Colombia
The photo that haunts and comforts me (Drive Day 131: Nov 7th, 2003)
So this is me, aboard the container ship that carried us to Colombia: puke-naked, half-starved and helpless. Even a stowaway would have had more agency, more control over her destiny. Thirty years later I’ve decided on a safer route. And though there is an air-sickness bag tucked into the pocket of the seat in front of me, I am comforted that we have made the right choice. Somewhere on the seas below, our camper is strapped to the deck of a roll-on, roll-off freighter ship and if we are meant to reunite and continue this roadtrip together; the Avion will survive her own crossing.
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.
Settling the bar tab (Drive Day 129: November 6th, 2003)
Would a bar in the states let you rack up hundreds of dollars in beer while you openly admit to planning to leave the country? Dennis and Sheila never doubt we’ll make good, or that we’ll ever forget them. We lose a hand of poker on our last night and made the rounds of XS Memories regulars to say goodbye to people and animals who feel like neighbors. Tomorrow the goodbye will be even harder – when we drop the camper off at the dock and head for an airport to Ecuador.
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.
Colombia would be cheaper, but…(Drive Day 128: November 5th, 2003)
This is a picture of my father’s truck being craned into a ship bound for Colombia. It was then and is now the fastest, cheapest ocean passage to the next continent. Back then it had its risks – our camper was impounded for three days before my father broke us out of a customs lot in Cartagena and went on the run for a week. But the intervening 30 years have made it worse. I hate to dig out the “research” I did before Gary and I embarked but it’s the elephant in the room. We decide to book passage from Balboa, Panama to Manta Ecuador instead. We’ll give up Colombia and Venezuela for a country where our Ford F350 and Avion will hopefully raise only eyebrows, not ransom demands.
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.
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