Antigua, Guatemala

An exerpt from a letter to my friend Jonathon who I stayed with in Antigua, Guatemala, on my way back, hitchhiking from Tijuana to Leon, the point where I stopped walking, to continue walking again (Note: I am walking, only walking, from LA to Brazil. I do not take rides, buses, etc.  That said, I allow myself to take rides, as long as I return to the original location where I stopped walking to continue walking again. This has given me substantial flexibility and has allowed me to hitchhike 1000s of miles throughout Mexico and Honduras, as well as to have hitchhiked from Leon, Nicaragua…ending up in Seattle for Christmas to see my children, and then to hitchhike back from Tijuana to Leon to continue walking again. To date [June 29, 2010] I have walked nearly 5000 miles, and I have hitchhiked somewhere around 9000 miles through North and Central America).

Dear Jonathon,

Hitchhiking has been fantastic, though there were a few bumps on the road…hahar. Caught a ride first from American girls in jeans who took me just to the next town in the back of their Izuzu, I cant rememeber the name. Next from a very old indigeous pair, in the back of a rusty red Toyota where I stood all the way to the base of the volcano, wind in my hair, smelling the dew in the breeze, kids point and laugh…I love that and miss that we cannot do it in the States. Somewhere down the road, I jumped off the back, thanked them for the ride, heard their squeely wheels turn whereupon I looked down at the tires to see the tread barely cling to the tire. The wheels on the truck go lump lump lump…
Then a lorry to Escuintla, and another truck all the way into El Salvador. I could have had a ride all the way to San Salvador where I had a friend in wait, but I decided to take the coastal route instead. That may have been a ´mistake´.

There was very very little traffic along the El Salvador coast. A teenager struck conversation, asking what I was doing there in this town where young kids bath in the river naked with trash. Finally, for the sake of time, I took a bus for .45 usd, which broke down in the middle of nowhere. I walked where no cars pass for a good hour. With smoke in the air, the sun sets red, farmers burning and making their fields ready for the rain.

The beaches in El Salvador are beautiful, though the hills on the Pacific are still very dry. I walked into the night and a police patrol car picked me up, and drove me to their post, where they stopped another car on a feeder road, and asked them to give me a ride to La Libertad.

I felt like going on, but there was simply was no traffic at night, so I decided to set up my hammock in front of the police station. I was stringing it up and I kid you not, someone walked by and stole my backpack, and the prayers, and everything except my hammock that I had in my hand! All this, in front of the policestation, in front of police officers standing around talking by their trucks, I didnt see the person come or go.

I feel blessed that I still have a few of wonderful prayers in my pocket, the ones I have received most recently, a man who believes he has been cursed by a witch in Chiapas, by his best friend and his unfaithful girlfriend 25 years ago. His friend died immediately after the ceremony and he himself felt quite ill. He has visisted several shaman, priests, pastors and other bruheiros to have curse removed. Another prayer from a trucker, another from a young girl from Germany with a terrible skin condition that makes her itch all of the time, who has never prayed before and did not know how to begin. All of this I will explain in more detail soon.

Without a map, I was turned around the next day and still have no clue about my route, only that I somehow made it to San Miguel, a wonderful place by the way, really hot too, that was saved by the Virgin centuries ago who stopped a lava flow just before it reached the town.

There is a church there today that commemorates the spot, on the edge of town, that now marks the beginning of the colonial center, that has become a place of pilgrimage and revalry for los Salvadoreños, decending en masse (one in 5 El Salvadorians go) every Decemeber for the largest ´Carnival´I have ever seen. Streets are packed block after block after block in every direction. The pious go to church, the fallen go with Bacchus . The next day is a day is holiday and rest, perhaps at the beach nearby.

On the way to San Miguel, I rode a bus to get there, that was taken over by a succession of preachers tranfixing passengers, captive for the ride. I didn´t understand it all, but I was gripped by a repititious phrase…”it is not your promise to God…it is God´s promise to you, it is NOT your promise to God it is GOD´s promise to YOU!” A verse from Paul, an explaination, and again “the promise is not yours, it is Gods! It is not your promise to keep.”

