People We Have Met

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. 

El Gran Mestizo

I’m losing track of time, a not uncommon feature of life in retirement. Today is Friday and we are getting ready to take the shuttle to the hotel owned by the same family that owns El Gran Mestizo resort. Hotel de la Fuente is in downtown Orange Walk where we are offered a free breakfast, included in the cost of our van parked on the resort grounds. We pay $35 a night to park, a lot by our standards but I don’t know how much a room is in this expensive country. 

There is no electrical hookup and no sewer dump but there are sparkling clean fully equipped toilets just steps away. The New River runs past the property and Rusty and I have just walked it. It reminds me of a motorcycle trip I took in 1979 when I was in West Africa and a similar resort took pity on me and let me stay the night at half price. I didn’t have a Key West City Pension in those days.

I saw giraffes grazing and hippos bathing in the African sunset in northern Cameroon and this morning I watched the mist rise off the cooler waters of the river, no hippos in sight, but I was suddenly 21 years old again sleeping in a tent by the side of the African Highway. 

There’s a house on the street outside El Gran Mestizo resort and there are two loose dogs and several chained ones. Better that I suppose grumpily than abandoned and starving. Their cacophony when they see Rusty keeps him firmly on the property on his walks with me.  

Yesterday Layne took a tour on the New River to the Lamanai Mayan Ruins and what started as a small group from the resort turned into a packed boat filled with 40 people. 

Her guide at Lamanai said that was nothing even though she felt crowded. Imagine when a cruise ship load of visitors show up on a dozen buses…

I had to stay behind not only to look after Rusty during her six hour excursion but also to try to solve the slight right pulling steering. I took a Tope at speed and I think I knocked out my freshly set alignment. The van at Caribbean Tire was too tall for the equipment. Sigh. We’re going to check the shop in Belize City today and hope for the best. 

I had a chat with a guy at the tire shop while I waited. He grew up in Tampa but decided to come back to his country of birth as he couldn’t stand the pace of life in the US. He has some land, doesn’t pay rent and has a son and grandson in NewYork City. Don’t understand him he said, he’s covered in tattoos. There is one thing he misses: Burger King fish burgers. Every time his mother goes to Florida she buys some at the airport and brings them home to him. “They don’t taste the same,” he said sadly. “Nothing does.”

Orange Walk

Corozal was a tough introduction to Belize. My friend Webb wrote to let me know he didn’t think I would get a thumbs up from the Belize chamber of commerce and he’s right. On the other hand I wanted to say what I saw and felt. You are learning to appreciate Belize with me on this journey. 

Driving in a new country is a new cultural experience. In Belize pedestrian crossings double as topes. I crossed one at 35mph and appear to have offset the alignment. Back to a tire shop I go! Caribbean Tire is a huge modern warehouse and has outlets in each town it seems including I noted Corozal and  Orange Walk.

We mapped out a strategy at a picnic table at Corozo Blues where we spent a very pleasant night plugged in to clean electricity, properly grounded with no voltage spikes,  so we were cooled as we slept  by air conditioning and awoke to fully charged batteries. Our idea is to enjoy Belize for the next couple of weeks by doing what visitors do: outdoor stuff. Northern Highway roadworks with no flaggers. Figure it out yourself is the rule on the road:

Our plan is to drive south in stages as far as Placencia on the coast, a place we remember fondly as a sandy beach town from 25 years ago. From there we will turn inland toward Belmopan the capital and explore some cave and blue hole options. Closer to Guatemala we plan to camp in the mountains and visit some rarely seen ruins before we cross the border. 

The start of the program required some driving south from Corozal on the northern Highway, as seen here. 

The pavement is quite solid and smooth for the most part but the speed bumps come disguised as pedestrian crossings and they are  built to a unique high step design of reinforced concrete (we saw one under construction). I think I have finally learned that a gray stripe across the road represents danger. 

The pavement itself is of a design I’ve only ever seen in Britain with the asphalt embedded with gravel which offers durability beyond asphalt alone. 

The countryside is flat and reminiscent of south Florida in that sugarcane seems to be the main crop. Orange Walk is known as Sugar City for that reason. 

Rainy season starts in June but Belize is green. It’s lush everywhere you look. 

