How safe is it to travel through Latin America and especially Mexico by vehicle?

‘You know, I opened this campsite to take away travellers’ fear of Mexico,’ Raúl tells us at his ranch in the north of the Baja California peninsula. The ranch is less than an hour away from the border between Mexico and the USA. Many people fear this border. There are travellers who believe that as soon as they drive across, they will be mugged, and a corrupt police officer will be waiting on every corner.

We are at the end of our journey through Mexico. Raúl’s ranch is our final stop before the border crossing. And to be completely honest: he doesn’t need to convince us anymore; Mexico enchanted us a long time ago. Staying with him is the unexpected, crowning final.

We spend Good Friday eating fish tacos around the campfire, together with his family and friends who have come here for Easter. The horse ranch is so idyllic that instead of staying for one night, we end up staying for another four – delaying our border crossing into the USA for as long as possible.

Is it really that dangerous to travel through Latin America?

Mexico is the final Latin American country on our journey to Alaska. Before entering the southernmost country in North America, we are warned constantly – far more than with any of the other countries. The last time we experienced this level of intensity was before Nicaragua and Venezuela.

We were told we would experience countless police checks. That the military would have a heavy presence. That we would encounter widespread corruption or indigenous communities demanding money to let us pass. That there would be many closed roads and, of course, cartel violence.

Notice a pattern? It’s essentially the same list as before. Definitely nothing we hadn’t already known or heard about.

Since we were approaching from the south, the negative reports didn’t put us off as quickly as they did many other travellers entering from the north. We had heard similar warnings about almost every country – and after more than 200 police checks in Venezuela, it takes a lot to ruffle our feathers.

Even so, just for fun, we decided to keep track of the checkpoints again. The result? In just under two months, we drove through 34 checkpoints. We were pulled over at 12 of them, and we had to open the boot at 7.

Was money demanded? Not by anyone. Not a single time. Not even remotely.

Between cartel violence and everyday routine

Mexico is not a safe haven – certainly not in certain tourist regions or in the immediate vicinity of the notorious drug cartels. All the same, the day-to-day life of most people is not characterised by violence.

The people we met have adapted to Mexico’s peculiarities. They have all been checked by the police at some point and asked for a small “donation”. There have been curfews due to escalating violence, and they too know countless stories about what the cartels are up to. Their lives are admittedly a little closer to these problems, but even for them, it is not an unremitting daily reality.

No one we interacted with told us about extortion or paying protection money – something we witnessed first-hand in other countries. That this exists in Mexico is indisputable. The fact that the drug trade and the illegal criminal underworld generate vast amounts of money, undermine politics and justice, sow violence and complicate matters is a reality. Especially in impoverished areas where young, unemployed people are promised fast cash. Furthermore, the cartel world is regularised and glamourised through narcocorrido songs, which even make it into the pop charts.

However, in a country inhabited by 134 million people, this is not the reality for the majority. It is the media’s attention that remains glued to it – and the cartels know exactly how to generate that media spotlight. A striking example was the death of El Mencho in February and the subsequent roadblocks across the entire country. If cartel members know one thing, it’s how to bring a state to a standstill in no time.

Even in the state of Jalisco, the main headquarters of the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel, there is a life that happens entirely outside of the drug trade. The majority of people live completely normal lives – just always a tiny bit closer to the dark side than is the case in Europe.

Are rural roads really that dangerous?

Before we entered the country, we were often advised to stick strictly to the toll roads (cuotas) in Mexico, as they were safer. Hmm. If they mean safer from the countless speed bumps (topes), then it’s true – and you save a lot of time, though they are also horrendously expensive. If they mean safer from police checks, we actually encountered most of them on the toll roads rather than in the small villages. We did, however, avoid driving across the mountains where cartels are known to fight over territory.

Just like in South America, we constantly kept ourselves actively informed: by asking the police, the locals, other travellers or via travel apps. This gives you a good picture of the current situation. If you ever have a bad gut feeling, it is always best to find an alternative route.

