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North & Central America
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  • LandCruiser Couple

North & Central America

This is the first part of our adventures travelling around the world. This trip is in our Toyota 76 series LandCruiser. En savoir plus
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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur
    1

    Camp #46 - 9 Palms

    6 décembre 2022, Mexique ⋅ ☀️ 27 °C

    9 Palms free camping at a surf spot.
    We pulled up and it was pretty windy. This camp spot has no toilets, so we popped up our little privacy shelter and emergency toilet. However it was super windy the first night! It took forever to cook dinner.
    And there was no waves. So we came for the surf and left without surfing.

    It seems that there was a little turtle nest and loads of empty shells. About a week earlier loads of turtle eggs had hatched and a couple who had been on the beach for 2 weeks and helped release these turtles into the sea.    En savoir plus

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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur

    Time to fix the truck

    7 décembre 2022, Mexique ⋅ ☀️ 28 °C

    After driving over the washboard roads at some speed. I finally manged to break something on the truck... An exhaust mounting point. Which caused a loud bang and rattling.
    I was worried all night what it was. Was it something in the gear box, the transfer case or even the drive shaft? I couldn't see anything underneath last night.
    Whilst driving towards Cabo today we figured it was coming from Laura's side rather than the middle of the truck. So I pulled over and instantly found the broken mounting bracket.

    Into Cabo and we found a garage who fixed it up in a few minutes. It's not the prettiest welding job, but it'll hold the exhaust off the frame and the annoying banging.
    They wanted 400 pesos and didn't give me change from a 500 pesos note. But that's £23 for some of the ugliest welding I've seen.
    I'd rather have it welded up for £23 than banging around on the frame of the truck.

    Thankfully when I got the truck a new MOT before coming out here. They noticed one of the exhaust brackets on the back was snapped. So that was fixed before coming out. Otherwise I may have been dragging my exhaust for a while.

    I've now got a tube of JB Weld in case something similar happens in the future.    En savoir plus

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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur

    Dive time!

    8 décembre 2022, Mexique ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    Last time I was in Cabo a few years ago, my colleagues went scuba diving with Manta Scuba school and I went snorkeling as I didn't think I'd be able to clear my ears diving. Today I did a discover dive where the instructor is meant to keep ahold of you and take you around. Laura is already certified so she was able to scuba along next to me.
    Turns out the dive master we had that day didn't really care. As an open water qualified diver you're allowed to go to 60feet/18meters deep, but we went down to 70feet.

    Anyway it was a great experience. I enjoyed it enough to want to do more!

    A couple of the snaps are from "Lands End" or "The end of the world" in Los Cabos. Its a bit of a different vibe to Lands End in the UK.

    The dive experience was cool, we saw sea lions, a sea horse and loads of other fish I can't remember.    En savoir plus

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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur

    Camp #47 - Cabo Pulmo Dive

    9 décembre 2022, Mexique ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    This camp spot is bit odd. We're booked in for diving. Me to do my PADI open water certification and Laura to just do some dives (she's already certified). The dive school (Cabo Pulmo Dive House) said we can park next to the school and camp. However the toilets for the school are locked outside of business hours and the day we got here the school was shut. So it's going to be an interesting few days camping.

    We've been sitting at bars for a few hours each night to get use of their toilets.

    One afternoon we went for a short walk and saw them setting up an event. We thought it was a wedding. It turns out it was another Quincena... As we got into our tent around 9pm we thought. "It can't be tonight, it's really silent out" about 30 minutes later and the music started. And it went on and on and on until about 6:30am. It was talked about by everyone on the dive boat the next day    En savoir plus

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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur

    La Ventana for more kiting

    13 décembre 2022, Mexique ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    We came back to La Ventana so that I could do another kite session before we head over to the mainland.

    Unfortunately the wind wasn't as strong as the last lesson I had. I had a bugger kite, but even with the bigger kite I had to work it a lot more and wasn't able to ride that well.

