|
Once I was on my way, people stopped their
cars to talk whenever I was near the Panamerican Highway. Soft
drink trucks pulled over, the drivers insisting I take free refreshments.
Newspaper photographers were everywhere; one even showed up in
the desert on a bicycle. Reporters waited at the entrances to
most towns, and every evening, It was heady stuff, and for a short while, it made my proposed intercontinental ride seem like a lark. Before long, however, the hard going was wearing horseshoes in half every two weeks, and precious water for my thirsty mounts had to be bought by the glassful. In the Andes, I found myself tying plants called Sabila into my horses' manes to ward off bloodsucking vampire bats. The bodies of dead, bloated mules along the roadside soon advised me that not all Andean plants were as beneficial as Sabila, and I passed several tense weeks trying to find out which were toxic. Before I started, I was blissfully unaware of most dangers that waited, but soon enough I learned about them. Anthrax was once reported within a few miles of where I'd spent the night, and several ranchers refused to let me on their property until they'd bathed my horses in a solution that kills the virus responsible for hoof and mouth disease.
During the trek, I rode to heights that equal
the highest in the continental United States and descended to
113 feet below sea level. In the good times, Just days after most Americans had fled a revolution in Nicaragua, my horses and I entered that country amidst reports that violence was about to flare up again. I would have been a lot more comfortable with an armed escort, but I didn't get one until I reached Honduras, where a submachine gun toting solider accompanied me from border to border, but not to protect me! At Mexico's southern border, an angry official announced his intention to confiscate my horses, forcing me to successfully elude the Mexican police. Four hundred miles short of the U.S. border, I ran out of money, and the solution to that little problem brought me into conflict with Mexican law a second time. |
Along the way, I met smugglers, a famous bullfighter, a witch doctor, a camera crew from ABC's Wide World of Sports, a bullying small town sheriff, a snake hunter and a beautiful American girl named Emily. There were moments of intense danger, but over the years, my memory has retained those less than some of the simplest moments. I suppose the most memorable day was the first. Before I rode into the desert, the city of Chiclayo held a parade in my honor. Though there was no drama, it was a day I'll never forget. Everything was new, and I hadn't yet learned how easy it would be to fail. The beginning of that day is described below in an edited excerpt from The Long Way to Los Gatos:
I didn't make it to Los Gatos unchanged. My ride lasted only as long as a single school year, but I learned more than I'd ever learned in a like period of formal schooling. Along the way, some people were far from hospitable, but most were kind beyond belief. I'd always been too proud to ask for people's help, but the Latin Americans didn't wait to be asked. They volunteered, and by the time I got home, my opinion of my fellow man had changed completely. And so had I! Of the many paths my life could have taken,
the right one for me began when I had that crazy urge to take
the long way to Los Gatos. |
Not long before I met "the last of the true gentlemen," I ran into some men who were anything but. A gang of bandits suddenly appeared behind me in a remote Andean village, at the end of a long, hard day. It was a moment of very real danger, as shown by the following edited excerpt from my book, The Long Way to Los Gatos:
Obviously I came through my run-in with the bandits, but not before it took some unexpected twists and turns. You'll enjoy reading about them in The Long Way to Los Gatos. IMPORTANT NOTE: Any individual or organization
is welcome to reprint or otherwise distribute the above material
under the strict conditions that the author be credited and that
the Internet addresses of this Web Site and the American Association
of Owners and Breeders of Peruvian Paso Horses appear at the
end of the article (see below). |
||
For more
information on Verne Albright's books, visit this page:
|
This
page was placed September 21, 1999 Webdesigner ![]() |
Return to "The Long Way to Los
Gatos" home
page Go to Pasos on the Web! |