We leave Mexico with tears in our eyes. Because here, too, we experienced the hospitality of Latin America in its absolute abundance. The long Easter weekend at Rancho La Bellota was a worthy finale. There is no better description for the people of Latin America: good food, deep conversations, plenty of laughter and an incredible warmth.

If we take a single insight home from this journey, it is this: the vast majority of people are, at their core, simply good.

You can’t find any Tabasco sauce in Tabasco, Mexico. Did you know that? In fact, tabasco sauce does not come from the Mexican state of Tabasco. It’s an US product made using Tabasco chillies – that’s where the name comes from. We learnt this when driving through the real Tabasco.

As it’s not our preferred chilli sauce, we weren’t too disappointed. It’s nowhere near any of our favourites, although it is the best known worldwide. We don’t keep Tabasco sauce in our fridge, but we definitely always have chilli sauce on stock.

The best ones we have tried are still homemade. You can usually find them in any restaurant across Latin America – just ask for salsa picante, chile or ají, depending on where you are. You won’t find the same flavour twice, even if it’s called the same, but at least it’s always spicy. Sometimes, when we really like it, we ask the restaurants if we can buy some of their sauce to take away. And they are usually so proud that tourists were buying their hot sauce that they gave it to us as a gift. Our favourite so far? Miss Liz’s habanero sauce from Belize.

A tour that wasn’t one

The ‘tour’ itself isn’t a proper tour of the factory; it’s more of a video. This was a bit disappointing, though the second part was well worth it: tasting 32 spicy products! Some were spicier than others, and by the end our mouths were numb.

We drank plenty of orange juice and ate lots of crackers with each spicy product during the tasting – and yes, you really need to love spicy food! In the end, the smoked hot sauce came out on top.

Thousand names for one thing: cayenne sauce, chile, ají, chipotle…

One of the first commercially produced hot sauces appeared in the US around 1807 in the form of a bottled cayenne sauce. Since then, it has grown in popularity all over the world.

Hot sauces as we know them today are therefore a relatively new product, although the tradition goes way back. It’s amazing to think that the rest of the world didn’t know about this type of spiciness until the Spaniards arrived in America.

Hot sauce emerged as a means of preserving and enhancing flavour. The Aztecs and Mayans also used it as a remedy or to punish people by burning chillies to produce a burning smoke.

Our tasting session at the production site in Belize was definitely not a punishment! It was amazing to experience all the different flavours, and there are many, many more to discover. At Marie Sharp’s they mainly work with habanero chillies.

In South America, aji sauce is more common. ‘Aji’ is another name for chilli, and as a sauce it is usually mixed with onions and some tomato; further south, it also contains a lot of coriander. But not necessarily. They use other types of chilli, such as rocoto or aji.

In Costa Rica, if you want hot sauce, you have to ask for chimichurri, which is similar to ají sauce in the south, but has nothing to do with Argentinian chimichurri. In Central America, you can basically ask for chilli, or more specifically, ‘salsa picante’. Then you’re sure to get homemade sauce.

In Mexico, most things with chipotle are spicy. They have so many spicy sauces that they’re rather specific at naming them. However, there’s always a spicy and a non-spicy option, so just ask. Don’t assume that if the salsa verde is not spicy in one place, it will be the same at the next.

We’re still working our way through the large jar of habanero chilli sauce that Ms Liz gave us in Belize. Over a month later, we still have some left. Although it’s very good, you can’t put too much of it on your food — it’s really spicy!

Next on the chilli list? Well, we’ll see what’s new to try in the next region.

With only a bit of effort and thanks to his practice, he manages to drive a screw perfectly into the board by hand. Michael tries it as well: his screw goes in a bit wonky. But it goes in and out without any trouble – and all without an electrical drill.

We had already been near Mennonite communities in Bolivia and Paraguay, but somehow never made the detour. This time, it’s just one turning away, so we are very curious.

We’ve ended up with the Mennonites in Belize. There are many of them: some more traditional, some more modern; those with horse-drawn carriages and no electricity, and those with massive tractors and perfectly equipped DIY stores.

Welcome to Springfield!

