SAMPLE WRITINGS
page 166
On this bus ride to this border, the road was in terrible condition and there were two young boys filling in the pot-holes by hand. As our bus roared past they help up their dirty hands with their sad faces begging for some money for their work. The bus driver didn’t even look at them or slow down.
One little boy of maybe 6 years held up a few onions as the bus slowed down for one of the deep holes with the pleading on his face to please buy them, but no one did.
On one bus in Guatemala, an Indian woman and her son sat next to me. During the ride she asked if she could sit next to the window and I let her move. She was very sick. She had on her back the carrying shawl.
She was so sick I had to let her rest her head on my arm, the arm I was using to hold onto the front bar as this bus too was careening around the highlands of Guatemala. I had to hold tighter because she was now resting most of her weight onto my arm. I looked at her beautiful black hair flowing over my arm and down her back and saw a movement within her shawl, then something emerged from her shawl. It was the tiny hand of her baby.
The baby’s hand was the size of a quarter; so small and new and fragile. I looked up at the bus driver’s helper screaming directions and saw the women crossing themselves and watched the blind curves and the steep drop-offs and heard the screaming of the engines and smelt the fumes of the poor exhaust system and the smell of the burning brake shoes and I asked myself, “Just what the hell are you doing? This is insane. You’ve got to get off this bus.” Just then, I left my body and viewed the whole scene on the bus and beyond and thought, “You do this because this is real life. These people are alive, and you love this feeling.” I settled back into my body and held firmer to the bar and let the Indian woman rest on my arm even more.
page 161
I was a little afraid there. I was in an area I didn’t know anything about and it was somewhat isolated. I left the throw-in area and found a taxi back to the bus staging area and found the right mini-van to take me back to Granada. I had many offers from the mini-van drivers but most of them were doing a circuitous route and I had learned to pick out the right one for a direct journey. It’s always a commotion in these areas with the buses coming and going and the people moving in every direction, and the drivers pulling at you, but I learned to be oblivious to it all and stay focused.
The taxi drivers assaulted me with offers of high cost ride to Laguna and when I asked them where the bus to Laguna was they’d say there weren’t any and I’d become savvy enough to know they’re mostly lying and so I left them with a smile and went off.
I’d walk the line of buses asking for the bus for Laguna and four teenaged girls, standing and chatting in front of one bus asked me where I was going and they pointed out the right bus which was the one next to theirs.
They were smiling and giggling as young girls do and when I lowered my sunglasses to look at their eyes they smiled and cooed and giggled even more then laughed harder as they exchanged their comments and I knowing nothing about this so just nodded and smiled, and went on.
The driver said we’d be leaving in forty minutes which gave me time to check out the large market with veggies and fruits and clothes and everything you would need if you lived there. I bought a slice of watermelon, the one under the plastic wrap and not the one with the many flies eating from it and it hurt my stomach. Later I found a bag of veggies to take with me and continued through the market watching and taking it all in and saw the men who would mug me when the Sun went down. So I wound my way back through the market to the bus and sat for a sweltering fifteen minutes while the food vendors hawked their variety of foods to the travelers with the most incredible assortment of voices announcing what they had to offer and I paid too much on purpose for two small sugar donuts.
Back in Granada and the small intrigues in the hostel. Young women talking to you about your journey then they converse with another man and he for some reason convinces them you’re crazy and they play some game about separation and you’re on your own again.
I went to a beautiful high clean lake, Laguna Apoyo, that is a filled-in caldera of an ancient volcano. The water was a pure blue and the location was idyllic. I rented a kayak and rowed out to the middle of the lake and placed another crystal. I was able to rest in this gentle place for a few hours then back to Granada and get the gear ready for the next bus trip which took me into the Southwest corner of Honduras.
page 110
I was grateful for the truck. It ran well and took me high up into remote areas of the Andes Mountains. I had all my gear with me for cooking and sleeping.
Driving in Chile was the most difficult driving I’ve ever done. It was difficult because all the land was fenced and locked. It was very hard to find a place to pull over and rest or sleep for the night. Camping areas are very rare. I once drove over very rough roads thirty miles to find a camping area. I arrived late at night and the family who owned the camping area were surprised that anyone would travel so far to sleep. They charged me one peso for the night.
They showed me to the sleeping area and I set up camp. I noticed there were some horses wandering around but I gave them little attention. I wasn’t sure where I was and I was a bit concerned for my safety. In the middle of the night I had a dream.
In the dream I was surrounded by four horses and one was nuzzling my face with it’s soft mouth. The other three were surrounding me as though they were guarding me. I felt very comforted and safe. I half woke up and there the four horses were surrounding me. It was obvious I was being guarded.
I had other dreams with horses in them on this trip. One dream in Santiago I was with a herd of horses in a corral--it was dark. We were confined in that corral and we were quickly moving around trying to find a way out. One horse then leaped and busted through the wooden fence and we all quickly followed. When I woke up I immediately packed up my gear and left the city.
As I drove around Chile I tried to understand why everything was locked and gated. At first I thought it was to keep burglars out, but that wasn’t the real reason.
When I was first in Santiago I made friends with two brothers who owned an internet cafe which was just down the street from my hotel, the Hotel Paris. One brother Juan Pablo and I became good friends and he often drove me around the city. On one trip he drove me past the soccer stadium and he explained to me that was the place where Pinochet had some of the thousands of people in opposition to his rule sent to be jailed and tortured. I could feel the still palpable energy of that trauma present in that space.
Why people locked and fenced everything up tight then made sense to me; it was the trauma of the Pinochet regime still lingering within the psyche of the people.
page 10
I delayed my seemingly imminent arrest by giving the Captain $200.00, which to my surprise seemed to appease him for the few minutes I needed to finish packing, grab the footlocker, and quickly depart. Depart that is past the Captain who was by now on the pier talking to the Port Police as I began to walk past.
All five stared at me with the look of danger and toughness. I said to the Capt. as I passed, “I’ll see you up North,” meaning Colorado. This slight threat stopped him long enough so he didn't think about searching my footlocker for the scuba gear. My $1000 worth of gear had been stowed in a special locker in the cargo hole and I believe the Captain thought I hadn’t had time to retrieve it and so figured his prize was secure.
I made it past the cops, the Captain and into a taxi. Then out to the airport where I checked the footlocker and hid the claim-ticket in my shoe, within my sock, near the toes. I was so afraid by this time that I was constantly looking and waiting for the Port Police to show up and arrest me. I had to wait 1&1/2 hrs. for the next, and only, flight out of Vera Cruz. Those were very long minutes.
You may know that the word of the Captain of a ship is law--absolute law. He can do whatever he wants to you and has no one to answer to. It’s terribly traumatizing to suddenly have your freedom and possibly your life, in the hands of another human, especially one who’s enraged and sees injustice all around him.
I watched and watched and searched each taxi and car and tried to be invisible and felt my body shaking and slowly, slowly, the hands of the clock moved and the jet arrived and the people departed and our flight was called and I pretended to be normal and began the long walk out onto the steaming-hot tarmac and I could see the stairs leading up to the open cabin door and I stayed in line and it was step-by-step. All the while listening for my name to be called and trying not to look back at the terminal and then I found myself walking up the stairs and I felt the difference in the temperature of the plane and found my seat. I lightly sat down, watching the final passengers move past and the light coming in the still open door and “Why are they waiting to close the door,” I thought.
I scanned the people inside the terminal peering through the windows. I again checked the arriving cars, looking for the quickly moving men racing to stop the plane.
