Our last travel diary ended with us parking Mr Jones just outside Cancun so that we could take a holiday from travelling and return home to South Africa. Our plan for that holiday was to catchup with family and friends in Johannesburg and Durban before taking a leisurely drive, over a couple of months, down the east coast to Cape Town. Along the way we planned to start checking out possible lifestyle villages in the various towns along the way and therefore identifying possible places we might like to eventually purchase a retirement home.
That plan didn’t last very long, firstly family circumstances resulted in us staying stationary longer than we thought we would and then when we did take an AirBnB in Tania’s old home town we stumbled across a lifestyle village that really piqued our interest and in a pretty spontaneous decision landed up buying a home there. Thus, the last 6 weeks of our holiday become a rather hectic (but fun) rush of moving into our new home, decorating it, rapidly integrating into the community, entertaining and accommodating friends and family before locking everything up and starting the trip back to Mr Jones.
When we had taken the decision to fly home for a holiday back in June 2024, we had always had a timeline on that holiday as we wanted to be able to spend our sons 30th birthday with him somewhere in either Europe or the UK where he lives. So, the middle of October saw us flying to the UK for a wonderful 2 weeks celebrating the umfaan’s birthday. We hadn’t physically spent time together for nearly 3 years so those 2 weeks with him and his girlfriend flew by and before we knew it, it was time to board our flights to Mexico.
Arriving in a hot and humid Cancun from a chilly UK was a serious shock to the system and right from the moment we opened Mr Jones doors it got off to a rocky start! While we had been away the Caribbean region had experienced an above-average Hurricane season (including Beryl which rolled right over Mr Jones parking place), which meant even higher than the already high humidity levels and we were greeted with mould all over the interior of Mr Jones. We had left multiple moisture absorber containers in him and they were all full with absorbed water but clearly, they had stood no real chance of winning the battle.
In addition, the heat & humidity while we were away had done a real number on so many items, the actual list is rather long but some of the lowlights are (some we discovered immediately and some over the course of the next week):
- a clutch pedal that refuses to spring back
- A fridge and freezer that is not cooling
- A hole in our exhaust
- Rust in more places than we care to think about
- Car radio not switching on
- Reverse camera not switching on
- Our 12v to 220v inverter not working
- Newly purchased shower hose leaking like a sieve
- Fans above bed not switching on (an essential device when it is so hot and humid)
- Interior of roof box and everything in it very very damp
- Air compressor hose perished in places and thus leaking
- Secondary solar panel regulator not accepting charge from the panel
- Multiple leaks in our internal “house” water system
- Loose hose clamps on pipes leading to diesel filter
- Power steering system felt very clunky
However, on our first day back, the most critical item was a very flat starter battery that needed replacing. The storage place owner had informed us of this, just before our departure from South Africa, and we had sent him money to source a new one but through a comedy of errors on his side this had not happened and so on our first morning back, he and Stuart headed off into Cancun to purchase one.
Where we had stored Mr Jones, while being a “formal” overland vehicle storage place was in reality nothing more than a clearing in the jungle where the Canadian owner “squatted” and therefore not somewhere we really wanted to hang around at, but thanks to the starter battery issue we were forced to spend an extra night there. It was on this second night, after spending a hot and sweaty day shopping and then swapping out batteries that Stuart when attempting to take a shower (in our shower cubicle) discovered that the shower hose we had purchased only a few months prior had perished to such an extent that it had more holes than a pin cushion. It is highly likely that if he could have climbed on a plane right there and then he would have returned to South Africa.
While a functioning starter battery is critical, the other item which we might consider even more critical (cold beer, wine and nice food are essential) is our fridge/freezer and so with the battery replaced we headed into Cancun the following morning hoping to find a fridge repair technician or shop (google had given us some ideas) but at this stage we were not feeling too optimistic. The reason for our lack of optimism being that this kind of fridge/freezer is quite specialised for the application and not commonly seen in these parts of the world so while there are most definitely people around who repair fridges we were not sure if they would know how to handle one that operates off 12v. After a couple of stops at shops that supply parts we had a number to call but as luck would have it this person was away on holiday so instead we turned our attention to getting the exhaust repaired and finding somewhere to camp.
