Overland Adventure Excursions

We are making good time. Yesterday we were on the road for 10 hours and made it 452 miles, including turning in my visa, turning in the Temp Import Permit, and crossing the border. The border was not too bad, maybe two hours in total with half on the Mexico side and the other half on the US side. We stopped for a quick bite in Laredo and then for some diesel, which is less expensive here, but still higher than it needs to be. The pups are traveling well and getting more than their fair share of rest while on the road. Just a note, the traffic is back to normal USA travel with none of the 3-4 imaginary lanes we have learned to drive in.

The roads are much nicer here in Texas and we can keep a steady 70mph on the road without killing Howie. We are averaging about 13-14mpg at this point, which is about as good as it will get with the heavy brick on the back. The DPF has not given me an issue since we got back up to highway speeds; and since I changed the air filter. I read that on one of the groups and got to thinking that I had cleaned the filter in Chicken, AK as well. Maybe when the DPF is burning off too much, change the air filter?

After 10 hours and 450 miles, we are camped alongside Route 90, which skirts the border. There were three wild mountain sheep watching us from the ridge above as we pulled up. iOverlander had this place listed as a roadside picnic table area, but we wandered down the dirt road a couple hundred yards into the wash below the bridge. There is road noise on the bridge and some trains that came through during the night, but nothing that was too bad. It feels good camping in the desert here.

We will head North today and catch I-10 in Fort Stockton and from there it’s a straight shot to Tucson. We are supposedly 9 hours out, but add a couple of hours to the road and it will be just about right. We probably will not make it to Tucson until Saturday, though. We may stop and do some quick laundry and get showers along the way.

And an update on my parents: Dad is staying at a place called Handmakers and is still undergoing PT to get his strength back. Mom is recovering from her horrendous fall and resultant two surgeries. She still has a huge goose-egg on her left eye and will be in the hospital for a few more days, but is feeling and sounding better.

Not a lot of photos today, but here is a map of our route.

We started again around 9:00 and headed back north on the autopista. The goal was to make it to Monterrey, which we almost did. The beginning of the day we were in the rainforest area and then within the first few hours we here headed to Tampico on the Gulf Coast. We decided against hitting the beach for a few minutes, but with one uninteded missed exit, we were headed that way. I guess we were supposed to make it there.

We were at a really nice beach for lunch and the pups were itching to get out and run on the beach. Zuzu still does not like the water much, but Maggie heads straight for it. Maggie especially likes these kind of wide shallow beaches so she can walk through the water without being overwhelmed. It was a nice hour walk on the beach with the pups

We managed to find the town sign and took the obligatory photo. The day progressed well and other than the persistently bumpy roads, we made good time. With the stops we averaged 40 mph for the day and ended up just south of Monterrey for a total of 432 miles. We filled up twice, but the tolls were less today; about $200 for gas and $31 for tolls. We settled in at a rest stop for the night and slept well. I checked on the pups for paperwork and filled out the new forms for them to cross as the last ones we had were expired and were from Canada. We should be crossing the border about noon tomorrow and then it will be through west Texas, New Mexico and into Arizona. Here is a map of our travels today.

We left Oaxaca and began our return to the USA. It is about 960 miles to the border in Texas and then another 900 miles back to Arizona to meet up with family. We chose this route in order to minimize the time of travel in Mexico, which had much higher fuel costs and much slower average speeds. The tolls alone are quite expensive. Today we only fueled up once, but it was a big one since the fuel stations on this portion of the Autopista were very far apart. I am making better mileage on this stretch of road, but 14 mpg is still low when gas is $6+ per gallon. One fuel up was $125 USD and we spent a total of $1000 pesos ($56 USD) for toll roads. Mexico is gracious to charge huge prices for fuel and then the additional privilege of bouncing along C-rated roads for a premium charge. To be honest, there were some good sections of road, but the 1-2 km stretches of good are quickly forgotton with the rest of the road. We left just after 9am and drove until after dark at about 7:30pm, with only one 90 minute detour due to a fog-induced wreck that closed the road (no refund for the toll, BTW). We averaged 37 mpg for the day on a 382 mile day.

