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Romancing the Chicken
by Lara McKinley
Excerpts:
It was my penchant for trashy Hollywood films and a diabolically competitive nature that first prompted my longing for the Third World and its transport. Quite simply, I wanted to be better than Kathleen Turner.
Remember that unlikely scene in Romancing the Stone? Kathleen goes to Colombia, gets the wrong bus and ends up in the middle of the jungle. She gawks at the chickens, steps on a pig, causes a crash and the passengers and their livestock take off down the dusty road.
Leaving Australia for distant Central America, I wanted to be on that bus. I wanted to be much hipper than Kathleen and deal with that pig. I was tough. I was ready. And I most definitely wouldn’t need Michael Douglas to save me.
Guatemala delivered the goods and then some. Chickens and pigs abounded. There were goats that peed and dogs that licked my foot. I didn’t come across Michael Douglas, but there were plenty of sleazy men with delusions of grandeur, all ready and willing to lend a hand — quite literally. Sometimes even two . . .
