THE BACKGROUND
Chris Lacey writes: Being a car nut [having spent so far 49 years in the Motor Industry with no signs of giving up yet], I had always wanted to compete in a long-distance endurance Rallies.
This desire started about 1966 with the World Cup Rally and has continued but has sadly never come to reality. I have dabbled with rallying in the past, in the best days of the 70’s and 80’s and had great fun supporting the Dealer Team Vauxhall crews in those days by driving service barges, catering wagons etc.
As an ex apprentice at Vauxhall, I had some very understanding bosses who used to let me go with the team and compete in my own right and gave me time off to do it – I reckon about 6 weeks a year – amazing. Having won a few events in my own car [my entire net worth tied up in that] they rewarded me with a fully paid works drive on the 1976 Texaco Tour of Britain which was a mix of rally stages and races on UK circuits over 5 days in that memorable hot summer. More about that somewhere else.
Anyway, I still want to do a long-distance endurance rally but sadly am short of the £250,000 required to do such an event and, of course I don’t have, nor ever will have, a Blower Bentley in the garage to use.
To continue, on the 28th February 2017, I was sat in the back of an old rickety Chevrolet Express Van in the middle of the Atacama Desert in Chile.
This is where the discussion started :
My good lady wife Maria, and friends John and Karen Paterson and new friends Mike and Maureen Patterson were with us as we were having a South America vacation on route to John’s vineyard in Argentina.
The Atacama Desert is recognised as the most arid, non-polar desert on the earth’s surface and struggles to exceed 0.6 inches of rain per year. Not Feb 25th-29th 2018 as it chucked it down for days! Anyway, a little rain didn’t quell an idea that was beginning to develop in my mind as Pedro took us across salt flats, plateaus and some of the most incredible landscape’s that we had ever seen.
WHAT WAS THE IDEA?
Quite simply is was that we should drive to the Atacama Desert from the most Northern part of South America e.g. Columbia. ”No even better, let’s drive to the end of the World” which is Ushuaia in Southern Argentina.
”That’s a great idea, I’m in” said John P from the rear of the van and followed with “Mike, are you up to that”. Mike’s response was ‘Yes, count me in but I have a business to sell before then and I better learn Spanish!”.
“That sounds like my worst nightmare” said my good lady wife Maria. ‘But it’s “OK for us to do?” we all asked our wives, “Yes of course you can” was the quick answer, but secretly in their own minds they knew that this would never happen.
Mike – do you think this idea of Chris’s is
something we should be getting involved in?
Well the idea snowballed and we decided to include two Central America countries by starting in Costa Rica and travelling south through Panama. We knew that even the most organised, well equipped teams [basically, the best military units in the world] often fail to get a cross the Darien Gap, that narrow strip of inhospitable land that joins Central to South America. So, we had no chance, but we could ship the vehicle from Panama to Cartagena in Columbia.
Over the next few months the plan started to come together, the rules were established, the route was planned, we started to look for some sponsorship, we fixed some ‘start by ‘ and ‘finish by’ dates and spoke to a few friends to see if they wanted to join for all or part of the trip.
Joe B who I have known since living in Budapest, where John P and I also met, jumped in and said he would participate in the whole event. Joe now lives in Atlanta Georgia, in the US and therefore it became a clear option to start from Atlanta and travel through the Southern US States and into Central America via Mexico and make our way down to Panama. Joe could also own the vehicles we planned to buy in the USA.
A high percentage of the driving would be on the infamous Pan American Highway – what an adventure.
THE PLAN [A]
So that was the plan,four full-time persons, two vehicles [safety and security] and the ability to take friends on specific legs of the trip, starting from Atlanta on September 28th, finishing in Ushuaia on December 9th, 73 Days, some 12,500 miles and 14 countries and reaching a peak of 16,000 feet as we crossed from Peru into Bolivia.
The various elements of the plan during the last quarter of 2017 and the first months of 2018. We had a number of guys sign up for various sections, flying into remote locations to join up, we set the budget for a day rate to spend on accommodation and refreshments.
We started to investigate vehicle options and looked at trying to attract American Automotive Manufacturers sponsorship by loaning vehicles to show that their modern SUV’s can go “From the end of a USA production line to the end of the world”, without special modifications or support. That would be a great promotion where they could then get press or employees or Dealers to drive them back to the plant. I would have approved that in my day!
THE BEST LAID PLANS OF MICE AND MEN …..
As I said, that was the plan!.…………… But, these ‘corporate brand suits’ wanted so much data and details it became analysis until paralysis and with ongoing delays on decisions we dropped that idea. This was meant to be fun not a corporate business plan nightmare.