We connected with a friend of ours from Canada, who said he was at this particular town. It was almost on our route and we thought we could stop by and hang out for the evening. Unfortunately, the town he was speaking of was 9 hours to the south of us, and the one we were looking at was an hour or so from where we were… Oh well. Ian we will catch you on your way up in AZ. Looking forward to hanging with you then.

The landscape was really interesting in this part of Mexico. We climbed into the central Mexico Mountains to the east of Puebla and after crossing the pass, we noted the forest became tropical and incredibly green. The whole area on the way down the pass was foggy and we could only see 3-4 cars in front of us, but it was definitely a nice change to the leaf-barron branches of the forests we have been in for quite some time. We ended up at a Pemex station for the night where we camped on a gravel patch with the approval of the night guard.

Oh, the “fix” I did on the back of the camper is improving the feel of the camper. I did hit one Topa on the route that killed one of the eye-bolts, but the nice thing is it feels more stable. I have some more ideas and will take care of them when I get ot AZ.

Just a funny picture of Maggie as she was sleeping this evening. These pups keep us laughing every day.

Not many pictures today. We will get those when we return back here after the family visit we decided to do. Here is a map of our travels for today.

We left the lagoon camp about 9 am and headed through the town of Puerto Escondido. There is a huge beach there and it was all set up with hundreds of umbrellas and chairs waiting for the day. It is Sunday so the beach was likely to be pretty busy. Just after the town we turned on to Mexico’s newest highway, that they call their super highway. It was a pretty smooth road that we could get up to the speed limit, which was actually 110 kph. I generally set the truck to only do 90 though. The road was curvy and worked its way up into the mountains. The forests here are a bit devoid of leaves for the most part. It does not feel like winter here, but it may be due to the dry season. The temperatures still showed in the 90’s as we headed up the hill.

Way up in the mountains, about 90 minutes into our drive, we noticed a warning at KM 71 marker to watch out for landslides. The couple from Quebec back in Cholupa had noted that one of the roads they took had tons of dangerous rock slides. I guess that was the road we were on. At KM 71 and beyond the road was narrowed to one lane in many places with tons of debris on the road. At one point the road became dirt as we climbed over an area that had been completely covered.

We continued up the road as it went through tunnels and around rock slides until at some point the GPS map instructed us to exit. So we exited. And the road was brand new. And it was cement. And it was steep and narrow. But the GPS said, so we went. I think I had asked it to skip toll roads, and even though we had gone through one toll booth, this one skipped the second. It also could have been because the day before the locals had blocked the highway in some sort of protest, so it might have been that reroute (Kathy found this news snipped, which had been resolved the day prior).

The new road climbed up into a town and then further up into the hills. And I hit a hidden speed bump as I was watching the overhead lines. I had to stop and replace the darn eye bolt on the back again. I can get it done in about 10 minutes now, but it was my last spare, so I noted to Kathy that we needed to stop at Home Depot when we got to Oaxaca.

The road was kind of beautiful as it wound up the ridge and over a pass. It was just as steep on the down side and I had my full exhaust brake on, in 1st gear, and intermittently in and out of 4WD to keep the speed down. At one point I could smell the brakes again, but we kept onward. We passed through a little town that seemed deserted on a Sunday, but as we rounded a corner we found the whole town at the center church attending some kind of presentation. The people were smiling and waving as we passed.

We made it into Oaxaca and routed to the Home Depot. They had plenty of the eye bolts, so I picked up 6 of them as well as 4 eye screws. I am finally going to add some additional tie-down points to this camper. When I get back to the states, I am going to fabricate some additional ones for the inner side of the bed and will create a slide platform so it will not move when we drive the bumpy roads. I would love to be able to build one of those composite campers to sit on a flatbed, but that is not in the picture at this time.

We walked to the local town last night (El Tule) and had some Sushi. The Google Translate tool is really nice and we decided to see if it could translate the decorations they used. The paper lights had writing on them that said “skewered” and the little tabs on the other decorations said “fortune”. Two signs that had asian writing on the top with english on the bottom actually said what the english did. The world is getting smaller with languages. The town has a huge tree in the courtyard of the church. It cost to go in and look around, but we just took pictures through the fence.

