This Isn’t Europe, Folks

Being home in Vermont is definitely not Europe. In this waiting-averse country, I’ve already shed my Spanish mentality of “manana” — the magical day when everything will get done (and consequently never arrives). The fine art of waiting 30 minutes for your waiter to notice you, while maintaining a stylish air of indifference is unheard of stateside. We stress out over getting it fast, impatient over any hiccup that deigns to upset our schedule and quick to point out just how incompetent the slowpoke behind the counter is. There’s no afternoon siesta either. Oh the humanity.

But as much as New England isn’t Europe, Central and South America is really, really not Europe. As I’ve been planning the next leg of our trip, the differences have been stark.  For this next phase we’re taking a different approach– driving.  This time, we’ll be traveling from Mexico, through Central America and into South America, renting apartments in our favorite cities along the way.  It will let my husband travel with me more, and I suspect we’ll enjoy having the flexibility to stay where we like or leave when we don’t.

In preparation for the trip, I pulled up google maps and begin charting the course.  Vermont to North Carolina.  Check. North Carolina to New Orleans.  Check.  New Orleans to Mexico City.  City not found.  What?  Can’t find Mexico City?  I google map just the city.  Found.  I map directions to Acapulco.  Not found.

Google maps doesn’t work for Mexico, Central or South America.

I switch to Yahoo maps.  New Orleans to Mexico City.  Found!  Success!  Let’s try Mexico City to Belize.  Not found.  Damn! Foiled again.

Seriously, how am I supposed to plan thousands of miles worth of driving without an online map program?  What, with a paper map, the old fashion way?  What am I a sailor?  Can we all just admit that south of Mexico is not so remote that google has to pretend like no one would ever drive there?  You’re killing me google, killing me.

This leads me to wonder:  would a GPS device like Tom-Tom work south of the border?  What about a broadband aircard?  Or our cell phones?  Whatever happens, one thing is clear:  we’re definitely not traveling around Europe this time.  Gone are the days of meticilous multi-country transit maps.  Gone are hourly high speed trains that whisk you off from Rome to Prague to Munich to Paris.  Gone is the idea that you can find directions to the local pharmacist online.

Is that a bad thing?  Not at all… I don’t want the entire world to be one large extension of the US and EU.  But I will put this out there:  expect lots of “Christine is completely lost in middle of some desert/jungle/mountain range” type posts in the coming months.  That is, if I can get online.