From Mexico to the end of the world we have managed to:

• share ridiculously small spaces and not kill each other (5 weeks, 4 adults, 120 square feet and a cold shower
• listen to the most amazing music mixes including Jolene and Dreadlock Holiday
• ship cars from Central America to South America and have them arrive to the right port
• deal with inane border bureaucracy smoothly
• work the system to find the best accommodation deals
• stumble through language issues with the locals (between 4 of us we managed)
• survive unsafe handling of fireworks
• sample as many wines as possible in South America
• create the best website about driving the Americas
• whine about what we miss from home
• handle long blamming drives
• laugh through every crazy and funny bit of it!

These two have made our trip all the more special and saying goodbye (only for now) was pretty sad but all of us know we will meet up again soon…Carnaval 2011 we hope!

Some delightful pics of our amigos we like to call “Los Rubios” (the blonde ones).

Who the hell is Vesper?

It was actually Tom who spotted this jacket and suggested I try it on.  The sleeves were a tiny bit short but with a bit of chatting the lady at the shop managed to get the sleeves lengthened in 24 hours.  And I came away with a custom tailored, 100% wool jacket and a couple of skeins of lovely Ecuadorian yarn for $60 USD.

Maybe it’s because we are both feeling the nasty pain of too much wine last night but right now I am really missing my coconut water – the world’s best natural hangover cure.  Brazilians drink agua de coco like it is going out of style and you will find fresh coconuts stacked high on nearly every street corner ready to be struck open by three deft machete chops. Apparently you need one coconut for a regular-sized hangover (two if you got blitzed) to start your recovery.

Cool and refreshing, with a hint of sweetness, coconut water rehydrates your body – at least that is what the Brazilians claim.  Naturally fat-free and low in calories coconut water contains 5 essential electrolytes.  It is a great alternative to drinking fluorescent-flavoured sports drinks that claim to make you fly.  If you cannot find the real thing or don’t want to drive with a coconut in your hand, Kero Coco is the next best choice in Brazil (in the US you can track down some here).

Clos … I like to give it a slightly Germanic drawl so it sounds like house. We first heard about Concha Y Toro wines from Luisa, a retired dancer from New York, who put us up in Mexico City – ‘you can get a decent bottle of red for six bucks’.

Living by the beach and watching our budget at Bob’s place in Costa Rica we found the Concha Y Toro line again, this time as Clos de Pirque and in a one-litre tetra pack … travel friendly! Clos also made a solid showing in Mancora, Peru when we hung out with Al for a few days waiting for the swell.

Al did get in touch with us after we left Mancora…  “By the way I met a German guy who told me Clos in German is slang for toilet (bog, shitter, dunnie) you get the picture. Still enjoying the odd glass though.” And while it’s not winning any wine awards it has to be said that Clos is a real backpacker favorite, this resealable, nonbreakable and fairly drinkable gem will only set you back about 3 dollars.

]]> http://joydrive.ca/2009/07/21/joyful-find-clos/feed/ 2 http://joydrive.ca/2009/06/22/joyful-find-a-decent-mechanic-in-panama-city/ http://joydrive.ca/2009/06/22/joyful-find-a-decent-mechanic-in-panama-city/#comments Mon, 22 Jun 2009 20:36:42 +0000 tom http://joydrive.ca/?p=1561 His name is Carlos Daviz but everyone calls him Lito, he’s a mechanic in Panama City and he knows six English words; Working, Today, Tomorrow, Bucks, Drinking, and Racing. He also knows and loves his VW’s.

We had a broken front shock and we were driving a punishing goat track in the forgotten back blocks of Panama’s Pacific coast – cringing and swearing as a multitude of unavoidable potholes battered our suspension. Sweating over some of the steeper inclines that demanded a preemptive reckless speed, there was no way back, we had to keep going.

That ‘road’ finally exited us onto a well paved, rolling country lane and we glided into Santa Catalina an hour and a half later, which softened the nightmare detour and gave us some hope of reaching Panama City where we could replace the part.

By chance, in Panama City, we ran into Slim Ferguson – an automatic transmission guy, who said he could replace our shock but that he knew a guy who would really enjoy working on our little VW … his name was Lito.

A slight man with a ready smile, Lito walked out of his shop, lifted the hood and whistled through his teeth. Shaking his head with an adoptive pride he looked at the dusty tangle of aging parts and smiled broadly… ‘What a warrior’ he said ‘what a warrior!’ which set Slim into fits of laughter.

