Glaring paradoxes like that, and the repetition of stereotypes, also provoked me to take this trip, hoping for more insights in the foreign country through the doorway in the high fence at the end of the road. And there was my anxiety that my driving days are numbered, that my writing life had stalled, that I kept being reminded I was old, and I knew that a road trip would lift my spirits and release me from the useless obsession of self-scrutiny and induce in me (as the English writer Henry Green put it in Pack My Bag) “that blessed state when you forever cease to give a damn.”
What I intended was a jaunt from one end of Mexico to the other, the opposite of a downfall, which is a dégringolade; rather, a leap in the dark, driving away from home, to cross the border and keep going until I ran out of road. Even the most lighthearted journey to Mexico becomes something serious – or dangerous, tragic, risky, illuminating or at times bowel-shattering, and in my case it was all of those things.
But no sooner had I gotten behind the wheel than a feeling came over me that was like being caressed by a cosmic wind, reminding me of what travel at its best can do: I was set free.
Paul Theroux is the author of many highly acclaimed books. This story was adapted from his latest, On the Plain of Snakes.
Travel Journeys is a BBC Travel series exploring travellers’ inner journeys of transformation and growth as they experience the world.
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