Tania did a great job of finding a campsite which had a pool and more importantly a super helpful owner. Upon hearing of our fridge issues, he took it upon himself to source somebody who not only could be trusted but would also come out to the campsite and assess the work required. We were all hoping that it would only need a re-gassing of the system.
A fantastic campsite to hang out in while attemting to repair the fridge
It took a few days for Alfredo to source a fridge technician and then they had to come to come out to Mr Jones a further 4 times over the course of a week until we all decided no more fixes could be made. In the process of this week, Stuart learnt a lot about how these fridges work and thanks to the persistence of the technician we ended up with a fridge that “kind of” works. For a full breakdown of everything that was ripped out and replaced refer to the Captains log entries for 12 – 18 November. The total cost for all this effort, only ZAR2k. “Kind of worked” meant that the one compartment cools to around 4DegC and the other to just below 20DegC but in order to do this the motor runs almost 24/7, which is not ideal for living off grid when dependent on solar but in our eyes is better than attempting to keep food cold and fresh via bags of ice which would need to be replaced every couple of days, if one could even source them. It does, however, mean our travel style would need to change until we are able to source a replacement unit which would most likely only be when we get to the USA.
When we encounter issues and delays, Tania is often quick to point out that “everything happens for a reason” and in this case it meant we did not get caught in the path of Tropical Storm Sara which had swept across Belize and the border region with Mexico and brought with it strong winds and excessive rainfall. Fourteen days after landing in Cancun we finally hit the road towards Belize. We had traveled this route fairly quickly in June when we had, had to go to the Belize border in order to cancel Mr Jones Mexico TIP before flying home, so for variety, this time we decided to try and visit some spots along the coast however as we quickly discovered, Sara had left a lot of debris on the beaches and the water was an unattractive brown instead of the postcard worthy aquamarine that is typically found along the Caribbean so we didn’t linger long before crossing over into Belize.
We had no idea what to expect in Belize other than it is one of only 2 English speaking countries in the entire Latin America but our first impressions were very good; firstly it was great to be able to speak English (even if the English is more Caribbean creole sounding and therefore not so easy to understand at times) and thus have proper interactions with people, the people also came across as very friendly and welcoming, although that may simply be helped, by being able to speak the some common language. The country itself appears very rustic and has a bit of a Caribbean island feel with simple houses (mostly on stilts), painted in a variety of colourful colours, surrounded by large lawns and big trees.
Most tourists to Belize go there for its Caribbean islands and the diving and fishing associated with that, as visiting these islands was not on our agenda or within our budget our general plan was to do a circumnavigation around the country before moving on to Guatemala. In reality and because it only has one vehicle border post with Guatemala this would mean, rather a trip along the coast before backtracking a bit and cutting across the centre of the country to this border post.
This planned route might sound quite grand and long but as the country is rather small we actually only spent 8 days there in total. If we had a properly functioning fridge it may have been a little longer as there appeared to be some nice national forest areas with undeveloped camping options that we could have also visited but for now that is not viable.
After that week we couldn’t help but draw comparisons to another small country we quite enjoyed and are fond of, Uruguay. Apart from the different climate and vegetation, the similarities were remarkable: super friendly people, very expensive shops (and not really well stocked), most people appear quite poor and live in basic housing apart from in the popular expat areas where you could be mistaken for thinking you were in Florida. As with Uruguay while everything is often old and quite simple it always appears well organised and very clean.
And that wraps up our first month back on the road, for more insights please follow the links below:
Captain(s) Log: November 2024 (behind the scenes, the highs and lows of life on the road)
Gallery: Mexico (November 2024)
Overnight Locations (The places we stopped at for a night or more and therefore an overview of our route for this diary entry)
Maintenance Log (everything it takes to keep Mr Jones purring)
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