Lito worked on our Volkswagen Golf for two days, only accepting payment for parts, ‘thirty-five bucks’. When he was finished he signed the engine and put a Panama flag next to his signature, then he took us on a guided tour of Panama City with his wife.

Cheers Lito, you’re a legend!

The past few months we have been outside surfing and soaking up the sunshine.  Worried about wrinkles I was pleased to find Ocean Potion.  This powerful face sunblock (clear zinc oxide) protects against both UVA and UVB rays, is water resistant for up to 80 minutes and doesn’t sting your eyes when you are out in the water!

We bought two containers in Costa Rica, priced at about $5 a pop.  Since both of us have been getting maximum sun exposure an entire jar has already disappeared, however at home I think this little puppy would last quite a while. Ocean Potion is readily available in the US – I can’t seem to find a Canadian retailer but it is sold online here.

Often the Mayan fabric, thought intricate and impressive, has pretty brash colours, at least to my eye, so when I saw a hand-woven scarf with rich purples mixed with bright lime greens and tiny details of teal I was interested to find out who made them.  Leave it to the French to track down a women’s co-operative of weavers, suggest a few modern colour combinations and, as they say, Voila!  Amazing fabrics in great colours.  Bela explained where the co-op was (well sort of) and we decided to track it down before we left.

On a whim, after returning from a visit to San Juan Chamula, I pulled Tom off the bus in the middle of nowhere convinced that the co-op was close at hand.  The soccer field and a white building where the two main landmarks Bela mentioned and after a bit of aimless wandering a group of construction workers pointed us in the right direction.

We arrived to a few small buildings, a play park and a couple of cars.  We poked around and were greeted by friendly gal who took us straight to the stock room.  Shelves from floor to ceiling were jam-packed with thousands of scarves, table linens, bags, tea-towels and shawls. It was pretty overwhelming and even more overwhelming to think every item was woven by hand, thread by thread.  We treated ourselves to a few things.

Jolom Mayaetik, meaning “Mayan Women Weavers”, is a co-operative made up of 250 women from 11 different communities within the Chiapas Highlands.  A group of three women from each community form a General Assembly. The General assembly represents the co-op with different organizations in both Mexico and other parts of the world.  The women in Jolom Mayaetik are trained on the back-strap loom as well as the pedal loom and, for some, the sewing machine.  Many of the women receive training in book-keeping, administration and design.

The products at this collective are by far some of the nicest weavings I have seen thus far.  Expect to pay fair prices, quite a bit more than in the markets.  You can check them out here (though the link seems to be down at the moment) or if you are in San Cristobal take a bus to La Quinta San Martin, get off at San Martin, walk to the right until you come to a big white house.

As a lover of tea (especially chai), I was pretty ecstatic when Krista mentioned a cinnamon tea grown on a local cooperative in Guatemala. At her suggestion I asked our lovely host mom, Sonia, if she might be able to tell me where to buy Te Chirrepeco, and she was quick to tell me that she would buy and prepare it for Tom and I. I tried my best to dissuade her from actually buying the tea but she refused to listen—and every morning till the day we left there was piping hot cinnamony-goodness waiting for us!

This little box makes twelve cups of tea and costs about twenty cents. All that’s required is to boil some water with a few cinnamon sticks, add a few leaves and let it steep for a while. Not only does it taste amazing but, according to the cooperative website, some of the health properties include:

1. Strengthens mental capacity
2. Increases energy
3. It eliminates the bodies absorption of heavy metals like lead and mercury
4. Helps to reduce cholesterol levels
5. Contributes to the decrease in uric acid and much more

It is an absolutely divine tea and great for cold mornings in Xela. If you are interested if buying some I believe you should be able to order it here.

One of the reason for Joyful Finds is to try and discover items different from the typical tourist paraphernalia…really one can only buy so many beaded necklaces. While in San Marcos I noticed some scarves made by a company called Lento, I admired them but decided not to buy one. Then, in Antigua, I stumbled across the Lento store so we stopped in to check it out.

Created by a group of Italian women in collaboration with a group of Mayan women, the Lento products are coloured using Mayan dyeing techniques. The 100% natural dyes are sourced from plants found in the Lago Atitlan area.

I decided to make a purchase right around Christmas time and chose this lovely grey bag. It even fits my Digital SLR so I don’t have to carry around my geeky camera bag!