[Above: The ferry terminal in La Paz, Mexico, where we spent the good part of a day trying -- unsuccessfully -- to get our papers in order.]

Journal by Chanda Baggarly

No one at this morning's briefing would have known that at 2:45pm today Justin, Nancy, and Neil would become the proud owners of LONGITUDE Expedition vehicles.

We got up early this morning with a plan. We would rise at 9am at our beach front camping grounds, pack up our Hannibal tents and head down to the Port of La Paz. Today we ship to Mazatlan. This would be the first of many ship dates for us.

Some of us had shipped vehicles from La Paz before. We knew that the process was pretty straightforward…you drive up to the port, show some official-looking paper work, weigh the vehicles, pay, and board a giant colorful ship that would float you for 15 hours across the Sea of Cortez.

Most of that did happen today. We drove up to the port and showed our official looking paperwork. While Nick, Todd and Neil were showing off this paperwork to the port authorities the rest of us hung out in the Port of La Paz parking lot. There we met a friendly globe-trekking Canadian couple who told us that they had been trying to ship their vehicle for three days but because of unexpected paperwork and lack of proper rubber-stamped pages, they had been turned away each day. Every day a curve ball was thrown their way, and today’s curveball required a stamp on their tourist cards from, of all places, a bank.

Even after hearing the plight of the Canadians, we didn’t think that we would have a problem boarding today, we had, after all, called a head for reservations and made sure that our paperwork was in order. Or did we…? We even sent in the ‘big guns’ to negotiate the shipping details---Nick, our charming and persistent leader, Todd--our good will ambassador and negotiator, and Neil--our bilingual ace in the hole.

The ship to Mazatlan sails everyday around 3pm, it was noon and we were still waiting for Nick, Todd and Neil to emerge from the Port Authority office. No problem though, we had 3 hours before the ship sails. Around 2:30pm, just when those of us who were left to amuse ourselves in the parking lot started to get a little antsy, Todd came bounding out of the PA office and headed straight for the “office box“. The office box is one of Nick’s ideas, it’s a large box with all of our office supplies, including all the little stuff like paper clips and scissors, it also includes software and cables, and, holy cow!, a color printer. It was one of those ideas where you know it’s silly and impractical but you smile and nod just the same thinking the one behind the idea will come around to your way of thinking on their own. Anyway, Todd was headed full speed to the office box. A curve ball had been thrown and now we had an assignment.

The vehicles are registered to Drive Around the World, and only the registered owner of the vehicles can drive them on mainland Mexico… makes sense in a way, but who knew? Our assignment was to create and print up official looking documents that authorized other members of the team to drive vehicles that belong to the organization. The documents were created in minutes -- they included authorization from Nick, driver names and passport numbers. Only twenty minutes to go. Time to print. A statement that is, in my experience, easier said than done -- especially when you are printing out of the back of a car in a Mexican sea port parking lot. It was as if the printer sensed our urgency and panicked. Each page out of the printer looked like the baffles of an accordion. 15 minutes and three Drive Around the World printer repair technicians later, we had our official looking documents.

Todd ran them into the PA office with just minutes to spare. The documents were perfect, we got the thumbs up from the PA folks and they would have accepted them had they been notarized… ugh!

It was Sunday and all of the notary offices were closed. 5 minutes before the ship departed, most of us had resigned ourselves to staying in La Paz an extra day and being another day off schedule…until Nancy suggested that we sign over the vehicles to three team members. Brilliant! Off we went back to the PA office, pen in hands.

The PA supported this plan so we signed the vehicles over to Nancy, Justin, and Neil. Ran the paperwork over to the Banjercito, which is across the parking lot. The Banjercito is the only place in Mexico that is authorized to approve temporary import of vehicles into Mexico. All of us crowded around the walk-up window of the Banjercito expecting to find a friendly Mexican lady waiting to help us and not the red and white plastic sign that read “Cerrato”. The Banjercito closed at 2:30.

Okay, so we sail tomorrow…or do we?

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Travel tips:

For temporary vehicle import into Mexico, the following paperwork is required:

--Original vehicle titles foreach vehicle (+ 3 copies)
--Vehicle registration (+ 3 copies)
--Three copies of each drivers passport, driver license, and tourist card
--One copy of each driver’s credit card
--Notarized letter, authorizing each driver to drive the organization’s vehicles (+ 3 copies)
--This paper work must be provided to Banjercito. The fee was 336.50 pesos per vehicle.
--The Banjercito closes at 2:30pm.

Logbook for November 16th
Start: La Paz, Mexico (Tecolote Beach)
Finish: La Paz, Mexico (Tecolote Beach)
Mileage: 37

Help support our cause: Drive Around the World aims to raise money for Parkinson’s Disease research by taking four certified pre-owned Land Rover Discoverys around the globe following lines of longitude. Readers are encouraged to pledge small amounts of money per expedition-mile via a pledge form that can be found on our Parkinson’s page by clicking here. Everyone making a pledge of $10 or more to raise money for the Parkinson’s Institute will be put in a raffle to win an expedition-style Land Rover.