    I was trying to practice my upwind, but with the challenges didn't really get to practice it that much. Next time!    En savoir plus

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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur

    La Paz pt2 - not a Campground

    14 décembre 2022, Mexique ⋅ ☀️ 20 °C

    I had messaged a hostel/Campground about staying with them and they said all OK, however when we got there, we were told there was no space. It was chaos and so badly managed. So we ended up in this hotel instead with a rooftop pool looking down over La Paz town and the marina.

    Now being in a different part of La Paz to last time, meant that when we wondered around we saw lots more of the town and things we hadn't seen previously    En savoir plus

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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur
    1

    Baja Ferries - crossing to Mazatlan

    15 décembre 2022, Mexique ⋅ ☀️ 19 °C

    Today we take the ferry from La Paz to Mazatlan.

    We booked this two weeks ago and booked a cabin. Turns out we booked one of the VIP cabins... So we have a luxurious amount of space on the boat.

    The boat was built 30 years ago for an Asian company which there's remnants of around, such as an old AM/FM radio in the room with writing on.

    It looks like our cabin is right at the front of the boat. First we relax and then we'll go get food. Unfortunately I didn't bring my iPad which has movies on because it's in the roof tent which we didn't sleep in last night. But we can rent blurays from reception. So maybe we'll have a movie night!

    Now for the 13 hour crossing.    En savoir plus

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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur

    Camp #49 - Las Olas Overland

    16 décembre 2022, Mexique ⋅ ⛅ 24 °C

    After taking the ferry crossing we headed to Las Olas overland which isn't really a camp site, but a couples back garden that we found on the app iOverland.

    Unfortunately the couple were not here. But had somebody to meet us and let us in.

    They had a gas grill that we coukd use, as well as a pool and are on the water.

    For 300 pesos a night, it's not a bad little spot.    En savoir plus

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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur
    1

    Playa Chacala

    17 décembre 2022, Mexique ⋅ ⛅ 23 °C

    On our way to our next camp spot, we stopped in Playa Chacala for Pescado zarandeado. It's a cute little beach and the restaurant was doing some work on it. I liked that they were using a lot of natural materials to build more shelter.

    Pescado Zarandeado is a local dish that's popular, we heard we had to try it. It was a whole dish, butterflied and grilled in some kind of bbq sauce.

    On the way back to the truck I saw a police car, some flashing lights and two officers behind our truck. I rushed back. Turns out there was no problem, but they were taking the number plate off of the car parked behind me. We swiftly left.    En savoir plus

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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur

    Hotel - Joint coworking

    21 décembre 2022, Mexique ⋅ ⛅ 27 °C

    I struggled to find a hotel in Puerto Vallarta that had a car parking space. This one I found is a coworking space/hotel. Which means it has great Internet and I can finally backup photos and videos that we've taken over the past couple of weeks.

    Now to enjoy Puerto Vallarta whilst everything backs up.

    We didn't use the hot tub, which was practically next door to our room. But we did find cat Island in PV where we fed lots of stray cats.    En savoir plus

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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur

    Happy New Year from Sayulita

    31 décembre 2022, Mexique ⋅ 🌙 22 °C

    An interesting day.
    Me and Laura were booked in for a surf lesson at 8am, but Laura's thumb was hurting so I went and did the lesson by myself.
    After that, my back and neck was hurting from wiping out on the waves yesterday, so we went into town for a massage. During the massage I started shivering. Turns out the massage sped up whatever illness I had and I walked straight back and got into bed around 12 where I was until about 8pm.
    After some drugs that Laura got me, I started to feel better and we managed to get down to the event that the Trailer Park had put on for New Year's. Including live music from Connor who used to play a live music set in New York every night for 25 years. He was really talented.

    The tradition here is that they build a burning man that they set on fire. Everybody writes a note of things they want to leave behind in 2022 and they throw it onto the fire with the burning man.    En savoir plus

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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur

    Camp #52 - Koala 🐨

    2 janvier 2023, Mexique ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    Koala camp is our first stop after leaving Sayulita.

