LA RUTA MAYA 2001
MEXICO, BELIZE, & GUATEMALA
La Ruta Maya 2001: The expedition that started it all. After years of exploring the Rocky Mountains and the American West, we decided to go bigger, to explore further with our Land Rovers. We got rid of our NAS Defender 90. The two seats and finite storage were too limiting. The 35" mud terrains and overly compliant suspension, while great for rock crawling, wasn't up to the task of carrying heavy expedition loads over thousands of miles of unknown terrain. In its place, we bought and outfitted Camel, a 1995 Land Rover Discovery that we initially built as a Camel Trophy replica (but soon took on a direction of its own).
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The official starting point of the expedition was the Land Rover Houston dealership, where we would drive with members of the Houston Land Rover Club the length of Mexico and into the jungles of Belize and Guatemala.
"Camel" and the XD "Big Bird" at the entrance to Tikal National Park in the Petén region of Northern Guatemala.
Everyone gathered together for the big send off at Land Rover Houston. Both Dustin and Nathan were running on "Hindman Time" and arrived about 20 minutes late. Dustin was late because he needed to go to AAA to get Mexican and Central American Insurance.
Evidently, the company he had been working with for the past week (Sanborne's of Brownsville) had been dragging their feet on the paperwork. When Friday, the day before departure, came around Dustin called only to be informed that the woman taking care of his paperwork had just quit and they couldn't get him insurance in time... the adventure begins.
After a short driver's meeting/orientation and a photo opportunity in front of the dealership, it was time to make a run for the border, 11 vehicles in all.
Exploring the remote ruins of Noh Muhl in Belize. Sadly, this ruin as later demolished by the Belize government so the limestone could be used as building materials for a road.
Traveling through a remote jungle track in the Maya Mountains.
Traveling through a remote jungle track in the Maya Mountains.