[Above: Drive Around the World vehicles finally make their way onto the ferry bound for Mazatlan.]

Journal by Neil Dana

The ferry, the ferry -- the dang ferry!!! I guess from all the traveling I have done in my life, I shouldn't have expected anything less than our wonderful experience at the ferry terminal in La Paz. As you read yesterday, we couldn't get on the ferry because our vehicles were all under Nick's name. It is the law here in Mexico that as a tourist on a tourist visa, you may only drive one car in Mexico. We have four, and they are all registered and owned by Nick, so they wouldn't let us on the ferry. After trying to talk to the officials and deal with them all day yesterday, we came to the conclusion that we had to get three documents signed by a notary stating that Nick gave us permission to drive the other three vehicles. We could have also just transferred the title over, but by the time we figured that out, the person who gave out the car permits was already gone for the day.

So anyway, today, Monday, I awoke in our roof tent to a very gorgeous sunrise and the wind blowing about 15 knots right through our tent. It was a refreshing breeze, keeping away all the gnats, no-see-ums, and mosquitoes, and blew in through the front of our tent and on out the back. It was a slice of heaven, about 65 degrees outside, and the sounds of the lapping ripples of the Sea of Cortez filled the air. I had just awoken from a wild adventurous dream of swinging on vines through foreign lands and chasing down the evil in the world.

So there I was, just gazing into the sea and white sand and soaking in a few minutes of the blissful surroundings. A few moments later, Justin walked up and said hello and told me that we needed to get ready soon to head into La Paz and deal with obtaining our notary signatures. This was our agenda for the day. It seemed pretty simple, go to La Paz, find a lawyer, hand her over the papers, get the stamps, and go to the ferry terminal and get on the boat.

Well, in Mexico, nothing is simple -- or then again, some things are so simple that people don't think to send you in the right direction ahead of time, thus carving an extravagant maze out of what should have been one single square hedge.

Nick, Nancy, Justin and I drove to La Paz and headed toward one of the plazas in the center of town, looking for a lawyer's office. One police officer told us there was one in a building nearby, which of course wasn't correct. But after going into the building and interrupting a meeting, the perturbed lady told us where we could find one. So off we headed, and of course didn't find that one, but finally spotted another and walked inside. The woman inside of this office told us to go down the road another few blocks, where we would see a notary office. We got back in our vehicle and we finally did spot the notary. Yeah!!

We were excited, and we were on schedule and things were going well. Once inside, the lawyer, a woman, came up to us and I explained to her what we needed and she looked at our documents. "I am sorry, but you have to have these documents in Spanish." Now, the frustration really started to settle in our veins. Not only did we have to translate our documents, we couldn't do it there at her office. And we were on a time crunch!

Luckily, there was an Internet cafe a block away, so we ran over there and began to translate our documents into Spanish. This was going well -- we were a bit stressed about time, but it was going all right. But then we hit the print button, and the printer didn't work. Are you kidding me?! This is too funny. The two ladies at the counter tried unsuccessfully for ten minutes, then their boss came out and after another ten minutes, he finally got the printer running.

So we printed one off, and I ran off to the lawyer's office to make sure this document would do. When I got there, it was a madhouse. There were four ladies walking around, one with headphones talking to someone on the phone and trying to appease a customer at the desk at the same time. The other ladies seemed to be occupied with other things, like telling one of their sisters what groceries to buy. Literally, there were people waiting, and some woman walks in to the office, past the entrance, wearing tight sweats, and the lawyer stops what she is doing to hang out with her friend and discuss groceries.

The lady who I had spoken with earlier kept looking at me, but did not acknowledge me. Finally, after waiting patiently I asked politely, and loudly, in Spanish of course, "Could you please just let me know if this document is OK so I can go tell my team to finish the others?" Thank goodness, it was legitimate.

I ran back over to the Internet cafe and told Nancy we were good to go. She finished off the documents and we all scurried back over the office. Once inside, the lady came up to us and took our documents and asked us for some other forms of I.D. and the process began. Now I thought that getting a few notary stamps would take a few minutes, but of course, we are in La Paz and things move at a much slower pace here. So after 20 minutes of waiting, she told us it would take until the afternoon to finish. I didn't accept that and told her we needed to be at the ferry terminal 30 minutes ago already!! She shrugged her shoulders and gave me a helpless look, then turned to her superior, and yee-haw, she said they could do it in 15 minutes. Well, the next 30 minutes that it actually took seemed like eternity, as Nick fell asleep sitting up in his chair, and Nancy chewed on her sugarcane she picked up out front, and Justin sipped on his warm Coca Cola while writing in his journal. I started taking photos, and the lawyer got embarrassed and smiled and lightened up a bit. Deep down, she loved to be on film -- who doesn't? It was funny.

So finally, we paid $100 for the three notaries and we were off, about 2 hours behind our original plan. When we arrived at the ferry terminal, we went up to the window to receive the car permits, and there were actually no problems. However, we then learned that the ferry that was supposed to run wasn't running anymore. They had decided to clean it today, since the cargo wasn't that large. Are you kidding me? Oh well, I guess we will just have to stay our third night in La Paz and chill out and drink more cerveza.

As luck would have it, at the other end of the docks there was another cargo ferry that was leaving in a few hours. I went a researched it and sure enough, there was a ferry leaving at 5 pm. Perfect.

So we all proceeded to eat some roadside tacos, yummy cookies, and wait another hour to get through the car permit line. Then we passed through customs, paid $200 per vehicle, $40 per person and drove onto the ship.

We were all so stoked to be on this ferry. It would have been another day's delay otherwise. We have to be in Panama on a certain date, and each delay we have cuts into our days off for relaxation.

The ship we are on is a big cargo ship. There is one room inside the boat on the third deck with airline seats set up like an airline, literally. There is a TV at each end of the room, and they have DVD's they play. We started with American Pie 2. We each received two meals with our ticket purchase, which is nice. We had beef, rice, beans and tortillas for dinner.

I went out to the front of the ship and watched the crewmen reel in the anchor and started talking to them and taking pics. They invited me up to the "bridge" where the captain and some pretty ladies were. I hung out up there for a little while and chatted with some Pazenos. About two thirds of the team were set up in the airline seats writing and working on their laptops.

Colin, Adam and I are drinking a few Modelo's and chilling. We are about to go throw a ceremonial "dreadlock" off the edge of the boat into the sea, as Colin spreads his locks all over the globe.

So that’s it for today. I could write more, but I think this is too long already for our daily blogs.

Monday is my journal day -- cheers to Monday!

Logbook for November 17th
Start: La Paz, Mexico (Tecolote Beach)
Finish: Mazatlan, Mexico
Mileage: 30 (driving only; ferry cross the Sea of Cortez)

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.