Source Material Relating to Tewkesbury’s trips to the Darien in 1939 and 1940 –Tewkesbury's writings, published

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COP Y made by E. Crawford Feb. 3, 1942, from"THE CAR OWNER of Vol.XVI, No.1,
Jan.-Feb. 1938 (now out of print) as loaned by Mr. Tewkesbury, for his
article on p.4, which (quoting from his letter of Jan.26. 1942) is men­tioned
"merely to illustrate that the Pan American Highway hobby waa not
~n over~ight inspiration, but a gradual development for me up to the
toppin~7off with a determined desire to contribute something of material
~alue."
THERE 'S DRA.\iA IN MEXICO
By Richard Tewkesbury
Adventurer, Explorer, Authority on Mexico and Central America. {Port. Illus)
The world's a stage, and in Mexico colorful drama is being enacted
for the adventuring motorist of today. ]lor the average Carolina motorist
this great theatre is four days away. Thirty-two dollars for car expense
should place you in Mexico City. The . stage door is the International
:Bridge across the Rio Grande river between Laredo, Texas, and Nuevo Laredo,
Mexico. The entrance fee is nominal--a dollar for each person and a dol- .
lar or two for a car bond, registration, etc.
The stage door open-s for the motorist the way along the seven hundred
and fifty mile Pan-American highway to Mexico City and even on to Tehuacan,
a quaint medieval town of south-central Mexico.
A multitude of performances are being enacted. You may choose to
watch the scene around a grass hut south of Monterey where half-clad Indi'an
children chase the pigs and chickens in and about the house. The padre _
sleeps in the shade of a nearby banana plant, while the madre beuds over the
outside fire, baking tGrtillas for the evening meal.
Life about the hut begins when the rooster begins to crow just before
daybreak. It is then that the men, clad. in their white cotton clothes.
large knives strapped to their Sides, plod barefooted out to work in the
banana or corn fields. A little later, the mother with her many children
trots to the nearest stream to begin the family wash; this generally ends
with all the children getting a bath in the swiftly flowing water. It is
not uncommon to observe two hundred women washing clothes in a stream with­in
a short space of a mile.
Or should you prefer the high country to the tropics. you can drive
on to within .200 kilometers of Mexico City where the asphalt highway rises
to an 8,000 foot plateau, where farmers plow 'd th oxen and cr~oked sticks.
The younger children may be tending sheep in the low foot hills nearby, and
the older sons may be extracting the juices from the maguey plant for fer­menting
into pulque, the lager beer of Mexico.
Linger where you like , but don't miss a thing. The great pyramid of
San Juan Teotihuacan just 40 kilometers north of Mexico CUy will make
your archaelogical bones tingle and your imagination wander into the vast­ness
of the hidden past.
Mexico City. too. is sure to please you with its modern office build­ings
and quaint craft shops and with its marvelous boulevards and its !Hlq­w8:
3' cobblestone streets.. You will want to linger a long time viewing .the
national memorials.
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On Sunday the whole family will want to see a bull fight. take a boat
ride on the floral-covered canals of Xochim1lco, and wind up with a good
dinner at one of the many hotels.
There was a time when Mexico City captured the whole vacation. For
the motorist this must not now be allowed, since four good highways radi­ate
lrom the city. The west one goes to Toluca, where the spectacle of
basket weaving has gone on for centuries. The south highway winds up over
the range and drops into a lower plateau where gay Cuernavaca entices the
American motorist. If you hav~ plenty of time, say three days more, don1t
stop here just fifty miles from Mexico City but dri va . ovet: safe mountain
road~ to Taxco and on to Acapulco in the hearto±,: the tropics, and where
the mighty Pacific breaks over the long sandy beaches~ Although this scene
may be in the wilds of the South Country, hotel accommodations reach out
to serve you as comfortably as in any American resort.
The third highway from Mexico City, the eastern one. also winds up .
over the high ridges, seemingly to head directly into the mighty snow-cap­ped
volcanoes. One close-up of "Popol!, the "Fujil' of Mexico, will again
make you feel amply repaid for your journey into the great theatre.
The city of Puebla with its suburb Cholula. lies at the base of the
ranges on the other side. Its multitude of fascinating churches offer an
atmosphere entirely apart from the rest.
Good roads and motor fuel prices comparable to our own make all of
these scenes available. You will return from Mexico to anxiously await
news of the completion of the Pan-American highway on into Guatemala and
to Panama. This New World is truly a spec tacula.r stage, and with our fam­ily
auto as the conveyance, the loss is ours if we fail to attend.