    This camp is on a lake inside a volcano. Online we saw that there is a company that offers wakeboarding, but we couldn't find their shop and struggled to get in contact with them. When they replied they said they didn't have wakeboarding available which was a shame.

    We stayed here for two nights. On our only full day, we got up, watched some people wakeboard whilst we had a tea/coffee (they had their own boat) and then in the afternoon we rented a kayak from the camp ground. It was 20 pesos each, which is like £0.85 for the hour. We paddled around the lake, took some photos and came back.

    A quiet little place, not really somewhere to send someone unless you're driving past.    En savoir plus

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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur

    Guanajuato

    6 janvier 2023, Mexique ⋅ ☀️ 11 °C

    Guanajuato, our first big city for a while. Here the streets are narrow with some twists.

    For this one, we booked an AirBnB that had parking as finding hotels with parking that can accommodate us can sometimes be challenging.
    Although the spot we had to park in was super tight! Good job we have the 70 series Land Cruiser and not the 80 which is wider.

    We walked around town and found a funicular which we had a ride up and down.    En savoir plus

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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur

    Camp #53 - Tolantongo

    8 janvier 2023, Mexique ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    The Grutas de Tolantongo...
    I saw this on a YouTube accidentally a few weeks back and told Laura we were adding it to the list.

    It was a long way there and back and not really on our way to anything. The last 30km or so of road must of had 60+ topes (speed bumps). I was counting them when we left, but lost count after 40.

    Anyway, you don't need to pay to camp here. It's included for free with your day use ticket which is awesome. However you need to pay for the day you arrive and the day you leave (so 2 days if you want to stay 1 night) plus 50 pesos (I think) to park.
    We turned late (around 4pm) on the Sunday wanting to stay for 2 nights, expecting to pay for 3 days, but we got lucky and only had to pay for the 2 days (and parking) so all in, I think it was 650 pesos for 2 nights. Which is about our average camp ground anyway.

    The first night, we setup, I went for a little wonder to see if I could figure out where to go on the next morning. No luck, I walked for 40 minutes up a hill and gave up.

    That evening we watched some YouTube videos to get an idea of where things were. This place is hugeeeeee! We managed to find a "bus stop" (colectivo) and got a ride on the back of a chopped VW bettle up to the hot spring pools. This was a 10 minute ride for about £5 (100 pesos) well worth it.

    After the pools, we got a ride down to the caves (this time only 60 pesos for the two of us in a mini bus, not as cool). The caves were an awesome experience. We had to buy a waterproof torch before going in (didn't need too, but I wanted it) and it was really nice.

    After that, we walked down to the truck, stopped off in what is almost a lazy river, but it's walled off to stop you floating away. After a dip and some drone shots, we made a late lunch and relaxed.

    The next morning we packed up and set off for our next stop!    En savoir plus

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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur

    Camp #54 - Teotihuacan

    10 janvier 2023, Mexique ⋅ ☀️ 8 °C

    We camped at a circus place. But saw hot air balloons in the morning.
    I think we paid 200 or 250 peso for the night. The dog Shakira helped Laura do her workout.
    It was a cold night. This town/village is higher than Mexico City which is the highest city in North America. So even thought it was 26c in the day. At night it got to zero.
    A nice spot, good warm showers and close to the Teotihuacan pyramids we plan to visit in the morning. Another van turned up and camped at the same ground who we had seen at Tolantongo!    En savoir plus

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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur

    Hotel in Puebla

    11 janvier 2023, Mexique ⋅ ☀️ 9 °C

    I was in charge of picking our hotel for tonight. So I picked the pink one of course.

    Not the best of hotels in an odd little town. Very noisy, slow Internet and it was freezing cold at night. We had two double beds and ended up taking the duvet from the second bed to double up.

