Houston to
Mexico

We left British Columbia in February 2025, dropped into the United States through the desert southwest, and pointed the nose toward the Mexican border. The Sonoran Desert opened up like a painting — saguaro cacti standing forty feet tall, cracked asphalt stretching to a vanishing point, mountains in every direction. SID — a 42-year-old utility truck built to service electricity substations in southern England — was in her element.

Overlanding is not the same as road-tripping. Road-tripping is about the destination. Overlanding is about the machine, the terrain, and the particular quality of silence you find when you are a very long way from home. The vehicle becomes a character. You talk to it. You worry about it. When something goes wrong — and something always goes wrong — you are grateful for every mechanic who ever treated a Land Rover with respect.

This is the story of SID's best day ever. And ours.

El Paso sits on the Rio Grande with Ciudad Juárez on the other side, and the border here is not a line so much as a membrane — you feel it in the food, the language, the colour of the light. We stopped at a roadside vendor selling hot sauces and dried chillies, the shelves stacked floor to ceiling with bottles in every shade of red and orange. The vendor spoke no English. We spoke no Spanish. We left with six bottles and a handshake.

San Antonio was where SID nearly let us down. The alternator had been running warm since Arizona, and by the time we rolled into the city it was clear something needed attention. We found a Land Rover specialist — the kind of shop where the mechanics actually know what a Series III is — and they diagnosed the problem in twenty minutes. The repair was done the same afternoon. They charged us nothing for the diagnosis. That kind of generosity stays with you.

The border crossing was straightforward — paperwork, a vehicle inspection, a wave through. On the Mexican side, the road opened up and the landscape changed immediately. Greener. Warmer. The Gulf of Mexico appeared on the right and stayed there for hours.

We drove the length of the Gulf Coast, stopping at a small beach resort where palapa huts cast shadows over a turquoise pool and the sea was visible from every table. The kind of place you find by accident and remember for years. We stayed two nights.

Then south, deeper into the Yucatán Peninsula. The road signs started offering a choice: Cancún or Tulum. We chose neither immediately — we took the fork toward the coast, toward Isla Mujeres, because someone at the resort had said the diving there was unlike anything else in the Caribbean.

They were right.

Isla Mujeres is a five-kilometre strip of island off the coast of Cancún, accessible by a short ferry ride. The ferry sign says Pise con cuidado al subir o bajar los escalones — watch your step on the stairs. Good advice for life, generally.

The diving here is exceptional. The Caribbean water is warm and clear to thirty metres, the coral is intact, and the dive operators know their sites. We rented gear from a shop near the pier — rows of golden tanks stacked in the morning light, regulators coiled like sleeping snakes — and went down twice in one day.

The second dive was the best day ever. Not just of the trip. Of a long time.