The Tank's Tread

Christmas is getting mailed off a little early this year since anything mailed from Honduras will never make it, so a fellow teacher, heading north for a wedding, will hand carry and deliver the package. So Christmas shopping to the quaint tourist town of Valle de Angeles was the new cars first destination.

I couldn't get it in gear. Started the car in neutral, rolled backwards out of the puestos parking lot, and couldn't get into first, second, third or forth. There is no fifth. Do I need a new gear box? I restarted it in gear and we continued on. Trouble shifting but no problems.

The truck is slow, but really, that's a good thing around here where the road has no lanes and often cars go three wide to pass on a blind curve with on coming traffic. I won’t be passing much. But, then again, I can't pass much either. Hence, the tank. Slow, steady and tough.

Oh, but tanks have treads. I didn't. Heading through the capital on the way home, drivers wave me over, flash their lights and honk to let me know, "Hey dumbshit, you have a flat tire!" only it was in Spanish and I'm on the equivalent of a two lane highway with no shoulder on an uphill slope with a car I've only been driving for a few hours.

There are four of us, and luckily my roommate Ted is strong and I have some experience changing tires. So we bust it out, figuring out spares and jacks as traffic veered around us, taxi drivers, dressed in silk and slacks, offered help or rides, a bicyclist passed us, old school buses honked, and the daylight slowly headed behind the hills. We weren’t robbed, mugged, harassed or bothered in any way. Perhaps 4 gringos and a flat isn't that exciting on a Saturday night. Everyone was probably already heading out for another exciting night in Tegus's hottest hot spot - Appleby’s (no joke).

So, the drive back to the Zamorano valley was in the dusk with the clouds glowing over the hills, 20 buzzards flying overhead, a chill in the air as I'm wearing my new sweater my aunt made me buy for $4 and I resisted for no reason. The truck ran smooth and took the bumps, as the road turns from pavement to dirt and back again, with no problems. Relief as I pass our local gas station. It's only 5:30 but the headlights are necessary and bump along the dirt road that heads to our houses. I drop off one teacher. It takes two hands to get the shifter out of gear. I have to restart it with it already in reverse or the gears just grind. I stop and restart again in first gear to head off home. Ted opens the gate, the only gear I can get it in is 3rd. It works and I park and finally breathe.

So maybe I'm not the best at buying cars, but the problems of fixing it is not overwhelming.

When it came time to tighten the spare tire I did it by hand so that even Ted couldn't tighten them any more. I wasn't going to let it become a big problem, just something that had to be done, and doing it is easy. Grandpa taught me that.