Subscribe to our blog

The town of Puebla was still in lockdown, despite having lesser restrictions for the rest of the state. We weren’t sure how easy it would be to stay here, we were also a little wary, this is probably the closest we would get to Mexico City and it didn’t seem to be a good place to get too close to at the moment. We set off from the lagoon early to give ourselves time. The French camper who we had parked up to that night after we had relocated said they’d join us later. We deci

The plan the next morning was to get away from the vicinity of Mexico city. We had post we were waiting on, so we needed to be in Puebla for Monday in a few days’ time, but for now all we wanted was a nice quiet spot with no drama. We opted to drive further east, there was apparently a car park where you could park and visit some springs, while not hot it sounded nice. From there we could work our way back west, trying to stop at one of the spots that had been recommended to

Having spent the best part of a week at the hot springs, it was time to move on. We had planned to wait to Puebla to sort our brakes and hopefully a few other issues with the camper, however the horrific grinding noise coming from the front needed immediate attention. It turned out that Pachuca, a few hours south had a VW parts shop. We set of with Jaro, leaving Hanno and Kikki to find a vulcanizadora for their rapidly deteriorating tyres. We had nearly made it to Pachuca, wh

We slept in the small deserted car park at the foot of the monolith in Bernal that night. Aimee was clearly enjoying her freedom, as when we left to do the short hike up the monolith that morning she was nowhere to be seen.  Fortunately, it was a safe enough place and were happy to lock up the van and leave her, no doubt hunting birds in the trees. You have to pay a small entrance fee to get in, and then hike up the steep path to the mid-way point of the monolith. The top sec

In the morning, Clem and Emilie joined us in Xilitla. They had managed to go and see the other sinkhole, a short distance from the one we had gone too, good example of the complete lack of logic applied to Covid regulations. They had needed to book separate timeslots for the garden though, as Lu wasn’t allowed in there either. Thinking it would be pretty unfair to leave Emilie to go by herself, we opted to wait in the camper and have coffee and lunch while Clem and the others

We left La Playita on a cloudy afternoon and began the long drive up to the sinkhole, after a detour to refuel the van and pick up some supplies. Ruby was definitely down on power and around half way the battery warning light came on. I was not ready for more issues. We pulled over to the side, and thankfully, it was an HT lead that had come loose. Our new air intake pipe had pushed the lead off the coil pack, an easy fix. The alternator on the other hand was now overcharging

When 9am arrived the following morning, it was a dull cloudy day. None of us fancied a cold early morning swim either. We asked if we could leave later, but he said he was busy so it was now or never. We said we didn’t want to swim right now, but would go to the waterfall. This wasn’t a problem but he made us put on our life jackets anyway, in case we fell in. We didn’t realise until later how ridiculous that was. The walk goes out of the back of the campsite and follows a sm

As is tradition, New Year’s Day was a relaxed affair while different people nursed different degrees of their respective hangovers. The weather had not broken up yet, and a wet grey day hung over the camp. It very much reminded me of an English summer day in August. A year of sun has left me incredibly intolerant to bad weather. Sun, a commodity that used to enjoyed as a novelty is now a day to day occurrence. Rain is practically unthinkable. I phoned my parents and complaine

Just a day away from New Year’s Eve, we sat in an abandoned hacienda in Sierra Alvarez. It had been a three hour drive up from Guanajato that afternoon, and we had arrived in the dark. This is not something I like doing. There’s multiple reasons, and not just that it’s not recommended to drive at night in Mexico. For one, it’s much harder to assess a camping spot in the dark as you can only see a matter of metres around you. It’s harder to level the car too. Sometimes, it can

We arrived in Guanajato with several hours to explore the town. Emilie had told me where a good free parking spot was, so we left the campers there and walked down into the town. It was Sunday, and the streets were lined with stalls. We tried some new and heavily fried street food while we wandered through the markets. We then walked down the streets towards the historic centre, via some of the roads that run through the reinforced walls of the city. This definitely felt more