The campground we are staying in is really nice. There are about 2 dozen campers here from all over the world. They have restrooms and showers, a pool, a kitchen, fire pits, playland, and grass for the dogs. It’s a very nice place. To our left a couple from Brazil have been traveling off and on for 20 years and recently had their van (that they built) shipped from Montevideo to Vera Cruz. They completed the Central America portion over the past 4 months and are working their way north now. Their plan is to get to the Arctic Ocean via Tuktoyaktuk in July and then cross Canada and head down the east coast of the USA to Florida where his brother lives. They hope to ship to Europe after that and then travel down to Africa, then to Asia and ship their van from Singapore to Australia. He is 75 and she is 72.

To our right a young couple from Canada is camping in his 98 Land Cruiser 200 series with a James Baroud Roof Top Tent wedge tent. He has spent the past 6 winters down here in Mexico and loves the Land Cruiser for its prowess in the bush. He is a videographer and works back in Canada in the summers and on the road in the winters.

I have managed to create some sort of tie-down for the camper that changes the rear ties from 2 to 5 points, in hopes that will settle the thing down. We are resting the remainder of the day, watching the storm roll in, and will head out early in the morning on our way back North. Mom is doing well after her first surgery and I spoke to dad today and he is looking forward to coming home soon.

Another long day of driving. We left the beach camp at 9AM in order to make some progress toward Oaxaca. We were still another 12 hours from arriving there and wanted to get most of it done today. The drive was beautiful on the winding roads. We average about 60 kph between cities and about 15 kph through the cities. The topos have been replaced with “restrictor” signs, which I have to say are much better labeled. They are still speed bumps, but at least they are not hidden. I did hit one road hazard today and had to replace one of the eye bolts again, but at least I did not lose the tie-down.

In Acapulco there are tons of old VW bugs in every state of repair. Many are used as Taxis, which must be fun getting in and out. As we drove further south some of the cities use these little three-wheeled jobbies to cart people around. There were several hundred of these things in the smaller towns. The tires are smaller than ones on a wheel barrow and apparently they are pretty stable as they whip in and out of traffic without tipping (much).

We managed a total of 162 miles today and made it almost to Puerto Escondido. I was going to head into the city, but there are tons of sketchy ratings on the campgrounds in and around there, so we opted to stay at this little hotel/campground on the shore of an inland lagoon. The owner was pretty nice and we were able to plug in.

Last night we burned through the battery trying to keep the camper cool enough to sleep. It’s one of those things… need power to run AC, but batteries need to be HUGE to manage that level of comfort. And with HUGE batteries, we need longer time to charge. We were moving 9 hours yesterday and when we got to camp we were only at 85% charged. I have a 50A DC/DC charger, but adding 80% power back into the battery was not possible. I think it is only charging 25A per hour. And last night with power plugged in, I felt the AC/DC charger was almost too hot to touch, so I unplugged it. Cannot have that thing fail on me and burn something up. I think I need two banks of batteries with two separate chargers. The living space can handle 400AH, as we generally only drop to 70% overnight (100AH usage). The AC needs more power, but I need to figure out a better system for charging. Or we just have quit with the cushy living. LOL.

We got a call last night that has us possibly changing our plans. My mom fell and hit her head pretty bad and had to be sent to Tucson by helicopter to monitor possible bleeding. We are waiting for word from my brother on here status this morning. She has been stressing about my dad coming home after an 8 week stay in a rehab center trying to get him to be able to walk and operate somewhat normally. With both of them out of commission, we may be turning around and heading north in the next few days. Maps shows it to be a 33 hour drive back, which is 3-4 days. We will update more tomorrow when we get to Oaxaca, which we can pick one of three main routes back. We will keep you updated.

Here is a path of our travels today.

We had a long sort of drive today through Acapulco. We drove only 110 miles, but it took us about 8 hours. The landscape is changing here and there is more tropical plants and a bit more water. It is still dry and there are tons of fires everywhere burning the underbrush.

