From NH to Argentina in a Defender 110 - Norte A Sur Aventura

[ExploringNH]

In a continuation of my Build Up thread, we are now on the road and headed for Ushuaia. We will be traveling swiftly through Central America and will be stopping at Panama Passage to hang out for a few days and get the truck shipped into Colombia. After Panama, we intend to slow down a bit, explore, and see the sights. We will still be traveling quicker than most and hope to hit Ushuaia in 5-7 weeks. At this point, we will see where the road takes us.

Once in Ushuaia, my driving partner will be departing and I will then spend 3-6 months touring around Chile, Argentina, and hopefully back up to Colombia.

You can track our progress here: http://time2getlost.com/where-are-we/
The Spot Tracker updates our location every 10 minutes while we are on the road.

Yesterday we stopped at Rausch Creek Off Road Park in PA for a little test run of all the new modifications. The truck worked well overall, despite breaking a u-joint early in the day. The joint itself was fine, but the retaining clip broke off and the driveshaft yoke slipped down, causing a knocking that we noticed right away. Because we noticed it so quickly, we were able to fix it by just popping in a new, heavy duty, snap-type retaining ring. After that, we were good to go for the rest of the day.



The tires performed flawlessly throughout the day in conditions ranging from wet nasty clay to very grippy rocks. The clay turned the tires into slicks, but it did the same to everyone, regardless of tire.





We started out at 18psi since I was unsure of what the tires would do. They were ok at this pressure but they didn't conform to the rocks as well as I liked. Our next stop was 10psi, and that is where we stayed for the day.





There was some water, but nothing major.



So much rock. The truck flexed out ok. I am still hoping that the springs break in a little bit.







Today we are headed to do a final shopping trip for supplies that we either forgot or planned to pick up on the road. Our optimistic target is to hit Mexico at some point on Monday. We are still about 30 hours out and we are starting late today so we will see how far we make it before getting too tired to continue.

We will post updates as we can.

[Blue]

Hey Guys, Sounds like you're going to have a great trip!

When you get to Cochabamba, Bolivia give me a call at 764 64704 (or email glenn [at] hardwoodmarketing [dot] com) and I'll show you around a bit if you like.

Also make sure you at least plan a day trip to Coroico from LaPaz. Go down the old "Death Road" way, not the new road. I guarantee you'll have a blast

Blue

[Ruined Adventures]

[defrag4]

sweet truck! will be watching, you guys camping out or hoteling it?

[geovalue]

Have fun it is a great trip you are about to start.
Safe travels

[Ruined Adventures]

It's too bad you had to pass thru TX in August

[Christian P.]

It will be a pleasure to have you at Panama Passage! As you may have read here, Shaun is unfortunately leaving us around Sept 23rd. He got the travel bug, apparently it's very contagious.

I will be there starting mid-September. We are also planning a big going away party around Sept 17th

p.s.:
Just as a reference point, we did San Francisco to Panama in 17 days, it was fast but manageable - with a couple extra days in Mexico, Antigua and a detour through Copan/Honduras.

[Streakerfreak]

I will be leaving Panama Passage on September 16th. Should you make it down here by that time it will be great to finally meet you. Safe travels!

[ExploringNH]

I will be leaving Panama Passage on September 16th. Should you make it down here by that time it will be great to finally meet you. Safe travels!

I hope to be down there by the end of August. We have an optimistic goal to be out of Mexico by Sat-Sun, so like 3-4 days from now. We have a detour in Costa Rica and a couple of small stops on the way, but our real exploring starts in South America, and Panama, of course.

[ExploringNH]

Somewhat of a decent update posted to the site:
http://time2getlost.com/2011/08/11/t...-with-the-law/



Moo cow in the road.



We drove through some mountains. I think were at 2000meters for a lot of the time.



Tampico, land of the crooked cops.

sweet truck! will be watching, you guys camping out or hoteling it?

Both. Neither of us like the heat (don't ask why we wanted to go to Central and South America then), so we will be staying in hotels more in Mexico and Central America. We hope to camp a lot more in South America.

It's too bad you had to pass thru TX in August

I know. I know it is hot when the people that live here are trying to do whatever they can to stay out of the heat.