I was well into the night. The heat and humidity had dropped with the sun, and my view of the Yucatan was reduced to a sealed-beam cylinder of light down a strip of pavement. At this late hour, even the Dodges and the Dinas had disappeared - heavily laden and aging, triple axle trucks adorned with bright colours, innumerable cab lights and chrome lady silhouettes. These vaqueros riding 10 wheels belched diesel clouds and trailed black eddies that buffeted Eore, my 1973 Land Rover 88”, towards the dangers off the pavement’s edge. In their absence, the road was peace set to steady mechanical reverberations, and the whine of aging gears.
Darkness was chased by flames from 50 gallons drums and Humvees at a military checkpoint. The humdrum of passport? Vehicle importation? Vehicle insurance? Where have you been? Where are you going? Why are you here? Then, back into the darkness.
Later, it was a tope, a Mexican speed bump, that broke the sleepy monotony. Indistinct from the road, I braked heavy and late and braced for the groan of the leaf sprung suspension, and the clatter of shifting camping gear and tools behind me. Topes guard small towns - asleep in this late hour. Hanging, naked incandescent bulbs illuminated doorways painted with Pepsi bottles, frozen treats, and lifelike depictions of cattle and chicken. The doors were closed, and the discomfort of the days heat replaced by a rumbling in my belly.
Then plunging again, into a long stretch of darkness. The edges of the headlights were frayed and ragged with green reeds - some standing as tall as the windshield. They stood eerie - sentry still in the night. With my head out the window a blast of wind at 40 mph lifted the veil of sleep from my eyes. Turning to look behind me, the wind dried the sweat on my neck as the grasses danced hypnotically in the red of the taillights.
I braked for the snake. When my focus returned to the direction I was headed it was too late. The rear tires locked with a wail, but I released the brakes when Eore started to pitch sideways. Thump, thump. “Via con dios,” I mumbled to the departing soul. Christ it was big. A serpent, stretching almost the full width of the road. A road with no shoulder across a green, green lowland. A road with no centreline, punctuated by stretches of gravel, topes and broken in places into fragmented concrete. The faint and familiar smell of venting gasoline and 90 weight oil took on the tones of the sweet flora, the freshness of running water and the smell of cow shit suspended in the weight of the humidity and it was wholly unfamiliar. This feeling - alone in the unfamiliar - it displaced loneliness and fear. It was curiosity, freedom, independence - 24 and a long way from my Toronto, Canada home.
Twenty or thirty miles on, burning drums and electric light illuminated four or five Dinas and a modern Mercedes bus on a patch of concrete at the roadside. In the wafting woodsmoke there was the smell of sizzling meat and corn. Eore fit beside the parked bus - among the bright coloured women, big belt buckles and cowboy hats. After the isolation of the road, this was a carnival of food vendors, smiling faces, laughter with a whiff of raw diesel.
To my left, a stricken Dina had a front wheel laying beside its axle in a growing pool of dripping oil. A bare chest and footed figure crouched on the tire and hammered a cheater pipe on the hub nut. Lively accordion to guitar and voices in harmony blared from a comically large speaker beside a turning spit of meat. I paused at Eore’s fender in the jarring light, sound and smells - paused to collect my thoughts and Spanish.
“Tequila?”
A weathered but sturdy man in blue jeans and a blue striped shirt, left open to the bottom 3 buttons, smiled in front of me. With his cowboy hat he reached just below my chin. On his shoulder was a plastic milk jug capped and filled with a clear liquid. I pointed at it.
“Si, Vende,” he got out before a chuckle.
“No, no - gracias.”
The jug was promptly placed on the peeling and faded paint of Eore’s fender, and a tall, thin shot glass removed from his pocket and cleaned on the tale of his shirt. It was filled without spilling a drop, and he nodded to it.
It burned all the way to my belly. I put the glass on the fender as my eyes welled with tears, and the burning turned into a spreading warmth. Clearing my vision on my T-shirt, I looked up to find him walking towards the busted Dina laughing and motioning over his shoulder with the capped jug. Chuckling, the rumbling in my belly stirred the Tequila and it made my guts rot.
Beside the meat spit was a series of split metal, 50 gallon drums burned black with the flame and smoke that escaped through tightly packed ears of corn. A few pesos bought me a corn cob on a napkin, sprinkled with cheese and a line of sour cream from an unmarked squeeze bottle. The music blared and groups of women danced, smiled and played with their hair. Bright fabrics stretched over thinly veiled nipples gave rhythmic hints of the secret colours underneath. At my picnic table, with my corn and my Tequila glow, the duration of my stares and smile never got uncomfortable.
The clink of glass on wood diverted my attention to a familiar smiling face.
“Tequila?”
“No - no,no - no,” I laughed.
The glass was ready and rapidly filling to the top. It burned again, but I was on my feet and reaching into my pocket for my pesos when the spreading warmth reached my toes. There was no swaying yet, no need to corral sporadic thoughts - but the rhythm was vibrant and undeniable to my feet. I was toe-tapping with watery eyes and some pesos in my palm, but the Tequila man was already walking away with his now familiar laugh.
