About The Author:

Dave Paco currently resides in Puerto Escondido, Mexico, Co-owner and Operator of the beautiful botique hotel OSA MARIPOSA

Located just off the beach South of Acopolco, in the Oaxaca Region. Drop down and stay a night or a week and enjoy wonderful Vegetarian food and great company, or just send him a post card telling him about your travels.

I write now from Guatemala where I'm living and working on a large but lazy farm a little ways outside the town of Flores in the northern Petén Jungle. Some people have called Guatemala the gateway to Central America and I agree that it is undeniably so. As soon as we crossed the border and the highway deteriorated into rubble and dust, the jungle rose up around us, the proud trees with their fearless green fists to the sky and the air suddenly scented with magic and mystery, gun smoke and guerrilla warfare... I knew we were there.

For the past six weeks I have been working at the Hotel Finca Tatin, inland from Guatemala’s Caribbean Coast. I set off from Livingston ripe and ready to get back on the road and do some traveling. However, as the water taxi pulled up to dock at this riverside hotel and I myself, as I walked in, was again swallowed by the rich and rebellious jungle, glimpsing thatch-roofed bungalows through gaps in the green bush, I knew that I might stay longer than the one lone night I had planned on.

I write to you now from Panama City, lost in the meandering streets as they squish themselves into an unending grid, crammed with traffic and shadowed by towers of concrete, glass and steel poking and slicing at the sky like aggravated sound waves or a bed of nails. A shiny modern maze fed by the rat race of human society. Panama City reminds me in ways of a western Singapore. A crossroads and melting pot of the races and religions who, in the past, came to build the Canal and those who come now to do business in the city that it created.

// not an ounce of respect // got drunk on vodka and mezcal // her body writhed demonically // I'm excited to sleep // oh, humidity, how do I hate thee // wet, sticky rubber // the volcano it sits beneath // smells of exhaust and sewage and is generally ugly // the water felt fucking great // wasn't a damn thing to eat except McDonald's and Burger King // saw some BMX freestyle bikers // turned out to be an ordeal // lost in strange mountain towns // spent most of the time teasing me // only peace between them // bought me water and a popsicle // traded funny hand tricks // arrive around 4:00 in the morning with nothing to do // live and learn… again and again // look like a war zone // ate a couple pastries and passed out // haunted by the ghost of a mosquito // over 2000 year old tree // use the de-wheeled vehicles as land marks // scenic views and small towns //

// morning in poets' park // worse than the flies // waiting for the bus to monkey island // too much time to think // walked back to the hotel bare-foot and bare-chested // missed the bus twice // dead sick of being a tourist // the Spanarchists lied to me // nature living outside of human stress and constraint // surfers, hot girls in bikinis // the electricity comes and goes // walked in circles under the burning sun // this is my kind of place // found some AC/DC songs on the computer // a year since I left // middle of a wind tunnel // nothing to do, nowhere to go // now they lost their wings and disappeared // the streets flood, the market floods, the roof leaks // found a turtle skull // slept most of the night on the beach // disgusting, weird, comfortable, bright, sterile // got hit in the leg by a falling rock // live in a corrugated tin shack with a failing scrap wood floor // scared them off with my ill rhythm and savage sweat // found a Lebanese snack shack at the border // through the ruins of the old Panama that were destroyed by old Captain Henry Morgan // it's not the destination, it's the travel in-between //

Paperback: 122 pages
Publisher: Frederick Publishing (January 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-13: 978-0-9824008-0-7
Product Dimensions: 7 x 4.25

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