I had a revelation last year, and it changed how I think of myself. I feel at home among travelers, that is my tribe. I too hate the goodbyes but I really enjoy the intense bond that forms instantly when you meet kindred spirits on the road. It’s unlike any relationship you make. We have intense friendships still from twenty five years ago when we met while traveling by sail.
Mike is American, Sophie is Brazilian and they travel with two children and a microphone in a Class C camper. Mike Fox is a correspondent for NPR’s The World reporting obviously on Latin America. He loves freelancing audio and video work, he’s very good at it and they travel in a giant happy family heap. Their resilience and joy amazes me. You think Mexico’s dangerous…? Still?
Marcus Tuck working on my winch ground wire. An electrical engineer nine years on the road with his wife, a retired attorney fluent in Spanish, as fluent as he is in electro-mechanical fixes, they are the ideal overland couple. They e been all over the place in their Iveco expedition 4x4 but Marcus is happiest fixing things. It’s another way to travel.
A nice German lady and child making a fuss of this Mexican dog who keeps following me around. Never did get to talk to her but she was very polite.
Duwan and Greg from Atlanta. Dealing with the ultimate horror of a breakdown hard to fix in their Ford Transit van. We enjoyed them right away and shared lots of trips, deep discussions and bottles of Mezcal.
This is Layne poking in our fridge. I think I uploaded this one by accident. Oh well, thank you Starlink.
Here we are trying to help Greg and Duwan track down the repairs on their van. The transmission died in January and after it was rebuilt the mechanic discovered they needed an electrical controller for the gearbox. As of this writing it hasn’t yet arrived from the States. They are the poster children for resilience and patience and good cheer in the face of adversity. Three months renting an apartment at El Rancho RV park.
That Mexican dog again just resting…
Ron and Rosemary from San Diego at Hierve El Agua outside Oaxaca. Travelers through and through but not in a van. There are lots of ways to skin a cat. We met them on the trail and we got each other instantly.
Angelica describes herself in her limited English (but not as limited as she thinks) as a Mexican princess. She has 500 pairs of shoes at home outside Mexico City. She has five pairs only in the Promaster van she shares with her husband and two dogs.
Omar her husband promised to take us into Mexico City when we get back from Argentina. Saying goodbye was a wrench. We’d known them a couple of weeks?
Sitting around talking and drinking comes naturally to me on the road. I never hung out in bars in Key West but out here we make our own watering holes. Life stories appear out of the blue.
Mexican van lifers are rare but we met a few at El Rancho so things are changing.
Joss from Belgium was a roofing contractor. He fell off a roof into a sandpit and broke his spine 25 years ago on the only rock in the place. He’s had two heart attacks and a near death experience since then. We had lots in common. A really smart funny man. He bought a sprinter chassis and designed and built his own camper with obviously a wheelchair lift. He had his wife Ellie, a fire cracker have travelled South and North America and keep their camper in Mexico when in Belgium for the summers. Think you have obstacles to fulfill your dreams?
His van below. There was a second wheel chair user at El Rancho, a Canadian woman from British Columbia who had an accident at twenty. She and her husband and dog travel in a twenty foot trailer and pick up. You’d be surprised how strong the desire is to move in some people.
Rob and Mandy from Colorado practicing taking off. They’re going home this summer worse luck to put right the ideas they have discovered from experience that don’t work. The paddle boards are going in storage and the bicycles are going inside the van and so forth. Mandy works as a graphic designer on the road and next year they are going to South America. They’ll probably catch us up. I can’t wait. Bridging the generation gap is easy on the road.
Have you ever met a cheerful Canadian lunatic? I’ve met two. This is Rob with his new toy-an instant camera.
