Wand'rly Magazine

The years have not been overly kind to our beloved #VWBus. She's generally structurally sound, but her paint is crusting over into rust, a previous owner apparently used her for a demolition derby vehicle, and so she's bondo central cake icing, too. We've never cared much though. Her charm oozes into our collective eyeballs like pollen to a bee, or an IPA to me. Still, when we discovered last minute that we could not only get her painted by Cancun's masters but it would also mean we could skip out on paying to store her while we're in Florida for Christmas... Well, it looks like when we get back to MX we'll be shining like a caramel twist all down these bumpy back roads. (at Cancún, Mexico)

"Want to play?" #itsuniversal #wanttoplay #threeargentinianstwoamericansandafrenchfamilywalkintoamexicanbar (at Cancún, Mexico)

"And a one, and a two, and a 1,2,3!" the little girl from Argentina yells as she and our two boys take off sprinting to jump as far into the pool as their little legs can carry them. It's impressively far, but these are no average children. They're #roadbabies. "You're lucky with the three girls," I tell her dad, a bearded hippie driving his family around in a 1960s Mercedes bus. "No," he furls his brow, shakes his head and looks at me like I just don't know. Over the next few days, I watch our boys, his three girls, a couple of kids from Quebec all play together. He's right, the girls are as wild as the boys. There's fighting and tea parties, sword battled and tag, laughing and screaming. "For me," he says, while we talk about where we'll go next and life in the road in general, "this is not one trip. This is a life." He talks about how they have only paid to camp twice in a year, how usually he sits outside of his bus and drinks a beer with a table full of jewelry his wife makes. "If someone buys it, that's okay. We don't need the money, it's more of a way to meet all types of people." Later that night, their middle daughter and our middle son share a bowl of lime flavored peanuts and do a puzzle together. She speaks English very well, while the Canadians only speak French and the other two Argentinian sisters speak Spanish. No one seems to find a reason why this should prevent them from playing every game under the Cancún sun. It's a beautiful thing. #viajandoenfamilia #familiesontheroad (at Cancún, Mexico)

"I want to live in a house," Wylder tells me, early on a rainy Saturday morning as we make our slow tosses and turns out of bed, the anticlimactic drum roll of water on our pop top. "We've got a house," I tell him. "No," he clarifies, "I want a house without wheels!" Uh oh, four years old and already rebelling. I try and think of what to say next, but Winter, his slightly older brother chimes in quickly. "Why would you want a house without wheels? How would we ever visit all of our friends? Or go anywhere when it's raining?" Wylder thinks about it for two splits of a second. "Oh yeah," he smiles, "I forgot." #wildandfreechildren #familyontheroad #moseyhome #vwbus (at Cancún, Mexico)

Last year at this time we ditched the Airstream which we'd called home for three years and climbed back into this beauty of a 1978 Champagne Edition Riviera Campwagen, aka our #VWBus, which was our home on the road prior to the Airstream. Those of you who've been following along know that's a really fancy name for a rig that's not always reliable, but do we have any regrets? Not a one. I love this old girl and the past year of adventure, Mexico, new and old friends and even the complications (in hindsight!) #projectvanlife #vanlife #vwbus #champagneedition #optoutside #campvibes #provenoverland

They say you're only as old as the last time you ate mushrooms on a hotel roof while jumping from fire escape to fire escape seven stories up. These days, I'm not so sure. I don't need anything extravagant, like a bed that's longer than me or a stove with more than one burner. I'm not looking to run a marathon or skydive naked. I am thankful that my lungs still breathe and my brain still manages to put syllables together in ways interesting enough to amuse itself when the workday's done and the sun goes for set. On the other hand, I've now realized that I'm of the age that at any point when I sit down, well, I seem compelled to leave out a monumental sigh as though I just heard that my puppy died as I was finishing an entire can of Coke in one gulp. It's a good thing I had my midlife crisis when I was 29, otherwise I might do something crazy like buy a convertible. #aging #vwbus #vanlifediaries #projectvanlife #ilovelife #freedom #wasthecasethattheygaveme (at Mahahual Costa Maya)

