Follow the Firebrick Road

Join the author on a travel adventure. For five years, Gary was sure he had landed his dream job living and working in Latin America. In the late 1970s and early '80s he traveled the lengths of Mexico, Central and South America and remote Caribbean Islands in pursuit of a sale. Dragging his battered suitcase from Baja California to Tierra del Fuego and from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic, flying in antiquated planes, sometimes driving where there were no roads, or onboard a...
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Join the author on a travel adventure. For five years, Gary was sure he had landed his dream job living and working in Latin America. In the late 1970s and early '80s he traveled the lengths of Mexico, Central and South America and remote Caribbean Islands in pursuit of a sale. Dragging his battered suitcase from Baja California to Tierra del Fuego and from the Pacific Coast to the Atlantic, flying in antiquated planes, sometimes driving where there were no roads, or onboard a pitching, rolling ferry, or sitting in the back seat of a suicidal bus. He ate unfamiliar food and always drank the water; he survived. Arriving at an airport was only the beginning of his journey. Go with him up through narrow mountain passes into the thin air of the Andes, and down into the enervating heat of a steaming tropical jungle pulsing with stinging and biting insects or across a dusty, lifeless desert in search of a steel mill, copper mine, tin smelter, or sugar mill.
The adventure was addicting, but it was his love of Latin America and its culture, and his company that got him on the plane each week. This narrative only captures a few moments from his daily life, but many more stories from hundreds of weeks and thousands of hours remain untold.