2 years in a 77' bay in Mexico, Central and South America

[Chanatrek]

Hello, my wife and I have been traveling the last 2 years in our 77' camper bus nicknamed "Mango" in Mexico, Central and South America. We have a few months left before we head back to the USA. We have a blog at http://www.chanatrek.com if you want to follow along with us. We always appreciate the company! I'm going to post some pictures here as well for anybody contemplating a trip south. It's great here, come on down!

Chad and Ana Memmel

My wife Ana and I in front of our 77' bus "Mango" in a campground in Guanajuato, Mexico.

Mount Huascarin, Llanganuco River Valley, Peru. Mount Huascarin is Peru's tallest peak, at an elevation of approximately 22,200 feet

Bright red dirt on the road between Potosi and Uyuni, Bolivia

Camping in the Llanganuco River Valley at 12,670 feet, Huascaran National Park, Peru

Getting a push and a little help in Huanchaco, Peru

Enjoying the dirt and dunes in Resera Nacional de Paracas, Peru

Llama grazing behind Mango at the Quilmes Indigenous Ruins near Cafayate, Argentina.

A sunny Patagonian day on the road between Puerto Madryn and Esquel, Argentina

Driving over 15,650 ft Agua Negra Pass on the Chile-Argentina border - We made it!

Spending time with the Reynolds family and their 76' bus "John Lemon" in Pucon, Chile.
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Living, lovin, and traveling in our 77' bus "Mango" for 2 years in Mexico, Central and South America. http://www.chanatrek.com

[davelarue]

wow! thats absolutely amazing! like*1000000

[Bleyseng]

Nice trip! On your way back make a detour and stop in Suriname to visit me.
You can go on a dugout trip into the jungle interior and stay with the Maroons.

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70 Ghia Black convert-9/69 build date-stock w/133k 1600 SP-barn find now with a rebuilt tranny and engine
77 Westy 2.0L w/Ljet, Camper Special engine-95hp and with LSD!(sold)
76 Porsche 914 2.1L L20c, 120hp Djet (sold)
87 Syncro Westy Titan Red 2.1L 2 knob 100k miles

[Barnstormer]

Excellent! What a great adventure.
My jealousy meter just pegged off the scale.
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1968 Doublecab 1600DP

[patayres]

Inspiring! Keep the great photos coming...
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1975 Westfalia Helsinki - 1800 EFI w/ Pertronix
1965 Singlecab - 1600dp

yuthi'so'coro

[infantibus]

those are some gorgeuous photos. very cool
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73 Westy auto "Rotten Loaf"

[kampalm]

[skid]

Looks like it was a lot of fun! I love that llama pic the best.
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'71 Westfalia

[Chanatrek]

[blitz18qb]

Quality...

Looks like your literally living the dream...


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Wilma - 1979 Adventurewagen - 2.0 Automatic

[regis101]

That's some serious altitude. My stockish FI 78 Westy has a hard time at 6500'. You were pushing double that.

Thanks for the pic's.
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Peace, Regis

[RIOMX]

People like yourselves are an inspiration and a huge reason for why I'm so dedicated to VW buses. It's great to see people living the dream and life to the fullest!

[Conquest]

I've been reading your blog off and on for the last week, starting from the beginning... I'm half way through. Great stuff guys... lots of great info for anybody thinking about making this trip.

I've always wanted to make a trip like this... but with our first kid on the way and other responsibilities it doesn't look like it's going to happen so I appreciate you two sharing your experience for others to live vicariously through your trip.

A few little things...

Stop calling the bus a "car" or "van"!

One of the pics in your header show your bus with an orange top, but so far it's still white. I guess I'll have to wait to see why it got painted.

Also, did you ask Marti the German octogenarian mechanic in Guatemala how he ended up in Central America? I bet there's an interesting story there, but I doubt he'd share it. Maybe I'm the only one always suspicious of WWII generation Germans that emigrated there. I was also surprised that he cut a hole to access the fuel tank... quick, but hacky.

I'd love to see more bus pictures, like how you've customized things to make it comfortable for two years of traveling.
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'78 Westy

[barefootwestie]

[BajaCapt]

Wow, that's is some awesome photography, I can only imagine what fulfilling experience this trip must be. Mango seems to be holding up great at the mammoth task of crossing the American continent.
Thank you for sharing this with us and also thanks for the link to your website, which by the way, has some breathtaking photography along with the very interesting content. Did you take the pictures? if so, may I ask you what camera are you using? Thanks!

Jose.