The women wear blue dresses; the men wear black trousers with braces over white shirts. Most also wear a hat or a bonnet.

There are a few wind turbines and plenty of children everywhere, all of whom are busy. We stop at a sawmill. Is all of this really supposed to work without electricity? We can hardly believe it.

Ruben is repairing a saw when we approach him. He speaks Spanish, English, and Pennsylvania Dutch. His family came to Belize from Paraguay 30 years ago. At that time, Mennonites in Paraguay were being robbed constantly. Since there was already a community in Belize, they migrated there.

He shows us the saws. The drive system? Pure horsepower – the literal kind. They have horses walking in a carousel which powers the saws. But there is a backup solution in case no horses are available: water power. Water runs at high pressure through their PVC pipes and provides enough power to run even very modern woodworking machinery. Just like in Europe, only without electricity.

For their community, electricity is a threat to the cohesion; therefore, there is a tendency to reject anything electrical.

Ruben sends us on to his brother Martin, who is a carpenter. He is currently pulling a post out of the ground with his three boys. His wife and the other three children are standing nearby. They are just as interested in us as we are in them.

We speak German with them – they learn it in school because the Bible is read in German. At home they speak Pennsylvania Dutch, (it’s called Dutch probably from the similarity to the dialect word Deutsch for German. Alongside the old characteristics of the Palatine dialect, they use many loanwords from English in their German. So, Martin isn’t a Schreiner, he does Carpenterarwett (carpentry work) and they “farm” their land instead of bewirtschaften (cultivating) it.

It’s a bit hard to understand them when they speak their dialect to us, but it still works quite well. Even in the High German they learned for reading the Bible, you can sense the 18th or 19th-century origins. In any case, we can make ourselves understood; otherwise, they would also speak Spanish and English.

“Aha, caught you!” – or maybe not?

Further along in the village, a young lad is building huts – with a mains hook-up! “Aha, caught you,” we think. But the wooden huts are not for them; they are for sale. The work is well done, and the finished huts are loaded up and sold to outsiders.

They quiz us, and we are surprised by how much they know and how they use modern technology. They order parts from Amazon via third parties, be it doors or PVC pipes. They also have bank accounts and talk to their families in the USA on the phone, though not via their own mobile phones.

The snake winds itself beautifully around the tree trunk. Another poses on a lush green leaf, with the Arenal Volcano in the background. Simply incredible, the perfect coincidence – or is it?

We have often wondered how it is that animals in photos always pose so beautifully – mind you, wild animals.

The answer? It’s sobering: the animals are placed exactly where people want them.

The methods behind the photo

With cold-blooded animals, there are particularly questionable methods: when they are chilled, they hardly move. There are even reports of limbs being suspended by threads. A famous photo of a frog riding a beetle was likely staged this way, as the two species are not active at the same time of day.

Bringing a jaguar into the right position in the wild is difficult – if not impossible. To give tourists a guaranteed sighting, providers resort to aids. Feeding stations are far more common than one might think.

We have also been offered a guaranteed sighting of a “wild” ocelot, or taken to a feeding site for tapirs; even the Orinoco crocodile is fed regularly so that it remains within the national reserve and isn’t killed outside its borders.

Feeding stations for birds are found almost everywhere: Bananas and sugar water are popular choices.

As long as tour operators can guarantee sightings, their income is secure. This leads to a dangerous set of expectations. Tourists want “wildlife photos”. In Costa Rica, the practice went so far that sloths, for example, were taken down from trees just for a “wildlife selfie”. The government launched an awareness campaign in 2019. Perhaps it helped. We didn’t experience anything of this sort ourselves, but we read about it.

With snakes, however, we witnessed a different side of the story.

The business of “perfect” nature

In Costa Rica, we came across a particularly negative practice: a photographer told us about providers who carry snakes around in boxes to position them in the perfect spot. We also came across a post on Facebook denouncing this exact practice.

And why? Simply to offer tourists the perfect picture. It would quite frankly be too exhausting to spend the night in the jungle without a guaranteed find – plus, you can’t see the volcano at night.