All sweaty, the sermon was interupted when we were pulled over by the police and all the men, were asked to line up outside the bus. Our hands on the bus, spread your legs wide boys! and we are ceremoniously searched for weapons, drugs, who knows, the preacher, his bible, and all.

A ride from S.Miguel to Santa Rosa and a bus pùlls over fast, still rolling says “Vamos!” and we are off to the border. I had no problems there, pàid $3, continued on to Honduras. I caught a ride with an older Aussie couple in an RV from Australia. They were pissed…

A honduran official, Miguel, who spoke only Spanish (the aussies only spoke English), unknowingly took licks from the woman who had every bad thing to say about a country she had been inside for only 5 minutes. Soon I would see her side. She offered me a mango juice squeeze box and we told our stories. I am sweating all over their nice couch. I reassure Miguel that they are upset by the experience and that it has nothing to do with him.

They have registered a LLC. in Montana, registered the RV in the company´s name and then gave themselves permission to drive it south. They have had nothing but problems ever since.

The Honduran police generally tries to get as much money as they can from travelers, with no fewer than 7 police stops over a 120 mile or so stretch to the Nicaraguan border. Since no one stops for this short stretch in Honduras, driving south to Costa Rica, every stop becomes a…um…toll, but must tourists dont see it like this.

I made it to the Nicaraguan border, just 50 miles or so from Leon, where I was getting very excited to begin the project again, when the border officials there denied my entry and passage as my passport expires in August and their visas last for 6 months, 2 months longer than my valid passport.

After much wranglin, they flat out refused my entry, and I left, back to Tegucigalpa, depressed. I caught a ride in the back with a truck load of armed security gaurds, one feel asleep with his shotgun, his legs open, limp, now fall on my arm and chest. They dropped me off on the road to the capital where prostitutes strut, and where accross the street I slept inside a police station, hammock strapped to the rebar polls of a dirty cement cell, discarded newspapers, used toilet paper and such.

The police feed me chicken, beans, eggs, and we had a great conversation about faith, the project, and what keeps us on the road, what road, the direction it travels, the wonderful things to see there, and how to get back on the road when we get off.

The next morning, I got a stick up my === and decided to try at the border again, this time at a different location , but I miscommunicated with the trucker who picked me up and I returned to the same crossing. Oh well…I will give it a try, I thought, and prayed, but it didnt work, and the guy who denied my entry was there, outside this time, even long before the office, waiting at the edge dusty bridge built by Japan after Hurricane Andrew, waved me over, and says “no way.”

I left happy that I had tried and stuck my thumb back out to the capital where a cargo truck and then a pick up truck ride later, I ended up smack dab in front of the embassy.

The pick up truck driver had a masters degree in structural and soil engineering, owned a company that built low and middle income housing, was trying to get larger, multi-story projects, would not work for the government, has a son and daughter born in the states, now study at the university of Mississippi, and have vowed not to return. He says my project was very interesting, that I am walking through hell, but my pèrspective calls it heaven with great joy.

The embassy officials here have been fantastic, incredible really, they let me in after business hours and arranged for me to have a new passport, which won’t arrive for a week, and for perhaps the first time in 18 months, I have nothing to do, nowhere to go.

All this in just a week. You can see why I no longer bother to write. Much love to you my brother and friend, looking forward to continuing the conversation soon!

Con Amor!
Caminante

Leaving Maarten, I am determined to make it to the Mexican border tonight,  a great feat, hitchhiking 550 miles. Not sure what awaits me when I arrive (borders, this border in particular, is notoriously dangerous), or when I will arrive, I stick my thumb out and ask every parked car that looks like they are stopping before the long ride north.

It is dangerous in Guatemala at night. Shops close, steel doors pull down tight over their already barred windows, most truck traffic stops as well for fear of bandits and hitting livestock. Still it is past 10Pm and there is nowhere for me to go but north. Soon it will be December 18th, and I am not sure I will make it home to see my boys for Christmas.

A trucker, younger than me, pulls off to the side of the road and honks for me to join the ride. This is a relatively good job to have in a country with high unemployment and an average household income of $5000 USD per year. He seems happy, content, has a small boy and a daughter. We talk about his family, the project, God and faith, but I am exhausted. He invites me to take the top bunk in the back. I fall asleep like a log.

