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The only break in the 29,000-mile stretch of road known as the Pan-American Highway is the 100-mile section of impassible jungle between Central & South America called the Darien Gap. The only way to get our rig across the gap is to ship it. It’s a complicated process. On the Panama side it requires a shipping agent in Panama City, a police inspection to clear us through Interpol (to make sure the vehicle isn’t stolen), and of course lots and lots of paperwork. Only way to ge

We entered into Panama without even realizing we had crossed the imaginary line between the two countries. The night before we camped at a little botanical garden high in the mountains. We thought it would be an hour drive back down to cross, but the owner told us about a smaller border that we hadn't even seen on the map, and it was only 25 minutes away. The next morning, as we turned out of town, the pavement gave way to dirt. The only indication we were near the border wa

Costa Rica is said to be a great country for adrenaline junkies. We’ve had a few adrenaline rushes since we got to Costa Rica, and not all of them have been pleasant. The first one was during our border crossing from Nicaragua into Costa Rica. A few days before we crossed, we read about a guy who had overstayed his vehicle permit in Peru by one day - and the border officials impounded his motorcycle. He was in a mess trying to get it back; red tape, fines, lawyers, etc. I sa

We heard the horror stories. Border crossings from hell, aggressive "helpers" swarming the car, threats of multiple corrupt police shake downs...it sounded bad. But like many overlanders before us, we would do the "3 countries 2 border crossings in 1 day" saga. Back when we were planning this trip we decided we probably wouldn't be heading into Honduras. For a variety of reasons, I didn't have a burning desire to go. It does have one of the highest murder rates in all of Cent

Paula and I entered El Salvador on Saturday, July 18th. We had a smooth border crossing with our friends Janice and Gregor, and were thankful they advised us to take a less busy crossing with them on the CA 8 instead of the busy PanAmerican crossing. Our rigs at the border entering El Salvador...a little underwhelming which was just fine for us. Janice and Gregor were checked inside and out. Our guy only looked at our VIN. There is no rhyme or reason at these borders. And we

First, the border crossing: Clearing out of Belize was pretty simple. We cancelled the vehicle permit, cleared customs, got our passports stamped and bought some Quetzals at an only somewhat ripped off price. Then we passed into no man's land between the two countries. We were required to drive through some sort of fumigation station (it looked like a drive thru car wash but it sprayed noxious poison up underneath & all around poor LoJo). Next we parked the rig behind a bunch

We made our way back down to the border of Belize as fast as possible. Camping once again in Chetumal before our border crossing. Everything felt familiar. A couple stops at Walmart and Auto Zone, and we were ready to exit Mexico once and for all. We crossed the border in about 40 minutes and drove down familiar roads toward the town of San Ignacio, away from the coast this time and into the mountains. On the way, we made a detour to drive through the Mennonite community of S

Belize is our first foreign border crossing. We decided to do our border run into Belize instead of Guatemala because we heard it was an easy crossing. It was. The hardest part was finding our way around the newly constructed roads (with no signs) to get through each step in the process. All in, the crossing it took us about an hour. Which is good news, because 2 weeks later we will do it all over again in the opposite direction. As we cross the border and drive less than a

Hola Amigos! (by paula) We finally crossed our first border on November 28th. It was pretty easy - about 20 minutes all in. The border official said it wasn’t too busy because Black Friday was the day before and it’s better to shop online. Go figure. We have been to Mexico so many times over the past 20 years but for some reason driving here gave us a little thrill. We cruised down the coast and stopped for a decadent lunch in Puento Nuevo – the lobster capital of Baja. It di