Intro
Long overdue and completely underfunded, herein comprises the first official documentation of the ‘great american roadtrip’: travel notes, random impressions, and a summary of things yet to come. Note that an introduction and background on this trip should precede this entry; however, the overhead of such an endeavor has proven yet too high when costed against the continuous distractions and diversions abound. But in a sentence: the ‘great american roadtrip’ (phrase informally trademarked from this point forward) comprises one truck, two people, many months and 800 pounds of cargo endeavoring to drive from Seattle, Washington (N 47.6, W 122.2) across the two American continents to the Southernmost city in the world, Ushuaia, Argentina (S 54.8, W 68.3) in the Tierra del Fuego providence of Argentina, searching mile by mile, turn by turn, for connections, patterns, reasons, existence and hopefully a slice of enlightenment by entanglement, not by finding answers to existing questions but finding unknown questions surrounding existing answers (that, and a few equatorial beaches, a marathon in Antarctica, Spanish school in Chile, and some snow-capped Andean peaks).
Summary
After finally departing Seattle at 3AM on January 9, 2007, we arrived at our last stop in Central America, Panama City, bound by air for Cartagena, Columbia, and the great Southern American continent. By air? I thought this was a roadtrip? Isn’t flying cheating? Yes, yes, of course it is, that is of course, if it can be avoided. And in this case, it simply cannot. Somewhere east of Panama City, the great Pan-American Highway turns from pavement, to dirt, and then quickly, to virgin jungle. No roads connect the two continents for hundreds of miles. Perhaps a few smuggling trails guarded by Columbian gorillas, but not much else. Therefore, we had to ship the truck by ocean fright to Columbia and fly there separately. A car ferry service would have been helpful, but the last company offering that service went belly-up a couple of years ago, apparently not much business. Go figure. But for those of you who still consider this detour a transgression, note that the flying from Panama City to Cartagena backtracks our driving progress in both directions.
As you might have noticed, there seems to be a missing section between the Intro and the Summary, namely the Body, the true substance of any work. And as I sit here in a mosquito filled, dust-covered internet cafe with an ambient temperature approaching casserole levels, I am compelled to leave at the present moment with a statement of more to come later. But since a picture is worth a thousand words, there are many small essays here:
http://juclear.smugmug.com (location of geotagged pictures of gart part 1)
After 6,100 miles, 360 gallons of gas, and quite a few meals consisting of rice and beans, the curtain draws on one continent and a new day looms down another, with many questions remaining unanswered:
Will the truck survive the cargo ship journey and be allowed to exit the Columbia port with minimal amounts of extortion and bribery?
Will the drive through the Columbia heartland provide safe and memorable passage? Or only memorable? http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_941.html
Can the truck, cargo, and passengers drive over 7,500 miles spanning the entire South American continent in less than two-weeks to catch a Russian icebreaker to Antarctica?
Can someone run, let alone finish, a marathon sliding on glaciers without any training, unless increased caloric intake, decreased physical activity, and extensive muscle atrophy due to expended periods of driving constitutes some sort of modern training regimen?
And most importantly, if toilets spin counter-clockwise in the Northern hemisphere and clockwise in the Southern, then what happens to toilets right on the equator? Experiments and results to follow.
So many questions, so little time...
