Trouble in Panama
Yesterday I drove from Panama City to Colon, crossing this narrow country in an hour and ten minutes driving parallel to the Panama Canal. My vehicle was never to return, I had my problems getting back too. All shiny and […]
Articles by Tony Phillips
Car Shopping in Costa Rica
So I’m stopping by to pick up my clean clothes from the launderette called Lava Splash in Barrio Los Yoses in San Jose, Costa Rica and what do I spot on the corner of the street but a new car […]
21st. Century Resource Wars
“What’s happening in South America these days?” Not something you ask yourself too often? Don’t worry you are not alone! For its size and economic clout South America remains largely ignored by most of the ‘West’ outside of Spain and […]
Cocaine Economics
Product OverviewProduction costs are minimal. Low-paid farmers grow a common plant on inexpensive land. After harvesting, an extract is removed by a simple laboratory technique in much the same way instant coffee is produced from the coffee plant. The result […]
Honduras; Omoa to La Ceiba
We began our trip that day in the quaint little resort town of Omoa on the coast about 10 miles WSW from Puerto Cortes. Omoa is a backpacker destination which usually means cheap places to stay. For six of seven […]
Travels in Eastern Guatemala
Things started to move quickly after Ixil. I was traveling alone but sharing gas with various people on the way. The transport industry in Guatemala makes sense given the price of transportation and the needs of the people. A gallon […]
Guatemala on the cusp
The Guatemalan army is a force to be reckoned with, or, if you are smart, to be given a wide berth. It has fought a 36-year war of counter-insurgency preserving the US-backed right wing Republican Front of Guatemala (FRG) against […]
Burying the Dead, Ixil Guatemala
Chajul is a remote indigenous town in the Ixil triangle, about 150Km. north of Antigua in Guatemala. Ixil is an area of east-west valleys surrounded by higher mountain peaks. It is home to the Ixil people, a group of related […]
Border crossing to Guatemala
Just this week I entered Guatemala for the first time driving across the Chiapas border from Mexico. Looking across from the Mexican side one could see things were different there but I really was not prepared for what I was […]
Mexico Neotribalism
Mexico is rich and exotic, spicy and alive. The land, its fauna and flora is every bit as varied as it’s population of one hundred million. Active or recently active volcanoes are soon thickly forested with flowering trees or cacti, […]