    Big car park for the truck, which is the biggest challenge in Mexico, finding secure parking that we can fit the truck in due to height limits on gates, low hanging cables or underground car parks.    En savoir plus

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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur
    1

    Hotel, motel, holiday Inn - Veracruz

    13 janvier 2023, Mexique ⋅ 🌬 23 °C

    Super windy tonight. So we dashed from the camp spot and found a hotel to stay in (Holiday Inn)

    If you watch the video you can see the wind at the spot we had planned to camp in. Before deciding it wasn't for us and finding a Holiday Inn in Veracruz.

    Veracruz is a port town where some people ship their trucks into Mexico to avoid doing the USA and Canada.
    It wasn't the place for us, but it did mean we had done some extra distance driving today so we could miss out a stop one night and make some more distance tomorrow towards Playa del Carmen.

    Thankfully tonight only cost us around £8 in taxes as we had a free reward night on hotels.com from booking various hotels during our trip. The reward nights are our "rainy day" nights. And windy nights are as good as a rainy day.    En savoir plus

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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur
    23

    Camp #55 - Rancho El Jaguar

    14 janvier 2023, Mexique

    Today was a long drive day, with over 500km/300 miles to be done. We got on the road at 8:30 and tried to limit our rest stops. We made great time today, even with loads of toll roads.

    We got to Rancho El Jaguar after taking a little detour and ended up down a little lane at a locked gate. After turning around and finding the correct entrance we began to setup.

    One of the first things we noticed was the large amount of mosquitos around. We had grabbed a mosquito net thing in the US but hadn't used it. First Laura took refuge by wrapping herself in it. And then we tried hanging it from the awning. It was almost OK, just a little too short to be useful. Great idea, but we decided we'd just put up tonight.

    The next biggest pest was the 4 dogs. Kronos?(or coronas?), Sky, Eva, Pocoluz. Whilst we were a little trying to cook, the four of them acted as our shadows, constantly begging for food (a prawn red curry, not really for you doggos)

    The citronella candle re-appeared, as did the mosquito lamp. However Laura was getting bitten alive whilst trying to wash the dishes. I however, wasn't (I think it was the deet) so I finished up whilst Laura took shelter in the tent.

    Only for one night and we can hopefully find somewhere a bit less bitey (oh also we saw a Toad)

    Video 1 is Laura trying to walk and eat without getting biten by mosquitos and being followed by the dogs. The reason Laura is walking away from the dogs is the mosquitos were attracted to the dogs so would come witb the dogs.

    Video 2 is of the camp bathroom (no toilet seats, woohoo)    En savoir plus

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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur

    Camp #56 - La Chiapaneca

    15 janvier 2023, Mexique ⋅ ☀️ 15 °C

    350 pesos a night
    Not really a campsite, but a restaurant outside of Palenque where we could stay the a couple of nights. Thankfully the restaurant closes at 6pm so it's just us and a couple of campers at night. Nice as quiet.
    You can hear the howler monkeys screaming at night. They had a nice pool, we saw a Macaw flying around.
    On our second night. Another 70 series turned up, but they had a single cab pickup with a camper body on top. It looked really neat.
    We were both plugged into a really long extension lead and when they were using their electric hob, the extension lead blew up (the cable was a bit beaten up) I found another plug with some cable ok and they had some choc-block crimps, so a little bodge job later and we had power for the rest of the night.    En savoir plus

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  • LandCruiser CoupleNorth & Central AmericaVoyageur

    Palenque temple and Ruins

    16 janvier 2023, Mexique ⋅ 🌙 16 °C

    Another collection of Mayan Ruins.
    This was nicer than the first ones we saw at Teotihuacan. A lot less people and more jungly.
    When we pulled up, there was only one parking space left with a cone in it. A guy moved it and then asked if we wanted the car wash
    200 pesos for a car wash and to keep an eye on it for us. Bargain. We got it washed which was really needed.    En savoir plus

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