Julie and I just finished 65 days, more than nine weeks, travelling around Mexico and Central America.  We went into this leg of our Follow the Sun journey with a little apprehension – after all, Mexico is said to be a dangerous place to visit and some of those small Central American countries have a very sordid past.  Dirty toilets, undrinkable water, corrupt policemen, con artists everywhere, who needs it?  Well, we found all those things and much more in one of the most fascinating and delightful phases of our journey.  In short, we loved it.  Here’s a few outrageous generalisations and personal observations from our travels there.

Here is a carefully (!) plotted map of our travels across Mexico and Central America.  Each numbered site is not an overnight camp – it is just a way of plotting our course more accurately.  If you want to play with an interactive map of our travels to drill down more specifically in our exact journey you can go to – Mexico and Central America

It should be said that Mexicans and Central Americans do not camp.  For whatever reasons the poor sods do not have camping in their culture, even though they have some wonderful national parks and an infinite number of places that would be ideal for camping.  Because of this we often had to choose our daily itinerary based on where we could find a safe place to camp, mainly thanks to the indispensable app called iOverlander.  We free camped as often as possible when it was safe but usually we ended up in the grounds of a hotel or restaurant, behind a petrol station or in a car park.

Secondly, we went into these countries with our eyes open and used our very cautious judgement at all times to ensure we were always as safe as possible.  While its true that you can encounter bad people with bad intentions any day no matter where you are, obviously the risk is higher when you are travelling through poorer countries which have problems with guns, drugs, corruption and petty crime.

Whether it was good luck or good management, we did not encounter any crime or violence or a single moment in Mexico or any Central American country that was threatening, made us uncomfortable or scared.  Not one.  The opposite was almost always the case – friendly people, willing to help, patient with my bad Spanish, usually a laugh or a smile at the end.  Top to bottom, great experiences.

We didn’t go wild over the food, to be honest, especially after leaving Mexico, the land of the scrummy fish taco.  Most of Central America seems to survive on rice and beans and corn tortillas which were always seriously rubbery.  There were some exceptions but generally we found the food to be bland, somewhat unimaginative and repetitive.  Unless you like rice and beans.

And speaking of toilets, you’ve got to give a prize to the Mexicans for unquestionably the dirtiest most disgusting toilets in the region.  And in almost all cases you have to pay for the privilege as well!  Guatemala, on the other hand, usually had clean toilets and clearly placed hygiene and cleanliness high on their list, even though they are a much poorer country than Mexico.  And we never paid for a toilet in Guatemala at all!

 

The colonial Spaniards were bad dudes in many ways, enslaving and exploiting the indigenous people, killing them with European diseases, stealing their gold, silver and other valuables, violently shutting down any opposition, wiping out cultures that had prospered for hundreds of years.  But they did leave behind some beautiful churches, other buildings, palaces, castles and cities, and after a couple hundred years their descendants rose up and led rebellions that eventuated in national independence for many countries (case in point, the fascinating history of liberator Simon Bolivar).

When you look at the geography of Central America two words come to mind – volcanoes and beaches.  Throw in some jungle, rivers and a zillion mosquitos and you’ve got it.  We loved the volcanoes in particular, rising strongly from the plains, spewing gases and steam, fun to climb and explore, always a fascinating experience.  The beaches were much more plentiful than we expected and were mostly black sand, which is a bit like dirt when you get up close, and there was an impressive surf culture everywhere.  Who would have thunk it?

The border crossings were always a hassle, dusty, chaotic, sometimes quite stressful, long queues, pointless paperwork, fees to be paid, many stamps, insurance, fumigation sprays, dog sniffs, the list goes on.  It usually involved going from building to building, very few signs, big smelly truck drivers pushing their way in the queue, very offhand customs and immigration people.

There were usually ‘fixers’ who are happy to walk you through the process for a fee.  Sometimes these guys can be helpful, other times they make the process much worse and hassle you for large payments.  We tried to avoid them if possible.  And then there was the money changers which I found to be okay – their exchange rates were negotiable if you knew the rate beforehand and you only changed enough to get you to the next big town with an ATM.

I dreaded police checks.  Most horror stories from travellers in these parts involve police stopping cars on the road and picking on a poor unsuspecting tourist.  In Baja California we would have had three or four military checks per day but the military were fine (except for the machine guns).  In ‘mainland’ Mexico it was more the police stops – either national, state or city police.  They were everywhere.  The worst were the city police, including the bastard to stopped us outside of Mexico City and extracted a bribe from us.  He held all the cards and we negotiated him down significantly but in the end we paid.  Our only bribe the whole trip so far.

Most other countries we didn’t experience a single police check but in the odd occasion when we did, such as Belize, El Salvador and Panama, they were reasonably friendly and non-threatening.  I still avoid the police but generally speaking they’re not as scary as we first thought.

And another generalisation.  The people of Central America, especially the women, generally do not look healthy and can be very big.  Put it down to their diets or poor economic status or whatever but sheesh, we did not often see people who looked healthy and attractive, especially those over 40.  Certainly there was very little glamour and gloss on the streets.

Our favourites?  Well, despite everything, we really loved Mexico and want to go back someday.  But our two favourite countries were Guatemala and Costa Rica, both very special places.  Costa Rica is a famously good destination for travellers but Guatemala must be one of the most under-appreciated and under-rated travel countries in the world.

Our two favourite towns were the historic colonial towns of Antigua Guatemala and Granada Nicaragua.  Get on a plane and check these places out.  We also liked Guanajuato Mexico, Flores Guatemala, Havana and Trinidad Cuba, and Leon Nicaragua.  We also fell in love with the area around Lake Arenal in Costa Rica and Lake Atitlan in Guatemala.

We saw about nine different Mayan or Aztec ruins and they were all fantastic.  We really regretted not being able to see a few more as each one was different and interesting.  I think we had four favourites – Uxmal, Chichen Itza and Tulum in Mexico and Tikal in Guatemala.  Oh yeah, we also like Caracol in Belize but that was partly because the tough drive into the site was such a hoot.

Finally, we rate each campsite on a scale of one to ten.  Getting a score of ten is very difficult – it has to have a magnificent setting, be very safe, great views, perhaps a sunset or visits from animals, something that really sets it apart.  And in almost all cases it has to be free.  Based on these very loose and subjective standards we gave perfect tens to only four camping spots in Mexico and Central America.  They were a remote desert setting in the middle of Baja California, the salt flats of northern Yucatan where we were surrounded by flamingos, on the shores of Lake Arenal in Costa Rica and an obscure viewpoint overlooking the jungle and bay on our last night in Costa Rica.  We camped in many outstanding spots but these four really stood out.

If you’ve been to any of these countries and have other views based on your own experiences please shout out – it would be great to hear from you.  But don’t try to tell us you thought the toilets in Mexico were good!