"And you've got how many kids?" "How do you all fit in there?" Good question. Imagine Wrestlemania, an elementary school bus and every episode of Dennis the Menace, all happening inside of a jug of milk. "Sounds about right." #VWBus #vanlife #vanlifediaries #wanderfolk #overland #goexplore #keepitwild #dohashtagssuck? (at Mahahual Costa Maya)

Meanwhile, in #Mexico... Life goes on as usual. Our boys play with sticks and Legos. Our oldest and Renée slackline their afternoons away and I try and figure out which work is more important, fixing the #VWBus or building the Internet. #vanlifediaries (at Calderitas, Chetumal, Quintana Roo)

"Did he catch it?" Our time here in #Belize is coming to an end, foreshadowing our exit of Central America in general in about a month and a half. It's bittersweet, to say the least. There are things I miss about the US, like good beer and big forests, that just don't happen in the same way down here. There are things I absolutely love about being here, too, like just about everything related to how people treat their time and what value they put on money vs. said time, how having the newest gadget or fanciest house plays second fiddle to being alive. The biggest thing I've learned? Take it easy. We all have responsibilities, but the weight of importance we tend to put on earning money and living up to customer / client satisfaction means nothing if you don't have time to toss the ol' #pigskin around every afternoon. And yeah, he did. :) (at Placencia, Belize, Central America)

#Halloween is in full effect here in Belize. Props to our 15 year old who defies the laws of teenage and still is down with getting ridiculously, embarrassingly dressed up despite what it may do with his cool points and the other old kids in town. #goodbyefollowers #gramcauseyouloveit #whocaresim12kandgolden (at Placencia, Belize, Central America)

Lost on #Tatooine as Wylder prepares for #Halloween in #Belize. (at Placencia, Belize, Central America)

"How long have you been driving that Volkswagen like that?" "Sounds like it's got a vacuum leak." "Needs a valve adjustment." "You need new spark plug wires. That's all." "Yep, definitely a vacuum leak." "That's a Porsche engine, so you should never need to..." I get a lot of advice. I spend a lot of time reading this book and websites. For about four months now I've managed to keep her humming along, thanks to all of this advice. Well, some of it. Some of it is just a fish basket full of red herrings. My latest issue has baffled me al week, though, and despite being quite adverse to mechanics (you just don't know how familiar they are with a machine that's often older than them), I found a guy in town who has great reviews specifically for #aircooled #VWBus engines. But there were a few things he said that make me hesitate. So I sat here all week trying to fix the problems on my own. But didn't. And so I'm left thinking, "So, you think you know the mechanic is wrong, but you're not a mechanic, and you think you can get it right?" Feels a bit pompous but with two or three countries and five states between where we are a Fort Lauderdale Christmas, well...it can feel daunting. Next time we'll just live out of a 4Runner. Those things never die. (at Santa Elena, Cayo Dist...)

"So you celebrate Halloween in Belize?" I ask. She's a young, pretty woman working a corner store selling costumes in Placencia. "We were worried that there'd be nowhere for Halloween this year," Renée says to her. "And people have told us it's not appropriate to dress up like the Dia de Muertos" I mention. "Who told you that?" she laughs, but then her face goes straight serious. Countless people, usually from places like Portland, have said this to us. That dressing up like other cultures is wrong. Exploiting them and all of that. From Indians to geishas, Day of the Dead to plain old witches, to pretend to be something else for a day, ask for candy, and trust strangers one night a year is somehow wrong. "Who told you that?" she asks again. I tell her. "Sounds like something Americans would say," she doesn't use those words, but that's what she means. "So if they think like that?" she continues, "How is this Donald Trump a person?" #touche #piratesofthecaribbean #halloween (at Placencia)

