First 48H LIVING ALONE in my Truck in Mexico

In the previous episode, I picked up my expedition truck Odyssey from the cargo port in Veracruz after shipping her from Europe all the way to Mexico. Today, we finally set off on the first leg of our overland adventure right here in Mexico. Well, it seems to me like I have to move back in. I've got to make Odyssey into my home once again. So, I'll do that at the first campsite that we stop at tonight. Meanwhile, while driving, because we have a long way to go today and tomorrow, I'm going to tell you about my upcoming plans for the next couple of weeks because they're a little bit unusual. It's not the kind of stuff that I typically do. So, anyway, I think we better start driving. Get the show on the road again. Baby, baby, oh! Baby, baby, baby, oh! Woohoo! I'm just happy to be here in this big aluminium box. My favourite box of all boxes. I'm Eva and I'm a full-time adventurer. I want to bring you on a journey that's all about being brave, experiencing the world and feeling truly alive. My travels have been one hell of an adventure so far, but last summer, I bought an old Land Rover Defender and converted it into an off-road expedition truck. I now wander around the world and live in my 4x4. Hit subscribe to join my adventure crew and watch real raw travel videos every week. My plan was to set off from Veracruz, where Odyssey had arrived on a cargo ship, and drive across half of Mexico to take some time away from YouTube and social media, basically a holiday, for a couple of weeks on the Caribbean coast of Mexico. Do you know what? I just realised that all the footage that I filmed today on this really long leg of the journey is ruined. The microphone on my GoPro went berserk and instead of capturing audio, it just recorded this horrible high-pitched sound the entire day. I don't know what happened, but I am really not impressed. And I don't know what to do because I can't get rid of it. I can't get rid of that footage and I don't have a backup and I'm not going to do it again. Whenever I've told someone I'm planning to drive across Mexico, their instant reaction is shock, fear, and the uncontrollable desire to give me all kinds of advice. So when I finally drove off from the hotel, I first got some new gas bottles for my stove, of course, then I got Odyssey washed, and then I checked and replenished my engine oil, but all the while, well, I was half expecting to find danger lurking around every corner. Cartels chasing me down highways and police officers threatening me with jail in exchange for bribes. I'm only half kidding. When I finally hit the highway, well, nothing much happened. Oh, wait, here's some audio that actually works. So I've noticed that every once in a while driving on the highway here in Mexico, there's different kinds of checkpoints, toll booths. Sometimes you have to stop because you have to pay for the highway because those are the safest roads, the toll roads. And sometimes you have to stop because there's a police or even a military checkpoint. So that's kind of interesting. I hadn't really expected this. But it makes you feel safe, you know? You hear so much about how dangerous it is to drive around in Mexico that checkpoints like this actually make you feel safe. Well, they make me feel safe. The tolls are adding up quickly. You know, it's like five bucks here, five bucks there every hour or so. It's not cheap. Anyway, as I was saying, nothing much happened. It all felt safe and fine. No trouble just yet. But of course, I don't want to risk anything. My number one promise that I had made to myself as a solo female overlander is to never, never drive after dark in Mexico. So just before sunset, I pulled over at a gas station that had a bit of a truck stop next to it. There was even an express laundry there. How amazing. The lady at the laundry confirmed that I could stay there. So I parked up in the furthest, least visible corner to keep myself out of sight. I checked out the loos. Pretty good. Went shopping at the Oxxo there and realized that my audio from the entire day was gone. So resuming from here. I'm putting up these ferry lights because I feel really terrible about that audio and what happened. I have no idea what happened. I'm really gutted. You know, this is like the first day of the big trip. Everything was meant to go great. But I guess it didn't go well. In the sense that the most important things are here. I am safe. No accidents. No weird situations on the road. I'm here. It's just some audio. I had plans to make a really nice hearty dinner that evening. But my gas stove stopped working. It may seem like a tiny little meaningless thing. But alongside the camera issues and this being my very first day on the road, it just made me feel a bit deflated. But do you know what I see as the most important skill when you're on the road? Being adaptable. Just taking obstacles on the chin, adapting to each new situation as it comes along, and moving on. Even if that means cold canned