Our four 55 gallon barrels full of veggie oil (our fuel for the trip) almost got turned away in Tecate. The border crossing went just as we expected it …. Here’s a taste of what the crew has experienced so far from the MOTIV Fishing journal: Our goal is to capture a story and adventure that is rarely documented within the fly fishing industry. On our way south we felt it was only right to stop by Patagonia and visit the Tin Shed to get some good karma for the journey ahead. We have spent days driving from dumpster to dumpster behind restaurants and sushi bars searching for our fryer-scented fuel that will power us down to Baja. We have had to search for the fuel that will carry us down the road. We’ve built our expedition rig from the ground up starting with a 1996 Ford F250 diesel powerstroke which has undergone an arterial bypass fuel conversion to burn used vegetable oil. It just doesn’t get any cooler than driving across a country on recycled vegetable oil. Also, the thought of traveling throughout Mexico on free fuel was very appealing. When planning this trip we set out to burn as little fossil fuel as possible. Things aren’t quite ideal but at the same time you could say the same thing about traveling to areas inside our own borders. Recent headlines regarding violence in Mexico have brought the same reaction every time someone asks where we are going: “You guys are out of your minds.” Safety is always a top concern it would be naive to think that there isn’t some element of danger. You keep asking yourself, “Do we have everything we need?” The answer, probably not, but were gonna go for it anyway. It would seem that at this point things would be routine when it comes to getting ready to head out on the road for another expedition, yet each trip has its own challenges nuances and unforeseen circumstances, and we are finding that going to Mexico is living up to the challenge. While our expeditions are geared towards fly fishing the overall theme of what we do is centered around friendship and adventure. Argentina, Chile, New Zealand, Iceland, Mongolia and British Columbia have encompassed our past projects. In the past we have circumnavigated the globe in search of fish and adventure. What would you rather burn, something you can bathe food in, consume, recycle and costs $0 or, something that smells like burnt cancer and costs $3.50 a gallon? You can try to cook with diesel but you would die. The fuel is free and we can cook with it and then put it back into the tank. Now fueled by recycled vegetable oil, the idea is simple. He ended up hooking us up with almost 150 gallons of filtered, pure golden oil, putting us at close to 250 gallons of free fuel! When we arrived at his place and he showed us the oil he was going to give us for free we realized that we had hit the mother load. I had made prior arrangements to pick up some used oil from a dude I met on the Fillup4Free website. We left Los Angeles with hopes of making it as far south as possible before the border. The day finally came when we would hit the road and continue our journey south to the land of tortillas and cacti. We decided that due to the short supplies of veg oil along the drive down baja our plan was to bring a trailer that would double as our fuel tanker. We set up our camp in Joel’s backyard and spent 10 days helping him with the conversion and truck overhaul. This was no minor task as our truck needed a new thermostat, glow plugs, fuel pump, and some serious welding work on the rack and frame. Joel Woolf at Veg Powered Systems made sure that everything was dialed on the rig before he would let us drive our truck down into Mexico. ¡Vamonos a la Baja! After countless hours of major surgery to the rig the veg conversion is done and we are headed south to our first fishing destinations in Baja Sur, prepared to take on the rough terrain though Mexico. Here’s a report from the MOTIV Fishing crew. It’s a dirty job but someone has to do it. In the crew’s own words, they’re going to travel across Mexico “wrestling waste oil out of grimy barrels in the back of taquerias and begging tortilla chip factories for a liquid substance that most wouldn’t touch with a 10-foot pole – free fuel and they say it’s good for the environment.” The vehicle of choice for the expedition across Mexico is a mid-’90s F250 converted to run on recycled vegetable oil. The crew is operating under MOTIV Fishing these days but their mission to get off the grid as far as possible with a fly rod and camera in hand is still the same. Former members of AEG Media, creators of The Trout Bum Diaries and Fish Bum Diaries DVDs, have collaborated once again to document a new expedition throughout Mexico. It started out as an idea and later became a vision while on a trip across Argentina seven years ago.
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