Rob and Nicole an outdoor couple from British Columbia. A great sense of humor and people we’d never meet in real life. I watched him tearing up tubes and bolts in his Sprinter as he cursed the Mercedes mechanic in Puebla who turned a routine service into a comedy of potentially expensive errors. His Sprinter is eleven years old and tired with 225,000 miles on the clock. It won’t go uphills and once -I can’t believe this- Nicole got out and pushed to get them out of an uphill jam. Hero of the campground! Because they are crazy they had been thinking of taking the tired van South but I believe they are going home to re-think that plan. You never know with them…
Then there was Lauryn and Tristan with jobs back home on Vancouver Island but taking a winter leave of absence to enjoy Mexico in their Sprinter, seen here outside the bathrooms at El Rancho. We had an impromptu get together and it started raining so this was the nearest dry spot. Do what you have to…Do not trust anything they say as they love to pull your leg. Lauryn made me crazy with worry while setting up the Starlink telling me I’d done everything wrong.
The nice German lady letting us out of El Rancho.
The guy with the beard is Magic. That’s what he calls himself. He’s Polish, lives in Canada and travels with his equally fierce wife and very forward daughter. He terrified me. I had no idea how I had offended him. He lived in the distant family section of El Rancho but every time I crossed his path he towered over me and glared as though I was shit on his shoe. His daughter would come up to me and start bizarre conversations as only a precocious five year old can. “Do you like the rain?” “How old is your dog?”and so forth and I lived in dread of him getting pissed off that I might be engaging with his child. I dodged and weaved like an overweight fighter pilot to avoid them.
Finally my last day I took my courage in both hands and approached him and apologized for whatever offense I had caused and wished him well saying I would be gone in the morning. He looked puzzled as he towered over me.
“I’m just anti social,” he said at last after measuring me up. “I don’t like people.” And strode off to the loo. He drives an expedition vehicle which had me questioning how his self re-invention was going. Not well apparently.
Not everyone enjoys having my joy at being on the road inflicted on them but I’m a man with no deadlines or bosses or expectations and that makes me very happy.
I crossed paths with Alex and pointed out his gorgeous California registered truck camper was just like the one Steinbeck used when he wrote Travels With Charley. “Steinbeck?” He said. “Really? I had no idea.” I was about to feel annoyed at him for mocking my accent when I realized he really is English. He went to the boarding school next door to the one I went to so we were rugby rivals we came to find out.
Mathilda his partner is also English and they bought the “impractical”
classic camper in California to drive to Argentina. They have limited time unlike us old farts but I hope we meet again. They went into Oaxaca and we didn’t see them again. Brilliant connection severed too soon. Life on the road.
In Yax-Ha RV park in Chetumal we met Chema and Elena who met each other after they each ended long marriages. They have been together a year and a half and are still finding their way, she an independent woman living on her ranch in Baja, he a businessman trying to retire from his clothing emporium in Morelia.
Chemo’s real name is Jose Maria and he is handy. He conveyed a cargo trailer into a camper with hot and cold running water, 50 gallons to feed his onboard shower with a kitchen and bedroom included. Elena was listening when I said there are lots of ways to travel. Chemo is doing all the things he could never do running a business and raising a family but she loves living on her ranch. Compromise and time apart let’s everyone have a share of what they want. Full time van life overlanding is not a necessary requirement for dividing happiness on the road.
Mario from Aguascalientes dropped by. He doesn’t pay to park but we hung out and chatted. He’s driving a self converted van and wants to get to Argentina.
He’s 70 years old and has set aside a year to get to Tierra Del Fuego like us, only faster. It’s been really encouraging to us to meet so many New Mexican van lifers of all ages with their own ways of being on the road.
Yax-Ha (clean water in Mayan) was our southernmost Mexican campsite and we missed it as we drove away.
That bloody Mexican dog again. I’m going to have to adopt him.
A small cross section of people whose photos I managed to get. Layne keeps notes on everyone just as we used to when traveling by boat. Names, vehicle, direction of travel and contact information.
Above right to left, Lauryn and Tristan, Dan taking a picture, Sharon, Greg and Duwan eating Japanese in El Tule. As you do. No matter what you drive.
