Guatemala
Pyramid Schemes and Other Dreams (Drive Day 47 minus 14 years)
We haven’t left the rickety boat landing on the far shore of Lake Atitlan when an aging North American hippy saunters up and introduces himself as Crazy Joe. “I’m here to sell some pot, want any today?”
The offer doesn’t surprise me, coming as it does at the entrance of Las Piramides Spiritual Retreat and Yoga Center. What drops my jaw are the clients: gorgeous Eurotravelers busy not talking to each other. Turns out they’re in the total silence moon phase of their stay at this astral travel mecca. We, on the other hand, are here for the food. Shawn says it’s the best vegan buffet in the country. I agree, without saying a word.
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. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa.
Is this cheating? (Drive Day 46 minus 14 years)
The casita complex comes with caretakers, guards, gardeners and a cook Shawn and Susie call Dona Vasilia. Who lets us tag along on her daily trips to market where we buy the food she needs. Like bags of dried hibiscus flowers for “Rosa de Jamaica” punch and thankfully pre-slaughtered chicken for cilantro enchiladas. We happily peel skins off roasted peppers and mortar-the-pestle out of dried seeds.
Tonight there are no dead bugs or butterflies caught in the truck’s grill for Gary to sketch. So in his journal he affixes a more satisfying memento of a marvelous day.
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. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa.
Gringotenango (Drive Day 45 minus 14 years)
It’s easy to see how Lake Atitlan’s biggest town, Panajachel, got its nickname. After the solitude and desolation of the highlands, billboards advertising yoga retreats and internet cafes seem comfortingly tacky. Thirty years ago my family could camp safely on the beach itself but this time backpackers we first met in Mexico warn us off – their tent got robbed, along with all their food. So for the first time since leaving North America, I’m going to try something that makes my Midwestern husband feel utterly uncomfortable. I find a phone booth and call the son of a relative’s friend – essentially a stranger whose hospitality was promised by someone we’ve met exactly once. I call it my new “say yes, nothing to lose” philosophy.
It turns out all-but-a-stranger Shawn has a delightful girlfriend Susie, and access to a private casita far from the touristy town. So Gary gets a chance to capture this view of Lake Atitlan.
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. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa.
Towns that sound like double Dutch rhymes (Drive Day 44 minus 14 years)
Guatemala’s towns are sing-along rhythmic – Huehuetenango, Chichicastenango and now we’re coming up on Solala. Ti and do to go – but then the truck joins in with a more ominous sound. We park a gravel stream bed to check out the damage and discover the camper has slid an inch and a half to the right in the truck’s bed. We ratchet it up on its built-in four jacks and Gary serves as counterweight, gripping a tie-down cable like he’s rappelling down the face of a steel mountain. When he yells ready, I wedge a few river rocks under the belly of the Avion, same theory as stabilizing a wobbly café table with a wad to napkins. Make that a 2,500 pound table, but it’s symmetrical again. For now.
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. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa.
Sites and sights of slaughter (Drive Day 43 minus 14 years)
Ten thousand feet in the Cuchumantanes mountains we stop at a scenic vista. It marks the spot of another massacre in Guatemala’s decades-long civil war – which they should probably rename the government war against indigenous peoples, considering 80% of all deaths were natives. The place is so desolate it’s as if these people never existed. Except for the wildflowers that mark the spot – blood red kniphofia.
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. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa.
Salvation by four-wheel drive (Drive Day 42 minus 14 years)
Wipeout’s nerves are worsening. She started having panic attacks in Cristobal, triggered by the fireworks and thunderstorms at night. Here in Todos Santos, it is screaming preachers who drive her to biting herself bloody. They are Pentecostal fundamentalists, ranting through a tiny chapel rigged with loudspeakers across the fields. It is 65 degrees and at 7,832 feet we are in a tin can echo chamber. I have never been more grateful for 4-wheel drive – just to get us out of here.
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. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa.
All Saints and little devils (Drive Day 41 minus 14 years)
As road trip veterans, we have a lot to learn. Like how to put the truck into four-wheel drive when the road into Todos Santos becomes a dirt path through washouts and landslides. I read aloud from the manual stashed in the glove compartment while Gary gets muddy. I am also the one who negotiates with a farmer to camp in a field I assume is his. I am also the one who pays a pack of adorable little boys to guard Wipeout while Gary and I hike into town for its famous market day.
But it is Gary who figures out why the little angels turn into devils when we return – pelting the camper with mud clots, poking sticks at Wipeout, stealing our steps and demanding more money. The change I showered them with hours earlier? All Mexican coins, useless even for candy in the land of Mam.
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. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa.
First night in Guatemala and way way to go (Drive Day 40 minus 14 years)
We pick a mountain crossing into Guatemala because the guide books call it more laid back than the search-and-frisk frenzy of more coastal border stops. It is so laid back I can’t tell where the immigration officers are and Wipeout and I set out on foot to find someone to officially stamp our passports and carnet while Gary waits for our house on wheels to be fumigated. In a small building stacked with chicken crates waiting to cross into Mexico (run chickens, run!) the guard points to Wipeout. I open the file with her visa, filled in with today’s date, and hand it to him. Which he reads, upside down.
We won’t make Huehuetenango by nightfall so we boondock at the Zaculeu ruins, once the capitol of the Mam Mayan people. Who, according to legend, had to eat each other to survive a siege by Spanish conquistadores. To spite the victorious Spanish, we heat up a delicious dinner of leftovers from the San Cristobal markets: avocado and tomato salad for starters, then a one-pot masterpiece of rice, shrimp and squash – so there.
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. Like The Drive’s Facebook page and tweet back at me @writerteresa.
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