I had no idea truck cabins were so spacious and roomy, but I knew this was the way to ride. We arrived in Tapachula very early in the morning and I stayed asleep until 6AM, rushing out to eat, get my passport stamped, and continue the race north.

Day 2:

A series of small rides bring me past the luscious mountain fortress of Chiapas, to the drier north near the border of Oaxaca. A combie (a small bus) offers a ride for free, a banda musician and his buchona girl, both very nice, pick me up in their pick up, and buy me a meal in their home village, a man with a busted radiator drives me, very very slowly to a gas station, where I catch a long ride in a brand new Volvo big rig to the Caribbean.

The hours pass as the sun sets over rippled reddened clouds, and a landscape that drifts more and more from the tropical jungle to the tropical deserts of Oaxaca to the north. Conversations come and go and I have a moment to reflect on my path. Every few minutes we pass a village, a restaurant, a bridge, a swimming hole, a farm where I stayed, the people who live there that I became friends with, that now pass by like a flash from a dream.

December 17, 2009

Maarten, far right.

In Leon, I stumbled upon a good friend Maarten, a dj from Amsterdam, who I met at Lago de Atitlan through his cousin and stayed with in Antigua for a week.

Though I have no money, Maarten needs to get back to Antigua which would normally cost $60 from Leon. Intrigued by the idea of hitchhiking back, and that it would save him cash, he agrees to pay for my border crossing fees and food for the day.

Though still early, we are leaving “late”, trying to convince our friend Kim (whom we met in Antigua as well) to join us. She stayed, we stepped out, with slight trepidation, which for me had more to do with our estimated time of arrival than with the rides we would get during the day. With 4 countries (Nicaragua,Honduras, El Salvador, Guatemala) to cross, 420 miles from Leon to Escuintla, Guatemala, we must arrive in Esquintla before nightfall when it becomes quite dangerous.

We walk past the colorful churches, shophands washing sidewalks, the smell of sweet pan dulce and the sounds of tropical birds filling the early morning air to our hitchhike post. Maarten has never hitchhiked before, and no less in Latin America, where two gringos hitchhiking does not go unnoticed.

6:30 AM.  We catch a ride within 5 minutes in the back of a pickup truck that brings us all the way through northern Nicaragua, Honduras, to the border with El Salvador, a warm wind in our face, past volcanoes, sugar cane fields, and the sea.

At the border into El Salvador, a driver for a bus, seeing us hitchhike, waves us to come on board. We tell him we are hitchhiking and have no money for the bus, but he waves us in more hurriedly. “Vamos!” A slow moving cargo truck, two wealthy El Salvadorians in an air conditioned car give me $40 (El Salvador uses USD) and 4 hour ride to the north end of San Salvador.

Another ride in the back of a pickup. He speaks English, and his son, who does not, is an American citizen. Dropped off, we switch roads to head back toward the coast. A very large and very friendly man in a pick up truck loaded down with steel pipes and junk in the front, graciously lends and hand and gives a ride. He is jovial, but with no room in the front, I am in pain. Winter, it is approaching 5 PM. The light is golden, but for me means danger.

Another short ride, back of the pick up, with others, day laborers, doing the same. We get of to take the coastal route north. The sun sets big and orange over cane rustling in the wind.

Another short ride with a family in a p/u to the border, they take us a “back” way, a shortcut with which we were obviously not familiar. It is a family, but it still makes you flinch.

We arrive at the border at dusk.

A woman and her daughters give  us a ride from the border, distributing wedding invitations to family on her way back to Guatemala City.

She has stopped in her home village while the clock ticks. We have a ride now, we are not sure for how long, and it will become increasingly difficult to get rides at night. Most traffic virtually stops at night in Guatemala due to poorly lit roads, animals, cows, and ambushed hijackings.

Maarten and I eat and wait, eat and wait, we don’t want to be rude as she is talking with family about a wedding, but we have to arrive soon in Esquintla if Maarten is to make it to Antigua and I am to make it to Tapachula, Mexico. We leave our bags in her car, thinking it safe, while she drove off down the road “just for a second”.