food for a night. Those guys you see walking there, they are the night guards, actually, of this gas station. Which is cool. So they just came up to me and they said that they're going to be watching this place and that it costs 20 pesos to stay here. 20 pesos is like 1 US dollar. So I was more than happy to pay for that kind of service. Okay, well, I'm feeling a bit better. It's just food. It was just audio. I can fix it. Tomorrow, I will check and double check and triple check everything. We're good. I'm here with Odyssey. I've been missing this so much. I've been waiting for this car to arrive for almost two months. It's felt really frustrating. I've been in this weird state of limbo. Probably because it's not just a car. To me, this is my home. This is my vehicle of freedom. This is the tool that allows me to be so independent and free. So I'm just super excited to be reunited. We're in Mexico, Odyssey. We're in Mexico. What the hell? You're in Mexico. Testing the sound. Let's check if this works. Okay, the sound works. I'm going to go to the laundry to drop off my dirty laundry. Good afternoon. Is it possible in the morning? 7 in the morning? 6. 6? 6 in the morning. Okay. Thank you. Hi, the lady is so nice. She said that she will deliver my laundry to my car at 6 a.m. in the morning. There's more and more trucks arriving. Parking up very close to me. It seems like this is a pretty popular spot for truck drivers. Which honestly makes me feel a bit safer because there's a lot of people here. And you know, the more people there are, obviously the safer it is in a way. Because it means that it's busy. So no strange weird stuff going on. As you can see, this is all still very much a hot mess. I haven't managed to unpack anything just yet. But tomorrow is the day. Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow. I promise. We're going to do proper unpacking. We're going to get ourselves cozy and comfortable and move back in. But for now, all I want to do is grab some sleep and keep going. Good morning. 6.17. Thank you. It's kind of hard for me to put into words just how good it feels to have fresh laundry. As someone who travels full-time and who lives on the road, it's not that often that you get a chance to get proper laundry done. It smells so great. It's so fresh. It's so beautiful. The toilets are relatively clean. There's even toilet seats on them and toilet paper. Very important. Some of you might be wondering, how did I know that this place, this particular gas station would be safe to stay at overnight? And honestly, I didn't. I mean, you never really have a guarantee, do you? But I have been told by fellow overlanders in my community that staying at gas stations in Mexico is usually a safer bet than wild camping, especially in an area that you don't know. And I don't really know where I am right now. There's also Facebook groups for overlanders in Mexico. Those guys helped me out with my route, which was super useful. And there's different apps that you can check to see where you can stay for the night, not just campsites, but also safe gas stations and roadsides and things like that. So, all of that. It's the power of the community. It's the power of the word of mouth. It's just checking and double checking and asking people. That's kind of what it's boiling down to for me right now here in Mexico. Yeah, peaceful night. I'm going to grab a coffee, make a couple of calls with my team, and then hit the road again. We are full. Yes! Day two. Let's go. Honestly, I was so hot. I was so hot in the night. This doesn't have an air-conditioned place, and there was a lot of trucks around. But you know what? It doesn't matter because we are reunited, and I'm so happy. I'm so happy to be on the road again. This feels like a completely new adventure. So, let's go. Day two is when the police checks began. After a couple of hours on the road, I got pulled over by the National Guard. From everything I'd heard about the police in Mexico, I was fully expecting to have to give a decent bribe. I guess they were looking for drugs. Guess what? They were very nice, actually. They were very nice about the whole thing. They just asked me to get out of the car, to step aside. They took five minutes to look through the front cabin, mostly. They knocked on every little bit and piece that's in here. And they sent me on my way. Oh yeah, they asked me if I don't want a travel companion. But, no bribes needed so far. Got some chia seeds in here, some oats in here, a bit of banana, some nuts, and seeds, cranberries, and some pineapple, and mango. Oh, yes. This is an obnoxious amount of chia. My stove still wasn't working, but suddenly, that just didn't matter at all anymore. So fresh. Guys, searched the car again. Asked me if I'm a YouTuber. I said, yes. They searched my channel. They loved it. And they wanted a photo. So we took a selfie. It didn't check. Ha! It's the first time that the Guardian Arsenal did not check my car. At no point in my journey over the last two