1 / Thousands of kilometers later...

Plenty of space in Mexico, but there's no escaping the mark of man. We entered Mexico via Tijuana on the 1st of February, the day our American visas ran out, and we were nervous. We'd be told how dangerous it was, how many carjackings there were and how bad the drug war was. And Tijuana is a dirty old town, Quentin Taratino-style, jagged and rebellious. We had to cross the whole of Baja California in our 4x4 in order to catch the ferry across the mainland.

We finally made it out of Baja and onto the Mexican mainland in early March without any incident. In fact, it was charming, beautiful and welcoming. The rest of Mexico was too, and we finally arrived in Guatemala near the end of March. But after a spring and summer in the rest of Central America and Cuba, we drove back into Mexico for another long journey back to the US.

The drug-turf war between the cartels and the government was escalating at this point, but we never knowingly entered the crossfire nor had any trouble.