A family (and current ScanCafe customer) spent nearly five years traveling in South America in the late 70s and early 80s. Their newly digitized photos from this period give us a glimpse of their years on the road.
For four and a half years, (from March 1977 to September 1981) we traveled with our daughter Marchesa, two dogs, and a cat throughout Central America, promoting travel, tourism, family, and friendship.
We proudly called ourselves The Expedition of the Americas, hoping to pave the way for other families to explore this beautiful part of the world. Our goal was to travel all the way to Tierra del Fuego in our 30′ trailer and fully equipped camper darkroom and tell others about our experiences.
And that’s exactly what we did for a while when, several adventures later, we briefly settled down in Tegucigalpa, Honduras and produced a magazine: EXPEDITION, the Magazine of the Americas.
There were so many amazing experiences to share. They included lighting the fire pots in the Observatory at Chichen Itza, dancing with the President of Honduras, scuba diving off the coast of Belize, finding Mayan artifacts in the rivers of Campeche, Mexico, and exploring rivers, mountains, volcanos, ghost towns and caverns throughout the isthmus.
Our daughter’s first language was Spanish and she acted as our ‘interpreter’ many times.
She loved the travel and the adventures, although there were a few that scared her, like the time we placed her on the base of a very tall statue of Benito Juarez in Campeche. She especially liked playing with the neighborhood kids. She has so many wonderful memories from those years on the road.
We learnt that If you are open and sincere, people open up their hearts to you. That there are many ways to live, think and explore. All different.
There were several other unforgettable moments – both good and bad. Like almost drowning because I was pulled by the river current into a mountain cave in Belize.
Or like watching my daughter lead her classmates in the annual Tegucigalpa parade.
Our love of America Central and America del Sur continues today. We left Honduras for California in 1981. We miss the place a lot. We would love to go back and see all the changes.
