Pan Americaners

T

Tress

Adventurer
Jus wanted to throw out an update. All is well on the road, besides being pulled over 5 times now since in Mex; which is really starting to get old, we're seeing tons. Just got through with a 3 day visit to Mex city! lets jus say the legends of Mex city traffic are definitely true, as im sure many of you can attest. Luckily we had a secure house to park in and we did the public transport thing, but not after dealing with police for 2 hours and driving another 3 to get maybe 50 miles; sweating bullets cuz we apparently wer'nt supoosed to be on the roads and had already coughed up $200 for not knowing that. Dint have much time but we saw a ton. Turns out Jess has all sorts of crazy contacts too, we stayed with one of the most important Lawyers in the Mexican government, his house was called "the castle", all brick, a pretty fitting similarity to Madhouse; though we barely fit. And after getting pulled over for the 5th time today; this time for being "over the line" at a red light, we find ourselves Sitin here in Acupulco on a coach overlooking the bay, another ridiculousness house, and free! We're literally 20 yards from the bay in the yacht club, with a house maid/cooker.
SO anyways madhouse is running well as of now, since the major surgery in Tucson its been good, we're still holding our breath though. Oh i guess there is one problem, friking seat belt is all seized up and wont come out right now???? The perfect reason to pull me over mad SO ya there it is, check out our site to see the latest location though, seriously, otherwise hope everyone is well, until nex time... enjoy the ride

:smiley_drive:
 
Saline

Saline

Adventurer
Sorry to hear about your cop troubles! Keep the updates coming. I've been following your adventure. Envious to say the least.:sombrero:
 
T

Tress

Adventurer
Saline said:
Sorry to hear about your cop troubles! Keep the updates coming. I've been following your adventure. Envious to say the least.:sombrero:
Click to expand...

Thanks for the condolences, it really has put a damper on an otherwise amazing trip, but we knew it was a possibility so we're trying our best to ignore, its been a full 2 days now and nothing LOL! Although i think we were stopped and searched by just about every militaria checkpoint between Acapulco and Tehuantepec; basically right at the narrowest part of Mex. Not too big a deal, in fact a few of the stop were pretty funny, one of the times the guy searching our van asked if i was married to Jessica and i said "no", then he said "oh just your girlfriend" and i said "ya, for now" in spanish", in only meant that we were not yet married but it obviously came out wrong, Jess hit me and the guys jaw nearly hit the floor and then started laughing, it was hilarious! We were all still laughing even as we drove off. Anyways we clearly stand out and im sure thats a big source of most of our troubles. So ya thanks for following along, if you haven't already checked it out our website has lots of great pics and some really nice journal entries by Jess. Take care and enjoy the time.
Madhouse InC
 
T

Tress

Adventurer
Hey Hey Hey Aone,
Just rolled off the Shared Spot Page island of Caye Caulker just off the coast of Belize on the Barrier reef. The island was around 3 miles by a 100 yards wide so needless to say it was tiny. No cars, no pavement and really not much infrastructure to speak of, but so so nice. The classic Caribbean island, mostly palms and green waters, just perfect. We were there for about 3 nights and met some very interesting people, we spent our first few days with some kids from Minnesota who were traveling by rental car for a while. Then we met some locals and chilled with them for a bit, great peoples. Anyways before that our final leg out of Mex was pretty uneventful, mostly driving, although we stopped at Pelenque one of the best ruins we have seen yet, buried in the jungle. Once in Belize we drove down the worst road yet! 30 mile dirt road of hell, but by the end we found we were the only people at the Lamanai ruin and ahd it all to ourselves, had thanksgiving dinner at some tiny restaurant, tomales rice and beans. Although we had brought a few cans of cranberry sauce from the states with us so that was our official thanksgiving treat, we slept in the van just outside the ruin in dense dense jungle. Anywho Belize is awesome, very simple countryside villages full of very kind people, and the islands are just picture perfect. So ya we'll be headed out of Belize in about 3 or 4 days before entering Guatemala, things are going well and we have not been pulled over by the police since Acapulco; although we are stopped at every single military checkpoint, but there not so bad. Hope all is good with you all, we'll fly you another update in few weeks here, until then enjoy the time. Enjoy the time
Madhouse INC
 
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T

Tress

Adventurer
Hello everyone,
So after our beautiful visit to the Cayes and Monkey Bay in Belize we did a jungle drive through some crazy moutain area in Belize; had to be esorted by the military to go see some ruins, we started south through Guatemala. The first leg of the road was amazing! beautiful rolling hills and some very very remote countryside, possibly the prettiest road we have seen so far, loved it! Then we got off the higway to explore some off the beaten track road through the highlands of Western Guatemala, WHOLY !%$&, The 1st hour was fairly crazy, super steep 180 degree swiich backs with potholes and washboard like you read about! Then we came to a few guys standing there looking at the hill side, as we looked up we realized we had just missed a serius rockslied by maybe 5 minutes, im talkin the dust was still heavy in the air and some smaller rocks still bouncind across the road. The men tol us to proceed with caution so we did, as we inched closer we could see that a very large section of the very steep hillside had given out and had we beenin that very spot maybe 6 or 7 minutes earlier madhouse wold have had some serious dents int eh side. Luckily the slide dint make it all the way to the road but there were still basketball size rocks bouncing across as we approached, i waited a minute and drove by without any recourse. When we got tot eh other side we found anentire village gathered round to see what had happened so it wasn´t biz as usual thats for sure! After that we realized what we were in for though, there was a section of road just about every half mile that had been covered in giant boulders and mass amounts of dirt and gravel. THe remainder of the drive was so amazing though, we were literally on the side of mounaitns, thousand foot drop offs on one side with thousand foot vert going upo the other, there were truckers all over with dust so thick i could barely see anything, a roda i dint really expect until we got intot he Andes, sort of like the roads you are talking about, so insane, but so pretty.
Anwyays we are now furhter south in Guat, on Lake Atitlan, an amazing lake with mountians surrounding and two giant valcanoes hovering on the water edge. Check out the latest Spot Track page spot track on our website to see what im talking about. So ya either way thanks for the ehads up man we´ll defintely look into the roads you mentioned. Hope everyone is well otherwise, ill keep ya updated, thanks for all the support. Enjoy the Time
Madhouse INC
 
wanderer-rrorc

wanderer-rrorc

Explorer
my wife and I just spent the last few hours looking at all the photos and reading the reports....

I've been stealing pictures to help with my own build and in ENTHRALLED with your journey...I hope it gets to continue soon!!
 
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