We have arrived

Yesterday afternoon we arrived in Mitla, Oaxaca, Mexico, after 5 days and 829.5 miles of driving across Honduras, Guatemala and the state of Chiapas in Mexico. Something akin to the Griswalds on their way to Wally-world, the dad blissfully drove the truck and enjoyed the scenery while the wife cowered in her seat with her face in her hands, praying, and the kids sat in the back plotting evil and vile things for dad when he's old and decrepit.

After a three-hour drive through western Honduras, we spent an afternoon at the Mayan ruins at Copan Ruinas and the next morning at the local bird park. In between, we sandwiched (literally) a ride through the streets and sidewalks of the downtown area in the F350 crew-cab with the trailer. I'm not sure why; I had taken the truck down there before and swore upon all that is good to never attempt to take the trailer there. The ruins and the bird park were very enjoyable.

Two days later found us driving through the Verapaz region of Guatemala. We took a northern route through San Cristobal Verapaz and Uspantan to Huehuetenango, in order to avoid driving through Guatemala City, because driving through Guatemala City would be a pain. This road is yellow on my map, though it is dashed on some others, the better to show the potholes and parts covered in landslides. This road passes through some very beautiful country - massive mountains covered in clouds and rainy mist, with incredible valleys, like something out of the 'Lord of the Rings'. This, of course, also means a road that switchbacks furiously up and down said mountains and valleys, with a river running down the road in some places, and three-point turns with the trailer to get around a few of the tighter switchbacks. The first 20 miles or so of this road (a yellow road, on my map, but dashed on others) was dirt. When passing through towns, the road unceremoniously dumps one onto the narrow streets, and one is left to fend for himself through the downtown area before searching for the exit road on the other side in sort of a 'catch me if you can' scenario. Having said all this, the area was fascinating, with most women dressed in traditional style of woven multicolored skirts and elaborately embroidered blouses and babies slung on mothers' backs in blankets, and men plowing fields behind single-toothed, wooden plows drawn by oxen. I'm not sure my dear wife enjoyed much of it, though.

And so we've arrived at the other side. I've felt lately like packing up everything and leaving a place is something akin to death. It means the end of everything one has been involved with there - projects, aspirations, relationships. A person has hopes and dreams of things to do, things to see, things to learn, things to fix and repair and make better, make new again -- but then time runs out and the broken and saved pieces are tossed in the trash along with other unnecessary items in the rush to make everything fit and to be done with it. We weren't even to the end of our street in Honduras before the neighbor boys were digging through the things we left behind. I suppose moves like this are good in that they remind us that life itself is finite and temporal; we get so used to the routine that we assume there will always be more time, but then one day it all ends and nothing is left but for others to go through what we leave behind. In this case we had the luxury of taking some things with us and scheduling things ourselves, so it's not a real accurate analogy. We are glad to be at our destination, and I don't think anyone is in a hurry to spend more time in the truck.