South America
On to Urcos (Drive Day 175: Dec 21st, 2003)
We stop at a market town to buy veggies for a curry and singlehandedly disrupt the culture and economy. The costumes worn by men and women are astounding but each time Gary lifts his lens we are met with turned backs and wagging fingers.
Got it. So we load up on purple carrots, flowering Swiss chard and autumn-colored potatoes. But not a single merchant can make change. Nothing costs enough to add up to any denomination of paper currency. More fingers wag. Ladies fill our bags with things we cannot name, more than we can possibly consume before it wilts and wastes, and eventually seem satisfied with the transaction. This is a town out of place with time.
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.
The power of Pisac (Drive Day 174: Dec 20th, 2003)
A kid we meet hiking up to the ruins above Pisac tells us this ancient site was much more populated than Machu Picchu ever was. Almost five thousand people once lived here and the stonework is as mind-blowing as any we’ve seen. Perfect trapezoid doorways into grassy courtyards with lookouts in every direction. Columns of blocks fitted together so perfectly it looks like one giant stone etched with lines to make it look constructed. But other than market day, tourists rarely make the trek to Pisac so what stands out most is the sound. Not human. All we hear as we hike are creaks and moans of eucalyptus tree trunks rubbing up against each other in the rustling wind.
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.
The Sacred Valley (Drive Day 173: Dec 19th, 2003)
After the coldest night we’ve slept through so far, we spend the morning buying alpaca blankets from the family that guarded our camper while we explored Machu Picchu. This is when the ability to pack your house on top of your ride is hug-yourself lucky. We don’t have to race to catch a train, check out of a hotel at a certain time or stick to any kind of schedule in the Sacred Valley. Our bones ache from the altitude but long hikes work out the kinks. Besides, it’s hard to complain when you’re getting passed by old ladies carrying bundles of firewood on their backs with nothing more substantial than flipflops on their bundled feet.
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.
Machu Picchu revisited (Drive Day 172: Dec 18th, 2003)
You know that feeling you get when you step into an elementary school classroom and marvel at how little everything seems? Machu Picchu is the reverse.
As a kid I was more impressed with the llamas than the ruins they grazed among. And the curse word my little sister practiced under her breath to complain about the steep terraces. Thirty years later I am awestruck, humbled and grateful Gary can capture it in images where words simply pale.
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.
Towns that tumble from your tongue (Drive Day 171: Dec. 17th, 2003)
It takes a considerable amount of practice to pronounce the name of the town that is the closest place to Machu Picchu it is possible to drive. But saying Ollantaytambo (oh-yawn-tuh-tom-bow) is easier than spelling it. Peru’s sacred valley is as stunning as it is multisyllabic.
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.
Need a solar skateboard? Check out Cuzco (Drive Day 170: Dec 16th, 2003)
Cuzco is justifiably famous for its mortar-less stone walls and majestic cathedrals. But perched, as it is, along the remnants of the Inca Trail it is first and foremost a market town – a stopover for runners delivering messages and goods to ancient kings.
But somehow the hard-sell tourist trade seems over-the-top today. Craving vegan pizza? No problem. Eco-mystic treks? Step right up. If it was made for hiking, camping, photographing, cooking, bathing, combating altitude sickness or killing bacteria you’ll find it in one of the used-equipment stores mingled among internet cafes and bars. I’m sure if I look hard enough I’ll find things my parents were forced to sell in this town thirty years ago – on the tail-end of a rapidly dwindling budget.
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.
Almost to Cuzco (Drive Day 169: Dec 15th, 2003)
In 1973 this stretch of “highway” almost broke my parents’ spirit. My little sister broke her collar bone (with some assistance from her equally undernourished older sister) and the truck suffered near fatal injuries as well.
The road is better now, less punishing in our new Ford F350, but the drive is still harrowing.
We could try to find a campsite in Cuzco but the roads are too narrow and our nerves too shattered. So we pull in next to long-haul truckers at a gas station and try to ignore the rumble of diesel engines as we fall into an exhausted sleep.
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.
To never know is just fine (Drive Day 168: Dec 14th, 2003)
Seven-year-old me discovered how motion sick I get in any moving vehicle, so 37-year-old me knows better than to take an afternoon flight over the lines of Nazca. The winds are less puke-bag-inducing in the morning – so we sign up for the first Cessna 182 overhead tour offered. And nothing I could have read, studied, surmised, pontificated, opined or imagined comes close to the mystery of these ancient etchings. I recognize the monkey and whale only because I know to call them that – but in truth these markings look like intentional erasings of earth that just happen to create patterns. Meaning? Not for us mere mortals to know for certain – though personally I like the Erich von Daniken theory attributing them to visitors from outer space.
Which is what I feel like as we begin the drive up from sea-level Nazca on our way to Cuzco and Machu Picchu. We ascend 14,261 feet in a matter of hours, and a lunch break watching altiplano flamingoes sets off hallucinations I will never forget. You, however, can read about it if you buy the book – it’s one of my favorite chapters.
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.
Bones beyond the lines of Nazca (Drive Day 167: December 13th, 2003)
We are driving south to Nazca, site of the famously unexplained earthen lines and figures visible only from the sky. We stop to watch a man in his 20s slog behind a pair of oxen – rice for market will someday emerge from the muddy sludge – and make it to a cemetery 20 kms south of Nazca in time for sunset.
Some 400 tombs are reportedly dug into the foot of the world’s highest sand dune – and most have been plundered by grave robbers. Except this one – a mummified woman so startlingly intact that I leave a bottle of Don Claudio’s pisco for her travels through time.
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.
Pisco maestro Don Claudio (Drive Day 166: Dec 12th, 2003)
Don Claudio too has driven the day’s journey south of Pisco to his ranch – just to meet us. He gives us a tour of the concrete fermentation tanks and the copper contraption called an alambique that distills the liquid. He is a gallant, gracious host with Italian origins who recovers from a pulled tooth by joining us in a taste sampling of his finest varieties.
The sun sets over draping grape terraces and sand dunes and we decide that this is the most beautiful campground in South America.
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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