Waiting–just for a second–we have a fantastic time talking and laughing with the local villagers, playing football (soccer) with the kids, a candle-lit religious procession makes its way down the street towards us, passing us, carrying a medium sized felt draped and flowered statue of the virgin overhead, polls on their shoulders.

Our friend returns and we ride in the back of her truck under a warm starry night, flying down the road making excellent time. Bumps don’t do my rump well. We still aren’t sure where she is letting us off, thinking she is taking another road, but it is taking too long. In between our anxieties,  Maarten and I have a fantastic time,  great conversations  about God, philosophy, heaven, the possibility of reincarnation, what is in vogue to think and what we actually believe, and whatever else comes to mind. Although he is from a good family in Holland (his grandfather was a prime minister), Marteen is one the least pretentious people I have met.  Lava oozes out of volcano silhouetted by the lights of Guatemala city, barely visible in the distance. We are getting close(r), still not sure where she is taking us.

Finally, we have arrived in Esquintla. It is already late. 10 PM. We make our way to the fork in the road where we will say our goodbyes. Asking for directions, a man offers to walk us and show us the way. We tell him a little about our stories and he tells us his, asking me (that means you) to pray for his daughter who had recently committed suicide.

Here now at the fork, I look at Maarten. Cold, he has put on a v-neck sweater, which, coupled with his blond hair, definitely has him looking like a mark. We hug and part ways down two dark streets. His a 30 minute ride to Antigua, mine a 6 hour ride to Mexico…

Ever since my children flew home from Mexico City, I wanted to see them again.

Despite all of the wonderful things about this trip, I have to be honest, being separated from my children for so long is not easy for me to reconcile. I am more than slightly hypocritical, inconsistent, out of integrity, contradictory, embarking on a project proclaiming the principles of word, promise, and restoration,  when my children, my first promise, are living with their aunt and their uncle over 4200 miles away near Seattle, Washington.

While my intentions have been good, I have constantly missed the mark relating to many things, not the least of which have been my children.

The good news about this project and about life, is their is more than hope, there is certainty in our ability with God to correct our path so we can get back to it! When we miss the mark, to pick up the bow once more, this time to aim (and see) true, to release the arrow with our action aligned perfectly with our sight, our perspective, our clearer view.

And while I have a promise to walk to Brazil, my promise to my children trumps. Moreover, I want that my promises (whatever they may be) never to become a prison.  I want to see my children, because I love them and want to see them, not out of obligation. I will keep my word to walk to Brazil, not out of obligation, but because I love this project so much. I will keep my word to walk to Brazil and I will hitchhike to the United States from Nicaragua to see my children for the holidays…

(to be continued)

From Summer Tour 2008 Part 1.2

The air is still cool, crisp, slightly damp, quiet, almost desolate. As I walk to the corner to wait for the bus, I see Ronaldo, the man who tried to rob me 2 nights before approaching, barefoot, legs splattered with dry mud, and a bucket on his shoulder.  He walks by, telling me he has my passport and that he will be back in a moment after filling his bucket with water from the river and bringing it to his house.

Slightly awkward in the exchange, I look back at the family still there waving goodbye, now jaws dropped that our paths crossed once again. I no longer feel any anger towards him, but see his condition. I realize my error and who I had been that created the situation: my angry words, cursing a the family for not letting me stay, my unwillingness to part with my possessions, cheap as they may have been. I feel a deep sense of closure with the situation, forgiveness from the family and for the thief.

He returns with the passport, and with no questions asked, no comments made, I give him the money that I have: a few bills, some small change, give him a pat on the back, thanking God for a good lesson.

View iamwalking (Los Angeles to Brazil) in a larger map

Today return to the place where a guy my age, 32, Ronaldo, asked for too many gifts, ending in a slight altercation that had me loose my passport and end up face-planted in the dirt.

After breakfast, I find the bus terminal near the market to make my return. I decide the bus is too expensive and that I will easy find a ride if I hitchhike, so I start to make my way out of the city, only a bus picks me up instead. They refuse to let me pay, and ask me only where I am going.

