Many years ago sailing down the coast of Mexico we reached a place where travelers in boats had to make a decision, the choice of destination, between crossing the Pacific, continuing south to the Panama Canal and visiting the Caribbean or even of turning round and returning north. For us, traveling with two dogs there was never any doubt as we could not take Emma and Debs island hopping the Pacific Ocean. We transited the Panama Canal a few months before the Americans gave up control in 1999.
But it was in Zihuatanejo, a port and tourist town in Southern Mexico where we learned a traveling lesson. The choice there was to stay or go and the only reason to stay was to sorbs a couple of extra days vacationing with friends who were planning to turn west and make the sail to Australia. We agonized about whether to stay or go. Belize, January 2000:
We elected to stay worrying all the time about spending too long in one place instead of getting on south. In retrospect we were idiots considering our journey was open ended only limited by our diminishing supply of money, we had no jobs and our home in California was rented and paying for itself so we had no time constraints.
We learned a great deal about ourselves, our marriage, sailing, traveling by sailboat and time management on that two year journey from San Francisco to Key West and even now we talk about Zihuatanejo Syndrome when we have to decide whether to leave or stay in one spot on a journey.
So when we arrived back at Swiss Wassi after our seven hour drive to nowhere to get Rusty’s import papers at the border we had to deal once again with Zihuatanejo Syndrome. Layne, the chief communications officer got a WhatsApp message from Florian and Corrine last seen in northern Ecuador with their broken down Volkswagen at Sommerwind Campground. Their Eurovan is fixed after the turbo charger blew up the engine and they will arrive today.
As eager as we are to get going with all our correct papers to visit this vast fascinating and intimidating country we felt we could not leave. So here we are, still at the beach. We have time and it’s a nice place to be even if we are ready to go.
Eveline and Gert are getting ready to go to Ecuador and we said goodbye to them before we left the first time. We said goodbye to them yesterday again with a lunch at their favorite restaurant in town. Fish in fish sauce: excellent.
It was a fine lunch full of travelers’ tales at a place known to the German voyagers from when they were here a few months ago before their stored their truck and went home to Hamburg for a few months.
Luz, who operates her own business and cooks and has kept it going for eight years here. She’s building a vegetable garden out back, on the edge of the desert to grow her own vegetables for her kitchen. She has quite the sparkle in her eye as she talks about her business.
Back at Swiss Wassi our neighbors got their expedition truck ready to go, loaded their motorcycle, rotated their tires and ordered a round of the national drink pisco sours for us to share.
They told us inspiring stories of countries they visited including a tour of Iceland, now on our list, and a two day saga of sinking through the salt flats of Bolivia and getting stuck:
They paid a thousand bucks to some Bolivians who spent a day hauling a ton of salt to pour under their truck after they lifted it using a pile of rail ties to get it out of the hole. That these were the same Bolivians who directed them across the salt was purely coincidence we all agreed. It’s just the romance of overlanding you see.
We will be here a few more days and Monday is Independence Day in Peru so sitting tight might not even be too stupid. Rusty approves.
