As the two year anniversary approaches I reflect of some of the things I have done and experienced. It will be two years this October since I crossed the border into Mexico to begin a driving journey to the bottom of the world.
-David
DirectionsWaving goodbye to a backpacker in northern Guatemala after convincing him to take a road that was not in the Lonely Planet guidebook. He looked so happy standing with his travelers bag in an empty flat bed truck with two workers. I drove the same road weeks later. A special route not frequented by travelers through mountainous communities of indigenous Maya. He waved back to me as the heavy truck built up speed leaving a cloud of dust in its wake. He was going the other way just 15 minutes earlier.
EatingBuying stolen fruit from a beggar.
Flat Tire
The Man who fixed my flat out in the middle of the jungle, where services such as tire repair services don't exist. No one in the village owned a car and the town itself lined both sides of a long unused dirt runway now grassed over with a soccer pitch shared with untethered pigs and horses. I sheared off a valve stem on some jungle brush while deep in the dry jungle of northern Guatemala searching for a Maya ruin that had not been exposed to the tourist hoards or polished up. It was near the famed ruins of Tikal.
The old leathery Guatemalan making the repair had no valve stem to replace the one I'd broken, but explained he'd look for one and to come back later. When I came back I was disappointed to see him stuffing an inner tube into a modern tube-less tire. It was done. I let go of my finely honed "make it perfect American way" by joining the men who were inflating my newly repaired tire with a bicycle pump in repressive Guatemalan heat. The bead eventually set after 45 minutes of pumping settling at 18psi. I had a spare tire and could barrel off into the bush again. I was beginning to learn something about Latin American resourcefulness.
Stuck
The Honduran who pulled my truck off a precarious rain soaked mountain road; it was a land bridge that gave way with four friends out for a Sunday drive to the top of a mountain that overlooked Trujillo on the Caribbean coast. A hole as big as the truck lie waiting. My old Land Cruiser's rear axle rested on crumbly soil. Any attempt to get it out without help condemned it to the hole beneath it. Even if the tow out went bad the hole lay waiting. It was my worst pickle to date. We dug, placed timber while another Toyota pulled it out safely. We drove off the mountain and went back to town returning to our rum.
FantasyDriving portions of the 2008 Baja 1000 off road race circuit through the Baja California desert in my antiquated Toyota Land Cruiser.
Readers
It was the strangest book trade I ever made and the most unequal while standing on a remote people-less beach. We drove 100 miles over dirt roads to reach this pristine crescent white sand beach on the Sea of Cortez in Baja California. I was fiddling with the tent when they appeared on the beach in a pair of kayaks and pitched camp. A fit and attractive Swiss couple.
He asked,
Do you have a book to trade?
Yes, I do. I said with pleasure,
I have a travel book by Paul Theroux, a collection of his works. What do you have?
It was a juvenile action book for 8th graders about a man hunted naked in the desert by a nut who hired him as a guide. It was a stupid read of survival and homoerotic fantasy. Usually for an unequal or poor trade like this one I refuse the trade. It didn't matter, the setting was too unusual not to, plus the fact that these two were rowing a significant portion of the Sea of Cortez in kayaks, carrying all their own supplies, including 15 days of water. I was impressed by their mode of travel and traded the book willingly. I read the naked man in the desert book and it was awful. It contained Jeeps, guns, survival, strange behavior and nudity. What did the Swiss man think of America after this read?
Pie IEating genuine apple pie in the indigenous highlands of Guatemala. You find Americans in the oddest places provided the oddest services.
Two WheelsThe French couple that Stephanie and I met who were bicycling from Alaska to Ushuaia, Argentina (near 16,000 miles) that we met in the earliest days of my journey in the Baja California desert. This was November 2008 and one way or another we were all headed to the bottom of the world, Patagonia in buses, cars, motorcycles or bicycles. In January 2010 I received a letter indicating they arrived -the bottom of the South American Continent by bicycle. Almost two years later I am less than halfway in a car.
Pie II
Eating genuine apple pie again a year later in another indigenous highland town in Ecuador. This time it was an Ecuadorian baker providing the oddest service.
DavidHuaraz, Peru