days did anyone ask me for a propina, basically a euphemism for a bribe. So far, so good. And finally, after driving 800 miles or 1,300 kilometers, I was nearing my final destination for this leg of the journey and approaching my holiday. Okay, I have arrived at my campsite, but there's nobody here. I mean, there's guests, but there's no reception area. So I'm going to go look for someone. Hola. Do you speak English? Yes. Oh, great. I don't know who to speak to about camping here. In the bus? Okay, cool. Okay, I'll look for her. Thanks. There's a big yellow bus here, and apparently there's a lady who lives in it called Mary, who manages this place. Hello, hello. Well, Mary wasn't there, so I decided to take matters into my own hands and simply start setting up camp. Do you want to go see the beach? Let's do it. Palm trees here in the night, and I just spotted it. It's over there. Let's see what we can do with it. I have never opened up a coconut ever before in my entire life. Okay. This is literally everything I've dreamt of. Over the last months. Everything. I know it's really beautiful out here, but the most important thing I have to do today is move back into Odyssey. So if you want to see how I manage or don't manage to fit all of my stuff into this tiny little space to make it livable once again, you're in the right place. First of all, I think I need to remove everything from the inside. My mission for today was to unpack everything from inside Odyssey, do a big cleanup, and move back in, stuffing every single cupboard and shelf and nook and cranny with stuff. How do I have so much stuff? I don't understand. How am I going to fit all of this in that tiny little car? So the stuff that I use the least is going to go in the cupboard that's the least accessible. Oh, rain. Great timing. Perfect timing. This is a lot of rain. Oh my god, all my stuff's getting wet. And it's gone. Three minutes of rain. So much chaos. Everything is wet. And everything goes back in again. I'm kind of glad I don't own an apartment. I have a feeling this process would take much longer in an actual house. This is more winter stuff. Cold weather. Winter. I will definitely not be needing it right here. I know that this looks like total chaos and so much stuff, but I just have to remind myself that this is all the stuff that I will need in order to live self-sufficiently for the next two or three years and to last me through all the seasons. Winter, summer, spring, autumn. And to go climbing, go hiking. Be able to cook, take care of myself, live comfortably, go on the beach. All this stuff. So when you put it that way, it kind of makes sense, but it's still a lot of stuff. Yep, I used to consider myself a minimalist. But upon seeing all the crap I'm actually faring around the world inside Odyssey, I think my minimalism claims are no longer valid. I'm done. It only took six hours to get everything in order and clean everything up and reorganize absolutely everything, but I'm done. And Odyssey is once again my home. She actually feels like my home again. So, do you want to take a quick look inside? Let me show you. So, right here in the top cupboard on the right, I've got some of the clothes that I use the most often plus some toiletries. A little bit further along, that's just a cupboard with a lot of random junk. On the opposite side, we've got a cupboard filled with electronics. All the stuff that I use to film these videos and more is in there. And then right here next to the door, that cupboard has my underwear, socks, swimwear, sportswear, all that kind of stuff. I left the kitchen where it was before, i.e. right here, because it's a really convenient spot for cookware and food and all that kind of stuff. And the cool box is right here. There's some more food over there. There's more clothes and books in that cupboard over there. All the stuff that I don't need right now, winter clothes, climbing clothes, other kinds of junk, and there's a lot, trust me, is right here underneath the mattress. Nice and hidden from view. And that's it. I managed to move back home. And I know she's not the most conventional kind of home, but she is the closest thing I have to a home. And I just can't wait for all the amazing adventures that we're going to have together right here in Mexico and in some other really, really, really faraway destinations. But we'll talk about that in the upcoming episodes. All right, I think it's time to go stock up on some food and drinks and maybe go wild camping. I think that would be a little bit of a... I think that's something that we've all been waiting for, right? All right, I'm going to go and do that. And I'll see you guys in the next episode. Bye! If you'd like to see a full tour of Odyssey in one of the upcoming episodes, give this video a thumbs up and let me know in the comments below. Meanwhile, in the next episode, I'm going to go wild camping for the very first time in the remote, beautiful, natural spot right here in Mexico. See you in the next adventure.