Teresa Bruce's Blog, page 14
October 21, 2017
Sweaty setbacks (Drive day 113 minus 14 years)
No luck booking passage for our rig on a container ship to South America — we’d have to separate the truck from the camper to fit inside one, and wait until a ship has enough freight to warrant sailing.
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So we do what everyone else in Panama City seems to do — drown our sorrows in Atlas beers. But then Gary almost pokes his eye out on an air conditioner inexplicably head-level in an interior stairwell. When we return, this story leads to only laughter from the expats at the XS Memories sports bar. Turns out that’s how Panama works — no regulations, no codes, no protection for the average citizen. If you fall into an uncovered manhole on a city sidewalk, the saying goes, the judge will give you a fine for not watching where you’re walking.
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 20, 2017
Panama City (Drive day 112 minus 14 years)
[image error]It’s less than a two hour collectivo ride to Panama City and we’ve decided to pay a visit to some shipping companies. I’m not prepared for how modern and American the city seems. I know, of course, that the Canal was only reluctantly turned back to Panamanians around the time I first passed through. But cab drivers have accents straight out of LA or Albaquerque and every known fast food franchise has staked a claim. Which is lucky, for those drivers who need to feed a hangover.
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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 19, 2017
Our neighbor Noreiga (Drive day 111 minus 14 years)
A few miles from XS Memories the Pan-American Highway dissects an old military base. Rio Hato was the pride of General Manuel Noriega in the 80s, conveniently he built a beach house practically on the end of the runway.
[image error]Which didn’t work out so well for him in 1989 when the US bombed it. Nothing much has been repaired in the decades since and the empty base is a haunting, weeded-over testament to greed and corruption.
[image error]There’s even a drug twist to the story. The 50 kilograms of cocaine that US soldiers claimed they found on site turned out to be tamale flour.
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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 18, 2017
Fellow travelers (Drive day 110 minus 14 years)
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We are camping alongside the younger, Swiss version of ourselves: Karen and Silva bought their camper in Canada, drove it from that country’s east coast to west then down I-5 through Washington, Oregon and California. And somehow they’ve arrived in Panama less than three months later. They’ve got a schedule to keep, meaning jobs to return to. Which surprises me. But apparently bosses there actually value the life experience travel brings to their employees. Language skills, maybe, but more importantly the diplomacy, flexibility and resourcefulness that come along with fabulous stories.
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 17, 2017
Memories in excess (Drive day 109 minus 14 years)
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I could stay on the Azuero for weeks, but we have to head further into Panama to start looking for passage to South America. Hooper and Betsy send us off with the greatest gift imaginable. They know the owners of Panama’s only RV park near the beach town of Santa Clara.
That it’s attached to a sports bar and called XS memories is incentive enough. But then Hooper drops the clincher. It’s owned by another expat who used to live in South Carolina — who happened to be on the same rugby team as about half of my male friends who still live there.
We pull in and park under a sky seven degrees of separation spectacular and meet unforgettable characters: Dennis and Sheila.
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You’ll meet them to, if you 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 16, 2017
The roofs of Parita (Drive day 108 minus 14 years)
[image error]A town’s roofing says a lot about the people living under them. In Parita the shallow red terra-cotta overlapping tiles are a throwback to Spain and a nod to the craftsmanship that might be the only good thing to come out of colonialism.
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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 15, 2017
Masks and risks (Drive day 107 minus 14 years)
If a man came to the door of a house in America with a nightmare-inducing mask in his hand, I would hope it’s Halloween and run. But here in the Azuero mask makers are ambassadors and master artist Darido Lopez’s fanged creatures are so fearsome we order two and promise to return when they’re ready.
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If I were strolling through a small town anywhere in the North American Southwest and a stranger pulled up in a white pickup wanting to know if we were lost, I’d be on edge. If he offered to give us a ride in the back and go get a beer at his house, I’d pretend not to hear and shuffle out of range of crazy. But here in the Azuero it seems stupid not to say yes, especially when the driver of the truck is American and I could really use a cold beer.
Which is where this story gets even more pinch-me. The man’s name is Hooper and he used to live on Hilton Head Island. His wife Betsy knows a woman I call one of my other mothers. They’re building a hotel resort, just like my parents are trying to do in Nicaragua. Only Betsy and Hooper have the good luck, or smarts, to take their pioneer spirit where its actually welcomed and any guest lucky enough to stay at Mangofish someday will never want to leave.
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 14, 2017
Peace like a peninsula (Drive Day 106 minus 14 years)
[image error]We are listening to the audiobook version of Peace Like A River as we glide through tranquility unmatched so far. I can feel my pulse slowing, my blood pressure easing. The colors are magic hour every hour and the views around every bend more jaw gaping than the last.
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I realize, after a day’s drive, that I have felt this peace before. The Azuero washed over my worries as a child and floats my spirit again in gratitude.
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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 13, 2017
The highest bidder (Drive day 105 minus 14 years)
[image error]We are taking a detour off the Pan-American, winding through a peninsula called the Azuero. But we could be time traveling into 1950s American cowboy country. We stumble onto a cattle auction and vegetarian me is shocked to see that a side of beef on the hoof costs more than most Panamanians’ cars.
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But its the bidding’s intensity, the scrutiny of heft, horn, hoof that is most unnerving. Not to mention kids glueing auction numbers onto the flanks of writhing, muscular animals that could skewer them in a heartbeat.
[image error]When we return to the camper, men are waiting to ask us about the stickers down the back of the camper we’ve collected in every country along the route. What seems ridiculously dangerous to them? Driving through Nicaragua.
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 12, 2017
Twisted, weird Boquete (Drive day 104 minus 14 years)
[image error]In the years since the first road trip down the Pan-American, this mountain outpost has become something of a retiree-darling. But we head to Boquete for the temperatures: cool 70s after Costa Rica’s stifling rainy season heat. Clearly there’s something in the water — this park features yard art gone psycho. Lewis Carroll couldn’t have dreamed up crazier.
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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.
