Meet Giuseppe: My Land Rover, a Clutch Failure, & a Mexican Border Crossing

Part 1 of my journal from my 2023 Sonoran Rovers Tour

Meet Giuseppe, my new truck from Sardinia, Italy. Sonoran Rovers wanted to bring me along to Mexico for a Sonoran Rover Tour. Each tour they set up also has a mechanic who teaches you how to fix your Land Rover as you go. Since old Land Rovers are so reliable (ask any of my towing services), I figured it seemed equal parts fun and crazy to leave my comfort zone and bring Giuseppe on his first trip into another country.

We met the crew and Land Rover in Tuscon. Within the first block of my journey, the master cylinder for the clutch gave out. I was unable to activate the clutch. We put it in second gear, drove it back to the workshop, and had to change out the master cylinder for the clutch. The rest of the crew had to wait for 90 minutes for us to complete the repair, but they cruised over to enjoy a beverage at the local brewery.

With Giuseppe back in working condition, we took off to Bisbee, Arizona. Upon arrival, we checked into our bed and breakfast and explored the town. Whitney and I had been to the town on one of our road trips many years prior to this.

We woke up, had coffee and breakfast, and performed a car swap before leaving Bisbee. One guy was waiting for his car to be delivered, and we had to swap over the rooftop tent too. We all left Bisbee to cross the border at Naco. We were an interesting and slightly unusual border-crossing group; some of the trucks are a military-style truck, so the crossing guards and their Malinois dogs poked around a lot to search all the cars for anything suspicious.

We passed the border crossing, then traveled by their largest copper mine, Cananea. We spotted a lot of agriculture, small towns, and farming as we left. Sonora is the only state that is legally permitted to sell beef and cattle to the US, so there is a lot of free-ranging cattle on the land where we visited.

We drove into a more rural area, and we stopped on the side of the river to have a picnic. A local family had prepared us local free-range beef, rice, beans, and fresh Sonoran tortillas.

After that, we continued driving to our destination Banámichi. We stayed in the center of the town in a beautiful house that had a wonderful courtyard inside. The people there prepared us another wonderful local, fresh meal with special margaritas with Bacanora.

We’d only just arrived, but I already had a feeling this trip was going to leave its mark. The road ahead? Dirt, rivers, and some of the most remote parts of Sonora. More on that in Part 2.