Unfortunately, this practice is quite widespread – even in countries like Costa Rica, where animal welfare is supposedly a high priority. What can then be expected from other countries that hardly care about it at all?

Looking back on 2025: a year full of adventures.

In 2025, we were on the road for the entire year. There were no quick flights back to Europe and no visits to see family – although that’s not entirely true, we visited Michael’s sister living in Costa Rica and his other sister came to visit us.

We experienced a great deal, mostly good. Nevertheless, there are moments when homesickness creeps in.

Looking back, it’s hard to believe we had the time to live all these things. The year went by so quickly. Here is a brief look back to remind ourselves of all the wonderful things we saw and experienced.

Peru

Things got off to a great start in Colombia with the world’s smallest monkeys, the pygmy marmosets. Then the itinerary included a drive through guerrilla territory for Cora’s birthday, followed by a few weeks helping out on a cocoa farm and searching for anacondas in the Llanos. During the search, we were surprised by an Orinoco crocodile coming our way.

We also went on a hippo safari on the Magdalena River – we couldn’t stop marvelling at it all. Afterwards, Michi did his dive instructor training. For once, we stayed in one place for an entire month and were able to do some repairs on the car, such as fixing our window. Only the Airbnb host was peculiar; we definitely don’t want to go back there.

Venezuela

Venezuela – our favourite! Finally, a real adventure! Right at the start, we were met by the secret service and asked into a white container for a three-hour interview. That wasn’t exactly great. But once we were allowed in the country, everything went like clockwork.

Maracaibo was like a journey back to the 1970s. The food and service were good—a blessing after Colombia. And the people were exceptionally kind – everyone. They invited us into their homes for barbecues and rum. They organised diesel whenever things didn’t go smoothly.

Only the amount of driving was exhausting. Unfortunately, our container ship to Panama departed from Colombia, so we had to do a round trip through the vastness of Venezuela. We sat in the car for hours and had the occasional row. However, prospecting for gold in the Wild South of Venezuela put everything right again.

The food was mediocre. The last day was lovely, though: we visited local weavers, walked through a colonial town, and bought cowboy boots for Michael. Finally, we went to the thermal baths to relax. One week was enough.

A brief lament about the less pleasant moments of a trip

Travelling is not a holiday. If only it were! Then we wouldn’t have to deal with all the hassle. It wouldn’t be as exhausting – or rather – as predictable as it can be at home. However, problems arise when they want to, and sometimes we wish we had the problems at home, because then they wouldn’t be problems at all.

Replacing a simple screw

Or the endless search for a keder rail. A common van part in Europe. No one in Latin America knows what that is! At least we now know all the aluminium profiles from Ecuador to Costa Rica that are on offer, but we haven’t found a system similar to the keder rail.

And how about placing an order? One might think that’s the solution. Yes, if the delivery times weren’t so long – the goods usually come from the USA – and if we had an address where they would arrive safely. It’s possible, we’ve done it before, but it takes a lot more planning. The best thing is when friends come to visit.

They are happy to see us, but they don’t know that this usually means they get to play pack mule. Especially those who fly with checked baggage. The list is always long: diesel filters, V-belts, a mobile phone (it’s hard to believe, but they are better quality and much cheaper in Switzerland than here), new credit cards, travel documents, letters that urgently need a signature but are not accepted when scanned, gummy bears, chocolate!,…

Back to the mould

Don’t worry, it won’t just disappear.

Cleaning vinegar (and normal white vinegar) has become our great ally (there are no specific mould removers available). We also use cleaning alcohol for things that don’t tolerate acid. The rest goes in the washing machine.

What sounds so simple means ‘a lot’ of work. The washing machines here are not fully automatic. You have to fill them with water, drain them, fill them again, drain them again, and so on until they are clean (not sure about their cleaning standards here), and then you have to centrifugate all the clothes. Only then comes the great luxury in this household: the dryer. We throw almost everything in there and it is definitely cleaner afterwards.