On the bus, I reflect, not so much on the passport, or on what happened with Ronaldo that night, but more on what I said to the woman and her family and how I might now make amends.

In transit, I carefully hide anything of value, my camera in particular, counting of the bills I will need to pay the finders fee for my passport, hoping, praying, this will work.

It seems odd for me to ride in a vehicle, even knowing that I will return to the place where I stopped walking to continue on foot again. The times when I do take rides, buses even more so, are few and far between.

This bus, like most here in Central America, is a school bus from the United States. US school districts have a policy of selling off well-maintained  buses when they reach 200,000 miles, no matter what their condition. Many entrepreneurs from Central American buy these bargains at auctions, turning them into public transportation in their respective countries.

Arriving at my stop, I thank the driver and his assistant, and cross the highway from the billiard hall where it all began.

I think about going straight to the house where the theft occurred, but instead decide to apologize first to the family that I had cursed for not letting me stay in the safety of their yard.

There is a small group of men on her property building a concrete block home, raising beams for the roof. I speak to the men first explaining the situation and why I am here.

They ask if I am the person whose passport was stolen. They say they have heard about the incident, and want to help me. I thank them and tell them that first I must apologize to the family that lives here and why. They understand saying the señora is in the back yard and that it is fine that I go around to make amends.

After a very awkward introduction, I remind the family who I am and tell them why I have returned. I apologize for the things that I said. The mother of the house, plump, wrinkled, in her late 50s, apologized as well and said she felt bad for sending me out that night, especially after she heard what had happened to me. I tell her that it wasn’t her, it was me, that I had arrived too late, and that it wasn’t proper for me to ask for such a favor at such a hour in the evening.

Her face immediately lightens as she gives me a warm, slightly sweaty, hug. The man working on the house in the front comes to the back to see what he can do to help. He tells me that Ronaldo had been arrested over the incident, and that he had talked to Ronaldo, who told him that he had my documents. He heads over to Ron’s house to retrieve the passport and I start to thank God again for miracles in my life, perhaps a bit too soon.

He returns quickly saying Ronaldo isn´t there and that the parents do not know anything about it. He offers to go to the police station after 3PM, when he is finished working on the house to see if they know more.

In the meantime, I get to know the family well. They are very Catholic, and like others here, very poor. The matriarch, Rosa, has a son in Houston, Texas. She shakes her head when she talks about the economic conditions of her country and the poverty of the soil.

I get to know her daughters, 4 and 8, who take to me well. The four year old girl is very funny in particular with a spirit larger than life. She is missing a front tooth and loves to smile.

We play second-hand Barbie games on a pink mock laptop computer in English. Counting games, spelling games, all for words they don’t yet know.

3PM comes around. The man leaves to the town to see if my passport has been retrieved by the police. He returns, saying it has not.

He says that he will go to Ronaldo’s  house at 7PM to see if he still has the passport. 7PM. Ronaldo is still not there. I begin to loose faith, but pray that all will work well, trusting in the mystery of it all…glad at least that I had the chance to repair my word, and to connect with the family I had written off.

It is getting late. The 8 year old daughter brings me a plate of food and a glass of Pepsi. Though difficult for me to convey here, limited for time on a computer in an internet cafe, this is one of the most warm families I have yet to encounter.

The woman who first directed me to this home (see part 1)walks in through the front door, it is her cousin. Then the man on the bike, the man I thought was also a thief, walks in with a big bag of candy for the kids, also a family friend.

They talk about the situation and what we might do to recover my passport. I tell them that I will gladly offer a finder´s fee, and that tomorrow I will go to stay with a friend in the capital, Tegucigalpa, to wait for their call.

They ask me to stay here for the night, in the hammock that they DO have, and leave in the morning at 5 to catch the bus to Tegucigalpa.

A side note: Hammocks are like heaven. I love the way they wrap around my body, hugging my sore legs, letting my legs flop to the side.

Continued …

Nacaome Catholic Church

I reach Nacaome at 9PM, glad to find the internet cafe still open. I post a quick update on facebook to let those who follow the project know what had happened and that I still did not have my passport.

