The impossible enormity of the task of attempting to record everything disheartens me. Seemingly indelible images unfold before my eye in a constant stream – vivid and fresh – but by the end of the day they are faded and dull, lost in the vast ocean of impressions.
The flash of a bright yellow-orange bird in flight.
Two dogs, glimpsed out of the corner of my eye, wrestling with what appears to be a skinned cow’s head in a ditch.
Groups of men in bright orange Pemex overall brandishing machetes in the fields and roadside verges.
A man standing waiting on the road, beside his truck in the afternoon light, with a handful of tiny bottles of icy cold Corona ready to present to me, efficiently opened with a spanner.
A hawk screaming above me in the sky.
Cows calmly chewing their cud in a bucolic landscape with incongruous industrial outcrops.
Cows in the oil fields.
Sun rising, sun setting, road rolling under the wheels. Sun high above, fierce, raw heat, a force to struggle against.
Cars and trucks pass, honking and whistling.
My eyes are constantly on the lookout for roadside vendors selling fresh fruit, juice, ice concoctions, green coconuts.
In the morning, early, a group of school girls scattered across the road, knee high white socks, pink skirts, white short sleeve blouses, hair pulled back, looking improbably fresh and clean, having emerged from rough huts of tin and wood set in packed dirt yards, in all probability with packed dirt floors. Signs in most remote villages proclaiming the government’s intention to eradicate dirt floors are a sure indication of their existence.
A lovingly detailed cattle race.
Vultures wheeling and flapping through clouds of fetid smoke rising from piles of burning rubbish by the side of the road.
Smoking rubbish dump.
{ 1 } Comments
Making quick notes on your impressions is a good way to jog the memory if you want to expand on any of them later. Recording stuff as you go along is a useful ploy when travelling alone because it makes you feel connected to the world – you know someone will be reading it sooner or later. Negative impressions can be just as interesting to the reader as the purple passages especially when they are humorous as yours are – eg your description of the onslaught of the blood suckers, (what sort of insect are they by the way?), the lacklustre press interview and the moment the zip failed on your tent. Not at all funny in actual fact, but you have made something of it. Hope you get to some more interesting places soon. Julie xxx
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