Inquiring Minds Want to Know ...

How did we dare undertake a journey to Mexico and Central America by ourselves? Lest anyone think otherwise let me make it abundantly clear: We felt the fear and did it anyway. Luckily, Frances and I have different fear tolerances. So, when Frances felt fearful I usually felt OK, and vice versa. Consequently, we were never totally stopped--only slowed down and sometimes slightly detoured--by our trepidations.

One of the most difficult times during our trip was when we first arrived in Cancun. It was Frances' first time on her own in a Spanish-speaking country. My Spanish--last spoken in college and a brief foray to Cancun--was 30+ years old. Everything was unknown; we were total neophytes. Thus, we were suckers for the man who told us his sad tale about being mugged. As the story went ... He stopped to give money to a beggar and another man came up behind him and held a knife to his throat. He'd lost everything, he told us, including his shoes. He needed to pay his hostel for another night's lodging in order to receive a call from his parents who were arriving the next day. With no money or ID, he was homeless and helpless.

Later, of course, we heard from others that this was a common fiction created by young Americans not ready to return to the United States. At the time we heard this story, we sat on the steps outside a grocery store in Cancun. I was in an insulin reaction and we were both eating to raise blood sugars so that we could continue our adventures. Giving Mike money seemed like the easiest way to cope with the situation.

Border crossings were another fear-inducing time. When we reached a border, we never knew what hoops we might have to jump through, what fees we might have to pay, how long the crossing might take.

Public transportation was another unknown. Just how well-maintained were those water taxis we took? Our first high-speed water taxi from Corozal to San Pedro, Belize had engine trouble midway through our trip; our speed declined considerably as we motored slowly toward our destination.

Bus drivers, too, drove like race car drivers. We survived best when thoroughly engaged in the scenery so that we could ignore the honking horns, the dangerous passing, and the rapid stops. Flash, our pickup truck taxi driver from Puerto Cortes, Honduras to Guatemala, had a leak in his gas tank. The gas station attendant had to rock the truck from side to side to allow gas to flow through the neck of the tank. Heck, Flash wasn't totally honest with us from the beginning. We were 15 miles down the road before he told us that we were crossing the border into Guatemala to find another water taxi.

In Honduras and Guatemala we were often surrounded by men holding rifles. They stood outside our hotels, outside banks, and along city streets. That took some getting used to as did the razor wire, barbed wire, iron gates, and iron bars skirting fascades, windows, and doors of various hotels along our route.

Later, we found ourselves taking risks that others may not have taken. Still, we could usually sense when a situation or person felt reasonably safe. Often seemingly risky situations were no more than one person's creative way to make money. And I have to say that people were very creative. Rather than become annoyed or disturbed by this I was impressed with people's cleverness.

Of course, some money-making strategies involved telling lies or half-truths or misleading a potential client in order to get a desired outcome. The taxi drivers at the Cancun airport were one example. When they mobbed us at the exit and we told them that we were waiting for a city bus, they responded, "Oh, you just missed a bus. There won't be another for an hour ... oh, no, two hours." We persisted and stepped onto a city bus a mere 20 minutes later.

When traveling, you realize how much your safety and success depend upon the assistance of others. And, of course, traveling--like anything else--takes practice. I'm more knowledgeable than I was at the beginning of our trip. I'm not sure whether that means I'll be any less fearful the next time around, but I'm willing to try ...