06 H3
a.k.a. "The Jackal"
- Messages
- 9,505
- Location
- Meridian, ID
My family of 6 plus grandma flew to NY to meet up with our aunts, uncles and cousins to then take another flight to Aruba. My grandma is getting old and wanted a big family trip before she gets any older. Unfortunately, with our busy lives not everyone could go with us but in the end we got 12 of us to make our way to aruba. Everyone in my family knows my need for adventure and while I do love sitting around tanning by the pool or on the beach after 4 days of that it was time for an adventure. My uncle and I, who also is crazy on adventures, were going to rent a jeep and drive through the island. He would drive the on the road I would drive off road but everyone else wanted to tag along and didn't trust us with a map so they wanted to do a tour.
After looking into a few tour companies we found one that let us drive. So we hopped into 2 land rover defenders with turbo diesels! Damn those diesels kick ass, I wish there was an easy way to put one in an H3. Lets not forget, were in aruba so we are not pampered with automatic transmissions here
They only had 1 automatic and 1 manual for us. I took the manual, I have driven a manual 2-3 times but never on road at speed or offroad, just in parking lots and around the block but what the hell, this was a good chance for me to really get good at it. I am still no pro but can successfully navigate city traffic and light offloading without stalling.
heres a pic of the auto one, everyone took turns driving. Mine had no spare on the hood and no auto trans so I got to drive that the entire day.
The trails here were dirt roads and scenic with a few hill climbs, some whoops. Overall easy but fun and good practice for my first time wheeling with a stick shift. I saw some tough lines but seeing I was still being led by a tour guide in his own defender I couldn't go off and get too crazy. The manual trans and turbo diesel were downright insane. I loved the power.
heres me...
We visited 4 spots, a natural pool, two natural bridges and the ruins.
Here are the ruins
Overall I had a blast, taking some NYers who haven't really had much off road experience and taking whoops fast so we could bounce them around and splashing through little creeks. The natural pool was awesome and got to snorkel at the pool too.
Afterwards, we drove back to the tour rental property and to get a bus ride back to the hotel. The bus was full and we were all going to have to wait for the next one but seeing I made good friends with the fabricator and builder of the vehicles as we talked about all the roof chopping and cage building he did to these vehicles he offered us a ride back in the aruba version of "behemoth." I must say though, those cages will not save anyone in the event of a real rollover but looked cool, thats gotta count for something. :wink:
Stretched frame, chopped top, 38s, and a lot of seating.
I love the vehicles out here, there very odd but cool. I know 4speedfunk would love the basic compact size pickups with diesels and manual trannys. The keep it simple method is followed around here.
Hummers are rare, I have seen 1 H2, 1 H3, 1 H2 SUT and one H2 limo. Jeeps are everywhere, suzukis and rovers are everywhere. small odd ball 4x4s are everywhere too. Saw a bunch of toyota hilux's too.
I felt like I was nugget going into the outback to explore. It was fun
After looking into a few tour companies we found one that let us drive. So we hopped into 2 land rover defenders with turbo diesels! Damn those diesels kick ass, I wish there was an easy way to put one in an H3. Lets not forget, were in aruba so we are not pampered with automatic transmissions here
They only had 1 automatic and 1 manual for us. I took the manual, I have driven a manual 2-3 times but never on road at speed or offroad, just in parking lots and around the block but what the hell, this was a good chance for me to really get good at it. I am still no pro but can successfully navigate city traffic and light offloading without stalling. 
heres a pic of the auto one, everyone took turns driving. Mine had no spare on the hood and no auto trans so I got to drive that the entire day.
The trails here were dirt roads and scenic with a few hill climbs, some whoops. Overall easy but fun and good practice for my first time wheeling with a stick shift. I saw some tough lines but seeing I was still being led by a tour guide in his own defender I couldn't go off and get too crazy. The manual trans and turbo diesel were downright insane. I loved the power.
heres me...
We visited 4 spots, a natural pool, two natural bridges and the ruins.
Here are the ruins
Overall I had a blast, taking some NYers who haven't really had much off road experience and taking whoops fast so we could bounce them around and splashing through little creeks. The natural pool was awesome and got to snorkel at the pool too.
Afterwards, we drove back to the tour rental property and to get a bus ride back to the hotel. The bus was full and we were all going to have to wait for the next one but seeing I made good friends with the fabricator and builder of the vehicles as we talked about all the roof chopping and cage building he did to these vehicles he offered us a ride back in the aruba version of "behemoth." I must say though, those cages will not save anyone in the event of a real rollover but looked cool, thats gotta count for something. :wink:
Stretched frame, chopped top, 38s, and a lot of seating.
I love the vehicles out here, there very odd but cool. I know 4speedfunk would love the basic compact size pickups with diesels and manual trannys. The keep it simple method is followed around here.
Hummers are rare, I have seen 1 H2, 1 H3, 1 H2 SUT and one H2 limo. Jeeps are everywhere, suzukis and rovers are everywhere. small odd ball 4x4s are everywhere too. Saw a bunch of toyota hilux's too.
I felt like I was nugget going into the outback to explore. It was fun