We had arrived at the glamping site near San Miguel de Allende as the sun had begun to set for Christmas Eve. Everyone else was already there, along with another camper we had not met before and some other people who were friends of Clem and Emilie. We were quite a big group, the table was already laid and stretched out across a large decked area with an outdoor kitchen. From being stuck by ourselves with no real plan to celebrate Christmas, to suddenly be surrounded by peopl

With the late arrival of our engine parts, any hope of having the engine rebuilt by the end of the day was not going to happen. But, we at least made a start. That morning we had been to the shop and got all of the tools we needed which we didn’t have, we didn’t want to have any more delays trying to borrow equipment. The first thing was to refit the pistons, after honing the block with our newly purchased tool. The gasket set we had received left a lot to be desired, quite a

As ever, we had been quite fortunate in our breakdown. To find a place where we could stay for free, with welcoming hosts, in a town that has a lot of useful facilities, was a good thing. Naturally, any breakdown was unwanted, especially in such close proximity to the last one but we tried to make good use of our time. With our parts ordered, we had some time to wait. The supplier told us that the parts would take 6-9 days to arrive, which wasn't so bad. We could easily fill

When we awoke in the morning, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the Wallas had managed to stay on overnight. I sat under the blanket and nursed my hangover. Drinking at high altitude was maybe not the best idea, I felt like I might possibly die. The guys around us packed up and headed off, leaving us their contact details so that we could meet again in Guadalajara later on. We also passed them a note to give to Hanno and Kikki as they went past them on the way down, we

It was another early morning start for us. While at La Ticla, we had done some research on a spot to break up the drive to Guadalajara. It seemed that en-route there were two volcanos. Volcano de Fuego, one of the most active volcanoes in North America, and the now extinct one next to it. Needless to say, you can’t hike the active one, but you certainly can hike the other. It was a little unclear how long it would take us to get there. Both our mapping apps agreed it was arou

We spent an entire day reaching La Ticla. The roads were slow and winding in many places and in other we crawled through the large cities of Tacoma and Manzanillo. We also stopped off for a detour to a cash point and at a beach that was supposed to have crazy big waves. Not for us you understand, just to watch. Yet again, the sea was pretty flat, so we got back in the cars and continued south.  At one point we had several police cars interested in us. I noticed them first in

The next day I awoke after the hike to the waterfall and struggled to get out of bed. Everything was very stiff, and climbing out of the pop top presented an issue. We wanted to on the move fairly early, as we knew we needed to do a fair drive today to keep moving south. After the delays of the engine, we didn’t have many months left on our Mexican visa. We were heading for Sayulita, supposedly a nice town with good surf a few hours away.  On arrival in Sayulita, it all felt

Our first stop out of San Blas, was the El Cora waterfall. We had been told about it in the youth hostel and I had then found a walking route to it. We got up early that morning, in order to try and avoid the hotter part of the day. By the time we parked up at the trailhead and left the cars, it was still 9am and getting hot. The hike was 16km with a 500m elevation gain, there’s nothing like dropping yourself in the deep end after not hiking for months. I can barely remember

As I believe a lot of campers do, we planned out our next stop using the iOverlander app. This is pretty useful as it has a lot of spots to choose from and the reviews are helpful in picking somewhere suitable. We headed for Teacapan, a small town on the river that forms the border between Sinaloa and Nayarit. There seemed to be a nice campsite here on the lagoon, with surfing on the beach.  It was a few hours drive to reach the designated point, where we were greeted with a

There are two ferries that do the trip from La Paz to Mazatlán on the mainland; TMC ferries and Baja Ferries. We picked TMC, the ‘trucker’ ferry. For us, there were a number of advantages, aside from the lower cost. You could sleep in your camper on deck, you could take pets with you without crating them and food was included. Once we were truly underway, the lights of La Paz faded into the horizon and Lee had located the kitchen. It was a simple affair, you handed over your