Babs’ travels -The Peking to Paris Rally and other driving adventures.

We didn’t get our cars out of the bonded warehouse until after  2 pm  on the first rally day. The drive to our night halt was around 500 kms, mostly on the Pan American Highway, so not too arduous and the navigation was a sinch. There were police everywhere and two of our cars (no names - not us) got speeding tickets.  Our car attracted a lot of attention and we often had cars driving along side us with the driver filming on his phone.   Reminiscent of Iran, and not too sensible.  About 200 kms from the end, Adrian pulled into a bus stop as the car was overheating. It was pitch black as there was very little traffic, just the odd giant truck.  A diagnosis of a failed head gasket was made. All quite serious, but we had a spare.  I called Toby, our mechanic, who was about an hour behind us and then we waited.   Toby and Adrian set too and completed the repair.  That last, short sentence belies the huge amount of work involved in that. It took about three hours.  Jamie, our photo

I’m rather taken with Panama City.  Mainly because of the thrill of the Isthmus and the canal. To me, there is something marvellous about being at the skinniest bit of the Americas. I’ve been right down to the southern most point and a very good way up to the top and now I’m at a point that’s only 50 miles wide.   Panama only gained total control of the canal comparatively recently and the millions of bucks that the canal makes every single day has created massive growth and a high rise city.  The setting, right on the Pacific, is glorious but the new buildings are not entirely lovely. Just tall and strangely skinny, like long slender fingers reaching upwards. The old city is undergoing massive restoration and has great charm. As in most places in Latin America the people have an easy going manner and friendliness.  We went to the Miraflores Locks this morning and watched a giant container ship, with seemingly almost no cleara

, I’m at 38,000 feet en route to Panama City for the start of our drive to New Orleans in an 87 year old car. I haven’t written here since we lost our gears and brakes at the very top of a snow covered  mountain in Japan.  Fear not, that very low point has not put me off rallying. There have been plenty of adventures since then, I’ve just been too idle to write about them,    I drove a Willy’s Jeep around the far North of Vietnam with a girl friend and loved it so much it’s due to be reprised next year.  The sexy Bristol had a jaunt with some of its friends in Europe from Germany to Northern Spain and I’ve visited Cambodia, Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Turkey and enjoyed a fun filled, chaotic and very noisy holiday in the Dordogne with two daughters and six under 11’s.  I’m very excited about this trip - who wouldn’t be?  It’s such a fab route. I’ve been to bits of it before as we had some family holidays when the children were small to Costa Rica, Guatemal