Viajando sin Mapas

After his wife of forty-one years died of cancer, Irvin Peckham needed to get in touch with himself rather than find himself through his relationship with others. He took Marianne Moore's line, "the cure for loneliness is solitude," to heart.

Viajando sin Mapas narrates the experience of this seventy-three-year-old gringo driving with his newly rescued pit bull mix from New Jersey to the end of the road in Panama.

Readers will discover a travelogue description of setting out alone through Mexico and Central America. The trip down was challenging, mostly because of the progressively more difficult border crossings, lack of maps, and Peckham's minimal Spanish. Yet the countryside was beautiful, the people generous, and the officials uniformly helpful, although occasionally in need of bribes.

After spending six weeks in a cabana overlooking the Pacific in northwest Panama, the old gringo was ready to drive back with the benefit of semiweekly Spanish lessons. Still, he managed to have his car impounded for four days, get lost on roads that were little more than cowpaths, and drive into a hurricane.

If you travel with Peckham by reading this book, you will learn that most of what you hear about traveling through Latin America is myth. And if you happen to be in Peckham's situation, you will learn the pleasures of traveling, with your dog, alone.