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Can you even believe the title? We couldn’t really, but despite 18 months here we weren’t quite there yet. We had heard that it might be possible to enter Belize, just the day before we were about to leave Bacalar. Unfortunately, we weren’t really set up for that border. We had ordered Lee’s replacement phone to the town near the Guatemalan border, and we didn’t have the paperwork in place for the cats. Belize was known to be pricey and we decided all in all it wouldn’t be su

We cruised into Bacalar on the last fumes in the petrol tank. We had wrongly assumed that somewhere on the two hour long drive down main road between the two towns there would be a fuel station. There was not. We always carry a back up jerry can, but tend to use that only when we have actually run out. Now safely full of fuel, we headed to Jardin de Venus, a recommended spot by our friends who had travelled this way before us, including Jaro, who we had missed by just one day

Finally, Monday rolled around and we headed off to pick up our post and leave Valladolid for good. After much internet research, it didn’t appear that there was much to do on the east coast for the most part. This seems the destination of choice if you want to pay a lot of money for a tour on a diving trip, or you just want to stay inside a fancy resort. Everything is expensive and everything is busy. It was with this in mind that we skipped both Playa del Carmen and Cancun.

It had been nearly two weeks since we had done a ‘big drive’ and only the second time that Lizzy had done more than half an hour or so. The last trip resulted in her pooping on the cab floor so as we made our way towards Valladolid that afternoon, I wrestled the litter tray into the cab to try and avoid a repeat as she made a beeline for the floor. Luckily for us, we made it to the town without an accident, just two very hot cats despite the torrential rain.  We parked up on

Picking up our story; we are driving on the road from Campeche to Merida. The engine is working and so is the gearbox and it’s the first time we’ve driven more than 20 minutes in the last two weeks. That morning the rain and a horrid screaming noise in the workshop awakened us. It turns out a stray puppy had wandered in and Draco the workshop dog was terrorising it. It was shivering and covered in mites. We wrapped it in a towel and put it in the camper where it fell asleep.

We spent an entire day, cleaning the exterior and the interior parts that were accessible, ready to refit the next day. That evening, Gerry invited us out for a meal with his girlfriend, which was a nice break to the garage setting. While Monica did Zumba on the malecon, he took us for a tour of Campeche. Showing us the ancient wall of the city and some of the churches too.  We drove out to the south of the town to look at an old fort, perched up the hillside over looking the

We spent another night in our waterfall camp spot so that we could enjoy a day exploring the waterfalls properly, and plan for our next destination. It required a little bit of imagination to appreciate the waterfalls, as right now they are not the tropical blue that they normally are. We were clearly lucky before to have still got that bright blue water in the rainy season, as these cascades were a rather unattractive muddy colour. Still, the water is refreshing, if not as c

Throughout the night the slightly we were awoken on several occasions by the screaming of the howler monkeys, a horrible noise which sounds particularly creepy in the dead of night despite the fact that we knew what it was. We couldn't believe something that small, could sound so terrifying. When the morning came, Kim and Chris left, being on a tighter time frame, while we decided to stay one more day. The campsite owner brought us cocoa beans to try and some of the fruit fro

Whilst our engine was now repaired (again), we were still a little cautious of going to our next stop at the Guatemalan border without a proper test drive. We decided to drive to another park, a little to the west of the city. We wound our way through the back streets of the city, waiting for the engine to get hot enough and see if the problem was gone. It seemed that everything was going to be fine... We were only a matter of minutes away, going up steep dirt track when we c

It seemed like our patience with problems was finally rewarded when we arrived in the early afternoon on the shore of Lake Tziscao, bathed in sunshine. Our past problems were soon forgotten, as we pulled up to our night's camping spot. We parked right on the side of the lake and enjoyed perfect temperature. Having climbed a little higher, it was now a bit cooler and a pleasant breeze drifted across the water. This is what travelling was meant to be about! We were so close to

