The fear of the next country(ies) south was not confined to the United States.  This mindset would resurface in Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras – and only from residents, never from travelers.  Each country pointed to their southern neighbor as at least a partial source of their woes.

    There seemed to be a consensus however on El Salvador and Honduras, from those both north and south of the countries.  And at first, I bought in to the mala fama (disrepute/notoriety), planning quick entrance-to-exit routes for each country.  

    I finally came to a crossroads: am I a man of faith or not?  Will I listen to the voices of fear, or trust again in the road, my mission upon it, and in the ever-growing body of evidence of good people and safe passage?  I thought of the insult to the place and its people, but also the disregard for the Power, the Universe, the gods of the road, whatever all had gotten me here safely.  Surely these things were unshaken by borders.  And so should I be.

    We Americans must see ourselves and these dangerous places in context.

    We are the richest country in the world, with the most customers and the deepest pockets for drugs, many of which are found and produced in South and Central America.  The market we provide promotes, funds, and sustains corruption, crime, and violence along the coastlines and within the interiors of these countries that make up the broad drug highway to America.

    Midway through this roadtrip, a 2017 Small Arms Survey estimated that there were 393 million guns in our country of 330 million people – 120 per 100 people (up from 88 per 100 in 2011).  The U.S. State Department advises against travel to the next most evenly armed populous.  Yemen, with 53 guns per 100 people, has mostly been in some state of civil war since the 1960s.

    According to the FBI, during my roadtrip, there were 34 million firearm background checks requested, which they point out doesn’t necessarily correlate to the number of firearms purchased.  Could be fewer.  Could be more.

    The Mexican government has a lawsuit pending that seeks $10B in damages from American gun manufacturers for the half million firearms that find their way southward every year.

    I would spend 144 days in 5 of the Top 10 (and 75 days in 3 of the Top 5) countries with the highest rates of violent gun deaths (homicides).  The U.S. may not be in that terrible Top 10, but what it seems to have more than any other country is mass shootings.  During my 473 days on the road, there were 420 shootings of four or more people (not including the shooter) that killed 541 and wounded 2,089.  Within five months, 59 were killed, 441 wounded at a concert in Las Vegas; 27 were killed, 20 wounded at a church in Sutherland Springs, Texas; and 17 were killed, 17 wounded at a high school in Parkland, Florida.  We seem to be the world leaders in indiscriminate explosions of pent-up worry, frustration, and stress and/or targeted attacks born of intolerance, fear, and/or hate.

    I suppose dangerous places are in the eye of the beholder.

    When I began outlining this book, I considered adding a little bit about American intervention in each country that had been affected.  It quickly became clear during my limited research that there wasn’t a single country along my path that had not been adversely affected, if not its course forever altered, by American political and/or economic involvement.  These themes are overwhelming and outside the scope of this 1000 words, or this book entire.  But, be assured, we have a part.  Our closet is full of skeletons, some of the most haunting in Latin America.  

    After 14 nights in El Salvador, I spent 15 more in Honduras.  I never once felt in danger.  I met good people and saw beautiful places.  I spent a few nights alongside thermal river pools in the Lempira Department.  I washed and hung clothes and caught up on writing.  And the place had some of the best fireflies I had seen thus far on my journey.  They could travel for maybe 50 yards, 30 seconds, flickering the entire distance.

    Truly amazing, watching their blinking path cut through the darkness. And I thought about meaning and why we do things. Why does the firefly light up the sky? Because he was born to. And maybe it feels good. And maybe he is attracting a mate. But I think they just can't keep it in. And it's not the whole sky they light up. That would be too much to ask, far beyond their abilities, their capacities, their juice. They just light up that one small part, that small piece of the sky through which they float. And in the grand scheme of this small part of the huge sky of this unimpressive planet in this one among billions of solar systems in all that we think we know exists, it is a wholly infinitesimal amount of light.

    And yet it is sufficient to capture the attention, engage the imagination, and inspire…one human sharing that same moment on that same planet in that same universe. One who is lost and searching, found and finding, doing what feels right from the inside-out, regardless and because of everything and everyone. To think that in this flight of mine, I might be that light that calls someone's attention, is both comforting and grandiose. But that I might enjoy my own flight, bask in my own light, feel myself a part of the small sky in a big universe, that would be divine. It is so fleeting. 

    I am learning from fireflies. 

    My last real stop in Honduras was at the Parque Nacional La Tigra, where I camped nearby the Peña Blanca Mine, operated by the New York and Rosario Mining Company from the 1880s through 1954.  It is a site that is still recovering from years of our ravage.