Acapulco is a hilly city, but traffic moved at a pretty good 15-20 mph pace throughout. We drove through the big high-rise hotel region and of course could not find a place to park to see about some stickers. I had routed us to a Sam’s Club, Walmart, and Autozone on the other side so we could pick up some needed supplies. DEF is ridiculously expensive here, and it cannot seem to be found in Sam’s or Walmart, so Autozone sells the cheap stuff for $499 Pesos ($29 USD). I haven’t checked at the PEMEX stations, but I doubt it will be any cheaper. The DPF (Diesel Particulate Filter) has been giving me issues again and although it has not given me the “see the dealer” warning, it burns off every couple of hours of driving. I have had enough of this stupid emissions junk and have started to look into methods to lighten the burden on the engine. I am at about 81K on the engine and the engine/powertrain warranty ends at 100K, but I may not have the patience to wait. I am averaging about 12 mpg with this load on the truck, which is a bit better than a gasser, but the extra EPA/California BS on this thing really makes maintenance a pain. I have an engine light on for “excessive DPF cycles” and for a DEF sensor low (which it is not) and I cannot get the thing to clear itself, especially with the massive speeds we are working with down here.

We really enjoyed the drive through the Acapulco region, especially the southern portion where the higher end resorts and houses were perched up on the hills. It was not as nicely landscaped as Cabo San Lucas, but it was nice to see. The last several hours wound through the acres and acres of mango, papaya, and citrus groves. All of this is picked by had and loaded by hand in baskets into very overloaded small trucks, and then moved by hand to larger shipping trucks. Nothing is automated down here. Even produce fields are hand planted in many areas.

We stayed in a campground to the north of Acapulco on a beach. We camped about 6 feet away from their pool, which was a nice way to cool off in the heat. On our beach walk at night we noticed some turtle shell remnants on the beach and then the following morning I found three or four places turtles had come ashore in the night to lay more eggs. We even found one squished one that momma must have stepped on. For some reason I did not take any pictures of the campsite or the beach…. Who knows why.

Here is a picture of our travels today.

We left Cholula and decided not to stop in Puebla. We had planned to make the trip down to Acapulco in one day and the trip meter had us at 4.5 hours, which usually means 6-7 hours. We were also taking the Autopista to get there a bit faster. That is a costly road with total fees about $65 USD to drive it. Plus I had not filled up with diesel since Feb 22, and that fill-up was $2660pesos ($150). An expensive drive day altogether.

There are not a lot of official campsites on iOverlander in Acapulco to stay unless you go south or north of the city. We chose south to a place that seemed to have some good reviews. It turns out the beach was really nice and the place had a pool, electric, dumps, and apparently water (I have not tried that). We set up beachside and the waves are constantly crashing on the sandy beach. It was hot during the day, at about 85 degrees, but we managed to enjoy the shade outside. The AC unit I put in the camper seems to work well, although the charging block only puts out 25A and the AC uses about 35A to keep the place somewhat cool when we need it. I have been intending to do a post about Howie’s habitat, electrics, water, etc., for some time. Maybe I will get it done this weekend coming up.

Yesterday we needed some veggies and supplies for guacamole and salsa so after my morning walk we headed up the road to get some. It was around 11:30 and the day was hot and muggy, but we managed the 1.2 mile trek to the corner vendors and found what we needed. I still have not gotten Kathy ready to purchase some street meat, but one of these days I will take one of these guys home with me for the pot.

We made it back to the campsite and changed in to our swimsuits and headed to the pool to cool off. The water is warm, but nice enough to get the sticky feeling off. Back at the rolling homestead we set out the table and Kathy got to preparing lunch; guacamole and salsa. We had some beverages and enjoyed watching the waves and the activity on the beach. Halfway through the guacamole I managed to tip over my drink as I grabbed for a chip and then hoping to save the beer, I knocked the rest of the guac off the table. Fortunately we were almost ready to put it away, but dang, what a waste.

We hung out for the afternoon, I called my dad later in the day and was able to talk to my son Peyton as well. This week has been good connecting as I have talked to friends, my sons Riley and Peyton, my mom, my dad, and have made some new fast friends in Cholula. We will be heading down the coast from Acapulco towards Oaxaca over the next couple of days. The idea is to spend several days in Oaxaca and then head up through Chiapas towards the Cancun area. Keith and Xavier provided some great spots to hit along the way, so it will be a fun last month or so in Mexico. We have been on the road now for 9.5 months, and almost 4 of those in Mexico. It’s not enough time to really enjoy this country, and it will likely not be our last time here.

Here is a map of our travel path to Acapulco.