The Promised Land

After more than a month of driving chicken bus roads, where our typical day’s average speed hovered around 20 to 30 kilometers per hour (12.5 – 18.6 mph), it was heaven to be on the Panamericana cruising along at a blistering 80 – 100 kph (49.7 – 62 mph).

We were so enamored with the smooth asphalt and warp speed we were able to more-or-less ignore the pervasive, endless-border-town creepiness of the Panamericana.

As I hummed along with the first music pumped out of the stereo in months, I plotted the hundreds of kilometers we’d make in the remaining hours of the day.

I planned to drive deep into the night to make up for the many hours of errands and provisioning we expended before our departure.

My mental map was well up the coast toward our destination at a small coastal village for a GivingPictures project when my daydreams were shattered by an explosion from the rear of the Fuso.

Click here for the rest of the story: http://www.hackneystravel.com/writing/2008/peru/thepromisedland.pdf