Next up for theDangerz- the Maya Rally
We seem to be saying yes to everything lately... Maybe its just part of the new me that i'm getting used to, but agreeing to new things seems a bit easy these days. Latest case in point...we have decided our next stop upon moving out at the end of our stay, and much to our surprise we will be heading inland... Much more to our surprise we will also be joining an overland rally across mexico. The Maya End of the Word Rally is a offroad/adventure rally from guanajuato across the country to the yucatan and ending at mayan ruins on what is supposedly the last day before the apocoplyse (depending on how you translate the mayan calendar).
Or better stated in their own words:
The MAYA RALLY is a multi-week, multi-national, expedition scavenger hunt and challenge course. It pits teams of overland drivers in their own vehicles against one another and the elements, traverses thousands of miles of variable and unknown terrain, enters rarely-seen locations far off the beaten track, and spans countless foreign horizons.
The MAYA RALLY is an overland adventure distilled to its most raw form: there is a start, there are designated challenges which must be completed for points, and there is a finish. Everything else is up to you.
There is no route. There is no support. There are few rules.
If you break your will, if you break your body, or if you break your ride, you are on your own.
At a remote point deep in the forests of Latin America, at the farthest reaches of your long and perilous journey, you will be received by an End of the World celebration in your honor, and if you win, recognized with a healthy reward.
That is, if you make it.
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/37753277[/vimeo]
Not really what we would typically picture as our "thing" (we are more of the slow, meandering leaf blown in whatever direction the wind blows us) and the bus doesn't exactly fit in with the other vehicles (think hard core, full suspension 4x4 Jeeps and and Rovers with built in snorkel)...but i think that's part of what makes it sound like fun to us.
Now just to be clear, we didn't buy into Y2K (or the 3or4 other times the world was supposed to end since then) and we don't buy into the Dec 21, 2012 theories either. We don't entirely buy (or maybe simply hope) that this part of mexico is as brutal offroad as the video would have us believe. If that's true...we wont be on most of it or will be hoping to dodge it. but the event does sound like fun to us and will force us to leave the coast for a while which probably wouldn't happen otherwise.
We don't know anything yet about what path/course we will choose or what the scavenger hunt along the way entails but we do know that we'll be covering at least 1800miles in 9days- considerably more ground than we've been covering thus far.
We have also made arrangements to arrive in guanajuato a few days early and volunteer with Muskoka Foundation, who connects overland travelers with various volunteer projects around world. We will be volunteering specifically with eStudio473, a local community/art center that works to educate inner city youth in Guanajuato. We have been looking for ways to give something back on our trip and the timing and structure here has been perfect for us.
More to come as things develop, but its official- were driving the Maya Rally in a 67 Kombi. Remains to be seen whether we make it to Bacalar in time for the party or before the world ends (whichever happens first).