Steven, the intrepid traveler I met at the border earlier in the day,  wrote a comment on the website, offering an excellent suggestion. He said that while he wasn’t a believer and wasn’t praying, he was definitely sending thoughts out to the cosmos for my support and suggests that I simply return to the place where the incident occurred, during the day, tell the villagers about what had happened, and offer to pay a $10-$20 finder’s fee for the person who could “find” my passport.

The idea is brilliant, actually. I reply that our thoughts are our beliefs, and I am glad he believed that he could find a solution to my problem.

Looking on the US Embassy website, I would normally have to pay $100 and wait 2 weeks for a new one. Since tomorrow is Friday, and I won’t have time to get the paperwork in order, not to mention the money, it makes perfect sense to return.

More importantly, I determine that I will use the opportunity to apologize to the woman and her family who wouldn’t let me stay with them before the incident occurred. Though not superstitious, I believe that saying what I said was not consistent with who I am, my commitments to myself, my God, this project, and to the people that I meet along the way. I believe that the reality that I created was the reality that I projected, in this case towards her.

I write you from Nacaome, Honduras, which is like many other cities I have been seeing as of late. Fairly nondescript, cement buildings everywhere, seen as superior to adobe for their permanence. The streets are no longer cobbled, planners now prefer interlocking geometrical cement blocks to pave the way.

Many newer cities built up along the Panamerican Highway are likewise not centered around a park adjacent to the Catholic Church or cathedral. Instead , they find their heart in the markets and bus terminals connecting them to other cities, built for function, without imagination. The walls of homes no longer thick adobe, the load bearing beams no longer wood, the roofs no longer clay. You still see homes like this, but more in very rural places. There windows are small, they are doorless, and in the cities, these old adobes are more often abandoned to the elements from which they were built. Weeds now grow from their roofs (where the roofs have not fallen in) and rooms are now gardens to birds and light.

Leaving the cafe, I make my way down the street to look for a place to sleep, the constant unknown in my life at the moment. I pass a church service, and having made a promise a few days earlier to actually stop at every church service I see, I park myself outside on the wall and decide to just listen at first. Feeling a bit awkward, I decide I might keep my promise and go in in a minute.

I hear a woman inside, who the congregation refers to as “prophet”, preach using repetitious phrases, asking what the importance is of the name of God, what is the significance of “Yo soy”?

A man dressed in white comes outside, looks me up and down, and calls back inside to the church, “hey, there is a gringo out here!”

The “prophet” tells him “great! invite him inside!”

I find a seat in the back. There are not many people, maybe 25 total. The men and women are divided, women and girls on the left, men and boys on the right, everyone wearing white shirts, dresses, or tops.

A baby falls on to the tile bumping his head and starts to scream, the “prophet” motions to bring him forward, casting out the pain “In the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, in the naaaame of Jesus”.  Using her hand, she gestures as though she is pulling something out of the child. The entire congregation works up into a frenzy, making similar gestures, calling out “in the name of Jesus, in the name of Jesus, in the naaame of Jesus”. Each has a  slight addition of their own to each one of her call-outs, with their voices slightly below hers, amplified by a PA.

The effect is bizzare. Soon there are 25 people all doing the same thing, calling out Jesus’ name, pulling evil from their foreheads and hearts, fingers pinched as though pulling malevolent spirits via string. I notice some of the boys going through the motions, they too are speaking the words, but their fingers…slightly more limp, they have less confidence in what they see and conform to around them. Perhaps like other adolescent boys their age, they turn around to see what the others do, and if someone else is looking who is not doing the same.

Cont´d…

He says that he will go with me.

I am upset, I want to be alone, but I dont say no. At least I am on a lit street/hwy, though there are no cars to be seen. I am nervous. He says he is a Christian, and that you cannot trust people around this area. I tell him I agree. He continues to offer a hammock at his house, I continue to decline, and so it goes, for the next 1/2 hour.

A slightly creepy Luz del Mundo church is dimly lit next to another dimly lit grass park. I ask my escort what he thinks of this group. I tell him that I have seen a lot of them in El Salvador after not seeing many at all in Guatemala. He says he believes they are false prophets. That they do not help the poor and that they believe that there is a guy at the top, who they call the “apostle” who is their only connection to God. Without him, they believe, there is no salvation.

