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We drove through Central America early part of this year. Shipping to South America was fraught with hassle and delay, but at least it was expensive! We lucked out with our shipping agent, Evelyn Batista of Barwil shipping, who made the complicated process understandable. Our cost was about...

We have made our way down Central America and are currenly in Peru. A month and a half is a very speedy trip through all those countries, so I can see why you can't spend time at a language school! We liked Mexico the best - Nicaragua and Honduras were cheap but we did not find them interesting...

Sounds like you have a great trip planned! How good is your Spanish - it comes in pretty handy down south. There is a wonderful language school in Oaxaca I can recommend if you are interested. Don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions, and safe travels!

The expedition still continues, without and significant difficulties. Luckily the Federal government bailed out our insurer, AIG :) Deep in the Peruvian we encontered this lovely butterfly:

I'm sure glad we took the advice on this forum (Dave's) and went to Colombia. I would highly encourage other members to visit this interesting and now reasonably stable place. The tourist infrastructure is still not fully in place and they are working hard on improving the road network. Even...

So after running around in Panama City for twelve days to ship the car across the Darien we're now waiting in Cartagena to collect it, the ship being late by three days. Sigh! At least we have a hotel with a/c...

I'm using the Garmin 60cx for real-time navigation and it works *reasonably* well. The maps are inaccurate but will point you in the right direction, more or less. The base map contains hardly any detail at all, I would upgrade if you plan on using it for nav purposes.

The paperwork party started today! We went to the Vehicle Inspections office early at 8:15am to prove to the Panamanian authorities that the car being exported is not stolen, smuggled, etc. We immediately ran into a problem - the motor number was incorrect due to the fact that I had seen the...

Hello all, We have now reached Panama City on the thin wasp-waist of the western hemisphere. Yesterday we had a meeting with Evelyn Batista of Barwil S.A and I am here to tell you that she is all that Dave Connor of Expeditions Americas made her out to be. Amazingly clear and with a good...

The border crossings come fast in this part of the world! The countries are so tiny that they can be driven across in a day (as if you would want to!). Crossing borders has been surprisingly uncomplicated so far. Most usually take about an hour or so for the immigration and the paperwork for the...

Getting so close to flowing lava was a new experience for me. Volcan Pacaya, about an hour outside Antigua, Guatemala, has been active for two years now. Several outfits, including O.X. Expeditions, will get you to where the lava is. We spent the night close to the lava flow so we could see the...

Lake Atitlan in the Guatemala highlands is ringed with volcanoes. Some say it is the most beautiful alpine lake in the world... Of course, having a strong local bias towards Lake Tahoe, I beg to differ! :)

The border crossing from Belize to Guatemala was an unnecessarily complicated affair. I didn't have copies of my passport so I had to wander around the seedy border town in Guatemala looking for a place to copy my documents. The only place that was open was a dental clinic. Got taken for two...

Does every expedition move much slower than expected? The world is full of so many interesting diversions and little detours! Originally we had planned on just driving right through Belize - but now we find ourselves out in the Cayes, exploring the great mesoamerican barrier reef...

Good Work, Dave! Where do you plan on shipping the car back? Or, you loved it so much you're driving back? ;)

The caves at Loltun have a 12,000 year history of human habitation. Ancient Maya carvings are a relatively recent evidence of this long history. Inside the caves one finds evidence of the pressure wave caused by the Chixulub meteorite when it impacted the earth 65 million years ago, contributing...

The cost was $425 and the entire barrier was fabricated with 1" tubular steel.

Coming down to Palenque the weather has become much warmer but the forest teems with birds and insects! The site is very atmospheric - in the middle of a deep jungle with the calls of Howler monkeys and the sawing noises of Keel-Billed Toucans, cereal box birds.

A little stale now, but interesting none the less... I had a picture of my dreaded nemesis on my cell phone that I had forgotten to download. This is the very beast that almost brought the journey to an end... :elkgrin:

We went to a place called Solexico, run by an expat and her Mexican partner. They are very attentive to your needs and the program that they have developed has a lot of skill-and-drill exercises. I have never made such progress this quickly in language learning. P.S. The owner of La Naranja...