"Hello, good afternoon!" and I do say it with a smile. I love Mexico and speaking what Spanish I can, but to be in Belize and rattle words of my tongue like a snake's tail covered in ink is admittedly a relief. It's the rainy season. It just began really, last week. #Belize is soaked through, though, and we're looking for a campground on an island that serves as the home to the National Audubon Society's chapter in this country. That means fun for birders. Wood storks and roseate spoonbills and other exotic birds I've never seen before fun. The campground is waterlogged though, from what I can see. The lovely woman in the office assures me that it's not. "No, no, it's fine!" she swears up and down. "Just go park in the grass." "Are you sure? Looks pretty wet. Maybe we can stay in the parking lot..." "No, stay on the campground, we'll make you a fire and put up lights. You'll really like it over there!" Okay, the campground it is. We pull in, down a hard patch of grass and up to a spot that feels the most firm. "That's where you park, go down further!" she shouts, walking by to her house on the other side of the compound. I listen to her. We decline the fire and lights. There are fire ants and lightning bugs anyway, so it seems silly to replace them with something more man made. As evening shades we watch a plethora of birds, ibis and motmots, song birds and egrets, flock in and out of view. The boys build a bridge across a boggy area to a picnic table. Then we all fall asleep. Around 3am the rain is dropping in sheets at a time. By morning we're stuffing wooden planks under the tires, tearing up the campground's grass, trying to get out of a hole we only keep digging ourselves deeper into, our spinning tires mixing the campground into a swamp. The owner comes by after an hour and our knees deep in muck and exhaust. "You should have stayed in the parking lot," she says. She and her son help push us out and we're one patch of #mud further down the road. #camping #kindnessofstrangers #vwbus #moseyhome (at Crooked Tree Village)

"Have you been to the ruins?" he asks, wearing nothing but a pair of shades and swimming trunks. "They're just up the road here," he says, handing me a cartoon map of Belize. The night before we'd staid up speaking Spanish—he's Belgian and has at least three languages mastered—sharing a 40oz as he told countless stories of finding lost pyramids, sinking ships and traveling the world. He's a captivating guy and the only other person inhabiting this campground that isn't being paid to do so. "The ruins are definitely something to see," he goes on, "just a fabulous sight only right up the road." He swings his arm parallel to the street to provide further clarification on the direction. "Full of Mayan history and back in the jungle." "You've been there?" I ask a seemingly dumb question. "No," he laughs, "once you've seen one pile of rocks, you've seen them all." We go anyway. I tend to agree with him, but finally having an abandoned Mayan city all to ourselves, and lined with placards describing the trees of the region, made it totally worth it. #vwbus #mexico #moseyhome #champagneedition #vanlifediaries #projectvanlife (at Calderitas, Quintana Roo)

"Give us all your money!" he says, in Spanish, holding a pen in his hand. My mind races momentarily...surely I can take this old man, I think. In a brief moment I survey our surroundings. Palm trees blow amidst a natural air conditioning off the azul sheen of the #Caribbean immediately at my feet. Not a scrap of trash or resort hotels in site. We're in a paradise like nothing we've managed to find in #QuintanaRoo to date. "How is this happening," I wonder, "here, of all places?" I react instinctively. My gut assumes command of my brain and I quickly reach my hand out to disarm the old man of his weapon which–apparently taken aback–he hands me instantly. Along with the registration form I use to write down my name and license plate, fork over the last of our pesos for a final few nights' stay in #Mexico, and drive the Bus to what I thought was the best spot on the water available. Then Tristan proves me wrong, putting his tent up a few feet behind the Bus on a peninsula clearly built specifically for the gods. As we set up I see the old man over in the darkest corner of the beachside bar, counting his money and laughing maniacally at our misfortune. (at Calderitas, Quintana Roo)

We woke up this morning with a big red circle around Belize on our map and thus fired up the Bus and pointed her south. The route was fairly clear, a few hundred miles straight via MX 307 and we'd be there in no time. But another circle on the map, a few hours of the way, begged us, "You've been nearly everywhere else Quintana Roo, why skip me?" We felt bad, plus who says "no" to a talking atlas? Mahahual was worth the detour. And the biting ant infestation. #mexicolors #mayanriviera #costamaya #caribemexicano #toomanynamesforoneplace #antique #handpainted #lithography (at Mahahual Caribe Mexicano)