The highway is broad but is totally devoid of markings so driving requires you take responsibility for yourself. I tool along at 35 mph and stay close to the right to allow easy passing. I guess you just pass where you choose as there are no prohibitions, no solid lines or road signs. It’s a totally bizarre system but it works. 

Once you get these oddities sorted out the driving is quite relaxing. I love the blue skies studded with puffy white clouds, just like Florida. 

Sugar cane truck looking for a load: 

Sugar cane truck with a load: 

Layne spotted a fruit stand so we stopped and Rusty went for a graze. Unlike Mexico there are almost no dogs along the road. Belizeans are terrified of dogs and I dread to think how dogs are treated behind the scenes but along the road Rusty can wander at ease. 

Ten dollars worth of fruit and veg and an exchange of life stories with the young mother operating the stand. We gave her a tour of our home and she offered us a lovely pineapple which will be dessert tonight. 

Belize is really really green. I can’t get over it. No wonder the Mennonites came here to farm. 

We actually found a roadside food seller so I stopped of course. He is bi-lingual and could pass as Mexican as most Belizeans can in the northern districts. 

He sold us some surprisingly delicious coconut candy, soft and chewy with a delicious smokey undertone as though it was cooked on a wood fire. 

No advertised prices at the pumps. We’ll find out soon enough but we still have over 300 miles in our tank from Chetumal. 

Lots of directional signs but I haven’t seen a speed limit since we left the northern border where it said the limit on the highway is 55 mph. Too fast for me anyway. 

Orange Walk is Belizes fourth largest city with a population of around 14,000. The city is known as Sugar City thanks to the cane that is grown around here but it is also known as a landing place for Mestizo refugees who escaped what were known as the 19th century caste wars in the Yucatán. 

Layne was getting fidgety as we had no fresh food onboard and we were both curious to see the inside of a Belizean store. 

When we travel we like to explore local food shopping. Groceries tell you a lot about a culture. 

Stores throughout northern Belize are operated by the Chinese community. Score one for diversity. 

Bringing your own bag is unknown in Belize where sturdy yellow plastic bags are the norm. I was hoping to find some English biscuits on the shelves but that era has gone I think. It’s all American and Mexican junk food and packaged goods. 

It’s a new store in Orange Walk and they were offering raffle tickets to shoppers. Layne endeared herself to the checkers by giving them her tickets. 

Oddly the place carried no produce so we drove across town to check the original supermarket called 123 - their advertising slogan is  “As Easy As 123” - thus we got to see lively downtown Orange Walk. 

In addition to almost no road signs there are no pay phones in Belize but I am an old fart so I expect to see some legacy phone booths! 

We met an Overlander we first crossed paths with in Chetumal. Mario is 70 years old and has been on the road two months from his home in Aguascalientes. He’s fulfilling his dream by driving alone to Argentina. I hope we will keep crossing paths with him. 

To sustain us and to taste some local food we bought some buns filled with ham and cheese and it turned out some jalapeños. The bread was slightly weird, soft and sweet. 

The inside with savory ingredients was okay. Layne  couldn’t handle the sweet patita with cream cheese but I thought it was okay, sort of. 

The second supermarket not only had some vegetables but also a few English biscuits. McVitie’s Ginger Nuts! The Commonwealth did not fail me completely…

More importantly we were just about out of my favorite butter type spread. Praise be 123, they offered a tub of this ambrosia at eight bucks US. I forced Layne to buy two, arguing I  didn’t sit up working all those nights not to enjoy some Brummel and Brown on my tortillas. 

Such are the minor victories of life on the road. Disaster narrowly averted. We are staying two nights at El Gran Mestizo resort. 

It’s $35 a night, more than we’ve ever paid but I didn’t sit up nights for twenty years etc…etc… Today Layne does a Lamanai River tour to some Mayan ruins while I get the alignment done. 

We had a beer and some fries at the restaurant as an appetizer as we got two free drinks for staying at the resort. 

It has been a pleasant change eating non Mexican food in Belize. I love Mexican but there will be time for more of that later. 

Oh and they had a BSA mysteriously on display. I liked that. 

The temperature here is lovely and cool. Mosquitoes are at a minimum. I’m enjoying sitting up and listening to the crackle of night insects and distant trucks on the northern highway. We have found a serene spot in northern Belize on our second day. It feels like we’ve been in Belize forever.