Later, there was another shot of Tequila at my red, wood picnic table in the tobacco smoke humidity stirred by colour stretched over swaying hips. The corn was reduced to a chewed cob, and this time there was no burn - only that spreading warmth. The night was emerald green over earthen skin, a hint of leopard print stretched over cleavage with a sweat sheen, giggles and whispers behind manicured hands and my Tequila glow smile with corn between my teeth.
Later still, back at Eore, I made a washcloth damp with water from my canteen, and it felt heavenly on my face. Despite the humidity and stillness of the air it left a trail of cool that spread down my chest, under my armpits to the belt holding up my cargo shorts. The laughing, and the dull thud of the plastic jug on Eore’s fender made me smile.
“Uno mas,” with a single finger held up.
A fresh t-shirt waited on Eore’s hood. I pulled it over my head, and the glass was in my hand.
“Gracia. Buenas noches,” I nodded in salute. There was an explosion of laughter at the Dina’s; laughter and smiling faces.
The front bench seat of Eore was a few steps away and perfect for whatever hours of sleep were left in the night. My head wasn’t spinning, and the glow was becoming a pleasant sleepiness. I laid out the washcloth to dry on a Canadian military surplus foot locker behind the bulkhead and checked the locks and windows. The music still played, but the sporadic voices that joined the chorus could now be clearly heard above the plucked guitars and squeezed accordions.
Stretching out with my head under the steering wheel was a practiced art. Below the knee, my legs were upright in the passenger footwell. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was enough to find sleep in the patterns of peeling limestone paint on my short-wheelbase Land Rover’s aluminum top. Removing my shirt and laying it on the seats was my attempt to stay cool and not stick to the vinyl. Blue paint, and the silhouette of the spare tire on the hood could be seen through the bug-screens on the dash vents, but there was no breeze to find its way in. The sleepiness that plagued me on the road returned, and this time I let myself fall.
A metal crack and laughter - pain spread through my shoulder and I was sitting upright after hitting the steering wheel. A door was open in the lower luggage area of the bus beside me. Inside, a dome light illuminated a single mattress and a Nike gym bag hanging from a hook on the faux wood walls. The driver climbed in, leaving the curves in Emerald green to smile and wink at me - long lashes under curly, black shoulder length hair. She bent deeply in her turn and crawled seductively. Bathed in the dim dome light, she was dark skin and sparse hair parted by a strip of machine-stamped lace. The driver hooked a door pull with his foot, and my gaze returned to the painted rooftop to find sleep amongst the muted giggles and moans.
Morning was stiff with a slow burn on the sun exposed skin of my belly. I pulled on my shirt as outside a father directed a young boy to stoke a fire that was still mostly smoke in the split drums. On my feet, in the bustle of morning, I closed Eore’s door to make way for passengers boarding the bus. Sheepish in yesterdays clothes and sweating hints of Tequila, I stepped to the Land Rover’s front to plan the day sitting on the recessed winch.
East was easy to find, just take the road in the direction of the morning sun and follow it south to Chetumal - to the border with Belize. There was no need to unfold the road map kept in the dash shelf with old pens and my passport. Roused by the short blip of an air horn, I stood to return a wave to the familiar laugh of my new tequila friend. With a slow grind engaging second, a lurch and a belch of diesel he headed in the direction I had come. His green Dina with white stripes barked into the morning's work - “Jesus Es Amor” - painted in red on the back of the dump bed.
Under the washcloth I had left to dry was the surplus box that held my cooking gear. There were two identical boxes, side by side. Opening the plastic lid on the one beside my pots and pans, I found jerky, juice boxes, a couple avocados, cans on of tuna, peanut butter, tortillas and a few apples purchased at a mercado during yesterdays miles. I polished the deep red of an apple on my shirt as around me various diesels fired to life.
I bit deeply and savoured the apple’s flavour as the juice ran through the stubble on my chin. Across the road, the bus driver knelt before a waist high brick temple. It was painted red, white and green and surrounded with bouquets of flowers in varying stages of decay. The Virgen de Guadalupe stood somber, her arms outstretched amongst burned candles in the brick enclosure. He stood, turned and walked confidently with his eyes fixed on his idling bus.
The bus was headed west. I closed up Eore, content that one less multi-axle truck would pass me later at near twice my speed. Eore and I joined the road in our turn. The hands of the small, round quartz movement clock I had stuck to the dash read 6:30. Forty miles per hour almost due east and over a long bridge spanning the Usumacinta. Up the lazy river's flow, women knelt over stones laden with clothes left to dry and watched children playing in the shallows. In a neatly plowed field, an ox pulled a wooden plough - prodded by a man with a long stick. Tossing the apple core out the window, I gripped the steering wheel firmly, breathed deeply - eager for the experiences to come.