We make it to the border without issue and in good time. Explaining to the police the incident that had occurred, I ask them if there is a place where I can sleep near the police station for the night. The officer on duty checks with his boss, then points to the gritty white tile, lit by florescents, where I will sleep for the night. They do not have a hammock, so I ask for cardboard or something to cushion the floor. The officer goes inside the station, returning with a squishy foam pad. I am grateful.

__________

They wake me up at 7 and tell me it is time to go. I am sore. My side hurts where I fell the night before. It is hot and dry and I already feel dehydrated. Remembering the night before, I check my pocket to see what might have fallen out. My passport, gone.

Immediately, I notify the police and ask them to return with me to the home where the incident occurred, only, they would not. They tell me I have to walk 2k up the road to the next police station, because the area where the incident occurred is out of their jurisdiction.

Walking back from where I had been the night before, everything feels different. Hot already, my shoes grip the pavement. Exhaust from idling trucks makes me nauseous. Transvestite prostitute I saw from the night before passes, still in her blue flapper dress, dirty white ankle socks, and platform shoes, her makeup smeared.

I plead my case at the next police station, only they cannot help me either. You see, they have no car, and they say that it actually is in the jurisdiction of the other station. I return to the other station on foot.

It is 9:3o AM by the time I am finally able to convince the police to accompany me back to the scene of where I lost my passport.  I did not feel comfortable going there alone. We pull up to the house in the pickup truck and they blare the sirens for a good few seconds to alert the people in the house that we are there.

A very poor, elderly, woman with a dirty cast makes her way to the gate that I unsuccessfully traversed the night before, her husband, older, wearing a blue collared sweat-stained shirt that looked like it had not been laundered in months, followed close behind.

The police explained to them the situation, which they listened to with disbelief. I had not met the parents the night before, and they did not know that we were sitting out on the porch. I began to think that the guy may not have even lived there. They didn’t recognize the name that I gave them and in any case they had not seen or heard of a passport being found on or near their property.

I decide the situation is hopeless. I return to the border with my head hung slightly lower than before, tired from many things. I am really beginning to feel the wear of the road. I ask an officer to make an official report, which he does on a piece of printer paper, signing his name and badge number, no stamp.

I return to the border checkpoint and ask them also to make a note. Here I meet Steven, who had lived around the world for the last 30 years, with at least 3 different passports from different countries. I am jealous. I have none. We exchange pleasantries, and we ask each other what brings us here. He is a traveler, well-worn from the road, through and through. Not religious or even really spiritual, he is interested in the project nonetheless, and concerned with what happened with my passport.

We go our separate ways after exchanging contacts, not sure if we will see each other again, and I continue, always south, towards the next large town down the Panamerican, Nacaome, about 30 miles in the hot, sea-level plane, sun.

(Cont’d)

I apologize to God briefly for what I had said to the woman and her family, staring at the ground in thought as I walk to the last open, though dimly lit place before a vast stretch of darkness. I shrug off thoughts that this possibly devout woman will be left with thinking that she will actually be cursed for refusing shelter to a pilgrim. This is not what I want, but not unsure how to handle the situation, and too proud to apologize, I continue, preparing what I will say to the men on the other side of the 2-laned Panamerican highway, leaning on a lightly framed fence smoking cigarettes in the dark.

I greet the men, shaking their hands, letting them know who I am, what I am doing, and specifically, what I am doing there, namely, looking for a hammock or place to sleep for the night that is safe and secure. The men are jovial. Three immediately offer to help me for the night, it would be their honor.

A quick glance inside: billiards.

One man leaves the group, telling me that he will fetch his bicycle and take me to his home. Another, waiting for the first to leave, makes his way around the fence before his friend returns. He hurries me away from the scene, back across the highway, down a dirt road to his house, telling me the guy with the bike is a bad person, that here I must take care, and that there are many bad people.

