Getting mighty jungly out here…

Posted on February 14, 2012 by James

Sorry it has been so long since we have updated, We have been caught up in a whirlwind of travel lately. (This is a good thing!) We have now settled down in a beautiful place called San Pedro De Laguna, Guatemala. We found a great spanish school that rents out nice little cabanas for $25 a week! We are right on the water and loving it here. I am lounging in the shady hammock outside, typing this up and listening to the birds chirp in the trees. Behind us about 100 yards is gigantic lagoon ringed by 3 massive dormant volcano mountains. Have we found paradise already!? Perhaps… Needless to say we have decided to stay here for a month taking spanish lessons and slowing down the pace.

Now back to our regular scheduled programing!

After our hectic day in Oaxaca we decided to put some miles down. My friend Doug runs a community center for a small barrio in Cancun. We had told him we were going to stop by and help him out so we set our sights for the tip of the Yucatan peninsula. As we descended from the top of the Oaxcan mountain range towards the isthmus of Mexico the change was immediately apparent. The pine trees gave way to jungle and the the cool dry air was now thick with humidity. Toto…We’re not in Kansas anymore.

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Accidentes in Oaxaca

Posted on February 3, 2012 by James

We waved goodbye to Mexico City as we climbed up and out of the smog-choked valley into the highlands. We were headed towards Oaxaca, we had been communicating with a volunteer organization there and planned to spend a week or two assisting them. There were a few sites along the way to see first.

First stop was a small town named Cholula, just outside of Puebla, MX. Home to the 2nd largest pyramid in the world (by volume). Sounded like something we had to check out. When we arrived in town we expected to see a huge Egyptian style pyramid dominating the landscape, instead what we found was a huge hill with a giant church on top of it. Can this be it?? Looking at the signs, sure enough, that was it. We stowed our King Tut costumes and went to check it out anyway.

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Adventures in Mexico City

Posted on January 28, 2012 by James

After experiencing the majesty of the butterfly kingdom we pointed our truck towards another sort of mystical place. Mexico City. Originally we had planned to skip Mexico City due to reports of violence, crime, high traffic, smog etc etc etc. However, during our few weeks traveling the country we have come to realize that 99% of things we had heard about Mexico were bullshit, so we changed our minds and we are glad we did! We ended up spending 5 days in this diverse place and barely began to touch the surface. We also partied our faces off and put a sizable dent in our Mexico budget, well worth it…

We left the highlands of Michoacán and headed towards the mountain-ringed metropolis of Mexico City. Greater Mexico City with its population of 22+ MILLION is the largest metropolitan area in the western hemisphere and the 2nd largest in the world. This place is DENSE. As we broke through the mountain tree line we saw an endless sea of concrete and buildings. Wow

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Mexico Expenses…Dun Dun Duuuuun!

Posted on January 27, 2012 by lauren

Howdy, folks! I know many of you have been asking for a break down of how much we have been spending on our trip so far, so here it goes. Amazingly, it has been 30 days and 3,500 miles since we crossed into Mexico and over 85 days total on the road. Seems like just last night we were lying in our beds in San Francisco dreaming of this trip…

Gas- $591.11 (Currently ~2.80 gal in Mexico)
We had a good tally of our MPG and gas expenses but it was lost on our phone somewhere in Mexico City.

Food- $661.81
Includes groceries, restaurants, bars, beer, and tequila.

Motels, Campgrounds, etc- $221.67
This is very high for the month. We love to just sleep in the truck, and try to do so whenever possible. Unfortunately, we drove through a lot of jungle areas where camping was almost impossible or just downright undesirable. I also got pretty sick for 4 or 5 days, so we spent two of the worst days at a nice little motel in Morelia. We are hoping that when we get to Guatamala we will get to camp pretty much every night.

Car Expenses & Accidentes– $272.33
We had to get our hitchpin mount and jerrycan mount fixed after accidentally backing into a pole and busting it up a bit. Oopsy. That cost $122.33, but now it is built twice as beefy and looks good as new! We also had a little fender bender in Oaxaca. The guy we backed into was really nice about the whole thing and we gave him $150 for his troubles. (Editors note: It seems I have a bit of trouble backing up this truck…)

Travel Expenses- $372.30
This includes our Mexico FMM visas for 180 days, vehicle import permit, and a $200 refundable deposit)

Trip Expenses For Organizing the Truck- $40.00
I needed some extra supplies to keep the truck organized.

Personal Expenses- $40.00
Toiletries, laundry detergent, etc.

Entrance fees– $182.77
Includes all tickets for museums, zoos, visiting the ruins, soccer games, etc.

Misc- $36.84

MONTH #1 GRAND TOTAL=

$2,418.83 ($200 deposit for entrance into mexico is not subtracted)

This is a tad higher than what I projected for the first month, but unexpected expenses always seem to come up while traveling. Gotta tighten the belt for month number two!

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Morelia, Mexico and the Monarch Butterfly Reserve

Posted on January 25, 2012 by James

After we got our share of the beach scene we cut inland, Destination: Butterfly Kingdom.

If you haven’t guessed by now we are kind of nerds. Back home we had seen a few nature documentaries on the mass migration of the Monarch butterflies. Each year the Monarch butterflies begin a huge southward migration from as far north as Canada all the way south to Mexico. This incredible journey is over 4000 miles and spans generations of Monarchs to reach its completion every year. Millions of butterflies arrive in the Michoacán highland forests of Mexico every year for the winter before turning around and heading back north for the summer. It just so happened we were here during the right months. We had to see it!

As we cut in from the coastline through the states of Jalisco we started encountering some wonderful mountain scenery and idealic farmland. Jalisco is known as the homeland of Tequila and agave farms abound. We also saw a few huge volcanoes.

Sugarcane farms

A nice “safe” load of sugarcane, Don’t get too close or you’ll get a sugarcane spear through the windshield, they were falling off left and right as the trucks bounced down the road.