< Back To This Issue's Index >< Subscribe >< Send a Letter to the Editor >

........

HINT #1 If you’re brushing your teeth while standing ankle deep in the pure white sand of a nearly deserted San Blas de Cuna Island, with the crystal blue Pacific lapping at your feet and the morning sun lazily breaking the horizon – and you’re naked, it’s not a College Days Happy Mushroom flashback, it’s just another weekday morning. HINT #2 When invited to a birthday party in Mexico, bring a toothbrush. The ensuing three day celebration will redefine modern Mariachi, overproduce fried pigskin soup and land you a new best friend – the father of the Birthday Boy, who, after a drunken “I love you man!” conversation, will pull up a chair, pat his big bare beer filled belly and decide it’s time to practice English. Just remember, if you fixate on the huge piece of cake frosting lodged in the left side of his mouth, you run the risk of sensory overload. Instead, envision wide-open spaces and ask for another Corona. Then smile. And try to think of yourself sitting in a marketing meeting.  HINT #3 Your Spanish is weak, but you know the sign said something like, “Danger! Forbidden Trail. No One Comes Out Alive.” But your Amazon Jungle Guide takes it as a challenge, and with a few extra swings of the machete, presses on. You follow. Later, just as you’re about to grab his extended hand to clear a ravine and avoid certain death, you feel a smack on your back. So you know, it’s

17 Mar 2002 marked a year on-the-road for John Torrente, first writing in Spain, then volunteering in Mexico, then traveling across Central America, then studying photography in  Ecuador.  When last he wrote to Escape from America Magazine, it was 3am in the Jacksonville, Florida, Greyhound Bus Station; he was trying to get back to his destroyed New York neighborhood to cry a little bit and to recharge his batteries.  In one of Jt’s earlier communications with EFAM, he promised the following:  “After a month of Post Modern "I Wanna Be A  Kerouac Too" adventures across America -  replete with homage to a devastated New York neighborhood, tie-dye turkey with Uncle 'Death To Digital' Pfeffer in the Bolinas Community Hippy Center For The Aged And Forever Stoned, Jt will tell countless donkey related I-Just-Got-In-From-Mexico stories and, with a serenity found only in those 33 year olds dim enough to live without a paycheck, find the strength and conviction to stand up and declare, "WHY WORK? I CAN BATHE, BRUSH MY TEETH AND DO LAUNDRY WITH 4 OUNCES OF WATER." He’s been advised by concerned friends and family to visit his organic farmer brother in Oregon and write his second book. His first book is titled, “How To Sell Your Futon, Shelf Your Master’s Degree, Drop Your Corporate Copywriting Job And Flourish As A Hippy-Freak-Wannabe Living In Rural Latin American Pueblos So Long As You Don’t Mind Filling The Toilet Basin With Water Every Time You Take A Dump." .. Additional Resources Living Overseas  Unique Lifestyles  Articles on Living Overseas  Mexico and Central America  Travel Links  Contact John Torrente  .

HINT #4
If you fear decrepit, crowded, dangerous, wide open and heartily swaying suspension bridges that boast chicken wire as a safety measure, I wouldn’t recommend crossing the border from Costa Rica to Panama on foot. But if you do make it into Panama, be sure to look up veteran traveler, Alaska “Steel Plate” Dave. Befriend him and join him on a two-week Panamanian Rainforest Mountain Jungle Trek where water, heat, food, shelter and rational thinking are secondary concerns to Unabashed Insanity. Your psychoanalyst’s couch will never feel the same.

HINT #5
When it’s dinnertime in El Salvador and you’re seated at your boss’ kitchen table trying to make small talk with her non-responsive husband and each of her three kids is watching your every move and the music is bouncing off the cement walls and the dogs are barking and you’re tired because you’ve been helping your boss’ non-responsive husband shovel sand out of the river all day and you’re famished and the food smells so good and your mouth is watering and you can see the steam rising off the plate as it’s carried from the stove...and when the dinner you’ve been dreaming about is proudly placed under your nose and your boss’ non-responsive husband nods his final approval and all you see are TWO HUGE CHICKEN FEET, don’t hyperventilate. Whisper a few affirmations, breathe through your mouth and mix everything with a little applesauce. 

It’s been a year on the road. And now I’m poised to be a famous author. The only way to top that is to spend another year on the road and write another book. The working title for my second masterpiece is, “Yes! You Can Blow All Your Cash In Mexico, Have All Your Stuff Stolen In Central America And STILL Wake Up In Southern Spain With A Brand New Pair Of Chuck Taylor’s And The 800 Kilometer Camino De Santiago Begging At Your Feet.” Look for it in better bookstores. Happy reading. And safe travels. Jt