The drive from Tuxtla Guterriez to San Cristobal de las Casas is an uphill slog, one that would test Ruby's cooling system to the max. The former town being located at 500 metres and the latter at 2,200 metres, with a gap in between of only around 40km. After having some power issues with the van, we were a little apprehensive and did pull over a couple of times to give the engine a chance to cool down. On the whole though, we cruised without incident into San Cristobal and h

It was a novel experience to arrive at our destination well before lunchtime. We wanted to get out of the car park before it filled with the Saturday morning traffic, and this coupled with a relatively short drive meant that we arrived at the Villa Esmerelda early. We had decided to spend a couple of nights at a hotel in the town, as this is a little more pleasant and often cheaper than a city based campsite. At 225pesos a night per couple, we got to share a room with air con

Not only did we have a long drive to do that day, supposedly littered with military checkpoints, but we needed to do some shopping in the town of Salina Cruz first. We had packed up and left the restaurant by around 8am that morning. As we were now heading away from the coast, we wanted to get the cars washed to get rid of the large amount of salt they had been sitting in for weeks, all of this was taking its toll on Ruby’s bodywork. As we know now from too much experience, t

Upon leaving our lovely little cove, we travelled to the small village of San Agustin. Here there was an iOverlander camp spot that had an incredible number of good reviews, owned by a Dutch couple, it was a little pricey,  but we decided to check it out, and the owner gave us a warm welcome. The village itself is very rustic, but the campsite was one of the best equipped ones we had seen in a long time. It had the cleanest toilets I have seen in the whole of Mexico, as well

Our trip north took us to the town of Cerro Hermosa. We arrived into this friendly place, just over an hour north of Puerto Escondido, and made a beeline for the jetty to watch the waves. We were disappointed to see a flat, calm sea.  Before long, two guys arrived. They told us we could camp at their restaurants for free, if we ate there. This is quite common, the nearby seafront was lined with palapas, hammocks and chairs underneath and empty. They clearly needed the busines

We awoke the following morning with a sense of achievement at finding our own spot. It wasn’t the prettiest, but it was very quiet and secluded. We wondered why no one had added it before. This soon became apparent when the local police arrived and told us, quite amiably, to leave. Still, it was past 9am at this point so quite civilised really. We packed up and drove on, heading for San Sebastian de las Grutas.  Our next major destination was Puerto Escondido, but the road be

That morning, we awoke in Mitla and our group divided. Hanno and Kikki wanted to head into Oaxaca again, while we wanted to do a mezcal tour. It seemed wrong to have been on the mainland so long and not done a single tequila tasting. We also wanted to look at the ruins in Mitla, that the others had seen yesterday. Jaro came along with us, for what turned out to be a very short visit as the ruins were shut on Sundays. There were several other options on the road towards Oaxaca

Before we knew it, it was Friday morning. We were up early, wanting to give ourselves some extra time in case we had any engine issues leaving the spot. Fortunately, the morning temperatures were still very cold, meaning we were less likely to have problems. We left Aimee behind with the others who had agreed to look after her for that night which we thought we would likely spend in the city again. Not wanting to keep her locked in the camper in a garage all day or drag her a

Our first evening in Oaxaca was spent sampling some rather nice food and beer at Oaxaca Brewing Company. We tried a few nice craft beers and even better their seafood. I’m not normally one for raw fish, but the marlin ceviche was something else. We spent a few happy hours here before going back to the car park for an early night. There are opening hour restrictions on the bars here anyway, that are loosely followed by some and completed ignored by others. The night in Ciro’s

After one of the quietest nights in a long time, we decided we would head back down to the town. We went in search of Tripwagen, apparently a good place to sort out our camper, agreeing to meet later a little south of Puebla. It was clear we were in the right location, by the presence of the VW’s outside. The owner, Christian, said he could order use a new roll bar today and we needed to come back in a few hours. We also asked him about some of Ruby’s rustier parts, we had be