strictly from a boring technical standpoint with very little for you to gain by reading this.

Our van became our van in late September 2017, just after we became a married couple. It was an unmolested, original machine with no rust but mechanically a little tired and leaky. We managed to squeeze a couple of camping trips in before the snow came which was more than enough to assure us that we could happily make this van our home for months on end.

It was settled, the trip was going to happen, but the van would need some serious prepping before attempting such a journey. Getting a 30 year old van to the southernmost tip of the America’s was going to require a full overhaul and muchos pimping. However, winter was closing in and it wasn’t going to be much fun lying under a van in 2ft of snow changing an engine. Some work was done in places it shouldn’t have been, like rebuilding driveshafts in the kitchen sink… but we were truly stuck without a workshop in which to live out the winter.

And then to the rescue, the most generous souls of them all offered us use of their workshop. Jelmer and Linda put up with us coming and going for over 7 months, with patience comparable to saints. For five of those months the van didn’t move, and for three of them there was the donor Subaru also squeezed in amongst the mess we continually made. Without this space, tools, coffees, advice and encouragement, we wouldn’t have the trustworthy steed we currently reside in.

We picked up the engine donor in the depths of winter. In the middle of a snowstorm the Symes and two sets of Bakers drove out to drag a written off Forester down a hill and onto a trailer. The mission was a success, and our engine was obtained. This would replace our leaky, ancient 1.9 with a modern 2.5 with very nearly twice the power.

Much work began, with the brake system rebuilt, suspension overhauled, hoses renewed and the old engine torn out. To survive the onslaught of power and torque the gearbox was given some gentle TLC too. Our tasty new motor was stripped apart, new seals, head gaskets, water pump, timing belt blah blah yawn yawn. Even the fuel tank was removed, painted up real sexy and black and wedged back in.

One of the real challenges was the wiring harness, one million, billion, trillion wires were removed from the Subaru over a whole day of aches, pains, blood, sweat, tears and mostly swearing. This spider’s web then proceeded to occupy a large portion of our house as slowly wires were stripped out, then sometimes replaced, then stripped out again until we were left with the bare minimum for running the engine.

Finally, in mid-March, the van was hoiked up and the powerplant lifted into place. Oh how happy it looked nestled up in there.

That was the easy bit, the next month was consumed with plumbing in the coolant, fuel, vacuum, power steering, wiring and exhaust. Extra pressure was felt as a leaky hose or popped off connection could spell disaster up a mountain in Peru three hours from the nearest human.

But finally, finally, five months after rolling into the workshop, our little vanahome drove out to roam around wild and free. We even managed to drive through some snow just before it all melted.

But the pressure was still on, with only two months until departure day there was still lots to do to make it our home.

Back in the workshop. Wrapped up like a Christmas present, the lower sill was painted with bed liner to help protect against the terrain and to look more badass. To further boost the badass aesthetic, the original 14” wheels were replaced with 16” Mercedes rims freshly power coated black and wrapped in mean looking offroad hard-core go anywhere tyres.

Roofbars were designed and made, solar panel installed along with an auxiliary battery and new improved electric only fridge to replace the non-ideal original propane coolbox. This new fridge was put through its paces on several occasions.

The final piece of the puzzle, the 100% DIY bumpers were finally installed. From CAD model to reality. Giving us a way to carry our big pimping spare and a secure box for spare water, fuel and oil. And bonus storage inside the bumper itself for greasy tools etc. Oh, and the towing eyes for when we do get stuck.

And that is how, over 8 months our simple van evolved into mega, world conquering uber van. Whilst one of us typically had greasy hands, the other was slaving away picking up nursing shifts left right and centre with hands often covered in things much worse than grease. This was certainly a team effort, and with lots of help from friends and family too. Thanks everyone!