He ushers me in through a stick gate, telling me that this is his house. Dogs bark, but know their master. He hushes them as we take a seat on old planks of wood, piled on the pourch, in the pitch dark. He tells me to remain silent and still as the man on the bike slowly makes his way past the house, calling out for his friend in the night. He tells me to remain still, even after it seems the threat is gone. Sure enough, the creeky bike returns, making passes slowly in the moonlight, squinting towards the darkened area where we sit.

He tells me his name is “Ron”. He says that I can stay for the night, but that I will have to leave early, en la madrugada, around 4 o’clock in the morning. The man on the bicycle returns and calls out, not 10 feet away. Ron nudges me and quiets me with a finger held to his lips. We wait for him pass and then continue. I set my alarm on a $2 watch a friend gave me in El Salvador. The green backlight attracts first an intense interest, followed by questioning, followed by close examination of my wares.

His breath broadcasting is evening drinks, he tells me I will have to pay him to stay there for the night, for protecting me here, and saving me a trip back through a dangerous night to the border where I could find a hotel.

I tell him that I don’t have any money, but that I am not particularly worried, that if it is a problem, I will just return to the border on my own.

Now gripping my arm tight, he whispers forcefully,”You cannot go out there. That man will rob you.”

I get it and tell him, “all the same, I am not concerned.” Hushing me again, the man on the back passes by and stops, call out for Ron one last time before seeming to disappear into the night.

No longer as patient or polite, Ron asks me to give him something that I have in exchange for his kind service.

At first he asks for my shirt.

I had been reading the bible at dinner where Jesus, speaking from the Mount, tells an audience in the gulley below a radical message, that when a thief asks you for your shirt, give him your jacket also. When he asks you to walk with him a mile, to walk with him two.

Still without time to reflect on the passage, I revert to survival instincts. I tell him the truth, that I have no other shirt. He asks next for my pants, then my shoes, then for something in my backpack. Each time I tell him the same thing, that I am a pilgrim, that I have nothing except for the prayers that I collect, my deodorant, toothbrush, toothpaste, and a bible.

He doesn’t believe me.

I stand up and reach for the prayers that I keep in my pocket, the prayers that I read while I walk, pulling them out as evidence of my work. I hear something else fall out of my pocket, but too dark to see, I do not want to bring any extra attention to what else might be there. He turns away for a moment and I comb the dirt with my fingers to see what I dropped, forgetting in now near panic of the situation that my passport was in the same pocket as the prayers.

Making my way back to the gate, I decide to leave. I try to open the gate, but it is locked and without being able to see the wires that latch it shut, I feel trapped. I make a quick scan of the scene for another route of escape.

Ron grabs my arm, pulling me away from the fence and reaching for my watch. I rip my arm away as I try to hop the horizontal sticks that make up the fence, only my right foot catches the top bar and face plant on the other side.

The night flashes white then returns to darkness as my head and side reel with pain. Without time to think, I get up and walk off as fast as I can forgetting all sense of cool and look back only to see if I am being followed.

I make it as far as the Interamericana where he waits for me on his bike…

The family was watching television, which I could see and hear through the open, but barred windows, nearest to the street. Calling out “buenos noches”, the tv went silent and a younger teenaged boy came to the window. I could hear the grandmother behind him, telling him what to say, though she was out of sight.

I explained my situation, and that I was looking for a hammock for the evening, not usually a problem especially here where every house has dozens of hammocks, for guests, for couches, for everything under the shaded sun.

The mother speaks from behind the curtain, the boy, shy, replies for his mom that they do not have a hammock at the house.

No problem. I point to a patch of grass, safe, on their side of the fence, and ask if they have a small place in the grass where I can sleep for the night, where it is secure.

The mother speaks and again the boy replies that they do not. I point to the ground for clarification, but the reply remains the same.

I shake the dust from my shoes, cursing under my breath as I walk into a desolate landscape. The woman tells the boy to say, “May God go with you,” but the boy does not call out.

In my anger, I tell them it is bad for them (to refuse a pilgrim seeking shelter), but after I speak, I feel damned by words. When I said it was bad for them, it was bad for me. I hear the boy repeat what I said to his mother, and again she urges him to say “God go with you” but he does not.

Cont’d