Ode to asphalt (Drive Day 189: Jan 4, 2004)
The rains have stopped, which means the drive goes from terrifying to simply traumatic. We breathe through wet t-shirts tied around our mouths and stop periodically to check how much has leaked from the disintegrating water tank inside the dust-smothered camper. And then, without warning, the secondary road reconnects with the southern highway to Santa Cruz.
I have to remind Gary to shift; he’s been in first gear since we started on this “detour.” We don’t normally stop to take photos of fancy houses but this time the contrast is so sharp it’s a reality check. Bolivia is night and day, heartbreaking and hopeful in ways I’m only beginning to comprehend.
Follow this bonus-material blog and ride along on a one-year road trip that inspired the memoir The Drive: Searching for Lost Memories on the Pan American Highway. On sale now. Get yours through the buy-the-book links at the bottom of the landing page on my teresabrucebooks.com website or here or here. Planning a road trip? Buy the audiobook here. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa. Like travel anthologies? I’m in a brand new one called Alone Together: Tales of Sisterhood and Solitude in Latin America which you can get here.
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