Once I spent some time with friends at a sugar plantation in the Sierra Madres ... no phones, no television, no radio, no newspapers, no nothing.
When it was my turn to make a beer run I hopped into the VW van and headed for a little store twenty miles away ... after picking up the beer I took a wrong turn, wound up in the middle of nowhere, and got stuck in a ditch.
So I'm in a foreign country, have no idea where I am, and don't know the name of the place I'm staying ... I knew the owner of the plantation only as "el colonel."
I decided to make the best of it and as farm workers passed on their way home from the fields I offered each of them a cold beer. Soon I had a nice little party going and an old man straight out of Carlos Castenada passed by and started philosophizing about my being stuck in a ditch as a metaphor for life.
Eventually someone came along who knew where el colonel's plantation was, and another who had access to a tractor. Got directions, picked up some more beer, and got back to the plantation where I was asked "what took you so long?" |
