We had hoped to buy a Class B campervan in San Diego to travel through Mexico and Central America. Unfortunately we were unable to find one in our short two week time frame or our budget. We did not realise how sort after small campervans were in Southern California. We were informed later on that Florida or Texas would have been better states to try and find a campervan in.

So we flew to Cabo San Lucas and travelled for the first few months in Mexico via bus and rental car. The buses in Mexico are first class, they have comfortable seats, wifi, individual screens to watch movies and you also get a snack pack. Most buses are express with very few if any stops. We travelled on Premier Plus a couple of times, and they were excellent.

In Mexico we continued our search to try and buy a van. We decided it was going to be easier and cheaper to find an ordinary van and convert it to a camper van ourselves. There were not a lot of campervans for sale in Mexico.

We heard about a car market in Guadalajara that had a large number of second hand vehicles for sale. So we got a bus to Guadalajara and headed to the car market on Sunday. The market was HUGE! It had close to 2,500 vehicles for sale, all different makes, models and prices. Surely we could find something here?

We found a van we both liked, made an offer, got it mechanically checked, and also made sure there were no outstanding fines or unpaid registrations on the van.  Two days later it was almost ours! A 1996 Chevrolet Astro. The mechanic said it would be a good vehicle to travel around Mexico and Central America as parts for the van are readily available.

When purchasing a vehicle in Mexico the seller will need to provide you with the original sales document, and a record of registration for each year the vehicle has been registered.

To transfer the van legally into our name wasn’t straightforward. Some States in Mexico do not allow tourists to own vehicles. Guadalajara is in the state of Jalisco, and they were one of the states where you had to have permanent residency to own a vehicle. Luckily we knew someone that knew someone that for the right money could make it happen!

We had a few minor mechanical things we needed to get done before we hit the road. New shock absorbers, new front brake discs, and an oil and filter service. We got most of this done in Guadalajara.

It was a strange, but a really good feeling to finally have our own wheels to tour around in. Our very own mobile home.

 

A few days later we started a house sitting assignment in San Miguel for three weeks. We used this time to convert the van into a camper van.

The first step in this process was agreeing on a van layout. This took three days. lots of time searching the internet, and a few heated discussions. The result was a great functional layout that had plenty of storage and a good size bed.

 

The next step was to find a carpenter or joiner that could convert the van our time frame – now two weeks.

We found someone locally in the neighbourhood where we were housesitting. With our basic Spanish and his basic English, and lots of diagrams and photos, we hoped he understood what we were wanting.

We took the back seats out of the van to make room for our conversion. We thought we would try and sell them, so we put them out on the street with a for sale sign. That got a bit of interest, but no sale. So we tried Facebook Market Place. It worked well, the chairs sold within the week. A lovely guy from Queretaro brought them. He was converting a Jeep, and needed new seats.

We paid 50% deposit to start the van conversion, with the next 25% due mid way through the project. Things were going well and it looked like we were on track to have the van converted in time.

The van needed some squabs to sit and sleep on. We went to a few upholstery shops in San Miguel, but they were unable to make them in our time frame.

The next large city was an hour away – Queretaro. So we headed off in search of upholsterers. We found a large fabric shop in Central Queretaro and picked some upholstery fabric and foam. They were able to have the squabs all made up by the end of the week – success. Things were coming together.

Then at three quarters of the way through when we had our next check on the van conversion, progress on the project had ground to a holt. Nothing had been done since our last progress payment. It was looking like it was not going to get done in time.

In the end Glen had to spend a few days helping them out to get it finished on time.

 

While the workmanship wasn’t up to Glens high standards, everything worked and we now had our Mexican campervan.

 

We were ready to start our magical mystery tour of Mexico and Central America!