But all the cleaning (today for the third time the lower edge), airing and constant drying are still not enough. That’s why we bought an ozone machine. It’s not a cure-all, but if it works even 70% as described, we should be almost mould-free by the end of the trip. No, just kidding, the air should at least have fewer spores.

Only the mildew stains will still be a problem, but we can deal with that after we return. We don’t want to get bored, after all.

From our perspective, the American continent is bordered by two oceans: the Atlantic and the Pacific. For most travellers, the sea accompanies them along the entire route from north to south, or vice versa. For us, however, it was slightly different. For long periods, we travelled almost exclusively inland through South America.

But now, in Central America, there is no escape. The sea is never far away and provides us with wonderful places to stay time and time again. The sea creatures are fascinating too, especially in the middle of whale season.

Visiting humpback whales

We hadn’t seen any for a long time because we hadn’t been near the coast. In Ecuador, we arrived either too early or too late for the season, as there was no sign of the whales.

But in Panama, we arrived at just the right time. This meant that we absolutely had to get out on the water to see them!

Whale watching has become big business in this region. Prices are often correspondingly high. In Panama, specifically in Santa Catalina, they wanted to charge between 80 and 100 US dollars. To be fair, this includes not only whale watching but also snorkelling and the park entrance fee.

However, we received a tip from other travellers about a cheaper option with fewer tourists. Since we had already been fortunate enough to see a humpback whale calf practising its jumps and observe other whales from a distance during our diving trip, we thought long and hard about it. But at 30 US$ per person for six hours on the water, we couldn’t complain.

We drove to Boca Brava. Despite it being the rainy season, our guide was waiting for us there on a beautiful sunny day. Five American expats joined us on the boat. The eight of us set off in the small boat for Chiriquí National Park. Right in the middle was a mother swimming with her calf. They kept coming very close to the boat! It took an hour for another tourist boat to arrive. So we were almost alone the entire time.

Seeing these little calves swimming, and then seeing the mothers appear right next to them, was deeply impressive. This is especially impressive given how much bigger they are than our little boat. These giants can grow up to 15 metres long, which is rather small for the rorqual family, and weigh between 25 and 30 tonnes. We saw whales repeatedly that day, both from the beach and from the boat.

Can you do whale watching from bed?

In Costa Rica, we tried again. This time, from our bed looking through the tent window, parking on a beach near Puerto Jiménez where whales are often seen. We didn’t see the whales, but we did see dolphins, rays and turtles.

The second time we went whale watching, it was in Uvita, with a colleague of Michi’s brother who organises whale-watching tours. He took us on a fishing trip with his friends. I still find fishing boring, but there were whales in the bay. We saw them jumping in the distance repeatedly, and then a mother and calf came very close.

It was different here, though. Despite it being the off-season, five other boats carrying up to 15 people surrounded the animals. So much for whale watching alone! It’s a completely different experience to have the animals almost exclusively to yourself. We are looking forward to new encounters on our way north. After all, we will continue to encounter the coast and its fascinating inhabitants all along the way.

Banana varieties beyond the yellow banana

Did you know that there are more than a thousand varieties of banana in the world? In Europe, we usually only know one: the sweet yellow banana – the Canarian banana, or Cavendish.

The banana travelled around the world before reaching America. The plant is native to the Indomalayan region, from where it spread to Africa and the Mediterranean, and crossed the Atlantic via the Canary Islands around 1516. Curiously, in Europe we settled on the sweetest and most domesticated variety, without giving the banana tree’s many other forms a chance.

To each their own banana

There is also no lack of diversity in how they are prepared: fried or roasted, patacones or tostones (double-fried plantain), bolones (plantain and cheese balls), green tortillas, chifles (chips), boiled plantain and as many other versions as you can imagine!

I love patacones or tostones – in Venezuela, patacones are hamburgers with tostones, and Colombian patacones are tostones. Why make it easy? On the other hand, I confess that boiled green plantains or plantain soup don’t win me over: they’re too bland.

In many countries, sweet bananas are hardly ever used outside of desserts. The one that reigns supreme in kitchens is the plantain, which is as versatile as the potato.

