Central America & Mexico Recce

The 4x4 World Explorer Central America & Mexico will be launched on the 16th Feb 09 in Kuala Lumpur by the Undersecretary, Americas Division Datuk Mohd Nor Atan and His Excellency Jorge Alberto Lozoya, Mexico Ambassador to Malaysia.

Immediately after the Media Launch, Linus, 1$ and myself will fly out to do the 2nd recce for the event. Linus will check out the ground arrangements for Mexico, starting from mexico City going up north to Gudalajara, Mazatlan, to check the ferry crossing to the Baja California Peninsula.

1$ and myself will fly into Cartagena, Colombia to arrange the shipment of the 6 trucks left behind after the South America event, to Puerto Limon, Costa Rica. We are targeting to have the trucks shipped out on the week of 21st - 25th Feb. After the shipment has gone, we will fly into San Jose, Costa Rica and travel to Puerto Limon, some 350 kms from San Jose, to arrange with Forwarding Agent to clear the trucks out after 5 days of sailing along the Carribean Coast.

We hope to collect the trucks, store them in a warehouse at the port. We will use my trucks to recce the route from san Jose to Penas Blancas, the border town of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, to test clearing the vehicle into Nicaragua, customs procedures, costs, etc.

In Nicaragua, we will recce the route into Managua, where we have an appointment with the Mexico Ambassador to Nicaragua to work out final arrangements for the sector.

If time permits, we will recce into Honduras until hopefully Tegucigalpa. If not, we will drive back to San Jose, catch a flight to Managua.

Then, we will join up with Linus in Mexico to recce the southern part of the route from Mexico City to Oaxaca, San Cristibal de Las Casas and back to Mexico City.

We should get back to Los Angeles for our final appointment with the US Customs and Border Protection for formalities and requirements for land entry via Tijuana, mexico to San Diego, California.

Around the 6th March, we will stopover at Shanghai, to check out the scene there, as for the event, the group will spent 1 night at Shanghai.

Hectic schedule. Long Live Adventure and The World Explorer Series.

For details of the event, www.world-explorer.net is the place to go.

Thomas Foo