Tequila Oil, By Hugh Thomson
In 1979, the future writer and explorer Hugh Thomson – then a cocky and clueless 18-year-old punk – set out to drive a hulking 1972 Oldsmobile out of the US, down through Mexico, and into Belize.
This utterly beguiling book recaptures his meandering bid to make dough, grow up and act cool, on a journey without maps inspired by "long-dead writers of the 1930s" (Waugh, Greene, Lowry, Huxley).
Sour-sweet adventures take him from a sawmill in Durango to a golf-club in Cuernavaca and a brothel in Belize City. Beyond the high jinks and low dives, Thomson tells us a lot about the Mexican past of colonial conquest and revolution, with Pancho Villa and Cortes never far from the passenger seat.
A coda, 30 years later, sends him back to Belize, deep into Mayan history, and towards a mid-life acceptance that "the urge to keep travelling" still burns as bright as ever.
Subscribe to Independent Premium to bookmark this article
Want to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to read or reference later? Start your Independent Premium subscription today.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies