OverlandSphere » Drive Nacho Drive

Driving (away from) China and The Silk Road

Drive Nacho Drive — Mon, 20 May 2013 11:29:01 +0000

If I’ve been doing a good job at promoting it, you know that we’ve been trying to raise money through Kickstarter to write a book about traversing China and the Silk Road in Nacho. We were attempting to raise $25,602 to cover the cost of permission to enter China twice with a government-approved guide. After thirty days of fundraising, you…

Revenge of the Monkeys

Drive Nacho Drive — Sat, 18 May 2013 05:41:27 +0000

“It’s all about trust. And when it comes to monkeys, I have none.“ — Anthony Bourdain This is a good quote to live by. I should have learned my lesson a few weeks ago. Brad and I had just awoken and were strolling down a sleepy street in Cherating when we saw kitten sized baby monkeys swinging in the trees…

Lost at Sea

Drive Nacho Drive — Wed, 08 May 2013 17:58:37 +0000

With every wave that crashed over the bow, our small boat took on more water. The panic on our young captain’s face shattered any hope that we would make it out of this tropical depression without a miracle, and my brain wouldn’t stop humming the theme from Gilligan’s Island. I wonder how the brain can have a sense of humor…

One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish…what the #*@!?

Drive Nacho Drive — Wed, 01 May 2013 07:17:57 +0000

After a stifling day, young people loitered on the cement wall alongside the coast enjoying the sea breeze and eating take away from the bustling outdoor market just a parking lot away. Down below, a mess of boulders formed a wave break. Cats pounced between the rocks, unhindered by their strangely peculiar tails; some were stumps, others crooked, and a…

The Dreamer

Drive Nacho Drive — Wed, 24 Apr 2013 17:35:45 +0000

The sound of jungle insects reverberated through the dense, humid night air. A slow loris crept along an overhead electrical wire strung between a tall wooden pole and a cinderblock structure where a woman cooked rice and noodles for the few people who lived around these parts. The loris stopped midway across the wire to give us a wide-eyed stare,…

What to do, What to do

Drive Nacho Drive — Tue, 23 Apr 2013 12:27:22 +0000

In our next blog post, you’ll read about a guy we met named Hairi. After spending a couple of days with this man, who lived in a tent in the jungle with his family, we were really inspired. His life has been a continuous string of achievements that didn’t seem possible for someone without any money who lives in a…

Kickstarter to the Silk Road

Drive Nacho Drive — Thu, 18 Apr 2013 03:23:35 +0000

Nine months ago while Sheena and I were stranded in the Colombian mountains, we made a decision. If Nacho ever made it through South America, we would ship to Europe instead of our original plan of shipping to Asia. Things were getting difficult, and we needed a break. From Europe, if things got hard, we could always turn around and…

The Coprophiliac’s Fruit

Drive Nacho Drive — Fri, 12 Apr 2013 02:38:39 +0000

The depth of my knowledge about Singapore up until about a week ago was gathered from the news in the 1990′s, and from reading Paul Theroux books. I knew that the entire structure and inner workings of the city state were conceived by one person, a sort of Wizard of Oz deciding what would fly and what wouldn’t. I knew…

The Apprentice

Drive Nacho Drive — Tue, 02 Apr 2013 05:04:17 +0000

“I think team Apec was totally corny. The way that the girl flung her arms around-” “Cut! Can we roll that again? Listen, the team’s name is ‘Apex’, not ‘Apec’,” the director said. “Oh, okay, sorry about that. Apex? Got it.” “Three…two…one…ACTION!” “I think team Apex was totally corny. The way that the girl, like, flung her arms around and…

Hand to Mouth

Drive Nacho Drive — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 11:40:46 +0000

Like all of the businesses on the block, the lights were out. All of the shop owners had migrated out to the streets, conversing with others, watching the night continue on. We eventually left the moonlight and entered a restaurant that was five shades darker inside than the sky was outside. A wall of heat and humidity built up like…

Malaysian Invasion

Drive Nacho Drive — Mon, 18 Mar 2013 14:38:37 +0000

It’s early afternoon and the sun is high overhead, heating the humid air into a sauna that speckles our shirts with perspiration. Vines climb from the ground into the canopy of a tree, out across the limbs, and then dangle in the air above our heads. We sit on a bench and watch people go by. A Chinese couple passes,…

Dirty Money, Clean Getaway

Drive Nacho Drive — Thu, 14 Mar 2013 23:14:35 +0000

It shouldn’t have taken me as long as it did to realize that I was not sitting face to face with a stock broker, as I had been told, but with a boss in a money laundering ring. After five months of selling illegal currency on Argentina’s black market I should have been less naïve, but clearly I was no…

Meeting the Magellanics

Drive Nacho Drive — Wed, 13 Mar 2013 21:20:37 +0000

It was after hours and the sun was beginning to set. The park hours on the entrance clearly stated they were closed. However no gate stopped us from continuing forward. We wound down the dirt road through the rolling desert brush. Along the 20 mile stretch, signs were posted at every curve in the road: “Do not stop or get…

The End of the Road

Drive Nacho Drive — Mon, 11 Mar 2013 00:08:00 +0000

The air smelled of salt and the wind whipped my hair into a blazing Jerry curl as I stood at the bow of the ferry. The low moan of the engines rose and fell with each passing wave. It had been 42 months since I stood at my desk at work and sporadically blurted out the question that would change…

Falling Buildings and Tidal Waves

Drive Nacho Drive — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 17:23:12 +0000

Brad and I had waited a long time to see this place, and now, as we sipped our Nescafe, we peered into the distance in awe. Butterflies raced in my stomach and my mind was filled with anticipation. The feeling wasn’t so much caused by the view, but by the set of vocal pipes on this thing. It creaked and…

The Worst Day of My Life

Drive Nacho Drive — Tue, 05 Mar 2013 15:13:28 +0000

My trembling hands did their best to keep my pint of ale from spilling across the rough hewn wooden table. The day was cold, but despite being indoors I couldn’t warm up. The exhilaration followed by such tragedy had sapped my body of its ability to regulate blood flow to my chilly extremities, but it wasn’t the cold that caused…

Nacho of the High Seas

Drive Nacho Drive — Sun, 03 Mar 2013 15:04:29 +0000

“When you get to the top of a wall, there’s nothing up there…the end result is absolutely useless. But every time I travel I learn something new, and hopefully I get to be a better person.” - Yvon Chouinard, 180° South We slept very little on account of the wind, tossing Nacho about like Shackleton’s rowboat. I drank my coffee,…

Searching for Little Cowboy Gil

Drive Nacho Drive — Thu, 28 Feb 2013 18:35:18 +0000

In Ecuador I bought a painting. It was a messy chaotic scene. In Argentina, a similar style painting would go something like this: a flat sheet of desert surrounded by snowcapped peaks. Grapes droop from a tangle of vines in one corner. Stray dogs happily run in packs down the street. In the hills gauchos ride their horses, checking the…

A Couple of Rejects

Drive Nacho Drive — Mon, 11 Feb 2013 06:57:34 +0000

It was a blustery day in 1997. Brad Pitt plodded through the mountains in tattered footwear, his worn out jacket proving no match for the icy wind sweeping down from the slopes of Aconcagua – South America’s highest peak. While the film he was making was called Seven Years in Tibet, he was actually in Argentina, just a few miles…

Sheena in the Sky with Diamonds

Drive Nacho Drive — Mon, 04 Feb 2013 15:17:33 +0000

It’s late morning and the desert sun is already high overhead. The dirt crunches under our tires and swirls up behind the van as we head out of town to the East, leaving the desert outpost of San Pedro de Atacama behind. We stop on the outskirts of town to surrender our importation paperwork to the Customs office; it’s 165…

Shakira Man

Drive Nacho Drive — Fri, 18 Jan 2013 11:14:21 +0000

Nacho rests serenely at the mirador above the Valley of the Moon, the shadows from the jagged cliffs spilling like water into the dry valley as the sun begins its slow slide below the horizon. Inside, Brad and Sheena sit on the couch; Shakira is on the stereo. They both gyrate their hips to the music. It’s not a tasteful…

Saltier than the Sea

Drive Nacho Drive — Mon, 14 Jan 2013 17:41:53 +0000

“You know, when I was a kid living in Chino Valley, I often ducked fences so that I could go and lick the salt blocks that the farmers set out for the cows. I licked them all the time. I didn’t mind sharing with the cows. They were so good.” Brad wasn’t ashamed. He loved salt. In Nacho we have…

Death Road to Machu Picchu

Drive Nacho Drive — Sun, 06 Jan 2013 19:14:52 +0000

When I was in sixth grade I went on a school field trip to Peru. When I say it out loud it sounds like I was one of those kids that everyone loves to hate; some spoiled brat who went to a high dollar institution with tasteful school uniforms. In reality I lived in the quaint meth lab town of…

Matchbox Maniac

Drive Nacho Drive — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 16:06:13 +0000

Desert coastlines have always intrigued me. Two seemingly different environments, yet they make an appearance together on occasion. They are an odd couple. They are no peanut butter and jelly or tea and scones, but they work. Once we left Lima’s city limits, where green lawns, bushes of flowers and palm trees were on sprinkler system life support, the frigid…

What Happens in Lima

Drive Nacho Drive — Sun, 16 Dec 2012 22:19:19 +0000

Elderly Woman Behind a Counter in a Small Town There are many interesting things about Alex. Jeff and Amy had given us his phone number in an email, told us we should look him up. As a gift for finishing his Master’s degree in mathematics, Jeff and Amy – both math professors at NAU – brought Alex to Mexico City,…

The Saddest Desert Clown

Drive Nacho Drive — Wed, 12 Dec 2012 21:30:27 +0000

The moment the man spoke, I knew we were in for a ride. He had been standing there harassing another vehicle, and was just finishing up when he saw us coming slowly up the hill toward him. Immediately he snapped to attention, dollar signs in his eyes, and frantically waved us over. As the police officer approached our window he…

Way Up High in Hatun Machay

Drive Nacho Drive — Sun, 09 Dec 2012 21:48:04 +0000

An Austrian with crisp blue eyes and a full red beard chopped firewood outside in his lederhosen and flip flops. Cold air cut through us. It was close to freezing and the sun still hadn’t set. Questioning where we were, Brad glanced at the GPS. No wonder Nacho was misbehaving, we were almost at 14,000 feet. Hundreds of sheep swarmed…

Mr. Toad’s Wild Ride

Drive Nacho Drive — Wed, 28 Nov 2012 20:06:54 +0000

As evening set in, I stood outside of the van loading supplies into our backpacks. I divided the tent, sleeping bags, stove, and other supplies carefully into each of our bags so as to equalize the weight. We had removed every ounce of unnecessary material, eliminated a tent stake or two, all in the interest of saving weight. Finally it…

Ride the Reed

Drive Nacho Drive — Sun, 25 Nov 2012 22:43:48 +0000

With one deep exhale, I stripped the sheets off and sat up in bed. I tied my hair back, slipped on the previous day’s clothes, walked into my flip flops, and slung the camera over my shoulder. I pointed my body down the stairs, turned left, and walked a block, intersecting with Huanchaco’s desolate beach. The waves crashed down in…

The Robbery

Drive Nacho Drive — Sun, 18 Nov 2012 17:30:57 +0000

NOTE: This blog falls out of chronological order. While our last blog was written about our trip through Cañon del Pato, Peru, this one jumps past the next several stories and takes place in the present. I’m trying to catch up on blogs, but decided that this one should come next, despite its being out of chronological order. We’ve been…