By Dave Oswald Mitchell
November 2006
(sung to the tune of Paul Simon’s “Graceland”)
My skin in Nicaragua
was burning like a Sandinista star
I am travelling by school bus
to Honduras
through the wreckage of the Contra War.
I’m on the gringo trail
gringo trail
the spine of the PPP*
I’m on the gringo trail
Drifters with trust funds and pony tails
and we are on the gringo trail
My travelling companion’s from Ohio
she’s exchanging dollars at the border
but I have reason to believe
that she is being deceived
by the money trader
She comes back to tell me she’s broke
as if I didn’t know that
as if I didn’t watch her spend it
as if I never noticed
the way she bought up all the souvenirs at the tourist market
And she said, “solo travel
is like playing monopoly alone
and you’re the first guy I’ve seen since I left Leon”
She doesn’t count the Latinos
I’m on the gringo trail
spine of the PPP
I’m on the gringo trail
Drifters with trust funds and pony tails
and we are on the gringo trail
And our travelling companions
are coyotes and pickpockets
(they’re looking at easy pickings)
Yes, I have reason to believe
my valuables may be relieved
on the gringo trail
There’s a girl in Guatemala City
who calls herself Ovaries of Steel
and last week tossed and battered
in the surf of Monterrico I said,
Whoa, maybe this is how it feels
to be a gringa on the gringo trail
And I see that tourism
sometimes brings out our worst
every prejudice is reinforced
every selfish fear grows
On the gringo trail, the gringo trail
I’m on the gringo trail
For reasons that leave me ashamed
I can’t seem to escape from the gringo trail
And I’ll be obliged to repay
all that cash I threw away
in every Internet cafe, now,
And maybe I’ve a reason to believe
there must be better ways to see
Latin America
Dave Oswald Mitchell travelled overland from Costa Rica to Canada in early 2004.
______
Note: the PPP, or Plan Puebla Panama, is the neo-liberal ‘development’ plan for Central America currently in construction. The PPP will bankrupt participating governments with the exorbitant costs of constructing superhighways and linking electric grids and (foreign-owned) tourism super-projects so as to facilitate the extraction of resources and the exploitation of impoverished southerners by transnational corporations.
