Teresa Bruce's Blog, page 17
September 23, 2017
Yup, we tried to invade this place too (Drive Day 85 minus 14 years)
[image error]We are embarrassed by our DC license plates again when we find out about an American named William Walker. In 1856 he tried to invade this coastal paradise to turn everyone into slaves. Luckily Costa Rica’s president got wind of it, sent troops and wiped out Walker’s mercenaries in a 14 minute battle. Hmm, about as long as the only Confederate battle in my adopted hometown of Beaufort lasted. What tangled webs we weave…
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.
September 22, 2017
First National Park in Costa Rica (Drive Day 84 minus 14 years)
We’re headed for our first national park in Costa Rica, which is also THE first national park in Costa Rica – founded just two years before my first road trip down the Pan-American. But on our way to the peaceful campground at Santa Rosa we take a page out of Nicaraguan history. Camouflaged by jungle overgrowth stretch the remains of a secret landing strip whose very existence is still officially denied. Why? Because it was from this remote spot in supposedly neutral Costa Rica that U.S.-backed Contras dispatched bombing raids on Sandinista targets just across the border. It takes washed-out, river-fording, 4-wheel-drive conditions to find it – the world’s spookiest selfie spot.
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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.
September 21, 2017
From wild life to wildlife (Drive Day 83 minus 14 years)
[image error]Ours is the only camper parked on the grounds of Hacienda Inocentes and we could probably skinny dip in the chlorinated outdoor pool. But that’s a little too au-natural – all the other animals are profoundly plumed and gloriously garbed. In the shadows of Volcan Orosi, it is a feathered, fashion show: Blue Morpho butterflies, Scarlet Macaws, Chestnut-mandibled Toucans and the resplendent but too-shy Quetzal out there somewhere.
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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.
September 20, 2017
Innocence lost and found (Drive Day 82 minus 14 years)
[image error]We could turn off the Pan-American and take a detour to San Juan del Sur – sister to the hardscrabble northern outpost. But after talking to the farmers in the streets of Managua yesterday it doesn’t seem right to jump from suffering to surfing, protests to partying. So we cross another frontera and end up at a volcanic research station turned eco-lodge. After the intensity of Nicaragua, Costa Rica’s Hacienda Inocentes is a welcome respite and we camp next to night blooming flowers in the moon shadow of a volcano.
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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.
September 19, 2017
Back on the mainland, protests in Managua (Drive Day 81 minus 14 years)
There’s a CAFTA trade meeting underway in the capitol when we return and hundreds of cops and military soldiers line the streets in full riot gear. At least 1,500 marchers, mostly farmers and students, rally against provisions in the trade deal that will undermine their meager livings. As usual, astounding artistry pierces through the smoke and fury.
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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.
September 18, 2017
Keeping up appearances (Drive Day 80 minus 14 years)
[image error]Dad’s flying back to Managua with us to try and resolve some legal issues so he decides he needs a haircut. On Corn Island, the barber comes to the resort’s nicest bungalow, an island-style house call. Meanwhile I have to say goodbye to mom. She has to stay and guard the property while dad’s away.
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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.
September 17, 2017
If this were a monopoly game, I’d get the boot (Drive Day 79 minus 14 years)
We play every board game I haven’t played since childhood, including the Monopoly game I got for Christmas on the first Pan-American road trip in 1973. That night my parents let me stay up ‘til midnight and I got a hotel on Boardwalk that made a killing. Now they have a hotel on Corn Island that has never had a paying guest and it’s killing them.
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.
September 16, 2017
All’s well if the beer stays cool (Drive Day 78 minus 14 years)
[image error]On Corn Island we find ourselves going to bed later and sleeping in later – not so much in rhythm of the daylight but in slavery to electricity. When the power’s on you’re in the mood to stay up and socialize. When it cuts out and the heat seethes, it’s better to stare at the sea or 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.
September 15, 2017
Full moon crazy in Corn Island (Drive Day 77 minus 14 years)
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The list of reasons sane people wouldn’t build a dive resort on this particular island off the coast of Nicaragua is unending. No medical facilities, no phone service, no reliable electricity, a regularly flooded gut-busting dirt road and even more regularly gut busting canned food would be my top five. Then there’s having to dig your own septic tanks, bales of drug-bust marijuana floating up on rocky beaches, and “insurance” bribes for neighbors to rat on arson threats. But when the full moon rises and casts a shadow over the sparkling sea the shape of a whale I can see why my parents still dream.
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.
September 14, 2017
When the roads aren’t dangerous enough, try an old Russian prop plane (Drive Day 76 minus 14 years)
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We’ve found a place to safely park our camper for a side-trip. My parents are living on an island 40 miles off the Caribbean side of Nicaragua. We could travel by river upcountry, then transfer to a few collectivos or horseback to get to Blue Fields and then take a twice-weekly food barge to Corn Island. Or we can buck up, swallow some Dramamine and fly La Costena airlines. When you have to stand on the same scale as your luggage to make sure the flight can get off the ground it’s time for another gut check. Then there’s the duct tape above my seat that doesn’t quite seal off unidentified clear fluid dripping onto my neck. My dad says these planes are left over from the days when Russia was a regular Nicaraguan trading partner. It’s not comforting.
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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.