But, that wasn’t a problem as Joe who was US-based could purchase US vehicles and we can use them and then ship back to the USA from Ushuaia at the end of the trip and sell them. This actually was a big help as we started to understand the issues of taking a vehicle not owned by one of the group across many of the borders we needed to cross. Some countries required the vehicle to be ‘stamped’ into a passport as due to import restrictions used vehicles had to leave a country and couldn’t be sold in the country. Some countries would even restrict people leaving the country without the vehicle they came in with or without the import duty being paid. Still not an issue as we hadn’t planned to dump or sell those vehicles, we needed them back to the USA to be sold to put some cash back in the pot.
As I said, that was the plan!………….Until May 2018 when civil unrest erupted in Nicaragua a small country but one that was a critical one on our journey linking El Salvador to Costa Rica. Little known to us westerners, there was and still is at time of writing almost a civil war there with complete lawlessness in some areas, over 400 deaths since May, car hijackings, kidnaps and fuel shortages and anti-government vigilantes controlling certain areas of the countries looking to get rich quick and acquire assets that they didn’t have the day before.
In June, the US and UK Governments declared Nicaragua as a no-go country and travel should be cancelled. In addition, it seems that our health and travel insurance, vehicle and believe it or not kidnap insurance would not be valid if we tried to cross or even enter Nicaragua.
Interestingly enough the ‘declared safe, but proceed with caution’ areas of Mexico are reducing rapidly and there are many recommendations not to travel in certain parts including our proposed route through Mexico due to drug mafia wars and cartels in operation.
We thought that was probably a good reason not to go to either of those countries.
PLAN [B]
Disappointingly, we agreed to reroute, and ship the vehicles from Charleston in the USA to Cartagena in Columbia directly, which still had some legislative hurdles to overcome but was still possible as we had time to organise that and the budget to cover it.
Possibly we could pick up a couple of the Central American countries as we made our way down to Cartagena. So, the original plan was damaged but repairable.
We had been meeting every three to four months in a small hotel in Staines, in the UK, and at the meeting on August 6th, we agreed our plan was ‘GO’ as we were slowly getting resolution to the shipping and logistics issues.
We planned to buy the two vehicles by the end of August to re-register into Joe’s name, be prepared and be ready for us to take to the docks on Sept 25th when we were in Atlanta. This would allow them to be in Cartagena by Oct 22nd ready for the trip down through South America. We purchased our flight tickets to Atlanta during that meeting and arranged transfer of our individual contributions for the first payment of $10,000.
Luckily I had a new colleague at CitNOW video who lives in Atlanta and is a Motor Trade man and we were soon able to locate at the auctions two large SUV’s that suited our need and were at the right price.
We held off though as we waited some final info on the legislative process for exporting the vehicles out of Punta Arenas in Chile back to the USA. It was possible that Joe had to be with the vehicles at the point of export from Chile as opposed only being present to hand them to the shipping agents and have the ‘Temporary import Permits’ cancelled and removed from his passport as they would then be with the agent in a bonded location.
The facts are that there are no definitive guidelines for importing or exporting vehicles or defined requirements for cross border travel in nearly all the Central & South American countries.
It is clearly at the will of particular offices and those individuals in power no doubt influenced by greenbacks !
Reducing the potential problems, we elected to revert to one vehicle as we only needed a maximum of 5 on board at any one time to Mendoza, then supplement the last part of the journey from Tupungato at the base of the Andes in Argentina to Ushuaia with a rental vehicle to accommodate those joining us at ‘Finca Ambrosia’.
This is where John P has a part share in a successful vineyard. Strange how popular it is for people to join us there, check it out: http://www.fincaambrosia.com
By Tuesday 21st August we were proceeding well with hotels being booked, vehicle logistics priced, budget being compliant to our original agreement, new instructions going out to the five friends joining for various sections and with the help of David at CitNOW the perfect vehicle to use.
A 2015 Chevrolet Suburban V8 Auto with all the gear including two rows of single ‘Captain’s seats’ for comfort and a third split row so can easily accommodate the max of five people and all luggage and equipment needed. This is a big, powerful, reliable USA ‘Truck’ just fit for purpose and a snip at $33,000 with an agreed buy back with the Dealer.
We exchanged notes and had a call and agreed that we would buy the vehicle on Wednesday 22nd August just four weeks before we fly to Atlanta.
It was then that the bombshell dropped. Joe B wanted to revert to two vehicles but without having the responsibility of having them on his passport or having to be with them when collecting from or passing back to the import / export agents when our containers were loaded and unloaded.
Unfortunately, as we had agreed before, the two-vehicle option was not an option due to regulations, it had to be one vehicle only in his name. Joe also has a health issue travelling long distances in the rear of vehicles which he was concerned about as he would need a front seat all the way which is why he wanted two vehicles.
After much discussion sadly, Joe’s car sickness, his change of heart about having a vehicle on his passport and not being able to commit to being with us the whole way, forced him to withdraw from the trip on Wednesday 22nd August the day we were buying the vehicle and five weeks before the start.
We understood his rationale and reluctantly accepted his decision but effectively Plan B was in the trash can and we had no plan C at that stage.
Read how we moved on from this situation on our blog page.
Our America’s Challenge Drive 