On the road south of the border

When former Oamaru boy Hayden Carlyon set off from Mexico headed for Argentina, he figured his trusty Honda would leave all his troubles behind him. That was not entirely the case.

One 1995 Honda Accord, one Kiwi (that would be me), a Brazilian and half a Lithuanian.

Eighteen weeks on the road, 15 countries and over 32,000 kilometres.

The perfect recipe for an incredible adventure.

Have you ever been travelling along a highway and wanted to just keep on driving and see where the road took you? To leave all your troubles behind and watch as they shrink into a tiny black dot in your rear-view mirror?

I desperately wanted a real travel experience, a palpable adventure in which I could lose myself.

It was the summer of 2005 and I was passing through Austin, Texas, when I met Alex, a quiet, unassuming 29-year-old computer programmer from Brazil.

He had just moved to Texas and was planning on working in Austin for a year or two to save some money before heading back home.

We quickly became good friends and it wasn't long before I had convinced him to take the long way home and drive the 32,000km across Central and South America to Brazil.

The decision was made, we were to meet back in Austin in the summer of 2007 to start "the road trip of a lifetime".

Fast-forward a couple of years.

I had just finished an arduous year of teaching at what had become one of South Korea's most notorious English-conversation schools.

And with a year of bureaucratic chaos and small-company politics finally behind me, I was back in Austin, Texas.

The plan was simple; buy a cheap, fuel-friendly car, sell everything we owned and hit the road.

First stop, Monterrey in the northeast of Mexico.

But before we had even put a single kilometre on the clock, we hit our first hitch, and it was a big one.

At the 11th hour, Alex's application for a visa to Mexico had been rejected.

It was two days before our departure date and the wheels were beginning to fall off before we even started.

The adventure that I had been dreaming about for the past two years had just been moved up to a whole new level.

I would now have to drive through Mexico by myself and meet Alex in Guatemala two weeks later.

With a Spanish speaking arsenal that consisted of "can I have a beer" and "where is the bathroom", I would have to say that I was a little apprehensive about taking the plunge and driving 5000km across Mexico by myself.

I dropped Alex off at the airport in Austin and he flew direct to Guatemala City.

I was to take the long way and head south to the Mexican border.

By 10am the following morning, I was making good time as I raced south through the Mexican desert on the heavily overpriced private toll roads.

With the first nerve-racking but uneventful border crossing behind me, I was ahead of schedule and well on my way to Durango, 800km south of the US border.

The freedom of being on my own out on the open road was palpable and being able to experience it all in the comfort of my own car made it taste even sweeter.

With the windows down, sunroof open and my iPod shuffling through an eclectic mix of my favourite tunes, I was in heaven - cruising through the ever-changing Mexican countryside and along the picturesque palm-fringed coastline, free to stop whenever and wherever I wanted.

With perfect golden sand beaches, beautiful weather and mouth-watering food, the only thing I was missing was having someone to share the experience with.

By the week's end, I had already made it to Puerto Vallarta, 2000km down the Pacific coast.

And as luck would have it, I met Renata, a young, adventurous and slightly naive Lithuanian traveller who was staying at the same hotel.

Within an hour, armed with my New Zealand accent and small-town charm, I had convinced her to give up her Spanish lessons and salsa classes and drive to Guatemala with me.

She could practise her Spanish on the road but the salsa lessons would have to wait until she returned safely to Puerto Vallarta in a few weeks as promised.

It was perfect: she would get to see the "real" Mexico and travel in style (Honda Accords are a luxury car in Mexico and Lithuania) and I wouldn't have to cross the most notorious border in Central America by myself.

We took our time to enjoy the carnivals and end-of-year celebrations that were in full swing as we slowly wound our way down the coast.

I was unlucky enough to see my first cockfight as we celebrated the Day of the Dead (November 2) in style, at a local fair in a rustic little beachside town just outside the chaotic city of Acapulco.

Five of the angriest-looking roosters I have ever seen were in the middle of a 4m-square wooden pen, barely held back by the knotted strings around their necks.

As the birds were released by their trainers, the hundred-strong crowd of drunk Mexican men cheered with delight, shaking handfuls of pesos in the air as they cheered for their bird.

We watched the voracious roosters peck at each other until they passed out from exhaustion and the triumphant winner sat victoriously on the head of one of the losers.

Before we knew it, a week had flown by and we were at the dreaded Guatemalan border.

I had heard from other travellers that it was a nightmare to cross, with mountains of paperwork, bureaucratic red tape and bribes to pay.

As we drove past the row of overloaded transportation trucks that were lined up waiting to cross the border, people started coming out of nowhere and it wasn't long before our car was surrounded.