Teresa Bruce's Blog, page 13
October 31, 2017
A more North American celebration for Halloween (Drive day 123 minus 14 years)
By the time we make it back to XS Memories, Dennis and Shiela have transformed it into a haunted campground. And Sheila has saved her favorite costumes for me and Gary to borrow — she calls the look “The hussy and her pimp.”
Best dressed definitely goes to Canadian John — bringing a little Sopranos down South.
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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.
October 30, 2017
Little old men (Drive day 121 minus 14 days)
[image error]Lucky for us, we travel with our own housing and don’t need hotel reservations. This long string of celebrations is so popular that the few hotels near Chitre are booked solid months in advance.
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This little boy’s mother asked if I would pose with him and send her a copy. I’m thinking it’s my hat.
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.
October 29, 2017
And the band plays on (Drive day 121 minus 114 years)
[image error]Despite the intensity of its participants, this is the most photo-friendly party on earth and I have no trouble getting an entire band to pose with me.
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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.
October 28, 2017
Masked marchers (Drive Day 120 minus 14 years)
[image error]We pick up our masks from Darido just in time for the big parade in Chitre. Which puts every parade I’ve ever seen, including St. Patty’s in NYC, to shame.
[image error]Little boys take gleeful pleasure in chasing and charging toward every camera, and the mothers of the little beauty queens dart in front of Gary to fix lipstick before he snaps pictures of their daughters. Guaro flows freely from flasks, plastic cups and carved gourds and the music is irresistibly danceable.
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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.
October 27, 2017
Altar restoration (Drive day 119 minus 14 years)
[image error]As Darido Lopez is to mask making, the Lopez brothers are to colonial-era church repair. Which is why they live in the tiny Azuero town of Parita, home to more than a dozen crumbling churches dating back to the 1700s. Jose Sergio Lopez kindly autographs my Lonely Planet and lets Gary wander around taking photographs. Sadly, he tells me, his own kids aren’t interested in the craft so he’s not sure who will continue the tradition.
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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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October 26, 2017
Will brake for museums (Drive Day 118 minus 14 years)
[image error]The best part of killing time while waiting for a ship to separate you from your home-on-wheels is the chance to wander aimlessly. Which, for us, means stopping any time we see evidence of a town museum. Panama seems to be covered in them — and even if they’re closed there’s usually a note with directions to the house of someone who has a key. Actually tracking down the keeper of dusty museum keys makes more sense that it might seem. Because in these municipal, part-time, all-volunteer museums we discover how deeply Panamanians treasure their collective story. When we find one featuring Darido’s masks, we take it as a sign our commissioned pieces of Panamanian culture are ready for pickup.
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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.
October 25, 2017
The Darien Gap (Drive day 117 minus 14 years)
[image error]One thing that hasn’t changed in the thirty years since I last drove through Panama is that you can’t really drive through Panama. At least not all the way. The famed Darien Gap is impassable — unless you’re the National Geographic expedition type and plan on hacking your way through by machete. The end of the road for the Avion will be Panama City or Colon on the Caribbean side of this skinny country, depending on where we find ocean passage.
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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.
October 24, 2017
Vegetarianism abandoned (Drive day 116 minus 14 years)
Hamburger was a greasy, smelly treat the first time down the Pan-American Highway. Cooking it meant we were at least camped somewhere level, with enough money to buy ground beef. Which is why my parents never could understand why I gave it up, along with all other red meat, when I went to college.
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Fast forward two decades and it is my birthday. I can’t face another bowl of rice and beans. I am a carnivore again and have Panama to thank for coming to my senses.
October 23, 2017
Growing mold between my toes (Drive day 115 minus 14 years)
While we’ve been away in the city, the Avion settled into Santa Clara. Literally. It rains so much the truck wheels sink into the soggy earth. We move to a less rutted spot in the RV park and discover that the camper’s interior is coated in a fine layer of green slime. We hose it down with bleach and spend the day before my birthday hanging every article of clothing we own out to dry. With any luck.
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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.
October 22, 2017
All bark, with a bite too (Drive day 114 minus 14 years)
Halfway back to Santa Clara is a village called El Valle, nestled under the protection of mountain in the shape of a sleeping Indian Princess. But we’re more intrigued by the small bark figurines carved by indigenous artists.
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We’ve seen them before — life-size costumes worn by men summoning their animal spirits in the Azuero. Which is just the remedy for a weekend in Panama City and a reminder of how far from “America” it really is.
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.