Beyond the classic yellow, there are curious varieties such as the red or silk banana, which has a sweet flavour with hints of raspberry and a high beta-carotene content that gives the skin its characteristic colour. We tried it in Bolivia, and along with the orito, it’s one of my favourites.

There is also the apple banana, with a flavour reminiscent of the green fruit; I still have that one to try.

The banana market, a global giant

Bananas from the Canary Islands are the mainstay of European supermarkets, along with those from the Azores and the French Caribbean territories. However, domestic production only covers 11% of demand. The rest is supplied from abroad, with 74% of imports coming from Latin America, almost 4.3 million tonnes in 2021.

Ecuador, Colombia and Costa Rica are the main exporters to Europe, a reality that is very much in evidence throughout our trip. Banana trees can be found on every corner and in every garden, and every house has a bunch of green bananas hanging under the porch, ready to be used. And millions of fruit flies as soon as the odd one ripens too much.

Exports focus on bananas, still green, and less on plantains. The latter remains a niche product of immigrant kitchens in Europe.

We are impressed by the variety of plantains and bananas and their use in cooking. No one can take away my patacones or the occasional fried ripe plantain, but I will have to see where I can find them in Europe and, maybe one day, even buy some that are not just yellow.

Which ones have you tried?

When leafing through travel brochures, it is impossible to imagine the tropics without colourful birds in the sky. Parrots, toucans and hummingbirds seem to be everywhere. These colourful birds are indeed an integral part of the image of the tropics.

We also enjoy watching these vibrant creatures, particularly macaws, which are the largest species of true parrot, in South and Central America. They are exclusively native to this continent and vary greatly in size and colour, but their cries betray their presence wherever they are. Macaws are intelligent, social and extremely communicative. This makes them fascinating, but unfortunately also makes them popular for keeping as pets. This spells disaster for them in the wild.

The alarm clock

While we mainly saw blue species in the south, they became increasingly redder the further north we went. The largest of these is the hyacinth macaw, which can grow to a length of up to one metre. Its deep blue plumage and yellow skin around the beak make it unmistakable.

The scarlet macaw is probably the best known, with its bright red, yellow and blue feathers. However, the blue-and-yellow macaw is also a classic of the tropical rainforest. There are eight species in total and two are already extinct, while four are critically endangered. Seeing the birds in the wild is incredibly impressive.

Unfortunately, macaws’ beauty and ability to mimic sounds also make them popular pets. Their wings are often clipped to stop them flying away. We saw many such animals on our trip. They make popular photo subjects and tourist attractions. Even though measures are being taken to combat this, once the birds have become accustomed to humans, they cannot simply be returned to the wild — especially if they can no longer fly.

In Colombia, however, we encountered an unusual pair of macaws that were allowed to fly freely. They had been living with a family for years. They could have flown away at any time, but chose to stay, probably because they had grown up there as chicks. The male was extremely territorial and would regularly attack men. Only the grandmother could control all the birds, but unfortunately she was not there that day. So, we had to constantly defend our plates of rice from the two macaws.

One of the macaws was particularly inquisitive. He inspected our handwashing routine, tested the hammock, tasted the coffee, and finally examined our entire car. With them around, it was never boring.

Endangered paradise

In the wild, adult macaws have few natural enemies. The greatest threat to their survival is the loss of their habitat due to deforestation and land conversion for agriculture. Like many other animals in the tropical rainforest, macaws are also suffering from the disappearance of their natural habitat. Old trees provide them with a home, and without the forest, there are no nests.

Poaching and the illegal wildlife trade also hinder efforts to preserve populations in the wild. However, there are some successful conservation projects, such as the one in Costa Rica where macaws can easily find food thanks to the planting of sea almond trees, and their numbers have recovered.

Macaws live in stable pair relationships. They are almost always seen flying in pairs and are faithful to each other for life. In captivity, they can live up to 65 years. I think that’s because they have one advantage over us: if they can’t stand each other for a while, they have the whole sky at their disposal! We, on the other hand, are stuck sharing a few square metres in the Land Cruiser!