[wxm1873]

Wow amazing photos , will check the blog out
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1979 LHD Westfalia , Berlin Interior

[Chanatrek]

Hello, there's been a few question lately so I'll try to post some replies here.

Our bus, Mango, originally had an orange pop-top roof that had a chunk missing out of the fiberglass. One of the rotating photos on our website shows Ana and me in front of the orange-roofed Mango the day we purchased her. The previous owner had an extra holeless white roof that he intended to install. He gave it to us when we purchased Mango and we installed the new roof a few months later before the trip. Hence, the two roof colors.

We probably call the bus a "car" a lot on our website because that's how we identify it in everyday situations here. "Bus" is a word in Spanish, but the person we're talking to usually thinks we're driving a giant school bus if we use that word. "VW Kombi" works pretty well in most of the countries we've visited. Fulgon, van, camioneta, casa rodante, casilla rodante also work pretty well. I've learned to call the VW bus a "Bulli" if I'm talking to anyone from Germany or Austria. Anyways, lots of different names for the VW bus depending on which country you happen to be in.

Thanks for the compliments on the photos. The camera I use is the Canon 40D DSLR. My lens is the kit 18-55 mm image stabilized lens. I use this lens because it's cheap and because Ana won't let me buy anything more expensive because I've broken two lens' on this trip! I also have a 70-300 mm IS lens which I like to use for people and animal shots. It's nice because I can zoom in from far away without changing the emotion of the moment. That lens I haven't broken yet luckily!

No worries, we're only joking about driving Mango off a cliff at the end of the trip. We're 90% sure we'll be shipping her home. The sell or give away option would always take priority over the "cliff plunge" idea.

Traveling with kids. It can and is being done. We've met a lot of families here traveling with kids. The easiest time seems to actually be before they've started school, as no home-schooling is needed. People travel with older kids though too. One reason we did this trip now was because we thought it would be impossible with kids, but now we've seen otherwise. A lot of the families we've met with kids have been French families. It seems to be fairly popular in France to travel with your children.

German Octogenarians in Central and South America. I can't say for certain, but I'm pretty sure Marti the Guatemala City mechanic was a "legitimate" immigrant. I somewhat remember him telling me a story about coming for vacation/adventure and then meeting a girl... Just like a lot of other countries in the world, there are a lot of immigrants in Central and South America who came for a better or different life from where they were previously. Argentina is a country with more European immigrants than indigenous population. It goes both ways, we met a man a few weeks ago who left Chile for Europe in the 1970s because of the political oppression from the dictatorship in Chile at that time.

Customizing the bus for travel: I don't have any pictures up yet on what we did, but I do have a description at the bottom of this webpage.
http://chanatrek.com/?page_id=180
One of my future projects is to put some photos up as well.

We just enjoyed a 4 day weekend celebrating with Argentinians over their countries' 200 year anniversary. Lots of blue and white flags on houses all over the country. The campground we stayed at was almost at capacity for the weekend, with lots of people grilling Asado beef and sipping Mate, a tea-like drink. Nice people and nice memories. We also met a few VW enthusiasts in the campground, and I think we have a couple of places to stay later when we get to Buenos Aires.

Here's an unrelated picture I like from a few weeks back. The VW bus is 76' Chilean, the two drivers are Swiss, the hitchhikers are Mexican and German, my wife and I are American, and we're all at a gas station in Rio Gallegos, Argentina. Small world!

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Living, lovin, and traveling in our 77' bus "Mango" for 2 years in Mexico, Central and South America. http://www.chanatrek.com

[Chanatrek]

If you're looking for a fun VW travel blog, check out http://lovepineapple2011.blogspot.com/

It's written by Craig and Emily, two Americans driving around Central America in their 1985 Vanagon Camper named "The Pineapple." They had some VW mechanical issues in Guatemala and ended up camping at the ever-helpful Caribe Motores in Guatemala City. How many mechanics have you been to that let you camp in the front yard, behind a barbed wire fence, with a guard shack and two guard dogs? They even have hi-speed wi-fi inside the van, and shop owner Yergin and his wife offered to let them stay at their weekend house. How's that for hospitality! Also, check out Craig's letter to Honduran President Porfirio Lobo Sosa regarding some less-than professional frisking by the police at: http://lovepineapple2011.blogspot.com/2011/03/police-should-never-make-you-take-your.html

Good luck Craig and Emily as you head into Mexico!
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Living, lovin, and traveling in our 77' bus "Mango" for 2 years in Mexico, Central and South America. http://www.chanatrek.com